What are psychedelics existentially ?

[Tetcher]

In the materialist paradigm psychedelics are just drugs that make fancy things to the brain which then generates fancy experiences.

But what are they existentially, they make us able to experience our existential self. So right now I am trapped in my patterns, I pop up a pill which is also a pattern but that makes my patterns starts behaving in such a way that at some point I get to experience something existential.

Anyone has a framework on how that works ?

 

[wisdom-seeking man]

Study the different spiritual traditions that used them (like shamanism) and see their views on psychedelics.

[Elysian]

In my experience, taking psychedelics is you giving something beyond ego, permission to teach you a lesson in whatever way it sees fit.

That could be reliving a traumatic memory, noticing your hypocrisy, learning about higher aspects of reality, or that you shouldn't use psychedelics again to attempt to achieve spiritual growth.

That could all play out as a bonding moment with friends, an extremely harsh tough love approach that most might consider a 'bad trip', or that could end up with you in the hospital falling off the edge of psychosis. That's why I think there is so much diversity in trip experiences, you're getting a hand tailored smack on the butt by something far more Intelligent than ego.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Elysian
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[Arthur]

I think it comes down to the "matter vs perception" or "phenomena vs noumena" problem.

Everything we know in our existence comes from a first-person experience. If we open up the brain and start digging we won't thoughts or consciousness existing as entities inside the brain. So there is this huge barrier between the phenomena (appearance) and the noumena (the thing in itself). You can argue that the noumena doest even exist since it's an idea appearing in our phenomena, but that's not the question.

Regardless, there appears to be a link between the physical brain and our experience of life. Psychedelic experiences, 'induced chemically' so to speak, are not any different from our everyday experiences. For example, when you feel hungry - the physical reflection of that is an increase in the hormone Leptin. When you feel happy - it is neurotransmitters Serotonin and Dopamine. When a woman gives birth or a person dies, their pineal gland produces a large amount of DMT to kill the Ego and help to cope with the experience. 

I'm basically saying that every experience/feeling/motive has a 'physical' body reflection to it. Even Enlightenment can be seen as re-wiring for the brain. And who knows, maybe Yogies who experience states of no-self (Samadhi) actually found a way to make their bodies produce more 5-MeO.

[ajasatya]

@Tetcher you're looking for a fundamental meaning for psychedelics.

the bad news is that they do not have a fundamental meaning. the good news is that nothing has a fundamental meaning.

meaning is a mental construction. be free forever.

[Tetcher]

What I mean here is that I would see them as an energy pattern that alter the energy pattern formed by the karmic structure of our accumulations.

What I struggle to understand is the mechanics of how bondaging patterns can arrange themselves in such a way that truth arises.

[Forestluv]

3 hours ago, Tetcher said:

What I struggle to understand is the mechanics of how bondaging patterns can arrange themselves in such a way that truth arises.

At a mechanistic level, you may want to research the DMN. Spiritual activities such as meditation, yoga, psychedelics reduce self-centered DMN connectivity.

[Mu_]

19 hours ago, Tetcher said:

In the materialist paradigm psychedelics are just drugs that make fancy things to the brain which then generates fancy experiences.

But what are they existentially, they make us able to experience our existential self. So right now I am trapped in my patterns, I pop up a pill which is also a pattern but that makes my patterns starts behaving in such a way that at some point I get to experience something existential.

Anyone has a framework on how that works ?

 

You think you, the patterns, the pill pattern and the existential are different things.  They are all one and the same.

[Pav]

I've been using psychedelics for many years now so I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable and experienced with these compounds, but I cannot confidentially an exact answer to you question. It seems that when you take a psychedelic anything could happen, literally anything. You could have a fun time and party with your friends, you get in touch with your unconscious and learn the source of you problems/neuroses, you could embody you higher self and learn what your true values are and how to authentically live your life and self-actualise, you could tap into some aspect of the divine such as unconditional love, gratitude, beauty, or infinite intelligence, you could gain access to another dimension completely unlike ours, inhabited with various entities, or you could have your ego (you) annihilated by the unstoppable light of God and realise your True Self before being reborn on earth.

[Leo Gura]

19 hours ago, Tetcher said:

Anyone has a framework on how that works ?

There is a much more fundamental problem here: how does anything work?

Like seriously.

Like what is your explanation for why you don't fall through the floor of your room?

Think about it.

What is an explanatory framework at all? And how much does it really explain?

Nonduality reveals that all the workings of the universe are spontaneously self-manifesting beyond explanation. Or, in other words: the universe is fundamentally, irreducibly mystical, or mysterious.

At rock bottom everything is consciousness and consciousness interacts with the only thing there is: it self!