I have always enjoyed your posts and your insights, endlessness.

But with the DMT experience I think the application of traditional materialistic science will fall short because we are essentially dealing with knowledge of the immeasurable. The research examples you quote will of course have some validity but they will also have limitations - and I recognise the same in my own approach.

Some make take the view that the DMT experience is completely beyond human understanding. I don't believe that to be the case. My view is essentially that we are dealing with a higher form of evolution than mankind. If that is true and becomes agreed upon my consensus (possibly many years hence) then we may be in a better position to work out what would qualify as meaningful 'proofs' of this immeasurable realm and its denizens.

There is no thesis to the article. It's just an article.

Thanks for the greatly enlarged text.

You posted loads of videos. The first thing that came to my mind was that I have been accused of an exploding ego.

I'll check out your vids and come back to you with reasonably sized text and an absence of attitude.

And without prejudice - if I find that your talks are good I'll say they are good.

Nice and easy now!

That was Snozz that posted all that, not me hehe.

If you don't believe utilizing scientific methodology is appropriate for DMT, for heavens sakes man! Stop calling what you are doing science! It is not, and the methodological distinction is rather important.

WAS: We're all steered by our ego amigo, me and you, you had a taste of mine back there. I've no problem whatsoever admitting mine and I try to put it productive because we have it, dmt or not, entities have ego's, I laugh when people get flying defensive when they are pointed at theirs and call out on discerning. I see snozzleberry's ego too mate (what have I done? ) but he darn put it productive. You want to live without ego? I wish you success. Ego's no enemy, just the way its used, is my take on it.

Would it not be fair to remove this book cover text?

Indeed I have not learned enough from dmt to see trough all this as you put it a while back.
I hope we could have a drink together and have a good laugh about all this, about ourselves especially.

You seem confused. A thesis is a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved. You could consider it the purpose for writing any given piece. You have shared an article entitled " DMT: Underground Research Masquerading as Science - or Sound Science?"

Now, theoretically, one would expect this article to make the case for one or the other, yet it does neither and just kind of meanders. This is something nearly everyone in this thread has commented on.

I literally published a paper entitled Criminals and Researchers: Perspectives on the Necessity of Underground Research and have presented it in several venues. I made a number of nuanced arguments regarding sanctioned and underground research. I was looking forward to the discussion that the title of this thread promised, but found no deliverance...no thesis with which to engage. And based on the responses you've received, I'm clearly not alone.

Now, how are you going to ask me to share my endeavors and then accuse me of being overly egoic when I share them? That makes no sense to me. I have never made any claim to be without ego, and I maintain (as either endlessness or Trav said at one point) that ego is like fingernails. It serves a valid purpose, but unchecked growth causes problems. I don't claim to be perfect or to even keep my ego in check as much as I'd like to, but normally, if someone calls me out for for inappropriate behavior, I make an attempt to see things from where they're at and I've got a number of posts on here where I've sheepishly apologized for my words/temper that back that up. This is a case where I think it's absurd of you to cry "ego" at me, given the context.

Emphasis mine

I just wanted to reiterate this post as it's the most important and relevant one in the thread. After reviewing the Breaking Convention presentation in this thread, I can see there is a gap of understanding regarding basic research methodology and the scientific method.

To quote from wikipedia:

Going with the stated intention from the BC presentation: "That intention was to understand the causal nature of the DMT experience, beyond inhaling the potent vapour". A bit vague for my tastes, but let's see if we can make an attempt to design a study pertinent to this inquiry.

Photo also courtesy of wikipedia:

So we observe that DMT is some wacky weird stuff and we'd like to gain some insight into just what lies behind those weird wacky experiences when we put it in our pipe.

So we'd begin by formulating a hypothesis. This is where we take that vague intention based on our observations and create a measurable, testable, and most importantly, falsifiable hypothesis. So let's go with something like "Vaporized DMT will provide consistent visual and emotional effects across repeated exposures under differing environmental variables." Perhaps not in line with the authors original intention, but it moar or less fits with the subsequent trial conditions and despite being a very subjective level of measurement, it's at least easily falsifiable. Either the effects using the same batch of material, at the same dosage, under the same conditions, in the same subject, will be consistent in different environments (indoors or outdoors), or they will not. A rather poor example, but it gives the gist of what we are looking for.

Now that we have something to test and some way to measure it, we can begin experimenting. This is where rigorous control of variables comes into play. So we begin by vaporizing say 10 mg, eyes open in our bedroom, at exactly 11:11 AM. We carefully analyze and document the visual and emotional effects we experience. We try this test many times under the same conditions, say every day at 11:11 for a month and we look for consistency. If the effects here are not consistent, we have to throw our hypothesis out and create a better one. For the sake of argument, let's say they are. Every time I smoke 10 mg of DMT with my eyes open in my bedroom at 11:11 AM I get the same feeling and see consistent visual patterns. So now we change our chosen variable, we get up and go to garden and we smoke 10 mg of DMT, eyes open, at 11:11 AM every day for a month. For the sake of argument let's say effects are consistent between these trials as well. I get the same visual patterns and emotional feelings every time I smoke in my garden.

But what's this? I get a bit of a different feeling when I smoke in the garden rather than in my bedroom. The visual patterns in the full sunlight are different than they are in the indirect light of my bedroom. My hypothesis is invalid and I have to either improve it or scrap it and start over with one that actually fits the evidence I have gathered. It looks like those differences in light levels are a variable I didn't account for, how can I control for that or alter my hypothesis to include it?

That bit right there is what research is really about. We are constantly (re)evaluating our carefully gathered data and refining the way we ask questions and gather future data to come to a more clear understanding of the phenomena we are investigating. Nothing is ever going to be 100% proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, nor are we ever going to be so self assured that we've found the final and ultimate truth. We can simply point to the evidence we have and say this data supports the hypothesis we've come up with so far, but if you can demonstrate that this hypothesis is false and create another hypothesis that this data supports even better then we will test that and hopefully continue to move ever closer to a more accurate understanding of the topic we are investigating.

Does that help to give some clarity regarding how this level of structure and carefully controlled measurement helps other researchers to accurately repeat the experiments and test the hypothesis? This repeatability is the fail safe that demonstrates we are nearer to some level of objectivity when everyone who adheres to the same conditions get the same results.

One person smoking DMT at different doses under different conditions in different locations in what basically amounts to uncontrolled conditions is just anecdotal evidence and doesn't really provide the greater community of researchers with any objective data to attempt to repeat and falsify, thus this data doesn't move us any closer to actually shedding light on the stated goal of "understanding the causal nature of the DMT experience". Whereas following the scientific method and engaging in rigorous control of variables and collection of data, actually helps us to do just that, move toward an objective understanding of this curious phenomena that is the DMT experience.

Before denouncing materialist science as some sort of dogmatic cult, which I can agree is a characteristic it takes on in many cases when researchers and academics forget these fundamental processes and start to take current hypothesis as gospel truth, I encourage you to actually understand and utilize these carefully designed methods and see that this is actually an incredibly useful tool for moving closer to our collective goal of increased objectivity and understanding.

I applaud your desire to want to perform research, I'd just suggest you work on applying a moar rigorous methodology so that your contribution will be useful for others working toward similar goals.

In addition to utilizing moar control in your experiments, I'd highly suggest the use of this nice standardized template in cataloging your future experiences, so they are both consistent across your self-reporting and with the greater body of experience reports here on the forum. This will allow for their inclusion as part of larger scale data collection efforts analyzing consistency in experiences across multiple subjects. Just some food for thought, this community freely offers a lot of tools and peer support that can be exceedingly useful in furthering your personal, and our collective, research agendas, should you choose to engage with them.

Made some bold highlights.

I think it's important to post the definitions of the words science, fact, and research. I think these words aren't entirely encased into one definition, though I understand the direction that this thread wants:







I agree with many points here. Some of these words though have a gamut of meaning and could be cased in multiple ways.

Hi, thanks for posting. Out of curiosity, what is your education background?

Peace

Macre

Hey Dick,

I'm sorry I missed your talk at Breaking Convention, in hindsight, one of the one's I most wanted to see! I think this community could well do with more people not just hiding out in theoretical science, but actually just DOING IT as you have done, and say what they think about it. If everyone did this, maybe we'd come to a clearer consensus about what this all means. I have always thought that myself, that people do not actually smoke DMT enough times to really understand these states of consciousness. It all begins with us, any kind of scientific method proceeds from that.

My opinion summed up in a few words

Agreed! For materialistic science, its an absolute must! But IMO the DMT experience is not dealing with the measurable or the material. It is dealing with occult (i.e. hidden) beings and occult dimensions. One can measure brain activity, but how does one possibly measure and quantify mind? Again IMO, 'mind' and 'minds' are what we are dealing with when using DMT in a research capacity.

I honestly think that you are been disingenuous. I set out to come to my own understanding of what was behind the DMT experience. As you say “...we observe that DMT is some wacky weird stuff and we'd like to gain some insight into just what lies behind those weird wacky experiences when we put it in our pipe.” Indeed! And that is just what I did. I smoked DMT and reported my experiences and analyses. Science is about making discoveries. And from my perspective, based on what I experienced, that is just what I did – even if only to my own satisfaction. You are at liberty to employ the approach given in your example, and you are at liberty to interpret and analyse and publish your findings. If you recall Strassman’s research was never about the measurable parameters, it was about those otherworldly experiences. That was also the focus of my research.

hey
i've been reading the posts regarding your book,
you can study mind, the manifestations of mind, and its behavior, in its original sense its what many people have been doing since the days of self-awareness in prehistoric times, and in modern times its more or less psychology.
you can't call using mind to study mind (or in other terms, self integration) science, because as you say its not measurable, science has a methodology and is used where its applicable, and its not applicable in this field, so how can any study done revolving around mind be scientific? psychology is simply "a branch of the studies of science that includes philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science or sociology of scientific knowledge" so as you can see its not about the nature of mind, rather the behavior of the psyche and the the conditions that affect it, done on the public's mind

why call what you do science, and then say science can't be applied to it? don't you see a contradiction here?

there are no conclusions in the mind, its a manifestation that can manifest in any way
it is in fact very true that science can't be applied to this field, so whats all this? scientific validity is given freely where there is evidence, im sorry but it gets the scientific mind's dick hard to give validity to something, and how is that gonna happen when there is no way to test or measure or commit the mind to scientific methodology (and specially in this case, the DMT flash)?

My background is about as working class as you can get. Its funny, I never really felt proud of my roots before. The best way for me to answer that questions on this site would be to concede that it is not nearly as high-falluting as some of the gunslingers that keep the peace in this town.

Sorry to respond to your post in this way but THANK FUCK for at least one decent and honest response from someone not trying to totally piss on and extinguish my tiny little bonfire! Man alive! Thanks for the oxygen there bro! Lifesaver!

You seem confused. Strassman's research was 100% about the measurable parameters, that's the only way he was able to get it sanctioned, and those parameters are clearly published in the academic literature.

Here is that research:
https://jamanetwork.com/.../article-abstract/496494
https://jamanetwork.com/.../article-abstract/496497
http://www.sciencedirect...cle/pii/0006322395002006
http://www.sciencedirect...cle/pii/0166432896000812

Note this is all measurable data. Note this is published in peer reviewed academic journals. This is authentic scientific research with controlled variables and appropriate documentation. This is what research looks like.

Then you have Dr. Strassman's The Spirit Molecule book wherein he spends half of it discussing the process of jumping through the red tape and meticulous care he had to take to demonstrate that he was performing authentic research and not just getting high or attempting to explore otherworldly experiences. The second half of the book discusses the otherworldy experiences of the volunteers and makes no claim to scientific research. He felt the experiences of the subjects were important enough to share and that is why the book was written, but make no mistake, the good doctor clearly differentiates between what was research (those academic publications above) and what is anecdote.

If the control of variables is not in place, it cannot rightly be considered to be research by the strict definitions of academia.

Sorry for the delayed response. Appreciate the friendly tone of your post and am happy to engage with you on that basis.


That’s a really interesting and arresting statement. You are of course correct in stating that science has a methodology. Whether or not the term ‘science’ is applicable in this field of mind-manifesting research is an intriguing notion.



When expressed like that then yes, it does appear contradictory. But science is not a static body of knowledge. It changes and develops in response to new challenges and new areas and avenues that demand exploration and investigation – or at least it should! You cannot be unfamiliar with the arguments that traditional science has become dogmatic.

The longstanding influences on my mind have been from esoteric and occult philosophy. This lore seems to be at odds with traditional science but some occultists have asserted that that science will eventually have to step into their realm to advance beyond the limits of materialistic enquiries.

I don’t see it as outside the realms of imagination to suppose that science many years hence will be significantly different to the science of today. Such changes may arise from exploring the anomalous and the mysterious; including the mind-manifesting realities invoked by entheogenic psychedelics. What is nowadays called the ‘DMT flash’ may come to be understood as something far more complex and far more significant than was hitherto realised.

In short, why cannot there be an occult science; a spiritual science; an esoteric science; or even a science of mind that is radically different to the limited behavioural interests of psychology? Does ‘measure’ have to be the pre-requisite for ‘science’ when the end goal is about knowing and understanding?



As far as entheogenic psychedelic substances are concerned the only means of testing or validating the experience is by actually partaking of the substance and thereby committing one’s mind to such an investigative enquiry.

I really do understand the point you are making - the same points that many have laboured to make in a more uppity manner on this same site. But my approach is to break out of that mould, which seems constraining and limiting.

I’m including a quote from Trevor James Constable; arguably a somewhat controversial figure, but sometimes that is what it takes to break free from convention:


“The scientist of tomorrow will have exact perception of the spiritual worlds, and of their processes and denizens. Present day material science may be considered as a sort of prototype of a future science that will understand the laws of the spiritual worlds with the same precision and clarity of thought now attending its physical endeavours.”

I wonder what Adam Savage would make of the DMT experience?

But by Strassman's own admission, they are not what made the research interesting.

hello again

thank you, rude-ism only makes talking fruitless


i understand what you're saying, personally eye've worked with what you call spiritual science or esoteric science, and understand the immediate need that you feel to somehow evoke curiosity into science, to help the scientific mind step out of its "objectivity" and validate direct experience, which will allow for a wide-spread and universal understanding of spaces that were denied scientific legitimacy, all that is understood on my side, however i don't believe science is made for that, and strongly believe science is childish when it comes to this, a mind-manifest world
now i can assure you that there are "scientists" whom study this mind-manifest world in places like tibet, and many other places (shamanic rites, those who aim to cultivate buddha-hood and so on) and their methodology is fairly advanced, one might say moar than the western methodology of science (in its core), however do you believe that we can somehow force science to step in where it doesn't want to be? i believe that effort has long been given up by those who explore the mind-manifest labyrinth of knowledge, at a certain point, trying to force someone to grow up for example, becomes a drag you know?
so thats why i think, the notion that science can be guided into these realms is pointless, because :
1- if one lets go of the scientific mindset, the exploration of the mind goes on as tho nothing happened, exactly the same as when you let go of the concept of god in science, it continues to work as tho nothing has happened
2-why try to fit in, when you can be long gone? it brings me peace of mind to believe when one is ready, one shall receive, hence bringing anything to the public, or to science feels a tad bit, pointless?



i personally don't feel like your work needs to be better or even needs scientific data or evidence and the like, i believe your work is perfect as it is, because obviously we're not trying to pin down THE TRUTH or anything like that here, its just a study like you say, a study is its own point, one can study something and arrive at no conclusion, but the study still holds value because one has found that this way (or method) is fruitless, yes? i believe in that
i think the reactions to your work, is simply because its mis-represented, don't you think none of this would've happened if the title would be "an explorer's methodology to open science to new dimensions of research" or something like that? because thats the core of what you're doing other than the analysis of the grand mystery, am i wrong ?
to me every bit of work that fits somewhere in this grand story is valuable, your work as well as many other people's works is pushing something forward, theres no denying that, but why would your work be misplaced and denied its full potential ? tagging science into whats much more is just a limit, a cap
thats all im saying