Duality

[IJesusChrist]

Is the duality of trips an illusion, or are there two ways of viewing the world, reality?

I find it best to answer this by explaining that the most 'normal', the most experienced reality is the product of serotonal communication, where as the more psychodelic is simply the way to communicate information via LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, ayahuasca. That is to say that the information recieved is no different while tripping than that of what is recieved while extremely influenced.

We all agree that we percieve the world, reality different while experiencing, but is what we are experiencing simply the product of LSD, ayahuasca, psilocybin what-have-you, or do you suppose they allow for new information [incapable of being 'seen' by serotonin] to be processed?

DISCUSS

 

[darkwolfunseen]

I suppose the question is the similar to mine, yours might be a little more poetic though.
Anyways, for me:
I believe in the power of the soul, in the idea that we have compacted energy without our bodies, that is moderated by the mind (although quite powerful, the brain is still a physical device, and therefore has it's limitations). When, say, mescaline is added, your body doesn't really change (aside from typical dosed symptoms), and your mind isn't necessarily rewired (since after the trip, you base-line for the most part is the same), but what changes is the RAM (in computer terms). All of a sudden your mind is unleashed, and it no longer depends on preconditioned notions (especially in high doses where there really are none), and so the subconcious mind, which in my opinion is much stronger takes over.

The interesting part is this a dangerous gift. Here you have direct access to your soul, all of the preconditioned booby traps and guard fences being down. From here, if prepared for properly, you can cherish, you can build, and you can nurture the soul. But if you are reckless, you can sit in agony, shaking away your own consciousness trying to regain control in a situation where at best you could get lucky and pass out (like that ever happens).

Long story short: The trip is an illusion, but it is one your subconcious mind creates for you to operate your soul. The reason why it is so hard, is because you're used to operating with you conscious mind, one that has set a million and one limits, and here, you are given g-d-like powers, where there are no limits, where if you're not careful, you may never return again.

Sorry if that was wordy, I've had like three hours of sleep in the last two days.

 

[_Avatar_]

It seems to me that we have two ways of being aware. One is related to the protection, survival, pleasure and reproduction of the physical organism, the other isn't.

The first mode is indeed based on serotonal communication and a general predominance of the beta range of brainwave frequencies. Attention is focused: Where might there be danger? Where is food? Which females are ovulating? Lots of mammals and birds are constantly looking around for danger and opportunities.

The second mode seems to be the result of human organization and urbanization. When there are food and water supplies and the settlement has a wall with lots of young females walking around, consciousness doesn't have to be that focused anymore and people start to live more dreamy lives: they start practicing arts, tell stories, write poetry and songs, meditate, organize religious festivals and mystery plays, ingest psychedelics etc. They become more creative and spiritually inquisitive.

The raw data coming in through both modes is the same, but the interpretation or processing is different, especially the assigning of value to different aspects of a given object, person, state or situation. On top of that the focus is much different, with the first mode being very much focused on the external environment and the second on the internal situation. With very extreme versions of the second mode, for example in a psychedelic trip, awareness is focused almost exclusively on internal elements. Even when attention is diverted outwards, the internal phenomena tend to predominate, coloring the perceived environment.

A healthy and balanced human being looks both outside and within, never confusing the two.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Avatar I would agree with your entire post except:

A healthy and balanced human being looks both outside and within, never confusing the two.

I believe quite differently, a healthy and balanced human being sees the inside & outside as one.

 

[_Avatar_]

Well I do believe the inside and outside are intimately related, or an interactive continuum, as Alan Watts and others have so eloquently explained. In that sense they are indeed one.

Still the words refer to different areas: the outside referring to the consensus reality of everyday life and the inside to our own personal memories, traumas, interpretations, fears, desires, dreams, cosmic revelations etc. When internal dynamics are not properly understood and dealt with, they can easily be projected onto the external world, resulting in various emotional problems, mental disorders, sexual perversions or even criminal behavior.

 

[darkwolfunseen]

But what are internal dynamics based on, if not the conditioning provided by the external? Even if DNA is brought in as a factor, your higher cognitive skills are programmed over the course of your life's interaction with your environment. Lesson are learned, brain chemistry is set, and those perversions appear.

 

[_Avatar_]

Yes, it is a feedback mechanism, the external conditioning the internal, and the internal directing the external. It is often hard to determine which came first, especially if there would be such things as multiple lifetimes and karma.

In any case, the internal world involves past events, future possibilities and states of mind that involve a sense of timelessness. The external world is that which occurs from moment to moment and is perceived in a similar way by multiple beings (although interpretation and emotional response may vary). It's also concerned with the immediate environment, as opposed to the unlimited number of environments one may wander through internally (in dreams, the imagination and visionary states).

So there will always be this dual unity: the feedback mechanism of internal and external, with the tryptamine states, dissolving all temporal and spatial boundaries, being among the most extreme types of internal experience. You can't have one without the other.

 

[IJesusChrist]

The entire outside world is inside your head, so I guess it would all be internal than wouldn't it. Yet your brain is within the outside. Sometimes I wish I wasn't human.

 

[buffachino]

Sometimes I wish I wasn't human.

Who says you are?

 

[IJesusChrist]

:ANAL:

 

[_Avatar_]

The entire outside world is inside your head

I don't think so. All that's inside are representations of certain areas of the outside world.

 

[darkwolfunseen]

I got to agree with Avatar on this one. I use to take that whole "my mind has created all of this" but try this: Put your hand through a wall, just move the wall with your mind.
Scenarios:
A) You can't = you are not creating your environment with your mind
B) You can = you would be moving the object with your mind, not reversing it's manifestation.

That being said, we look at things only with the resources we have now. Maybe in a 100 years we will be the wall.

Also, I still believe that all living things are interconnected so finely, that when a certain plateau/frequency is reached, we all vibrate as one.

 

[IJesusChrist]

I've seen my hand go through a wall before, albeit sertonin was minimal.

 

[Shamanomenon]

I recently started watching this show on ABC (I believe) called FlashForward. The premise is that everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes and during this time they all experience a prophetic vision of their lives 6 months into the future. Pretty cool concept, but the idea I like the most is that the people investigating this phenomenon create a website called the Mosaic Project, where people can post information from their visions and then all of the data is run through some program that cross references everything to try to build some sort of big picture model of the future.

I don't know enough about computer programming to know how one would even begin to go about such a project, if possible, but I was thinking about this concept earlier today. I think it would be cool to create such a program for trip experiences. All of the data could be cross-referenced to search for commonalities from different independent sources. Sort of like attempting to build a psycedelic consensus reality.

Personally, from my own experience, I got the impression that I need to keep up appearances in this world (the real world) so that I'll be able to operate in the other... Sort of like a spiritual vigilante... In fact, those were the exact words that came to me during my trip. Perhaps it is just a difference between the external reality and your internal reality, but either way, I believe that they are deeply connected.

 

[Crimzen]

that sounds like a really interesting idea, the computer cross referencing

 

[_Avatar_]

"my mind has created all of this"

I never really thought along those lines, although it's a feeling that may come up during high dose trips. I've always been taught not to take the "I am God" (as in "I am the Creator") revelations too seriously, as this may lead to subtle forms of ego-inflation. Examples of people who believe they are literally God are Adi Dam ("Da Free John"), Satya Sai Baba and numerous other cult leaders in India and the rest of the world.

As far as the stuff that I consider me (my physical body and mental processes) I don't believe any of that actively creates anything. Rather it gets created along with everything else that's developing and unfolding in space-time. I'm related to creation in a synchronistic rather than a causal way.

It seems that psychedelics help one forget about the "me" a bit, which often results in revelations of the ultimate creative principle. But while in the cognitive dissociative state one easily identifies and merges with whatever one observes. Thus one may experientially identify with the ultimate creative principle, becoming one with it. However, such experiences do not necessarily mean that one really is the ultimate creative principle, just that it's possible to experientially merge with it.

Because even if you are God, you're just a piece of God, one particular experience or vantage point of God. Or in biological terms: you're just one strand of DNA out of many.

 

[Psychoid]

Wow that was a very interesting read ^

 

[ophiuchus]

i have much to say on this, but unfortunately im exhausted. i will sleep on this and post in the morning

 

[IJesusChrist]

"my mind has created all of this"

I never really thought along those lines, although it's a feeling that may come up during high dose trips. I've always been taught not to take the "I am God" (as in "I am the Creator") revelations too seriously, as this may lead to subtle forms of ego-inflation. Examples of people who believe they are literally God are Adi Dam ("Da Free John"), Satya Sai Baba and numerous other cult leaders in India and the rest of the world.

As far as the stuff that I consider me (my physical body and mental processes) I don't believe any of that actively creates anything. Rather it gets created along with everything else that's developing and unfolding in space-time. I'm related to creation in a synchronistic rather than a causal way.

It seems that psychedelics help one forget about the "me" a bit, which often results in revelations of the ultimate creative principle. But while in the cognitive dissociative state one easily identifies and merges with whatever one observes. Thus one may experientially identify with the ultimate creative principle, becoming one with it. However, such experiences do not necessarily mean that one really is the ultimate creative principle, just that it's possible to experientially merge with it.

Because even if you are God, you're just a piece of God, one particular experience or vantage point of God. Or in biological terms: you're just one strand of DNA out of many.

First, if me and darkwolfunseen are on the same wavelength, I would like to clear your head on how this is most certainly not an ego-inflation trip. When I trip, I'm gone, it usually doesn't matter the dose, I reach the same conscious level - the images just get more intense. But what is a forever re-occuring event is that I realize, that I am god. Do not equate this with religious deities. I didn't "CREATE" you, I just experienced you, and shape my experience of you.

Whats further down the rabbit hole, is that once I realize in my trip that I am this omega of experiencers; it becomes apparent that I am the only conscious entity in my reality. This is the revelation that "I am God". I am the ultimate experiencer of my reality, and as such, no one else in my reality is conscious. However; in your perception, and your reality, I am unconscious: simply a stream of data across some psychological-conscious membrane. So it is that we cannot truly interact without, but rather must communicate through this membrane of realities.

At times I do not believe this, it is silly, yet at others, I completely understand it as fact, as law. That is my duality.

Could you elaborate on 'ultimate creative perspective'?

 

[ophiuchus]

Is the duality of trips an illusion, or are there two ways of viewing the world, reality?

i see duality in everything i look at. in fact, each thing is infinitely multifaceted as well.

this is something that's only been amplified to me with things like mushrooms and weed and lsd. but only amplified, not created, as in it was there all along. the substances were only acting like "catalysts" i guess you could say.

A healthy and balanced human being looks both outside and within, never confusing the two.

I believe quite differently, a healthy and balanced human being sees the inside & outside as one.

i would say "looks outside and in, never confusing the two, and also realizes the inside and out are one"
i dont see why they cant both apply. yes, the "interactive continuum" if you gotta label it.

Yes, it is a feedback mechanism, the external conditioning the internal, and the internal directing the external.

mmm, feedback loops...
i think it's pointless to attempt to determine which came first when neither can exist without one another. they are simultaneous; interdependent on one another. one requires the others assistance to move in any way, especially considering that they are subjective points of view

The entire outside world is inside your head, so I guess it would all be internal than wouldn't it. Yet your brain is within the outside. Sometimes I wish I wasn't human.

why let a notion like that bother you, the entire world is the crux of all paradoxes.

I got to agree with Avatar on this one. I use to take that whole "my mind has created all of this" but try this: Put your hand through a wall, just move the wall with your mind.
Scenarios:
A) You can't = you are not creating your environment with your mind
B) You can = you would be moving the object with your mind, not reversing it's manifestation.

you are trying to defeat a law that you already know to be true. if you created the wall, then you also created it's limitations that make it "a wall" by your definition. if you could put your hand through it, you wouldn't just call it a wall, that's for sure. you'd probably call it a "hole" or "ruined" :lol: . no, but seriously. your testing this hypothesis in the wrong method, the wrong aspect of the scenario. time cannot be defeated (if you remember my other statements, i explained time as a fundamental aspect of space and matter, they are interchangeable) of course you cannot put your hand through a wall. there are constants that have to be obeyed.
so what are you left with? you manipulate time, not create it. you do control it, but it was still given to you. that is what's implied here. i cannot directly manipulate those things like in a movie or some bullshit. you cannot make things appear and dissapear, and i think that's what alot of people misunderstand. you can, however, create the time for certain things to appear for you, via thinking about them, and wishing for them to come into your life, not like praying, in the sense of asking for bullshit, but by constantly having certain things, or goals on your mind, so when your out and an opportunity presents itself, you realize it, because that's where your mind was anyways, and so you capitalize on moving towards it. the same goes for avoiding things. you cant be like "oh man i hate this, but its bound to happen" because you've taken an apathetic stance and you've fucked yourself before it even happened. you have to actively be careful and mindful to avoid something. (eliminating the x factor :wink: . its a constant conscious effort.) this is YOU acting on the world, aka if you want it bad enough, fucking go get it, bring it to you.
the world doesn't have to be fake to be an illusion. the illusion means that it cannot be "understood" (as in known in an active sense). in purposefully releasing that attemptive grip of so desperately trying to understand, you've understood it perfectly. it becomes extremely evident once you do and therefore can be nothing less than effortless. that's where you have control. make things work for you, make them come to you. there are rules to playing the game so play it by them and reap

I don't know enough about computer programming to know how one would even begin to go about such a project, if possible, but I was thinking about this concept earlier today. I think it would be cool to create such a program for trip experiences. All of the data could be cross-referenced to search for commonalities from different independent sources. Sort of like attempting to build a psycedelic consensus reality.

we already have one, it's called erowid :lol: no but seriously, we (humans) are developing some pretty amazing algorithms for processing information that could possibly be applied here..

Because even if you are God, you're just a piece of God, one particular experience or vantage point of God. Or in biological terms: you're just one strand of DNA out of many.

yes, and so you are god. you become no less powerful than it because you are it. yes, a piece of it. you are it. time is infinite at the speed of light, even if you only had a piece of that light, it'd still be infinite.


:idea: on synchronism and causality.. ill save it for later, or maybe a pm sometime. whooole nother topic... im getting tired again, sorry for the mile post, i think i covered just about everything, and i edited for a good minute so piss off on my spelling errors :wink: im off to bed. duality, yeah! nothing but.