So this has been something that I have struggled with ever since I first got into psychedelics, possibly even before while reading about other peoples' experiences. Is the experience you have limited to within your own head as experts in the field of neurosciences seem to indicate, or is there some portion of the experience that occurs outside of yourself? Is the brain itself solely responsible for the shifting perception of reality?

Logic dictates that the brain is responsible for the entirety of the experience back to front top to bottom, but the experiences have a way of making you think otherwise in a very convincing manner.

I personally am of the school of thought that the experience is completely within in much the same way that a schizophrenic might perceive and believe there to be another person in the room with them telling them what to do when in other peoples' objective realities there is not. However, almost every trip I've been on has had a very convincing way of pushing me to believe otherwise. I have no way in knowing 100% one way or the other which of these are in fact correct, but being a man of science I tend to err on the side of the neuroscience crowd.

I'm curious to see what you all think about this subject as this is one that has tickled my brain endlessly for the last 15 years.

"Objective experience" seems like an oxymoron to me. "Objective" means independent of mind, but experiences and perceptions occur within the mind. In my opinion, there is no way to verify the existence of objective objects because verification requires perception and perception requires interpretation and interpretation is subjective by nature.

The usual interpretation of reality as we perceive it may very well be wrong, but how could we ever know? We are bound by interpretation, and thus "Truth" is a mere abstraction.

There seems, to me, to be a circle in your logic. You say that the brain is the origin of conscious experience, and yet your evidence that the brain exists IS conscious experience. If neuroscience indicates that all experience could happen within your own mind, then how do you know that neuroscientists exist in the first place?

With regard to events outside of the brain: Where do the cogs of the brain end and the cogs of external reality begin? I don't think it's technically possible to identify (except by definition) a place where the self stops. The self is a strange concept anyways. It assumes that we, the conscious minds, are some sort of exotic material of the universe. I think that if one believes the external universe to exist as science tells us it does, that person should also accept that he/she is a collection of particles that exists within that universe and whose actions are dictated by natural laws. If the world of particles is "real", then WE are mere objects rather than the observing subjects that we seem to be.

To me, materialism necessarily implies that consciousness does not exist; that it is a sort of self-illusion. The weird part is that if we are an unconscious collection of particles, then what of perceptions? If consciousness is illusory, then conscious experience is also illusory. But we only know that particles exist by our subjective experiences. If subjective experience is an illusion, then why should we believe that the particles that we seem to perceive actually exist? And if we no longer believe that the world consists of such particles, then we need not believe that consciousness is impossible.

Anyways, that one can believe that consciousness is impossible is amazing to me. The mind is a very tricky and mysterious thing.

If that were truly the case then wouldn't something like empathy be impossible?

If what were truly the case? And why would that make empathy impossible?

You said the "truth" is merely an abstraction. If this is the case then empathy could never be felt because of the uncertainty that you may lack the capacity to relate to somebody else's experience?

I don't see how the nature of the truth has anything to do with empathy. Certainty is not a prerequisite for empathy IMO because just as we can have empathy for animals, animals can have empathy for us or among themselves, and they are afforded no contemplation on truth. We don't require charts and empirical data (objectivity) to have an empathic reaction; empathy arises primarily out of shared emotions and the subjective experience above pure reasoning, though there can be rationalization involved in empathy.

Hixidom already summed it all up perfectly, so there’s not much more to be said.

The question “Is it real, or is it in my head?” is a question that only a materialist would ask. It presupposes that materialism – the primacy of matter – is true. But often the answers provided using the primacy of matter paradigm to questions about consciousness are square pegs that materialists work very hard and very unsuccessfully to pound into round holes.

The primacy of consciousness paradigm could just as well be true. In fact, it seems to have more explanatory power when asking certain questions.

Neither paradigm can be proven true, so take your pick!


Finally, there are experiences that go beyond “convincing”. One doesn’t need to be convinced. One simply knows.

Well put Hixi and Gibran... As you can see, Camel, the "is it real" question is one of our mainstays here at the Nexus, and one that pretty much always brings discussion to a wall of this sort.

So let's sidestep this briefly and think of it from a materialist perspective. After having these incredible universal experiences and then returning to normal consciousness, those (like myself) with a grounding in science find it healthy to keep a skeptical filter in place. If we accept that our hyperspace experiences extend beyond the environment of our brains, we need to be able to imagine a means of doing so. Is there a hyperdimensional gate in our minds that allows us to exit into a much larger place? It can certainly feel that way. But it's also a very complex and disorienting place to be, full of contradictions, so we have to be careful about too freely accepting simplistic interpretations of real vs not real.

One materialist perspective (and one that I favor, although I remain open) is that our brains, bodies and DNA contain within them all the building blocks to explore the much larger multiverse. That these physical embodiments of ours possess such a rich sampling of reality, and our minds such a complex and versatile means of simulation, that literally any experience possible in this universe could be modeled from what we already possess, with no need for a hidden hyperspace gate. That gate could simply be a shifting of our perception.

That's not to say that these experiences are not real, though, or any less universal. Built from blocks of reality and modeled by your own mind, they can offer glimpses of reality that are both truthful and deeply personal.

Real vs not real? I'm not sure that phrasing it like that does the question any justice.

First of all thank you for this response; I appreciate it greatly.

What you say here more or less addresses what I was trying to get at in my initial post. In a universe that seems to be dominated by cause and effect it just seems to me that when people have a mystical or spiritual experience that somewhere there is a logical explanation as to why these things happen. Perhaps this is not always the case but with the case of psychedelics in particular it seems logical (to me at least) that the brain chemistry in the observer is altered and thus their perception is altered. Even though the science may not be in on exactly why or how this happens it seems fair to postulate that there is a logical reason that could potentially provide an explanation for these monumental changes in consciousness and the emotional experiences we associate with them.

I personally have had a great number of these experiences with breath-taking revelations conveying the interconnectedness of all things both within and outside of the mind. They feel so convincingly real that like Gibran said you simply "know" that they must be true. By the same token it also seems to me that these experiences must have some type of logical explanation as they don't occur without the help of some kind of change in brain chemistry (be it entheogens, meditation, NDE's, etc.). I'm forever the skeptic so I can't say that I know 100% for sure one way or the other, but I am always interested to see what fellow psychonauts think with regards to this type of thing as they are the people that are most likely to have had similar experiences.

Let’s not forget that everyday reality is an experience mediated by brain chemistry.

It’s true that psychedelic experiences “don't occur without the help of some kind of change in brain chemistry”, but it’s also true that returning from the psychedelic state to the “normal” state doesn’t occur without the help of some kind of change in brain chemistry.

Experiences of every sort and changes in brain chemistry are concomitant phenomena.

(I find it amusing when materialists say that psychedelic experiences can be discounted because they’re caused by chemicals. Ha! Which subjective experiences in life aren’t caused by chemicals in the brain? Is it even possible to have a conscious experience without chemical changes in the brain?)

Excellent point, Gibran. I am not discounting everyday reality and consciousness as being an experience unto itself shaped by changes in neurons firing neurotransmitter X or Y. No doubt it's this very system of firings and misfirings that helps guide the psychedelic experience as well. Furthermore, I'm not discounting that this is all there is to the psychedelic experience or ANY experience. To be fair I do not consider myself a materialist, but I try to play the devil's advocate as a way of seeing the other side of the coin. I feel this is an important thing to do especially with regards to things where there is not a definitive answer. Who's to say one is right and another is wrong? When something cannot be quantified it is more or less an opinion/philosophy and as such cannot be answered in the frame that math or the various sciences insist upon. The reason I posed the question in the first place is to see and consider what everybody thinks and, more importantly, why they think it and any substantiation they might have for these thoughts.

I truly appreciate you guys taking the time to make such thoughtful responses to this question. I live in the middle of redneck-central and if I posed this question to anybody within the close vicinity I doubt I would receive such eloquent responses as the ones I've gotten here!

Gibrans already pretty much stated my thought's. Our whole lifes essentially a trip. Our perception of reality is mediated by key neurotransmitters/etc. No state is less valid than any other state. I also think consciousness, or this sacred awareness, permeates all of reality, on every level; every facet. As partly biological beings, when we alter our neurochemistry via natural aids (plants), we're not altering our consciousness per say, but we're altering the physicality of our brain chemistry to perceive whats already there on a much deeper level (pure consciousness). Pure consciousness is everywhere, it's everything, it's inescapable, one big conscious awareness that seeps through every pore of reality and then some. We as part conscious beings see with the eyes of the infinite. Brain chemistry is a very small facet of what makes our perception of the world tick, i feel.

We're infinity staring itself in the face.

tat

Another thought about the “objective” world. If such a world exists, it’s far different from what our senses tell us. A simple example that’s so ubiquitous most people never think how unusual it is:

We literally see the world through lenses. Lenses have the property of making more distant objects appear smaller. We know from experience that objects don’t get smaller when they move further away, but our eyes tell us otherwise. In the “objective” world, objects don’t get smaller when they become more distant. The light they reflect gets fainter, but the object’s size remains constant.

How would the world look if one could see it as it actually is?

This is a fun game I like to play, especially when spaced. If the world described by physics is to be assumed closer to the 'real' or 'objective' picture, then I would imagine a mostly empty space filled with the various vibrations that our senses decode into color, form, sound. Particles moving at the speed of light, popping in and out of existence, everything void of color, dimension, all the neat little organizing tricks that our hardware and software do to make the world a navigable place.

I also like to imagine how other creatures experience reality. My two dogs have similar hardware to me, I assume we share a distant ancestor... regardless how do their little systems make a map of this world? So fascinating.

How about a housefly? A sea-creature. They experience the same 'space' that we do, though I can only imagine that their subjective experiences are so vastly alien to us that we may as well live in alternate universes.

How does this guy experience his daily reality: