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all this beauty
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how it works
#19144827 - 11/16/13 10:46 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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This is how I think it works.
Your brain is gatekeeper. It filters out, from your waking consciousness, information that is nonessential to your continued survival and the continued survival of our species.
This is a good thing. You don't need all the data. In fact, too much data would interfere with your essential bodily functions -- like eating, sleeping, wiping yourself after you crap, and having sex and making babies.
Certain chemicals temporarily disable the gatekeepers.
If your biology permits, the nonessential information comes flooding through. You may experience ecstasy, spiritual revelation, all manner of ineffable stuff. And/or you may experience wonderful, ineffable, sensory stuff. Lights. Sounds. Wonderful body sensations.
Some people experience only the flood of information. Some people experience only the sensory stuff. Some people experience both.
If your biology does not permit, however, then you either experience nothing or you have a horrible experience.
Opinions differ regarding whether there's anything you can do to alter the way your biology responds.
Discuss.
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant


Registered: 04/05/00
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It's interesting that you drop one's mind from the equation. I have a friend who will always say neurosomatic in place of psychosomatic, as if he finds the term too dangerously implicative of a soul.
At any rate, in my personal experience, breathing exercises and yoga before coming up on a trip profoundly alter my experience, and have made the difference between being caught up in awkward bodily sensations and negativity to relaxing and enjoying the whole process.
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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all this beauty
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Quote:
CosmicJoke said: It's interesting that you drop one's mind from the equation. I have a friend who will always say neurosomatic in place of psychosomatic, as if he finds the term too dangerously implicative of a soul.
I think of it as there being one universal mind or consciousness, with each of us constituting an individual "portal" into it. Mind engaged in the perpetual pursuit of itself.
Why the game would be set up like that, I have no idea. Why there would be separate and discrete portals, a complete mystery.
Forbidden knowledge, that.
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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Ones peak experiences are often not ones most important experiences. The variety of frames of mind which make it through to consciousness are the tip of the iceberg for everyone. Looking back one will forget the peaks and troughs and remember the basic tenor.
Human life is less about what people think and more about what vital aspects of DNA wish to combine with which other ones. We plan hegemonies in the Mid East, and multicultural DNA accesses the DNA of other areas of the world through intermarriage. The DNA controls, and we find excuses why we must go through the motions.
The brain and chemistry of the thinking bone marrow is less important than the cravings of the gut and loins. Less important than locomotion of the limbs. You may be having the trip of your entire existence experiencing emotions so pure and then you step in front of a truck.
Thoughts can seem profound, they can in fact equate with profound stupidity. History is littered with mediocre thinkers parading as inspired dictators. The quality of your trip can only be measured in terms of your works.
-------------------- ...or something
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all this beauty
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Re: how it works [Re: eve69]
#19145710 - 11/16/13 03:02 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
eve69 said: The DNA controls, and we find excuses why we must go through the motions.
I agree with that. A lot of it is, indeed, "going through the motions."
We like to think we're in control. Relinquishing control is the hardest thing we humans do.
Quote:
eve69 said: You may be having the trip of your entire existence experiencing emotions so pure and then you step in front of a truck.
Which is why, I think, no one should regret her or his limited state of awareness.
If you know yourself to be eternal and invincible, stepping out in front of a truck is no big deal. From a metaphysical perspective, stepping out in front of a truck is, in fact, perfectly okay. Not a problem.
From a biological, species-survival perspective, however, stepping out in front of a truck is a terrible, terrible blunder. A mistake of the highest order.
That's how and why, in my opinion, our limited awareness serves us, and serves us well.
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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i have no knowledge of myself as eternal and invincible if there is such a knowing then it's free from those terms as well
-------------------- ...or something
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all this beauty
Stranger
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Re: how it works [Re: eve69]
#19145884 - 11/16/13 03:57 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
eve69 said: i have no knowledge of myself as eternal and invincible if there is such a knowing then it's free from those terms as well
Well I'm glad you have no such knowledge. It makes it much less likely that you'll willingly walk in front of a moving truck.
You're one of the few posters on this goddamn board who understands the proper use of the contraction "it's" -- and the board can't afford to lose any of the few people who do.
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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you always say the nicest things
-------------------- ...or something
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head



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Re: how it works [Re: eve69]
#19146379 - 11/16/13 06:07 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I wouldn't be surprised if it makes little sense, reality is an intellectual construct of the strangest kind.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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cez

Registered: 08/04/09
Posts: 5,854
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Quote:
CosmicJoke said: It's interesting that you drop one's mind from the equation. I have a friend who will always say neurosomatic in place of psychosomatic, as if he finds the term too dangerously implicative of a soul.
At any rate, in my personal experience, breathing exercises and yoga before coming up on a trip profoundly alter my experience, and have made the difference between being caught up in awkward bodily sensations and negativity to relaxing and enjoying the whole process.

My wildest most euphoric trips have been under the influence of breath control.
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Kickle
Wanderer


Registered: 12/16/06
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Quote:
all this beauty said: This is how I think it works.
Your brain is gatekeeper. It filters out, from your waking consciousness, information that is nonessential to your continued survival and the continued survival of our species.
This is a good thing. You don't need all the data. In fact, too much data would interfere with your essential bodily functions -- like eating, sleeping, wiping yourself after you crap, and having sex and making babies.
Certain chemicals temporarily disable the gatekeepers.
If your biology permits, the nonessential information comes flooding through. You may experience ecstasy, spiritual revelation, all manner of ineffable stuff. And/or you may experience wonderful, ineffable, sensory stuff. Lights. Sounds. Wonderful body sensations.
Some people experience only the flood of information. Some people experience only the sensory stuff. Some people experience both.
If your biology does not permit, however, then you either experience nothing or you have a horrible experience.
Opinions differ regarding whether there's anything you can do to alter the way your biology responds.
Discuss.
I would agree to a point. The brain seems to try and filter out non-essential information. If it were actually capable of this I suspect that most 1st world humans would be at rest and relaxed most of the time. But we aren't. We engage in a bazillion unnecessary activities.
Evolutionarily speaking it only makes sense. We don't know what might be useful for survival over time and so we need to remain open in some degree. And i can see this in a pretty wide spectrum across the population.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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jackSpearows
ShaRooooms !!!



Registered: 01/17/12
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Quote:
all this beauty said: This is how I think it works.
Your brain is gatekeeper. It filters out, from your waking consciousness, information that is nonessential to your continued survival and the continued survival of our species.
This is a good thing. You don't need all the data. In fact, too much data would interfere with your essential bodily functions -- like eating, sleeping, wiping yourself after you crap, and having sex and making babies.
Certain chemicals temporarily disable the gatekeepers.
If your biology permits, the nonessential information comes flooding through. You may experience ecstasy, spiritual revelation, all manner of ineffable stuff. And/or you may experience wonderful, ineffable, sensory stuff. Lights. Sounds. Wonderful body sensations.
Some people experience only the flood of information. Some people experience only the sensory stuff. Some people experience both.
If your biology does not permit, however, then you either experience nothing or you have a horrible experience.
Opinions differ regarding whether there's anything you can do to alter the way your biology responds.
Discuss.
I definetly hear on this. I can roll with that idea. The main question I have then is something along the lines of this..
Our brains filter out what is more or less non essential to us. Drugs and different actions and this or that can alter what our brain filters out and doesn't filter out.
What is stimulating the brain. What is it that is originally giving us this or that. because as humans this goes far beyond survival/death obviously. We got all this different stuff going on. We are not simply a squirrel that is riding operating process of -find food to live and survive. Find mate to extend this further- we still have this at our base but we have grown a shit load of other "agendas". This fact brings up some seriously introspective reflective inquiry's. and the strange thing to is that this isn't a matter of question but of some kind of investigation and explorations.
Anyways my main dish that I'm trying to serve up is with all these other agendas and operating agendas that we live with, what simply is the purpose I guess 
It's like something outside of ourselves is feeding our conscious with these agendas. Hypothetically this force outside of ourself uses thoughts attached with some emotional feelings to be us to do this or do that or whatever whatever. When a physical system starts extending its agenda outside the basic agenda of food survival and reproduction, well idk that's where I think we are at. But again I feel I'm forced back to where I started. What is it that feeds us these sophisticated agendas? The most trickiest part of all of this is that we simply cannot relate to any other species or life form well. We seem to be out on a limb and all our relativity is with deer or mice or at best dolphins and chimps. Jesus think about this...
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all this beauty
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Quote:
jackSpearows said: We are not simply a squirrel that is riding operating process of -find food to live and survive. Find mate to extend this further- we still have this at our base but we have grown a shit load of other "agendas".
I think that from nature's perspective, we are just like the squirrels, Jack.
I like to think of this in terms of the "Prime Directive" (remember that one, Star Trek fans? lol).
The Prime Directive for humans (as for squirrels) is "eat, shit, sleep, and fuck (with the ultimate goal of making babies and perpetuating the species)." Everything else we are naturally inclined to do is designed to implement the directive.
Art and spirituality make us feel good. They make life worth living. They give meaning to what would otherwise feel like a meaningless existence. That's why we do art and that's why we pursue the spiritual. It's all in the service of the Prime Directive.
Were life to feel meaningless, there would be little motivation to eat. Your libido would sink to zero, making it much less likely that you'd be interested in fucking and making babies.
Squirrels are programmed -- hardwired -- for the "essential stuff." That's why they don't require ballet and that's why they don't require a "God" to worship. With the humans, the wiring is different. Why there is a difference is a great mystery. One of the greatest mysteries of all.
All in my opinion.
I'm only guessing, just like everyone else.
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jackSpearows
ShaRooooms !!!



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Quote:
all this beauty said:
Quote:
jackSpearows said: We are not simply a squirrel that is riding operating process of -find food to live and survive. Find mate to extend this further- we still have this at our base but we have grown a shit load of other "agendas".
I think that from nature's perspective, we are just like the squirrels, Jack.
I like to think of this in terms of the "Prime Directive" (remember that one, Star Trek fans? lol).
The Prime Directive for humans (as for squirrels) is "eat, shit, sleep, and fuck (with the ultimate goal of making babies and perpetuating the species)." Everything else we are naturally inclined to do is designed to implement the directive.
Art and spirituality make us feel good. They make life worth living. They give meaning to what would otherwise feel like a meaningless existence. That's why we do art and that's why we pursue the spiritual. It's all in the service of the Prime Directive.
Were life to feel meaningless, there would be little motivation to eat. Your libido would sink to zero, making it much less likely that you'd be interested in fucking and making babies.
Squirrels are programmed -- hardwired -- for the "essential stuff." That's why they don't require ballet and that's why they don't require a "God" to worship. With the humans, the wiring is different. Why there is a difference is a great mystery. One of the greatest mysteries of all.
All in my opinion.
I'm only guessing, just like everyone else.
I like that. The Prime Directive eh ? 
The contemplative aspect of this is not only why the human is wired differently like it is, but also why is it that there is a centralized awareness in this human ?
I mean unless you are suggesting that the "me" in this life is literally the summation of the human organism and nothing more...
I see you said -from nature's perspective- up top, what other perspectives do you think exist ? ...Perspectives that are relevant when its all said and done...
Edited by jackSpearows (11/19/13 11:06 PM)
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Kafei
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This simplified notion of "how it works" sort of sounds like Huxley's "reducing valve" metaphor. That there is a "cosmic consciousness" that's being "filtered out" by our ordinary state of mind for the purposes of our survival as a physical entity in the "here and now." And what the drugs do is allow the "cosmic consciousness" to pour through us completely, albeit temporarily, and any resistance is only this illusory psychological aspect of our mind we cling to, "the ego" not being able to accept wittingly or unwittingly this "flow."
I mentioned it in another post in another thread, but guised in the work of Robin-Carhart Harris. It's a bit elaborate, and it was a response to someone's question, but so it won't go to waste, I'll link to it below. It goes over some other relative concepts, too.
I think I Understand the Psychedelic Experience threadRobert Carhart-Harris' [url=
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all this beauty
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Quote:
jackSpearows said: I see you said -from nature's perspective- up top, what other perspectives do you think exist ? ...Perspectives that are relevant when its all said and done...
Heh. You caught me on the terminology thing, Jack. 
The words are shitty. All the words are shitty. My words are probably particularly shitty, but them is all I got in my meager arsenal.
Classic Philosophical Daoists use an ancient term that roughly translates into "from the perspective of the Dao." They contrast this term with another term that roughly translates into "from the perspective of humankind." This is much more subtle than "God vs. Man." This is what preceded and eventually gave rise to concepts of "God."
When I say "nature," I'm pointing to this "from the perspective of the Dao" idea.
Meaning, from the perspective of "the way things work." From the perspective of "what there is." And so forth.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: how it works [Re: cez]
#19164034 - 11/20/13 09:01 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
cez said:
Quote:
CosmicJoke said: It's interesting that you drop one's mind from the equation. I have a friend who will always say neurosomatic in place of psychosomatic, as if he finds the term too dangerously implicative of a soul.
At any rate, in my personal experience, breathing exercises and yoga before coming up on a trip profoundly alter my experience, and have made the difference between being caught up in awkward bodily sensations and negativity to relaxing and enjoying the whole process.

My wildest most euphoric trips have been under the influence of birth control.
fixed.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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HeartAndMind


Registered: 01/09/10
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Quote:
all this beauty said: If your biology permits, the nonessential information comes flooding through. You may experience ecstasy, spiritual revelation, all manner of ineffable stuff. And/or you may experience wonderful, ineffable, sensory stuff. Lights. Sounds. Wonderful body sensations.
Some people experience only the flood of information. Some people experience only the sensory stuff. Some people experience both.
If your biology does not permit, however, then you either experience nothing or you have a horrible experience.
What if you are mistaken? What if that has nothing to do with biology, or biology is simply byproduct of something greater?
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all this beauty
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Quote:
HeartAndMind said: What if you are mistaken? What if that has nothing to do with biology, or biology is simply byproduct of something greater?
Yes, there's a real and distinct possibility that I'm full of shit on all of this. I always try to be careful not to present my ideas as "fact."
Quite honestly though, I just cannot understand the mystical experience in terms other than biological.
I totally, 100 percent, accept the validity of the "mystical experience" (I myself have experienced it), but I cannot explain it in other than a biological context.
There is no other explanation (for me) as to why some people experience heaven on LSD and other people experience hell. Why some people may meditate everyday for a year and get nothing out of it, and why some people meditate for a week and experience radical transformation.
It's got to be tied into our individual biologies.
In my opinion.
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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biology is good
-------------------- ...or something
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HeartAndMind


Registered: 01/09/10
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Quote:
all this beauty said:
Quote:
HeartAndMind said: What if you are mistaken? What if that has nothing to do with biology, or biology is simply byproduct of something greater?
Yes, there's a real and distinct possibility that I'm full of shit on all of this. I always try to be careful not to present my ideas as "fact."
Quite honestly though, I just cannot understand the mystical experience in terms other than biological.
I totally, 100 percent, accept the validity of the "mystical experience" (I myself have experienced it), but I cannot explain it in other than a biological context.
There is no other explanation (for me) as to why some people experience heaven on LSD and other people experience hell. Why some people may meditate everyday for a year and get nothing out of it, and why some people meditate for a week and experience radical transformation.
It's got to be tied into our individual biologies.
In my opinion.
Biologies or mindset/belief. I like to think that it has got to do with belief, because imo, biology is something that you are not in control of and to believe that it is the cause, then you are drawing a barrier in front of yourself, because you believe that only someone special is capable of reaching that height, but in reality it's just belief that people with certain biology are capable to do it. In this way belief can affect your way of living.
I wonder if I made sense, it sounded better in my head
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all this beauty
Stranger
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Quote:
HeartAndMind said: Biologies or mindset/belief. I like to think that it has got to do with belief, because imo, biology is something that you are not in control of and to believe that it is the cause, then you are drawing a barrier in front of yourself, because you believe that only someone special is capable of reaching that height, but in reality it's just belief that people with certain biology are capable to do it. In this way belief can affect your way of living.
I wonder if I made sense, it sounded better in my head
I think I hear ya. 
There is a bit of danger here that this "biological determinism" stuff can devolve into a kind of "elitism." As I mentioned in my opening post, I have been accused of elitism in the past.
Actually, I attach absolutely no value judgments to this thing. To me, it's like the difference between having blue eyes and having brown eyes. There's a biological difference, but it's totally value-neutral.
You take LSD and you see God. Or you take LSD and you want to curl up in a corner and die. Neither is "good" or "bad." It's just the way your biology reacts.
If nature intended for all of us to possess enlightenment or cosmic consciousness or whatever you want to call it, we would. All of us.
Nature "intends" for human beings to have 10 fingers and 10 toes. A small number of people -- a very small number -- are born with more than that or less than that -- but the vast, vast majority of us are born with exactly that number.
It's neither "good" nor "bad."
It is, in my opinion, just the way it is.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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