The topic isn't just heavy to me--it's absolutely fascinating. How do you define 'subjective'? In one definition, subjective describes the inevitable influence that our feelings, tastes, or opinions have on our judgments. Yes, this is the case, but what about those feelings, and the senses that give rise to them? In a more specific light, a subdefinition of this one is that 'subjective' is defined exactly as "dependent on the mind or on an individual's perception for its existence" (my Mac's electronic dictionary).
Recall my post on mind-body dualism. Our existence as we perceive it--it happens all within our heads. Every sensation of touch, every beautiful or bleak image we visualize, every scent you register, every lovely or melancholic combination of sounds that you "hear", every thing that you "taste"--it is all completely and utterly localized in our minds. How we perceive these things is entirely dependent on the chemical composition of our brains and its apparatuses. Disorders like schizophrenia, or simple color blindness have shown us this. The brain is a transducer--literally, "a device that converts variations in a physical quantity, such as pressure or brightness, into an electrical signal, or vice versa," from the Mac, again.
So, returning to our food (for thought): how can you really be sure that's the acclaimed hue of "red" that you're seeing when you look at the sun disappearing over your horizon? That the "blue" that everyone refers to when they look at the sky is the same as yours? If we call everything that has the same, similar hues the same name in our minds consistently, how would you ever be able to tell if you were seeing something different than someone else? After all, you've been calling these colors the names that were taught to you since you could speak. Of course you're going to call this hue "blue", even if that hue really looks like something else to them, when they tell you, "Do you see that object there? It's color is 'blue'". Everyone else calls this consistency the same thing! So it must actually look the same in all our minds! Right?
But that's exactly the nature of the propagation of human knowledge and understanding. One generation learns this, and indoctrinates the next with its language, its labels, its understandings. Regarding the matter of subjectivity, it is impossible to know, really, what each person is describing without comparing it to your own subjective experience. What we rely on is consistency within each other's minds, not exactness. In that way, colors can be switched about in a person's head, and it wouldn't matter if one out of a thousand people saw "blue" as this--they would still call it blue, and would go on to associate society's connotations with it. So how can you be so sure that your brain is producing the same hues of that color, and that everyone else has a brain composition that exactly emulates the same hues? Of course, you can't be sure. Just think about what difference it would make if we did--not much at all, in the art of communication and categorization. If I were to guess, I would suggest that perhaps a great many of us see at least slightly different hues of colors. In a matter of fact, when I close one of my eyes, and then alternate to the other, I can see a very slight redshift in my vision.
Here's a challenge: can you describe to me the physical attributes of the color red without using subjective emotional terms like "anger" or "passionate", or circular terms like the names of other colors? Consider the same with any color you like. Maybe you've encountered this before.
What makes a color correct, in any case? Isn't it really arbitrary, when it comes down to it?
One needs to understand the nature of light, in order to understand colors. Our eyes and brains take electromagnetic waves and quite literally convert them into visualizations for our minds. Accordingly, each wavelength has a unique color that is interpreted through this conversion. When it comes down to it, though, why are the longer wavelengths these colors, and the shorter ones these colors? Would it violate some fundamental principle of logic if they were in reverse? Beyond our own subjective way of creating these colors--for our minds really do create them--need they be exactly what we see?
All radiation is light. Light is an electromagnetic wave--electromagnetic waves are light. The "visible light" portion of the electromagnetic range of wavelengths is an infinitesimal portion of what actually exists in our world. Radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet rays, gamma rays, and x-rays are among these. Some animals actually see into some of these spectra. Do you think they see the same type of colors we see? Either answer has extraordinary implications. They probably seem some sort of effect like we do, in the sense of colors. Colors of light that is invisible. Light that is normally invisible to us is otherwise visible. Who is to say that "visible light" deserves its title? Is not "visible light" relatively both visible and invisible?
Do colors, in the way we see them, and "brightness" really exist at all? Is the world really a lit up place when the sun shines its light upon it, or is this view really just subjective, the workings of our brains translating the radiation's intensity into sensory? Imagine if we were blind. How would we ever know light existed? How could we fathom it?
Could it be likewise with senses undiscovered? It's like trying to describe the three-dimensional world to a Flatlander--impossible to understand without experiencing it. All of these principles, of colors being completely subjectively, apply also to smell and taste, and yes, hearing. Oh yes, and, touch.
Think about it.
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood:
Annoyed. - Music:"Suliman" by Infected Mushroom
As human-beings, with our egos, our subjective experience, there is yet another twist, another side to the intricate Rubik's cube of our existence.
Do we experience anything outside of the present moment?
Do we experience anything outside of the present moment?
I dislike it very much; every day here [in Iraq]
is more unbearable than the one before. That's mostly because I live
very moment to moment. In the now, so to speak. You know that saying,
"We live in the here and the now," implying that the past and future
are irrelevant? I never understood the importance of that statement
until a little while ago, when I heard it mixed with the word
moment--that we live in one constant moment. That the past and future
are non-existent because we only experience the present. The past
becomes a memory experienced only through the present moment, the
future simply never occurs. Sounds like a play on words, or it did at
first, but I think really understand it now. It was hard to understand
at first only because I never realized that it was already how I
thought of experience anyway.
Thus read an email I wrote a couple weeks ago to a friend.
Memory is a curious topic in itself. It is, indeed, what we base all our recollections off of, completely subject to, well, subjectivity, once recalled. It is the way we track time. We are unbelievably reliant on it in so many ways--indeed, the man without any memory is lost, unable to learn, to communicate, to form identity. The most striking thing about it is to realize that memories cannot be thought of in any moment but the present. And of course, because the future is really the latest present moment, it is only a hypothetical.
So, could experience, as I suggest, really exist as a point on the axes of time and space? Let me introduce you to, or have you recall one of Zeno's paradoxes.
Wikipedia reads:
Memory is a curious topic in itself. It is, indeed, what we base all our recollections off of, completely subject to, well, subjectivity, once recalled. It is the way we track time. We are unbelievably reliant on it in so many ways--indeed, the man without any memory is lost, unable to learn, to communicate, to form identity. The most striking thing about it is to realize that memories cannot be thought of in any moment but the present. And of course, because the future is really the latest present moment, it is only a hypothetical.
So, could experience, as I suggest, really exist as a point on the axes of time and space? Let me introduce you to, or have you recall one of Zeno's paradoxes.
Wikipedia reads:
The arrow paradox
| “ | If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. | ” |
| —Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5 | ||
In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to be occurring, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one instant of time, for the arrow to be moving it must either move to where it is, or it must move to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because this is a single instant, and it cannot move to where it is because it is already there. In other words, in any instant of time there is no motion occurring, because an instant is a snapshot. Therefore, if it cannot move in a single instant it cannot move in any instant, making any motion impossible. This paradox is also known as the fletcher's paradox—a fletcher being a maker of arrows.
Whereas the first two paradoxes presented divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time - and not into segments, but into points.
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood:
Indescribable. - Music:"How Soon is Now" by t.A.T.u. (no pun intended)
"The sense of the religious, which is released through the experience of potentially nearing a logical grasp of these deep-lying world relations, is … a feeling of awe and reverence for the manifest Reason which appears in reality. It does not lead to the assumption of a divine personality—a person who makes demands of us and takes an interest in our individual being. In this there is no Will, nor Aim, nor an Ought, but only Being." --Albert Einstein
Even though Einstein did not call himself a pantheist, his beliefs very closely accorded with such, and there's pretty strong evidence to suggest that he did, in fact, believe a certain form of pantheism. He used the word 'God' synonymously with 'the Universe' and its laws.
On the ego:
"The fact that man produces a concept 'I' besides the totality of his mental and emotional experiences or perceptions does not prove that there must be any specific existence behind such a concept. We are succumbing to illusions produced by our self-created language, without reaching a better understanding of anything. Most of so-called philosophy is due to this kind of fallacy."
And most importantly, on consciousness and its juxtaposition with the ego:
"We know consciousness as the essential part of our ego and by analogy as the essential part of other egos. The poverty of our expression does not show us more of it. We can only guess and even this guessing does not have a clear meaning to our thought. There seems to be no other attitude than humility and modesty. The only thing I am feeling strongly about is: It seems foolish to extend our personality beyond our life in both directions and we do not know what consciousness means outside the frame of the personality."
Most elegantly, I believe that summed up or paraphrased the intentions of my last post.
Finally, Einstein's credo. I put this here, because I feel a strong empathy--an affinity in his words.
Finally, Einstein's credo. I put this here, because I feel a strong empathy--an affinity in his words.
"Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of' others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own.
I am often worried at the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer's words: “Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills” accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and deciding individuals and from losing my temper.
I never coveted affluence and luxury and even despise them a good deal.
My passion for social justice has often brought me into conflict with people, as did my aversion to any obligation and dependence I do not regard as absolutely necessary. I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship.
All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult.
I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.
In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood:
On to something. - Music:"The Abhorent Rays" by Draconian
In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical. --Wikipedia
Do I consider myself a mind-body dualist? In other words, do I believe that mental phenomena can exist separate from matter, or more specifically, matter's components? The short answer: no, I do not. My explanation follows.
What is consciousness? How do you make draw a fine line between sentience and self-awareness? Between consciousness and nonconsciousness? Between life, and nonlife? You may think these questions to be absurd when considering something like a rock and comparing it to a human-being, a human-being that is capable of feeling joy and suffering, and desiring continuance of its life, but you would then be surprised to learn that at the most fundamental levels, these subjects remain in dispute.
Can you imagine consciousness without the ego? Pure thought; no language, no self. It is literally ineffable. We know that matter, our brain chemistries, compose our brain, fundamentally leading to the mechanisms that create thought. Without our brains, our minds do not exist. To think that the mind somehow transcends the brain is without the slightest bit of evidence, if one is to consider evidence empirical, rather than based on theory or pure logic. And yet people claim to know that life exists after death.
We still know very little of how memory is formed and kept, how thoughts are processed and how the brain develops them. What we do know is that humans are fantastic at forming delusions--after all, the mind is a purely illusion-generating machine, even if those illusions are based around alleged "objective reality". In the absence of scientific understanding of the physical--its very own realm--humanity has shown a notorious tradition of imploring the God of the gaps, amongst other things.
In the moments life is fleeting a human-being, who is to say that we do not experience an intense, psychological phenomenon similar to when someone metabolizes Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)? In a matter of fact, DMT is produced naturally within the human brain. Structurally, the chemical is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin. DMT is a natural tryptamine, and a potent psychedelic, found in many plants. It is among the most powerful hallucinogenic compounds known to us.
As DMT is naturally produced in small amounts in the brains and other tissues of humans, and other mammals, some believe it plays a role in promoting the visual effects of natural dreaming, and also near-death experiences and other mystical states. A biochemical mechanism for this was proposed by the medical researcher J. C. Callaway, who suggested in 1988 that DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain DMT levels are periodically elevated to induce visual dreaming and possibly other natural states of mind. --Wikipedia
These states of mysticism, I suspect, are the basis of many major religions, to include Abrahamic ones. The use of entheogens among the early ancients was part of ritual. My point is, our minds are capable of amazing things, completely natural things. I cannot bring myself to believe that some supernatural realm exists transcendent to ours. On the contrary, I believe that if there is such a thing, it is only a part of what is natural, currently and if not forever veiled to the eyes of science, our reason, and our feeble understandings of the universe.
Conclusively, as must follow, I cannot bring myself to believe this superstition of souls transcending our reality into supernatural realms. I believe that if such realms exist, they exist purely within our minds, and are of this very reality--that all "realities" are of one.
So, if decided that matter composes mind, we still lack an understanding of it that is essential to piecing together our origins, and understanding reality itself. If matter composes mind, mind is composed by matter. Think of the implications!
Again, what is consciousness? Food for thought: While consciousness is an extraordinary phenomenon, this experience, is it really consciousness that we celebrate--or is it ego? Read: ego death. If I were to guess, I would say that matter and consciousness are more alike than we can imagine.
When it comes down to it, matter and consciousness are of the same stuff. We are products of this matter, and matter is a product of the universe. We are products of the universe. Consciousness is a product of the universe. I do not believe that anything can exist independently of anything within this reality. There are laws, and everything is interwoven. This is wherein I draw my belief that 'God' is the universe, and the universe is 'God'. Whatever this is, we are an inseparable part of it, the universe. We are the universe, no matter how small a part of it we are. Like the subatomic particles of atoms in the cells are a part of a living organism, we are all one.
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood:
Existential.
So, I'd been waiting on this package for over two weeks. We,
[let's call him Zoron, for the sake of his own privacy] and
I, had organized the order that long ago, with my paying, and his
owing me half the cost. It was $70--I got 3 grams. Soon to find, it
was by far worth it. We were wondering what was taking the package so
long, because usually they get here within five days. Well, we had
sent it through Zoron's mom, and the package had gotten damaged, had
to be sent back, and sent again. Not a big deal. When it finally got
here, we were ecstatic of course.
The Salvia was like black powder, pretty fine, almost like top soil,
but not wet at all. It came in a tiny ziplock bag half the size of a
floppy disk. I had Zoron run and buy a butane lighter and a pipe (a
water pipe would've been much, much more appreciated, but we obviously
can't buy that stuff here too easily). When he was gone, I went and
got [let's call him Alex]. That was one mistake, in my opinion. Alex is someone I
know to be very experienced with this stuff. He's done everything. No,
everything. Perhaps too much, the hard stuff as well. When I came in,
I handed him the bag, and he was exclaimed, "Oh my God! No way, you
got some!! This is great." He started to explain that he wanted to be
there when we did it, that night, and he'd like a hit. He'd done some
"60X", so he considered 20X light. Well, haha, I'll get into that
later. Just about then, he took a couple of Zanex, crunched them up in
a line on one of his DVDs and snorted it through a dollar bill. I
asked him what it was, and he provided the name of the substance he
was taking.
I'm not a proponent of Zanex at all. I've never taken it, and never
intend to. It's a bad idea, from everything I've seen and heard. It
seems to be in the "in" right now, too. An over the table "drug of
choice" for the layman. It's not psychedelic or even really
psychoactive in the least, beyond its ability to make you live "in the
moment" much like marijuana does, make you appear drunk, and have
memory loss for the next three days. Pointless, in my opinion, leading
to eventual comedown. Anyway, that should've been a red flag for me,
when he did that. But now that he knew, you know, what could I do?
"Um, Alex, never mind." No. It's not like Zanex makes you an
unpleasant person. It just makes you not so aware of what's going on,
and that's not a good sitter. That was my only concern. He still
seemed to compose himself, though, so I was more trusting there.
[name censured] and [name censured] had gone on mission, and Zoron had their keys.
Their room is the one right across from mine. When Zoron returned with
the pipe and lighter, we advanced to our destination. Unfortunately,
Alex was excessively paranoid about being in someone else's room.
That led to problems. I let Zoron hit the Salvia first. He was sitting
on [name censured]'s bed, on one side of the room, with the lights on. I
recommended that the lights be off, but Alex wouldn't have it, for
it "changed the atmosphere and might alert people that we were in the
room", which I wholeheartedly disagreed with, telling him, "the fact
that the lights are ON is enough to alert anyone we're in the room,
Alex". In any case, the lights stayed on.
Let it be known that Salvia has a wide array of possible effects,
ranging from excessive laughter, to profound mind-altering states.
When Zoron hit it, he in seconds was laughing uncontrollably, and had
us giggling, too, of course. He looked over at Alex, and started
tapping him on the shoulder, and said, "friend". LOL. I found that
great, but it wasn't what I expected. Zoron, unfortunately, couldn't
get a good hit, because the smoke was so hot. You pretty much hit
Salvia like you do marijuana, but with a butane lighter. You light it,
and keep lighting it in circles as you inhale. Zoron would only light
it and then breathe it in, because it was so hot. Plus, he couldn't
hold the smoke in for long.
When that trip faded him, as it did slowly, it only really lasted him
a few minutes, if not less. By the looks of it, I could handle it with
no problem. So, I took the pipe rather excitedly, and in a mindless
bout of confidence, I was lighting a full bowl.
First mistake: I was sitting upright on the bed, not lying down. I had
expected to fall back.
Second mistake: Lights were on, and this leads to a HIGH amount of
external stimuli.
Third mistake: Alex was paranoid as fuck, on Zanex, and only led to trouble.
I instantly began feeling tingling in my forearms, to my shoulders,
and then to my core. It became static, expanded, and then I was gone.
I'd said, "so this is what it's like," thinking to what Alex had
said earlier: "I know it's beginning to work when I feel tingling in
the arms."
At this moment, I fell forward. I dived into the floor, and as I hit,
I did a sort of side roll. I was completely oblivious to this until
afterward. There, I sprawled.
Going inside my head, I wasn't me anymore. Totally erase the fact that
I just hit Salvia. That never happened in my head. It was like I was
some inanimate existence, flowing, and rolling, all the colors,
insanity. Totally irrational and silly, it was like, but geometrical
all over, the feeling of eyes splitting open, cold and moist, equally
distributed over all points of feeling as my very being, like organic
flesh, rolled over the splits. I was splitting into a thousand
different direction. I started to become self-aware. I started to
think, rather than just feel. "What am I?? What is this?" I felt like
a dividing flowerhead in a dishwasher at that point.
About this time in my trip I had said, "I... am the floor," starting
to rationalize what I was and where I was and who I was with the
rationale of a human-being. My mouth... I could feel my mouth, and I
knew I had speech. I was like a typewriter that could only speak as I
was moving across the middle region of the hypothetical slider,
because everything I was was flowing away! They said at this point, "I
am the corner!" Alex had said, "Noo you're not! We need to move you
up on the bed!" [I was latched around [name censured]'s laptop at this
point, something I became worried over after yet still in the trip,
but wasn't aware of until they told me. I didn't recall ANY of their
speech at this moment, only the fact that someone was talking--not who
they were, or what they were saying.]
"No!! I--" In my head, things were becoming insane. I was tripping,
but I still didn't really know it. I just knew I was the trip, and
that the trip was in danger. I thought I was going to die, and that
these beings weren't aware of it. That they were objectifying me. I
felt like a liquid wagon wheel being lain out across a wall and a
floor, parts of me flowing in different directions. But, it was at
this point, I became scared and aware of what was happening, becase,
it was about the point I became aware of my sitters and all these
implications.
It was like they were standing up and far away, they were so far away,
and I couldn't make them out, they weren't clear. They were part of
the trip all over, my vision was viewing a thousand different things
at once, almost none of it coherent at this time. I could hear them,
but they were echoes at this point. I felt cold objects flowing
through and up to my head, wherever the fuck that was.
I had totally forgotten my confidence, and I'd totally forgotten what
I had done. I only remembered who I was, and where I was. I was in the
room, I thought all of a sudden! I was on a military base! There's
people everywhere! And I'm currently a part of a fucking liquid floor
of paint, trying to re-emerge, because this entire time, Alex is
expressing panic. Alex was afraid we were going to be heard, and he
was trying to move me back up on to the bed. When he had done this, I
had tried to calm him down, from within my trip, because it was then I
realized, "I took Salvia! I'm me! Oh my God, I didn't kn--it happened
so suddenly! How did I get here?"
I tried to express, "Alex!! Calm down! Don't worry. I'm okay!", but
I couldn't. Because what was going on in my mind was fucking insane, I
thought I knew what they must have thought. I was scared, more than
I'd ever been in my life, because I thought, "FIVE minutes? How long,
how long am I going to be stuck like this?" I wish now that I wouldn't
have had Alex there, so I could've experienced it without
distraction, and without the ego to feel scared that was awoken by
their presence. I tried to pull myself out of and control myself. I
was moving everything, and I couldn't help it! Suddenly, I felt wet.
Like something had broke and poured all over me. I rationalized, I
must have broken something, like a cologne bottle in [name censured]'s room!
Oh, no, stop! I felt so bad. I couldn't stop! I was moving too much,
and I was really just wrecking what was around me. Somehow, they got
me back up on the bed--I was on the bed at the point I felt the
wetness, actually. I could feel the ends of my limbs then, feeling
everywhere, and I imagined in some distant corner of my mind what was
really going on: me, on [name censured]'s bed, screwing up all the sheets
and probably knocking things over. I was trying to emerge from this
world of splitting rivers and total sensory juxtaposition, trying to
speak.
Again, I tried to express, "Don't worry!", but it came out as
"Dooooeeeee-- Dooooee--- Dooooonn't worrrrrrr--" My mouth, it was like
these splitting rivers were coming all out of my mouth, my throat, and
they were getting away from me, stealing my voice with it, hence the
dragging effect. In order to pull my head back to my ability to make
speech, I had to move my entire body and slide over like, again, a
typewriter in this crazy river of my body and its reality. "Iiisss---"
Moving my body, violently back to regain control, "Iiiiss it OK? Are
we--" I was trying to get a report of the situation: was I being too
loud? Am I wrecking this room? Ah! "IIIII'm sorry, I'm
trrryyyyyyyinnnng---"
"No, no, don't try! You're fine, just go with it! Calm down!" Alex
said. That was just it, I was trying to, but I couldn't, with my body
going off in so many directions, it was bound to cause movement, so I
was trying to recover myself--it only made it worse. I was feeling
everything, feeling in places I never thought it possible to feel all
at once.
They explained to me that I was trying to dig into the space between
the bed and the wall, becoming a part of it in my own mind, but I
didn't know the bed or the wall were even there. It was, again, a
total mindfuck. I didn't even have the chance to interpret what was
going on. It's like [my name here] ceased to exist, and I was made
into something else, this crazy reality, without any recollection of
the former, to include my taking of Salvia in order to understand what
was going on. That's what really surprised me; that it's like I took
the Salvia, was normal, and regained awareness of that fact in the
middle of my Salvia trip!
Alex tried to sit me up at that point, and said, "I'm going to look
outside." I scarcely interpreted this in the midst of the trip. I
imagine he must've been scared or something. I don't really know why
he did that. "Can he walk? Make sure he can walk." He didn't expect
it. That's what really got me! He was experienced, and this blew his
mind, that it could have such an effect on me. What was really
interesting is that Zoron didn't get so much of an effect. I got up, I
started to move, and I regained my vision, which was like tunnel
vision in this cosmic pinwheel, it seemed to be, that I was looking
through. But I realized that if I really concentrated, I could talk
perfectly fine, and perform actions. "Go back to your room," Alex was
telling me, and it all the sudden seemed imperative to me. I tried
harder to regain control. What if someone saw this? They wouldn't
understand. I sat there for a moment, eyes closed, and said, "I'm a
tree," as I felt my entire head split upward into a hundred branches.
"No you're not, we need to move you!" I trusted Alex's reasoning,
and I stood up. Zoron said to me at that moment, "You look really big."
"What?" I said, "you've got to be tripping, still, man!" I stepped
out, and walked back, thinking I could handle myself in the presence
of my roommate, who never talked to me anyway. I moved out of the room
and toward mine. It was right across the aisle, no more than ten feet
away. I sat immediately in my chair upon coming through the door, with
no idea where Zoron or Alex went.
My vision was normal, but I could still feel the trip! Things were
warping like an illusion in my vision, like the one you get after
driving too long, but beyond that, it was normal--it was just my
feeling. I closed my eyes, and it was amazing. It's like my entire
body was surging up through my mind, and forming the tree I'd felt
earlier. In my cerebral cortex area, I felt a definite pulsing, a
vibrating. Vrruum, vrruum, vrruum, surging downward in counter to the
tree that was forming, and I thought, "maybe that's where this is all
coming from."
Zoron came in and explained to me how awesome it all was. "Yeah, man,
haha. You took the hit, and I became scared when drool fell down your
face. Then you literally dived forward into the floor and started
swimming." He explained to me how I said, "I am the floor! I am the
corner!" That was amusing to hear, and he told me how I had latched
around [name censured]'s laptop. (By the way, I had already gone back into
Pitersen's room, still tripping a little, and made sure everything was
okay and orderly. I might go back again today to double check.) He
told me I had started licking him! Well, I told him, "I'm sorry, it's
hard to control that stuff when you're a part of the fucking wall or
something, y'know." I explained to him how it felt like my mouth was
going in all different directions, and he explained to me how it
looked like I was using my mouth a lot. He said it started out like I
was really happy, and I told him, "Yeah, it was like euphoric
happiness, like almost silly happiness, and the trip--man this is what
got me, it was all just so irrational, like the epitome of a dream. It
wasn't how I would've envisioned it, either." I was still buzzing off
the trip, as it faded into its final light at this point; it had been
maybe five to eight minutes after the initial five or six.
I went to Alex's room, and on the way, to test myself, engaged in
conversation with an NCO that was standing in the area of the "houses" we lived in
between mine and Alex's. Not only to test myself, but to appear
normal to him. I succeeded awesomely--we talked about the camel spider
he'd caught. I felt like I needed to do this in order to dissipate any
suspicions he had.
On my way to Alex's. I knocked and came him. He was already in bed.
Zoron came in afterward, and he had the Salvia. He still felt like he
hadn't gotten the full trip off of it. He kept wanting to hit it
again, harder, and after the trip I had just gone through, I was not
prepared to handle him doing something similar. I couldn't be his
sitter, I didn't want to be. But he ended up doing it, as he is a free
agent, and I ended up sitting. Alex did it, too, at the same time.
But I trusted he could handle it. So, here were in Alex's room...
I was sitting TWO salvia trippers at the same time, thinking, shit
this is a bad idea. Zoron was definitely into something this time, and
Alex, wow, he took a good hit, probably about the same as mine, and
he laid back, and all I heard out of his mouth was, "Ahhhh," in a
euphoric way, like he was definitely enjoying it, and he started
laughing a little too, happily. I was amazed. When he came to, like
two and a half minutes later, he told me, "That's good stuff, that's
what you want." He was, of course, still on his Zanex, so I was
considering this fact and thinking that it may have complimented it
somehow, but not much--again, Zanex is not psychedelic whatsoever,
just an over-the-counter depressant narcotic. It probably made his
trip a little more enjoyable and less crazy, really.
So, it all went well. I went back to my room, and talked to Zoron a
little more about my trip, explaining to him how it wasn't like a
change of setting. How I was the new setting, the new reality, and
never felt the change to begin with. It's like I jumped right into it.
Like my old self was vaporized (the tingling), and I came to in this
abstraction of a reality. At this time, he had convinced me to try a
little more, a lighter hit. We turned out the lights, and my speakers
were casting blue light across the room. My roommate was on the other
side of the room, oblivious to our jargon, and didn't really even
notice us hitting the pipe. We did so separately of course, in order
to watch each other. Zoron did his to Yann Teirsen. I did mine to
Airwave. His was more intense this time, and more alienated from this
reality, while mine, I took just enough to begin to fall into what
felt like the same trip, with a different visual. It felt and looked
exactly like a bunch of eyes slitting open, all over in front of me
and all down my skin. They were all arranged like a large
hexagon-multiplex, like a spider's eye, but in two counter-flowing
circles in front of me, and each slit was outlined by a spacious
border that emulated the blue light of my speakers into a blue with a
tint of green, light and transparent. The slits were cold and moist,
opening, all over my body again. I recognized them, even. I could hear
the music in the background, but it turned out to be more of a
distraction than an aid. To Zoron, though, Yann was a huge aid. His
trip followed the music. And one point he had mumbled, "change the
beat, change the beat", and I let the song continue because I knew it
was going to change momentarily. It changed to a different song and he
loved it. He described to me that he was a pendulum, swinging back and
forth, and that the beat of the first song was causing him to approach
something dire, and felt like he was about to fall off something until
the song changed. He described his trip before, back in Alex's room,
like being in a forest, his actual fantasy, with frogs everywhere, and
not that he was in it, but he was in the ground, looking up, and he
said, "A flower; no, I am the flower. I'm the flower," as he was
sprouting upward. In the aftermath of his trip, he said he felt really
big, in a really small universe, and explained to me that he could see
his words flowing my mouth to me, that he could literally hold them.
That was awesome, I thought. I'd love to try a Salvia trip, outside
one night, on a warm summer night, facing up toward a clear sky and
the full moon. That's what it was last night--we just couldn't do it
outside, because of where we are.
All in all, we only smoked less than a gram. More than half the bag is
still left. Amazing, for all that. That was the power of this plant.
In actuality, I expected something different. More along the lines of
an astral projection, and total ego death. Some have explained it as
being like a cosmic pinwheel, being existence rather than feeling a
part of it.
For a better understanding of what I mean by "ego death", check this.
"The ego is the sense of being a metaphysically free, sovereign agent
that originates and controls its own thoughts, actions, and movements
of the will while moving through time and space.
"Ego death is the cessation, in the intense mystic altered state, of
the sense and feeling of being a control-wielding agent moving through
time and space. The sensation of wielding control is replaced by the
experience of being helplessly, powerlessly embedded in spacetime as
purely a product of spacetime, with control-thoughts being perceptibly
inserted or set into the stream of thought by a hidden, uncontrollable
source.
"Ego death leaves one's initial, youthful "lie" behind. The "lie" is
the confused mental worldmodel which assumes that oneself is the
ultimate creator of one's thoughts, actions, future, and movements of
the will. The goal of testing control in the altered state is not to
act out the loss of control in any way, but rather, to gain
fundamental self-knowledge and correction of self-frustrating error
and confusion. The goal of putting control to the test is to
understand the nature and limits of control across time by exploring
ideas of loss of control and transcendent restabilization of control.
"The promise of increased power over oneself leads to realizing the
logical impossibility of that mode of power, but produces instead a
viable alternate conception, of secondary-level, reflected power. The
vexing attempt to gain properly functioning self-control while holding
a confused model of self-control ceases. The misleading sensation that
the time-voyaging continuant agent is the originator of its power of
will is recognized as a conventional misperception and mental
oversimplification."
That is honestly what it's like, a single aspect of this total
mind-bending substance. All concepts of reality are temporarily, and in some sense, permanently
redefined.
[let's call him Zoron, for the sake of his own privacy] and
I, had organized the order that long ago, with my paying, and his
owing me half the cost. It was $70--I got 3 grams. Soon to find, it
was by far worth it. We were wondering what was taking the package so
long, because usually they get here within five days. Well, we had
sent it through Zoron's mom, and the package had gotten damaged, had
to be sent back, and sent again. Not a big deal. When it finally got
here, we were ecstatic of course.
The Salvia was like black powder, pretty fine, almost like top soil,
but not wet at all. It came in a tiny ziplock bag half the size of a
floppy disk. I had Zoron run and buy a butane lighter and a pipe (a
water pipe would've been much, much more appreciated, but we obviously
can't buy that stuff here too easily). When he was gone, I went and
got [let's call him Alex]. That was one mistake, in my opinion. Alex is someone I
know to be very experienced with this stuff. He's done everything. No,
everything. Perhaps too much, the hard stuff as well. When I came in,
I handed him the bag, and he was exclaimed, "Oh my God! No way, you
got some!! This is great." He started to explain that he wanted to be
there when we did it, that night, and he'd like a hit. He'd done some
"60X", so he considered 20X light. Well, haha, I'll get into that
later. Just about then, he took a couple of Zanex, crunched them up in
a line on one of his DVDs and snorted it through a dollar bill. I
asked him what it was, and he provided the name of the substance he
was taking.
I'm not a proponent of Zanex at all. I've never taken it, and never
intend to. It's a bad idea, from everything I've seen and heard. It
seems to be in the "in" right now, too. An over the table "drug of
choice" for the layman. It's not psychedelic or even really
psychoactive in the least, beyond its ability to make you live "in the
moment" much like marijuana does, make you appear drunk, and have
memory loss for the next three days. Pointless, in my opinion, leading
to eventual comedown. Anyway, that should've been a red flag for me,
when he did that. But now that he knew, you know, what could I do?
"Um, Alex, never mind." No. It's not like Zanex makes you an
unpleasant person. It just makes you not so aware of what's going on,
and that's not a good sitter. That was my only concern. He still
seemed to compose himself, though, so I was more trusting there.
[name censured] and [name censured] had gone on mission, and Zoron had their keys.
Their room is the one right across from mine. When Zoron returned with
the pipe and lighter, we advanced to our destination. Unfortunately,
Alex was excessively paranoid about being in someone else's room.
That led to problems. I let Zoron hit the Salvia first. He was sitting
on [name censured]'s bed, on one side of the room, with the lights on. I
recommended that the lights be off, but Alex wouldn't have it, for
it "changed the atmosphere and might alert people that we were in the
room", which I wholeheartedly disagreed with, telling him, "the fact
that the lights are ON is enough to alert anyone we're in the room,
Alex". In any case, the lights stayed on.
Let it be known that Salvia has a wide array of possible effects,
ranging from excessive laughter, to profound mind-altering states.
When Zoron hit it, he in seconds was laughing uncontrollably, and had
us giggling, too, of course. He looked over at Alex, and started
tapping him on the shoulder, and said, "friend". LOL. I found that
great, but it wasn't what I expected. Zoron, unfortunately, couldn't
get a good hit, because the smoke was so hot. You pretty much hit
Salvia like you do marijuana, but with a butane lighter. You light it,
and keep lighting it in circles as you inhale. Zoron would only light
it and then breathe it in, because it was so hot. Plus, he couldn't
hold the smoke in for long.
When that trip faded him, as it did slowly, it only really lasted him
a few minutes, if not less. By the looks of it, I could handle it with
no problem. So, I took the pipe rather excitedly, and in a mindless
bout of confidence, I was lighting a full bowl.
First mistake: I was sitting upright on the bed, not lying down. I had
expected to fall back.
Second mistake: Lights were on, and this leads to a HIGH amount of
external stimuli.
Third mistake: Alex was paranoid as fuck, on Zanex, and only led to trouble.
I instantly began feeling tingling in my forearms, to my shoulders,
and then to my core. It became static, expanded, and then I was gone.
I'd said, "so this is what it's like," thinking to what Alex had
said earlier: "I know it's beginning to work when I feel tingling in
the arms."
At this moment, I fell forward. I dived into the floor, and as I hit,
I did a sort of side roll. I was completely oblivious to this until
afterward. There, I sprawled.
Going inside my head, I wasn't me anymore. Totally erase the fact that
I just hit Salvia. That never happened in my head. It was like I was
some inanimate existence, flowing, and rolling, all the colors,
insanity. Totally irrational and silly, it was like, but geometrical
all over, the feeling of eyes splitting open, cold and moist, equally
distributed over all points of feeling as my very being, like organic
flesh, rolled over the splits. I was splitting into a thousand
different direction. I started to become self-aware. I started to
think, rather than just feel. "What am I?? What is this?" I felt like
a dividing flowerhead in a dishwasher at that point.
About this time in my trip I had said, "I... am the floor," starting
to rationalize what I was and where I was and who I was with the
rationale of a human-being. My mouth... I could feel my mouth, and I
knew I had speech. I was like a typewriter that could only speak as I
was moving across the middle region of the hypothetical slider,
because everything I was was flowing away! They said at this point, "I
am the corner!" Alex had said, "Noo you're not! We need to move you
up on the bed!" [I was latched around [name censured]'s laptop at this
point, something I became worried over after yet still in the trip,
but wasn't aware of until they told me. I didn't recall ANY of their
speech at this moment, only the fact that someone was talking--not who
they were, or what they were saying.]
"No!! I--" In my head, things were becoming insane. I was tripping,
but I still didn't really know it. I just knew I was the trip, and
that the trip was in danger. I thought I was going to die, and that
these beings weren't aware of it. That they were objectifying me. I
felt like a liquid wagon wheel being lain out across a wall and a
floor, parts of me flowing in different directions. But, it was at
this point, I became scared and aware of what was happening, becase,
it was about the point I became aware of my sitters and all these
implications.
It was like they were standing up and far away, they were so far away,
and I couldn't make them out, they weren't clear. They were part of
the trip all over, my vision was viewing a thousand different things
at once, almost none of it coherent at this time. I could hear them,
but they were echoes at this point. I felt cold objects flowing
through and up to my head, wherever the fuck that was.
I had totally forgotten my confidence, and I'd totally forgotten what
I had done. I only remembered who I was, and where I was. I was in the
room, I thought all of a sudden! I was on a military base! There's
people everywhere! And I'm currently a part of a fucking liquid floor
of paint, trying to re-emerge, because this entire time, Alex is
expressing panic. Alex was afraid we were going to be heard, and he
was trying to move me back up on to the bed. When he had done this, I
had tried to calm him down, from within my trip, because it was then I
realized, "I took Salvia! I'm me! Oh my God, I didn't kn--it happened
so suddenly! How did I get here?"
I tried to express, "Alex!! Calm down! Don't worry. I'm okay!", but
I couldn't. Because what was going on in my mind was fucking insane, I
thought I knew what they must have thought. I was scared, more than
I'd ever been in my life, because I thought, "FIVE minutes? How long,
how long am I going to be stuck like this?" I wish now that I wouldn't
have had Alex there, so I could've experienced it without
distraction, and without the ego to feel scared that was awoken by
their presence. I tried to pull myself out of and control myself. I
was moving everything, and I couldn't help it! Suddenly, I felt wet.
Like something had broke and poured all over me. I rationalized, I
must have broken something, like a cologne bottle in [name censured]'s room!
Oh, no, stop! I felt so bad. I couldn't stop! I was moving too much,
and I was really just wrecking what was around me. Somehow, they got
me back up on the bed--I was on the bed at the point I felt the
wetness, actually. I could feel the ends of my limbs then, feeling
everywhere, and I imagined in some distant corner of my mind what was
really going on: me, on [name censured]'s bed, screwing up all the sheets
and probably knocking things over. I was trying to emerge from this
world of splitting rivers and total sensory juxtaposition, trying to
speak.
Again, I tried to express, "Don't worry!", but it came out as
"Dooooeeeee-- Dooooee--- Dooooonn't worrrrrrr--" My mouth, it was like
these splitting rivers were coming all out of my mouth, my throat, and
they were getting away from me, stealing my voice with it, hence the
dragging effect. In order to pull my head back to my ability to make
speech, I had to move my entire body and slide over like, again, a
typewriter in this crazy river of my body and its reality. "Iiisss---"
Moving my body, violently back to regain control, "Iiiiss it OK? Are
we--" I was trying to get a report of the situation: was I being too
loud? Am I wrecking this room? Ah! "IIIII'm sorry, I'm
trrryyyyyyyinnnng---"
"No, no, don't try! You're fine, just go with it! Calm down!" Alex
said. That was just it, I was trying to, but I couldn't, with my body
going off in so many directions, it was bound to cause movement, so I
was trying to recover myself--it only made it worse. I was feeling
everything, feeling in places I never thought it possible to feel all
at once.
They explained to me that I was trying to dig into the space between
the bed and the wall, becoming a part of it in my own mind, but I
didn't know the bed or the wall were even there. It was, again, a
total mindfuck. I didn't even have the chance to interpret what was
going on. It's like [my name here] ceased to exist, and I was made
into something else, this crazy reality, without any recollection of
the former, to include my taking of Salvia in order to understand what
was going on. That's what really surprised me; that it's like I took
the Salvia, was normal, and regained awareness of that fact in the
middle of my Salvia trip!
Alex tried to sit me up at that point, and said, "I'm going to look
outside." I scarcely interpreted this in the midst of the trip. I
imagine he must've been scared or something. I don't really know why
he did that. "Can he walk? Make sure he can walk." He didn't expect
it. That's what really got me! He was experienced, and this blew his
mind, that it could have such an effect on me. What was really
interesting is that Zoron didn't get so much of an effect. I got up, I
started to move, and I regained my vision, which was like tunnel
vision in this cosmic pinwheel, it seemed to be, that I was looking
through. But I realized that if I really concentrated, I could talk
perfectly fine, and perform actions. "Go back to your room," Alex was
telling me, and it all the sudden seemed imperative to me. I tried
harder to regain control. What if someone saw this? They wouldn't
understand. I sat there for a moment, eyes closed, and said, "I'm a
tree," as I felt my entire head split upward into a hundred branches.
"No you're not, we need to move you!" I trusted Alex's reasoning,
and I stood up. Zoron said to me at that moment, "You look really big."
"What?" I said, "you've got to be tripping, still, man!" I stepped
out, and walked back, thinking I could handle myself in the presence
of my roommate, who never talked to me anyway. I moved out of the room
and toward mine. It was right across the aisle, no more than ten feet
away. I sat immediately in my chair upon coming through the door, with
no idea where Zoron or Alex went.
My vision was normal, but I could still feel the trip! Things were
warping like an illusion in my vision, like the one you get after
driving too long, but beyond that, it was normal--it was just my
feeling. I closed my eyes, and it was amazing. It's like my entire
body was surging up through my mind, and forming the tree I'd felt
earlier. In my cerebral cortex area, I felt a definite pulsing, a
vibrating. Vrruum, vrruum, vrruum, surging downward in counter to the
tree that was forming, and I thought, "maybe that's where this is all
coming from."
Zoron came in and explained to me how awesome it all was. "Yeah, man,
haha. You took the hit, and I became scared when drool fell down your
face. Then you literally dived forward into the floor and started
swimming." He explained to me how I said, "I am the floor! I am the
corner!" That was amusing to hear, and he told me how I had latched
around [name censured]'s laptop. (By the way, I had already gone back into
Pitersen's room, still tripping a little, and made sure everything was
okay and orderly. I might go back again today to double check.) He
told me I had started licking him! Well, I told him, "I'm sorry, it's
hard to control that stuff when you're a part of the fucking wall or
something, y'know." I explained to him how it felt like my mouth was
going in all different directions, and he explained to me how it
looked like I was using my mouth a lot. He said it started out like I
was really happy, and I told him, "Yeah, it was like euphoric
happiness, like almost silly happiness, and the trip--man this is what
got me, it was all just so irrational, like the epitome of a dream. It
wasn't how I would've envisioned it, either." I was still buzzing off
the trip, as it faded into its final light at this point; it had been
maybe five to eight minutes after the initial five or six.
I went to Alex's room, and on the way, to test myself, engaged in
conversation with an NCO that was standing in the area of the "houses" we lived in
between mine and Alex's. Not only to test myself, but to appear
normal to him. I succeeded awesomely--we talked about the camel spider
he'd caught. I felt like I needed to do this in order to dissipate any
suspicions he had.
On my way to Alex's. I knocked and came him. He was already in bed.
Zoron came in afterward, and he had the Salvia. He still felt like he
hadn't gotten the full trip off of it. He kept wanting to hit it
again, harder, and after the trip I had just gone through, I was not
prepared to handle him doing something similar. I couldn't be his
sitter, I didn't want to be. But he ended up doing it, as he is a free
agent, and I ended up sitting. Alex did it, too, at the same time.
But I trusted he could handle it. So, here were in Alex's room...
I was sitting TWO salvia trippers at the same time, thinking, shit
this is a bad idea. Zoron was definitely into something this time, and
Alex, wow, he took a good hit, probably about the same as mine, and
he laid back, and all I heard out of his mouth was, "Ahhhh," in a
euphoric way, like he was definitely enjoying it, and he started
laughing a little too, happily. I was amazed. When he came to, like
two and a half minutes later, he told me, "That's good stuff, that's
what you want." He was, of course, still on his Zanex, so I was
considering this fact and thinking that it may have complimented it
somehow, but not much--again, Zanex is not psychedelic whatsoever,
just an over-the-counter depressant narcotic. It probably made his
trip a little more enjoyable and less crazy, really.
So, it all went well. I went back to my room, and talked to Zoron a
little more about my trip, explaining to him how it wasn't like a
change of setting. How I was the new setting, the new reality, and
never felt the change to begin with. It's like I jumped right into it.
Like my old self was vaporized (the tingling), and I came to in this
abstraction of a reality. At this time, he had convinced me to try a
little more, a lighter hit. We turned out the lights, and my speakers
were casting blue light across the room. My roommate was on the other
side of the room, oblivious to our jargon, and didn't really even
notice us hitting the pipe. We did so separately of course, in order
to watch each other. Zoron did his to Yann Teirsen. I did mine to
Airwave. His was more intense this time, and more alienated from this
reality, while mine, I took just enough to begin to fall into what
felt like the same trip, with a different visual. It felt and looked
exactly like a bunch of eyes slitting open, all over in front of me
and all down my skin. They were all arranged like a large
hexagon-multiplex, like a spider's eye, but in two counter-flowing
circles in front of me, and each slit was outlined by a spacious
border that emulated the blue light of my speakers into a blue with a
tint of green, light and transparent. The slits were cold and moist,
opening, all over my body again. I recognized them, even. I could hear
the music in the background, but it turned out to be more of a
distraction than an aid. To Zoron, though, Yann was a huge aid. His
trip followed the music. And one point he had mumbled, "change the
beat, change the beat", and I let the song continue because I knew it
was going to change momentarily. It changed to a different song and he
loved it. He described to me that he was a pendulum, swinging back and
forth, and that the beat of the first song was causing him to approach
something dire, and felt like he was about to fall off something until
the song changed. He described his trip before, back in Alex's room,
like being in a forest, his actual fantasy, with frogs everywhere, and
not that he was in it, but he was in the ground, looking up, and he
said, "A flower; no, I am the flower. I'm the flower," as he was
sprouting upward. In the aftermath of his trip, he said he felt really
big, in a really small universe, and explained to me that he could see
his words flowing my mouth to me, that he could literally hold them.
That was awesome, I thought. I'd love to try a Salvia trip, outside
one night, on a warm summer night, facing up toward a clear sky and
the full moon. That's what it was last night--we just couldn't do it
outside, because of where we are.
All in all, we only smoked less than a gram. More than half the bag is
still left. Amazing, for all that. That was the power of this plant.
In actuality, I expected something different. More along the lines of
an astral projection, and total ego death. Some have explained it as
being like a cosmic pinwheel, being existence rather than feeling a
part of it.
For a better understanding of what I mean by "ego death", check this.
"The ego is the sense of being a metaphysically free, sovereign agent
that originates and controls its own thoughts, actions, and movements
of the will while moving through time and space.
"Ego death is the cessation, in the intense mystic altered state, of
the sense and feeling of being a control-wielding agent moving through
time and space. The sensation of wielding control is replaced by the
experience of being helplessly, powerlessly embedded in spacetime as
purely a product of spacetime, with control-thoughts being perceptibly
inserted or set into the stream of thought by a hidden, uncontrollable
source.
"Ego death leaves one's initial, youthful "lie" behind. The "lie" is
the confused mental worldmodel which assumes that oneself is the
ultimate creator of one's thoughts, actions, future, and movements of
the will. The goal of testing control in the altered state is not to
act out the loss of control in any way, but rather, to gain
fundamental self-knowledge and correction of self-frustrating error
and confusion. The goal of putting control to the test is to
understand the nature and limits of control across time by exploring
ideas of loss of control and transcendent restabilization of control.
"The promise of increased power over oneself leads to realizing the
logical impossibility of that mode of power, but produces instead a
viable alternate conception, of secondary-level, reflected power. The
vexing attempt to gain properly functioning self-control while holding
a confused model of self-control ceases. The misleading sensation that
the time-voyaging continuant agent is the originator of its power of
will is recognized as a conventional misperception and mental
oversimplification."
That is honestly what it's like, a single aspect of this total
mind-bending substance. All concepts of reality are temporarily, and in some sense, permanently
redefined.
When it comes down to it, I prepared badly for this experience, and I was too anxious to rush into it. There are two terms you should familiarize yourself with if you ever intend to participate in such things: set and setting. Timothy Leary established the meaning of these terms in the world of psychedelics. Set refers to your internal thoughts, dispositions--to include things that cannot easily be changed about yourself. Setting refers to the more flexible environment that surrounds you. Both these things have a massive influence on the way your trip unfolds.
Salvia did something profound to me, in any case. Something that I began to notice over the next couple days proceeding its effects: the very shape of my existence. I began to have an absurd feeling for my movements, and a realization that this is no more normal than anything else! How I feel contained! How unbelievable that I feel so comfortable in this body. With salvia, I experienced momentary loss of the self. Consciousness without the ego. Just pure consciousness. I cannot even begin to explain the wonder, the profoundity of this experience.
Mushrooms were different--far different. They shouldn't even be compared with salvia, beyond the fact that they're an entheogen. I do research on all the substances I ever consider ingesting, in some form or another. I research the history, its effects, health benefits, health problems, and the outcomes of trips. I had looked at salvia's molecular structure (known as Salvinorin A), its potencies, and the ethnobotany behind it. With mushrooms, its active compound is known as psilocybin. Where it takes salvia divinorum extract literally seconds to kick in, the effects of psilocybin mushrooms do not kick in until approximately forty-five minutes to an hour, or sometimes even an hour-and-a-half after ingestion. The effects last upwards eight hours, similar to the duration of LSD's effects.
The effects of mushrooms are much more subtle, oncoming. But when they finally peak, it is sublime. Totally awe-inspiring. That is the only way I can describe it. It's not at all like salvia. Salvia is quick acting, fast paced, and turns you into a completely immaterial existence. With mushrooms, you remain in a state of total control, as it's almost purely a visual drug, beyond giving you "senses" of feelings. For instance, the very first effect I noticed from mushrooms upon ingestion was when I was still walking out in the woods, where I ate the caps before venturing into. In fact, I was walking out of the woods, up a flight of wooden stairs, when I noticed I felt suddenly very tall. Atop of this feeling, the gorge that was several tens of meters away felt kilometers wide! The stairs beneath me that I was ascending seemed to never end--as if the steps I were taking were never being taken, or were walking in vain upon a treadmill of steps. This feeling was surprising, and welcome. From there, the effects took on a visual medium of expression. Skies became vivid, landscapes beautiful. Art dripped and swirled. Inanimate objects swayed and breathed. Walls became art shows, the simplest patterns became geometric splendors of wonder.
With me, never did mushrooms create something that wasn't there--it only took what was before me and added a creativity of the mind, a surrealism that was profound. Never before that day did I believe such a thing could be possible, that reality really could be so subjective as it became then--that the mind was capable of such feats.
This became very important knowledge to me, a true experience rather than simple speculation, for the following reason:
For us, the mind is everything.
Everything you see, feel, hear, smell, taste--these things do not occur outside the mind, but within. This is why dreams are so real to us, despite their occasional if not frequent absurdity. Touch something a couple feel away from you and realize that the feeling is a mere illusion cast by your brain. While your hand really may be touching such an object, the feeling is nothing but local, no matter how far away it seems. Take for instance sight. You see light, you see colors. But has your brain ever seen light? Has its tissues ever been exposed to such? Unless you've had a lobotomy, your brain has never seen the light of day, and has lived in the veil of darkness since its formation. How can it know light? The light you "see" is purely based on electrochemical reactions in the depths of your head.
It is because of this I form my belief--what I believe is fact--that we live in subjectivity. It is impossible to see through someone else's eyes as they do. Whether there exist objectivity--which I am inclined to believe--it is impossible for humans to obtain true, objective knowledge, for our knowledge can only be obtained subjectively. Truth, it would seem, is then somewhat unobtainable.
Have you ever seen the Matrix? Well, unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. (Just kidding--I'm quoting the movie.) I loved it. It's perhaps one of the first movies I considered my favorite, for it wildly sparked my imagination and philosophical nature. Anyway, the movie rather cleverly the subjective nature of the mind, how easily it could be fooled. Of course, in actuality, the movie was science-fiction--but it plays off a very real truth: that the truth can be entirely everything it is not through your eyes. How do you know what is real, and what is not? How do you define real? Morpheus, (which by the way is the Greek god of dreams) states with true sapience, in response to Neo, "What is real? How do you define real? If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."
How very right he was. And even here we cannot stop questioning, as the great philosophers of ancient times have taught us. Do we even think our own thoughts? What is the ego? The I? Do we have free will?
These are the questions of philosophia.
- Mood:
Awake.
"Was Carl Sagan a religious man? He was so much more. He left behind the petty, parochial, medieval world of the conventionally religious, left the theologians, priests and mullahs wallowing in their small-minded spiritual poverty. He left them behind, because he had so much more to be religious about. They have their Bronze-Age myths, medieval superstitions and childish wishful thinking. He had the universe."
--Richard Dawkins
Sagan also wrote one of my favorites, Pale Blue Dot and the mass marketed book Cosmos.
Where Dawkins openly reprimands conventional religions, I tend not to be so militant on the entire subject, though still very much averse to some of its forms and effects on today's society. Having read his book, The God Delusion, I received reaffirmation to my atheistic beliefs, and in regards to science, I completely agree with him. Toward rigid fundamentalism, and typical arrogance and bigotry I do stand relentlessly opposed. The origins of today's religions, however, even if completely muddled and diluted under current doctrines, interpretations, cultural molding, and the passing of time, still remain of massive historical, and intellectual value. Everyone is entitled to their perceptions of reality, indeed, for that's all we have. But for you not to understand the origins of the mysticism that gave rise to the teachings you follow so earnestly! Alas, a sad state ignorance, missing entirely the point, gathering conviction from reservoirs of naivety and confused credulity, especially when examples like Christianity and the like have gone so far off track from whence they started. And to take so literally a faith, a faith given to you by authorities who alone claim to have experienced these subjective revelations, and close your mind to science, and your own self-exploration, is to take part in total folly, committing yourself to blindness and closure, to prejudice--preconceived notions not based on reason or actual experience.
View the world through fresh eyes. I believe this is the noblest approach to truth. Question everything at least once.
I'm capable and guilty, as most any of us are, of seeing the world through a filter, and generating inconsistencies within my character that I would recoil from if I were able to pick them apart from myself. Hypocrisy, bias, prejudice. These are things I strive to live without, nevertheless. From the standpoint of philosophy, with our existence in these absurd circumstances, one has to make choices, fundamentally arbitrary, or live in the crisis of absolute uncertainty. Everyone does this--everyone. Hypocrisy, for this reason, is almost impossible to avoid. Most all viewpoints are flawed somehow, and counterarguments exist for nearly everything. My desire is to find one that is not. Is such a thing possible with our rational minds, in our thus far irrational existence?
View the world through fresh eyes. I believe this is the noblest approach to truth. Question everything at least once.
I'm capable and guilty, as most any of us are, of seeing the world through a filter, and generating inconsistencies within my character that I would recoil from if I were able to pick them apart from myself. Hypocrisy, bias, prejudice. These are things I strive to live without, nevertheless. From the standpoint of philosophy, with our existence in these absurd circumstances, one has to make choices, fundamentally arbitrary, or live in the crisis of absolute uncertainty. Everyone does this--everyone. Hypocrisy, for this reason, is almost impossible to avoid. Most all viewpoints are flawed somehow, and counterarguments exist for nearly everything. My desire is to find one that is not. Is such a thing possible with our rational minds, in our thus far irrational existence?
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood: Excited, yet sober.
I consider myself a voyager in this strange existence, albeit unwillingly brought into it, without consent, without choice. I've spent the last two decades of my waking life observing those around me, performing as much self-study as I can, into things like philosophy, science, and just recently, mysticism--to include introspective exploration. I can accurately describe myself as a pantheist. The definition is very broad, as is the nature of semantics, but definitive nonetheless. You can think of it as something along the lines of "sexed-up atheism", and belief in an "interconnecting web of oneness".
I embrace open-mindedness as much as my rationale can justify it.
I am a "conscientious objector", if you will--currently an indentured servant to the United States Armed Forces. Fate, it seems, is not without a twist of irony. A long and rather dismaying story. I'll cover that later.
I consider myself vegetarian for convictions of anti-speciesm (against the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals), and an environmentalist. You could say I'm one of those crazy individuals who thinks, because human-beings share common ancestry with animals, we ought to respect them equally, preserve our ecosystem, and that homeostasis is worth preserving.
I'm a huge fan of thinking outside the box, heresy, and, "think for yourself, question authority." I reject dogmatic forms of religion and such ideologies, for this reason. Science has shown me more awe than religion ever could. I believe that religion either lay within the realm of science, as psychological phenomenon, or that its roots lay within that of mysticism, leaving its followers mostly confused and unaware of its origins. My political beliefs lay somewhere within the realm of socialism--anarchism, particularly. I've been lately finding a great deal of interest in anarcho-primitivism. I've begun to realize that our current economic system is responsible for the consumerist-driven, cancerous behavior that's plaguing and systematically destroying our planet's environment--which is only part of a much larger timeline of events that have been happening since the dawn of civilization--and that we've wandered far from our hunter-gatherer roots, our balance with the Earth.
In reading a book titled Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, I was introduced to the concepts of what he refers to as the "Archaic Revival", and a primer on the history of entheogens, of which I'm greatly intrigued by. Upon looking up the word 'psychonaut' recently, the title for this blog originated. The word literally translates to 'sailor of the mind/soul'. A psychonaut is one who explores inner modes of consciousness to obtain spiritual knowledge via the use of psychedelics for direct experience. I am gratefully of this categorization ever since my first experience with entheogens--specifically, psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
I believe that we, as beings that can only experience via subjective means, cannot truly obtain objective knowledge without the slant of said subjectivity. This isn't to say that I reject realism--not at all. In fact, I'm not quite sure what I believe insofar as that goes, but my recent pondering over our connection with existence, and this "interconnected web of oneness", and the obscurity of what consciousness really is, does make me reconsider the possibility of idealism.
As things stand, I am constantly in a state of discovery, wondering, and reevaluation--redefinition. I see my existence, the existence of my ego, and these experiences as a cosmic phenomenon, an anomaly within an anomaly--fleeting, precious, and not to be taken for granted, even if the purpose is only to be found within the self. We are to share this existence, and make it the best that we can.
- Location:Al-Qayyarah West, Iraq
- Mood:
Contemplative. - Music:"Presumed Lost" by Splashdown
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sailorofthemind- I, Sailor of the Mind
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