Do drugs produce insight? Enlightenment?
Do drugs, or can drugs, engender a frame of mind which is conducive to insight, or even enlightenment?
I feel they can.
And yet, I am unable to point to any great insight I was able to achieve by drugs. When I bother to write them down (it often feels beside the point to record them, as they occur), they appear either confused or banal.
And yet, to an uncomprehending mind, mustn't insight appear either incomprehensible or jejune? What is the alternative?
Wouldn't it be an error to ascribe privileged status to the sober state of mind? Aren't both the sober and high states, both simply states, and so coequal? And so why should I privilege my sober evaluation of my high thoughts?
I feel they can.
And yet, I am unable to point to any great insight I was able to achieve by drugs. When I bother to write them down (it often feels beside the point to record them, as they occur), they appear either confused or banal.
And yet, to an uncomprehending mind, mustn't insight appear either incomprehensible or jejune? What is the alternative?
Wouldn't it be an error to ascribe privileged status to the sober state of mind? Aren't both the sober and high states, both simply states, and so coequal? And so why should I privilege my sober evaluation of my high thoughts?
Comments (90)
It's a very interesting question. I agree that they can (but it doesn't mean they will) produce insight, but it's not the type of insight that can be expressed rationally. Granted, if one does not wish to pass off as a mystic, then the safest thing to say is that they can show you how powerful the mind is, in a manner which is not as common otherwise.
I've tried to write down these feelings of elation, the result was the same as you described. But as that old joke goes, based on real life events, a person once had an insight while on laughing gas. When they sobered up and saw what they wrote, it was gibberish.
Does this mean that the insight did not occur? I don't think so. It's just very hard to convey these things to other people with words. This is why people write novels about love or hate or anything else.
The issue is that the best way to express ones ideas to another person, is to do so with reasons. And reasons, much more often than not, require sobriety (or at least non-extreme intoxication.)
The alternative is to write a novel, as I said. But few can be bothered to do that.
[b]When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.
~Bob Marley[/b]
Quoting 180 Proof
According to some study the Jewish people have a disproportionate number of Nobel laureates. Can this be pinned down to genetics i.e. do Jews have a modified brain chemistry that gives 'em a high even when drinking plain water, forget about what they experience with psychotropics ? :snicker:
I'm going to convert to Judaism now! Of all the prophets and religion founders, he is the safest bet. Burning bush! :lol: Vide entheogens.
- Recreational drugs, including gin and tonic, may produce a frame of wind which is "conducive to insight" but so might other things.
- Religious rituals that are part of your personal culture (as opposed to grabbing any old ritual).
- Great art (drama, film, music...) might lead one to new and significant insights.
- Falling in love (deeply -- more that a passing infatuation. Nothing wrong with passing infatuations, but... they pass too soon.
- Great sex? Probably. At the very least, insight into what makes great sex great.
- Intense positive interaction with other people.
- Thinking, for sure. Reading and writing help one think.
Unfortunately, all the things that have produced insights have also produced heaps of straw.
The world's allowable number of deep insights is fixed. So, if you have never had so much as a feeble lightbulb moment, rejoice and be exceeding glad. Your doltish brain has granted a brighter bulb the opportunity to have one or several insights, for the good of mankind.
Agent Smith makes a note of that! Danke kind person.
Grandiose delusions, right?
Lewis's trilemma: Liar, Lunatic or Lord.
I think what drugs do (among with other things of course), is "breaking" or at least loosing the social chains in the mind of humans.
Like making mind more free,as to think in a total different way and run into higher spiritual level.
So yes, to some people that could bring huge insight and enlightenment. It is possible. But that doesn't work for everyone of course and even to the ones that works, that doesn't mean it happens to them every time they do drugs.
But you have to pay a cost for everything in this life. So drugs come with a package that don't offer only that kind of ecstatic moments but negative effects in general other fields of someone's life.
So don't do drugs. Or well wtf do, if that really works for you. Hahaha.
The human body is used to the sober state, so naturally it functions best in that state. When you're high, it's a drastic change into an environment you're not adapted to, and the chances that you will thrive in that new environment are very low. You grew up sober, your brain developed in that state, produces certain neurotransmitters in certain situations, and drugs disrupt it "randomly", it's like randomly miswiring your neurons. The chances that something productive comes out of it are extremely low... And it's tricky because drugs release certain neurotransmitters that can make you feel like you've made the greatest discovery of the human race...
Also, given the amount of people who do drugs, if it had a positive effect on the thinking process, we'd probably have a lot of great inventions/discoveries from high people, which is not the case.
The insights I've heard about (from hallucinogens) are either metaphysical/spiritual (which cannot be proven anyway so we can't judge the accuracy) or people who suddenly find motivation in their life, maybe because it unblocked an emotional blockage or something like that, but then it's not really an insight.
Some of the greatest inventions were discovered by accident. Ever used a microwave? Messiah or not one of these "mentally ill" feeds you and keeps you alive through his works to this day. While I wouldn't call that any great or even notable accomplishment, that's pretty textbook as far as definitions go.
https://maps.org/2004/08/08/nobel-prize-genius-crick-was-high-on-lsd-when-he-discovered-dna/
Freud was said to be a regular cocaine user.
That's a rumour that appeared after his death... Even if it's true, we would have discovered the structure of DNA at that time anyway because they already had X-Ray images of DNA, that could be done thanks to Wilkins who also got the nobel prize for it... So really no need for an extraordinary imagination or anything crazy.
Quoting Jackson
Okay, well that explains a lot :lol:
In the 1880s some thought it a miracle drug -- something that would give one an extra big bounce in one's step. It was legal to use. Wasn't he addicted to an opioid as well? He had cancer of the jaw for which he had 30 surgeries, suffered from excruciating pain, and from which he died. He smoked a lot of cigars. Would that addicts could all be as productive as Freud!
Or Churchill.
The guys in MAD MEN and everyone on Apple TV's FOR ALL MANKIND drink a lot--beer, of course, but many shots of bourbon, whisky, vodka, etc. They drink a lot without falling off the bar stool. The astronauts also smoked a lot -- how they maintained fitness is beyond me.
:lol: Nice reversal! :cool:
My experience has been the same; LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, Cannabis. MDMA; all have yielded insight.
This may be of interest to those who wish to explore further: http://www.philosopher.eu/psychoactive-philosophy/
Liar.
Philosophical insights are a fine thing, but did the drugs help you get laid as often as and by whomever you wanted? If not, perhaps they provided a satisfactory substitute?
and the reason I confidently say this is because you can reach the same knowledge and the same enlightenment without any narcotics
and the only way to truly "enlighten" (which I hate using that term but oh well I'll use it for now)
Is to do the work and you are the only one that can do it and it has to be done.
An example being if somebody walks by your front yard and sees a hand built Tower that's like 100 ft tall in your front yard and it just appeared there overnight and they say wow where did that come from and you say oh I built it myself
That doesn't speak for if you telling the truth or not, and let's say that you actually believe that you built in in just 1 night and you truly believe that you did
But in reality you couldn't have and you didn't , well this will become obvious as you won't know anything about 100 ft tall towers having just red a brochure you might be able to pass as pretending to be a person that knows how to build towers because to a person that doesn't know how to build towers they won't be able to tell the difference because your fancy brochure answered all their questions
however to a tower builder you won't know nearly as much and they know things about towers that brochures don't talk about they know things about towers but you don't know about unless you've built towers yourself and so unfortunately 99% of people don't build towers
and a lot of people are getting interested in this whole enlightenment thing and they'll ask questions to be supposed overnight Tower builders and they'll get fancy answers that impress them so they all assume that these overnight Tower builders are authentic but to real Tower builders they know it's a sham
the downside is though is that a real Tower builder can't convey to these regular non-tower building people what is necessary in order to spot authenticity from fake because unfortunately the only way to know is to become a tower builder by building your own tower hence why real Tower builders don't have pamphlets
No. I never had that experience.
ok
Perhaps occasionally they did help me get laid, but no they wouldn't satisfy the criteria you laid down there. On the other hand, they do provide a more than satisfactory substitute when the conditions are right (and please don't take the use of 'hand' to be suggesting anything).
:lol: I envy your confidence despite the fact that you come off as a hard-to-fool skeptic. How do you do it? Tell us your secret (PM me some hints and tips). :up:
Do you know the mysterious phenomenon known as Jerusalem Syndrome?
As per Wikipedia, some (susceptible) folks develop the Messiah complex aftet/during a visit to the holy city. Please visit Wikipedia for details.
There's something going on in that region of the world - Egypt to Mecca - and my hunch is there's an as of yet undiscovered "force" that affects the (koff koff) chosen ones and induces religious experiences in 'em. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are the 3 well-documented cases of Jerusalem Syndrome. We need to send a team of scientists and have them do a thorough study of the Levant and surrounding areas for this unknown factor/force. :grin:
We'll finally be able to answer Christopher Hitchens' query: Why would God choose a bunch of illiterate, iron age folks in a barren desert to reveal himself to?
Maybe it's just friggin too hot to think straight! :lol: Heat-induced delusions! Hyperthermia lunacy.
They do that to many indeed. As also the Messiah syndrome that you mentioned at another post.
I have noticed myself many times to think things when I m high and considered them wonderful but I also know that I should rethink them when I m totally sober. Well I have to tell you most of them are foolish cliche things. But well though there are a few that I considered them really interesting even afterwards. They might aren't either but wtf you got what I mean. Hahaha
So indeed it is a thick line between inspiration and bullshit.
Anyway the thing is that the majority gets influenced by drugs with the way you describe. But as in every similar case, at the end everything is relative. There were and are actually people that sometimes get high inspirations by the function of their mind, when they are onto drugs.
We can't deny that. There are numerous examples of artists or even scientists at the past. Even Silicon Valley employees openly admitted using micro amounts of LSD. But yes they aren't many and for sure not the majority.
Quoting MAYAEL
For sure you can. No doubt about that. Just to a few a mental boost from using drugs works great sometimes.But taking drugs as to reach enlightenment isn't a requirement at all. That is sure thing.
Quoting MAYAEL
Oh man no offense here I hope, but damn that tower example sounded like you were hallucinating. It had so much "tower things" inside that fucked my brain. Hahaha. But I got your point.
Then why bother building a stupid Tower? :lol:
They said people will take a 20$ ride to all the popular spots then on the way back say they just had some revelation from God that they are God and then the next day you will see them out by one of the tourist spots trying to evangelize everybody.
I chalk it up to the sweet potato phenomenon. I don't know if that's actually what it's called or not in fact I think it's actually called morphogenesis and basically in a nutshell people do a pattern in an action throughout history and time
and what that seems to do is create a kind of groove in this kind of shared psychological realm where other humans can then pick that same habit up faster and easier without having ever met the people before them that had done the action or thing and this is observable in all types of mammals from what I've been told so that's my blaming donkey if you're looking for something to whip
Why would I want to do that exactly?
As to have the illusion that you are a king. Though we have to admit, if you are after that illusion it's easier, quicker and much cheaper to do drugs! Hahaha
Yes. But the insights tend to be a proverb of some kind — cliched; enlightenment is possible in that drugs can allow you to see things slightly (or greatly) askew, but this is temporary.
Honestly, marijuana, MDMA and mushrooms have provided me with moments of clarity and realization, even of wisdom. But so has meditation, being in love, fasting, and walking in the woods.
What matters, in the end, is what you do— not just on special occasions, but over the long run in your daily life. If you can only be nice to people or have fun when taking some kind of substance, for example, then I would find that problematic. If you take a substance in moderation and it provides a needed reminder of what matters in life, great. We can’t always achieve that “naturally.”
You go on a five paragraph diatribe about Towers and now you can’t say anything about the value, or curse, of them? WTF?!
You think it's a habit? I'm more inclined to believe it's copycat. Oh well, different strokes for different folks, oui monsieur/mademoiselle?
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
It's not as simple as taking any old drug in any old way. Doing it like that is hit or miss, and usually more miss. When i was younger i was a walking chemistry experiment. I've done almost every drug at one point or another. It wasn't about fun and parties. I was curious and interested in everything including my own mind, and i figured that i can understand my mind better if i experiment with it by disturbing it. It's been said that we swim in the mind like fish swim in the water, we don't have an external reference to compare it to. A fish that's never been out of the water would conceivably not even be aware of water, but if you disturb it by removing it from it's watery environment it quickly knows there is something about water. That fish just got wiser. In the same way by disturbing my own mind temporarily with a drug i can begin to compare the differences with and without the drug.
I learned early on that to get the most out of my drug experience in the context of my goal i had to pay close attention to my set, and setting, and dosage (Timothy Leary). Shamans and medicine men since early on had formulated procedures and rituals that would prepare them for the "sacrament". What i chose to do was combine the drug with meditation. The point of meditation (emptiness meditation) was to settle the mind in order to observe deeply it's natural state. Isolated and hermetically sealed away from external influences. Once i was able to achieve a reasonable baseline state (not easy), i began to test different drugs. I would then sit calmly and observe what it did to me. I wouldn't try to understand it while in it, i would wait to think about it after the drug wore off.
To do this i practiced contemplation (not meditation). I found that if i just had the intention to understand, and i didn't stress out about it, then my mind while sober would begin to make suggestions for what i wanted to know. It wasn't always immediate, many times it would take days, weeks, and even years. Having the experience was enough to get my unconscious mind working, as long as i had sincere interest. Most of the insight or "enlightenment" that i received from doing this was not so much about physics or history, or something external like that, it was a personal self-knowledge of how i work internally. It wasn't usually something i could really right down, or prove to another person. It wasn't that type of knowledge. It was knowledge tailored to me alone, but the effect it had on my i thinking made me a better person eventually. It helped me not just understand myself better but other people too. Because i had a window into my fundamental internal processes, i began to see intimations of the same processes outside myself. In other people, society, history, nature.. in the sober state i began to feel ultra connected to everything. I began to recognize and even feel myself in other people, animals, bugs, the Earth, the universe.. So now i know that the I in me is the same I in you who are reading this, and that's just one of the few things i actually can say about this topic. Anything else would probably sound even more ridiculous, especially to the uninitiated.
“Know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and God.” - Temple of Apollo at Delphi
:up:
:brow:
It's as if there is a force that subconsciously connects all mammals and allows us to share a kind of "intuition" for lack of a better word.
You get half a vote from me for your thesis.
Oh, I get it now, if you had anything honest to say your little tower would fall like a card house.
Depends on what one believes "enlightenment" is.
In that case, it makes no difference whether one is enlightened or not; in which case, why bother.
Hey brat a little tip, try showing some kind of maturity and mutual respect that way you can get the other person to actually have a conversation with you so that you might actually learn something for a change, the keyboard has been saving the smart mouth a brats for almost 30yrs now so it's to be expected, is all I ask is that you try to talk to others over the internet the same way your mother makes you talk to people in real life , if you keep talking like a little shithead you will end up creating a bad habit and might accidently smart off in real life and get a spanking for it. Just trying to help you but take it or leave it IDGF
Killing two birds with one stone, eh? Good job! I don't know about myself but I'm certain praxis doesn't deserve such vitriol!
Good day monsieur/mademoiselle.
You get points for exploring uncharted territory. :smile:
:ok:
Very balanced analysis! Gold star for you!
I suppose this means that you’re not going to tell me about your little tower now. :sad:
:snicker: Absit iniuria MAYAEL.
:snicker: Absit iniuria MAYAEL
Aye, it takes one to know one! The man who's lived 20 years in the Big Apple can tell, at a glance, the difference between a New Yorker and a tourist!
The insights need not be other dimensions, shamanic journeys, the end of subject object split or things that are even harder to categorize let a lone describe.
Even if drugs were producing insight, would someone mess up with his head and health to obtains such questionable insight?
Forget about enlightenment. However one defines it, it has always to do with a clear mind and marked awareness. Impossible to have these under drugs!
Yet is happens.
Sure insights come in all shapes an sizes. But I'm guessing the OP had in mind the deeper kind of insights, which, for me at least, are difficult to verbalize merely because many experiences cannot be put into words in a way that renders them intelligible.
But aside that, yes, other kinds of sensations and perspectives can be described rationally.
Do you, per se, perform better mentally on E?
Yes you do, but you have a weaknesses that makes it easy and equally fair for competitors to retaliate.
I have mixed feelings about drug intoxication for creativity and enlightenment. I know that Buddhism and other systems advised against it. When I was a teenager I was so strongly against drugs and I certainly didn't drink at age 18, especially as I probably looked about 12. However, when the harsh lessons of life crashed in, I began experimenting with substances as part of the experimental quest. I have not stopped entirely.
It may be that drugs and intoxicants bring so much temptations and illusions that is hard to not get swept away into illusion and delusion. It may be that drugs bring a certain amount of 'enlightenment', but this can go in so many potential directions, including falling apart and having to put oneself together again. Addictions and many of the potential downfalls may be a precarious aspect of this, the left and the right side of evolution. Some may be rise to the heights whereas others may get destroyed in the process of travelling to shamanic upperworlds and underworlds. Perhaps, an essential factor is being aware of risks in chemical adventures.
There are lots of messed up people who say they never use and drug or alcohol. Like Mr Trump.
However, the other side to this is the way in which so many people take medication to drug out their mental states as well. I am not against this because I have worked in psychiatric hospital and have taken antidepressants myself. So much may come down to ideas of what is considered normal or 'messed up'. I remember meeting someone who said that a person without their medications is like seeing someone without their makeup on . An interesting analogy perhaps, in thinking about mental states induced artificially.
How much of biochemistry is about altered states? I never drank coffee until I took caffeine tablets to help me write essays. My biggest addiction is caffeine and I have it everyday as my basic mood stabilizer in the morning. Drugs may be seen as the taboo areas, whereas so many chemicals, ranging from caffeine, sugar and alcohol may be seen as the norm whereas hallucinogenics life cannabis may be viewed through the lens of criticism towards bohemian subversity.
Everything in moderation. As true today as when Aristotle said it.
Big discussion.
What do you mean by "insight"? "enlightenment"?
I don't agree with the basic nonsense of your post, but Jews do have a disproportionately low rate of alcoholism.
https://www.verywellmind.com/rare-gene-discourages-alcoholism-among-jews-63179#:~:text=An%20estimated%2020%20percent%20of,first%20step%20in%20alcohol%20metabolism.
I've read other studies that have found a correlation between when a group was first exposed to alcohol and the rate of alcoholism in the group. Apparently evolution eventually reduces alcoholism.
Jews have been drinking wine for thousands of years, native Americans much shorter, for example, with the latter group devastated by alcoholism.
Quoting 180 Proof
[quote=Sherlock Holmes]When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth.[/quote] :joke:
But with the Native Americans you also had cultures/tribes ravaged by diseases from Europe, to a degree that would have interfered with all aspects of life and probably took out elders more than other age groups with all the damage that did. So, we have devastated communities, children lacking parenting to various degrees, skill loss, wisdom loss. Then add in that many had the lands which were integral to their identities taken away and then more direct devastation connected to wars and battles with the newcomers, then finally their exclusion/inclusion in a society that looks down on them and also tried to tear them away from their languages and culture.
People are much more likely to turn to drugs and turn to them in damaging ways when they are traumatized, unparented or less well parented, marginalized and so on.
It would be interesting to see if other cultures that came late to alcohol might also have undergone similar processes leaving the explanation less clear.
My take, FWIW: insight is the delta between understanding an idea in the abstract, and fully, viscerally getting it. I understand what you wrote about conceiving your past/present/future selves conceptually, but I don't really get it, as I lack that insight. Recently I imagined a band of hunter-gatherers foraging in the wilderness, and realized that they really were just one group of animals among all the others, and I grasped the unity of human and animal in a way I hadn't before, even though conceptually the idea is simple and commonplace. That, to me is insight, and at least in that sense, drugs may definitely facilitate them. Such things are also quite hard to articulate without them being reduced to bloodless concepts.
Enlightenment is harder, since I have not experienced it, at least durably, though possibly I have caught glimpses. I imagine it to be a revolutionary reframing of one's relations to oneself, to others, to the world, in a way that is more profound or at least less delusory. I imagine there are levels and many species of enlightenment.
But anyway, I see no reason people shouldn't answer in terms of their own concepts.
"Drugs" provide nonordinary experiences. To the degree ordinary experiencing is called-into-question by (memories of) nonordinary experiences, this is what I understand by "insight". So "drug-use" can be a catalyst for (not a direct cause of) "insight". When the distinction between ordinary and nonordinary experience is transparent and "drugs" are no long needed, that moment – perception – is "enlightened" (e.g. un-self-centered ~I. Murdoch; infinition ~E Levinas; blessedness ~B. Spinoza).
Interesting take. Though this doesn't sound like insight in general, but rather the genesis of insights derived from drug experiences.
In my experience insight occurs while high due to the increased mental flexibility/fungability and due to the very high stimulation and inspiration caused by totally novel experience.
Selfish genes ensure that without strong compensatory mechanisms, an adequate culture, and accountability, most organizations / groups / communities waste 80%+ of resources in zero sum infighting.
An MDMA-world will not only be vastly happier, but also, unfathomably more productive and coordinated.
I wonder whether this happens because drugs skew our judgement and perception, making us unable to tell when we are confused and unable to express ourselves other than in banalities. If you've ever met anyone who's stoned when you are not then that description is probably familiar. Drugs can be great fun but as you say they may yield a rather thin crop of insight. Aldous Huxley and Bob Marley got a lot of insight from drugs. But I think this shows that highly intelligent and talented people can draw inspiration from pretty much anything and are not as greatly impaired by chemical assault as the rest of us.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-meditating-mind/202207/psychedelics-give-glimpse-enlightenment?eml
Imagine this comment coinciding with me misreading "drugs" as "dogs"? :chin:
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