There is a term that has been making its way from the Psychological
text books to mainstream society and those trendy self-help books
(though it's often misrepresented in the self-help books). The term is,
"Mindfulness." It's perhaps the polar opposite of mindlessness.
Mindfulness is best known in association with Ellen Langer, a
Psychology Professor at Harvard University. She conducted a now famous
study that nearly every introductory or psych 101 student has read or
heard about. It involves the use of a copy machine/xerox machine.
Langer had confederates on her research team get in lines to use the
copier and ask one of three questions.
1. Can I cut in front of you because I'm very late for an important Job Interview?
2. Can I cut in front of you because I want to make a copy?
3. Can I cut in front of you?
Langer found that there was nearly no
stastistical difference between the response to questions 1 and 2.
(Those were "Yes you can cut in front of me"). Question 3 had a very
low "yes" rate.
She concluded that people aren't actually
attending to the entire statement. Most likely, she hypothesized,
people are listening to the sentence until they hear the word
"because," after that a majority of the test subjects seemed to stop
listening and answered "yes" to even those that asked to cut in line
"because [they] want to make a copy."
What does this mean? It means we need to be
mindful, try to combat what comes naturally, fill in the blanks before
we hear/them see them. Pay attention to what is going on. A majority of
our day is spent on auto-pilot.
What does this mean for incorporating trips into our sober lives?
First of all sobriety should constitute the
majority of our lives. In this time we should try to be mindful of the
revelations and insights we may have uncovered while tripping. Don't
continue on autopilot because your Trips will have been for nothing but
mental exercise/excursion/vacation. Note, there's absolutely nothing
wrong with that. But If you're reading this, then you've probably
subscribed to or are interested in the psychedelic experience
influencing and helping people live mentally healthier lives.
The Psychedelic experience often shows us the
inner workings of our psyche. If you're even half interested in
psychology and are familiar with experiments, theory, and philosophy
you probably become hyperaware of these theories in your experience
with psychedelics. One often gains insight into how their cognitive
processes work, emotional connectedness to themselves, others, and the
emotional charge that words have. The key is to be mindful of these
insights into your psyche and apply them to your daily life and analyze
past events in the cotext of your psychological revelations. This
requires remembering and being mindful of those revelations. This means
that applying the trip experience to everyday life requires three
components, the trip experience, sobriety, and mindfulness. The hardest
part about integrating trip experiences into daily lives is the
mindfulness part. We have to be aware of factors that provoke responses
that we think could be improved upon and have worked out through a
psychedelic experience. This requires being mindful of the factors
themselves and using the mental energy to elicit a different or desired
response. Integrating change into everyday life is hard, psychedelics
will give you the information to change but it will not give you the
mechanism to do so. That mechanism is dependent upon you and
mindfulness. This is however entirely different than some anectdotes
that speak about MDMA therapy, regarding trauamtic events. If you're
expecting the quite of global change that a person most often undergoes
through MDMA therapy regarding traumatic events that impede daily life.
Discuss at The Shroomery BB
