what is love?

[tryptonaut]

I often feel universal love on good trips. When I reach that point I love everyone and everything. I love the dust on the floor as much the music playing, touching things feels beautiful, water tastes like pure life and just everything feels perfect.
Of course this is just brain chemicals going wild, but it's nevertheless nice to experience it once in a while, because just remembering makes you feel a lot better even weeks later.

 

[Crimzen]

love is a chemical reaction in your brain
that doesnt make it any less 'magical' or beautiful
LSD causes a chemical reaction in your brain, its still incredibly beautiful

 

[magickmumu]

I would like to turn it around.
being out of love is a chemical reaction in the brain.

 

[Crimzen]

but being out of love is the way you are normally
as you need to FIND love rather than just have it there always
unless you're that loving of a person which is great for you if thats how you are

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

everyone i talk to anymore(especially women) seem to be all about love...but what is it?

More and more, I'm beginning to realize it's just a chemical addiction, and when the bad outweighs the good, love is no more...

Love is not a chemical addiction. It's just the way of nature that male and female are attracted to eachother, and are most enlivened and happy when engaged in courtship and child rearing.

Of course modern humans try to keep the child rearing to a minimum, and engage the maximum amount of time in courtship. Because the responsibilities of child rearing are avoided, commitment is less of an issue. People "commit" when they feel like it, and enter a prolonged courtship, the duration of which depends on how they continue to get along, what they believe in, and whether they'll eventually decide to have children or not.

Falling in love for modern humans is an intellectual, aesthetic and physical process. There must be a more or less similar level of intelligence, similar tastes and sense of humor, and a basic physical compatibility. Of course it's much more than that. It's such a complex thing. And the benefits of a loving relationship are extremely diverse as well. It's not merely a matter of being hooked on oxytocin.

It's quite easy talking about universal love. It becomes much more difficult when you try to talk about falling in love with a particular person and the intimate relationship that develops from it.

 

[magickmumu]

For me personally I don't have a strict line between love in a relationship and universal love.
It's all love.

 

[grifter7]

I agree love is all chemicals but the magic for me comes from the fact that only certain people can produce the feeling for you everyone else is just sexual desire (well not everyone). So yes i believe in love

 

[magickmumu]

For me love is a feeling.
You know that loving feeling.
It comes and goes. And when it comes I go with it.
Right now, I am very much I love.

I love my girlfriend. We have been together for more then 8 years. And of course I am very intimate with here. I share my life with her.
But I also love other people, on another level.
Of course I am not in love with them, but I do love them.

It's all love.

 

[Crimzen]

i've been in love and i love people still
i love my friends and my family but to be honest i feel spite for most people i dont know, i have to try hard to hold reservations on my feelings towards people not in my circle
maybe its a primitive throwback, tribal socialism? lol

 

[magickmumu]

We all have these reservations to hold back our feeling towards people we don't know that well.
Some of us have this more then others.

But it's not like we do not show emotions to strangers.
A smile. Some friendly words.

A lot of times when I was a little bit down, a complete stranger came a long and said something that pulled me right out.

 

[st.bot.32]

i don't agree love is chemicals.

in order for the chemicals and hormones to even be released, there are a lot of conditions that already have to be met. human memory, human experience, subconscious desires, fantasies, personality attributes, all these things come into play..

the chemicals are merely an effect, not the cause, and are only one small part of the whole

 

[Crimzen]

maybe love is just instinct, some animals like penguins for example find a life mate and stay with them until they both die
humans may just be the same as that, instinct in the genes?
i guess the way we select who we love is we find someone we are physically attracted to (chemicals play a part) and who we are most compatible with
whatever it is that decides these factors is beyond me but i think this could be how it works

i love being in love, its indescribable, too bad its so hard to find

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

maybe love is just instinct, some animals like penguins for example find a life mate and stay with them until they both die

Humans are not like that. In contrast to penguins we delay procreation, and our lives are much more changeable. Human beings may decide to commit for a lifetime, but it doesn't seem to be genetic.

 

[poisoninthestain]

one thing i've come to learn the past couple years of my life about the nature of humans in general is that most of us still operate on a very animalistic level.

Our word doesn't mean shit. Most of are selfish to the core and are extremely fickle, especially women. I asked someone once if they thought, for the most part, if people change or stay the same. I believe that people are constantly in flux with their thoughts. What someone loves one day, the next day they hate.

Humans rarely stay with the same mate for life. We want change. We are never satisfied.

I have never experienced "universal love" as many have said. Neither through meditation or psychedelics. However, I have experienced profound love and heartbreak over several years with another person. So that's the only love I know.

The more I think about it, if there is such a thing as "love" it must certainly exist in some form...defining it is something entirely different.

 

[AllenB]

Love has so many definitions. For me love is the feeling that binds the relation between individuals. Love brings happiness in our life. Without love life can’t be meaningful.