DoseNation 35: Illusive Reality and Viewer Feedback

Jake. They are a tool. They are not supposed to be used all the time carelessly, or without some homework. I understand all that. My problem is that the show has been talking about the tools in a negative way. You're dislike to psychedelics comes off somewhat strong. I take them very infrequently and always take set and setting into consideration. Psychedelics have provided the most beautiful, ecstatic and wonderful experiences for me. Listening to this show I would never know they are capable of doing such things. Some people use hammers to bang nails and build a house, some a swing set, some bang others toe. Psychedelics are exactly what you make of them.

Armchair hypothesizing that James mayhave good background to provide some constructive criticism on... or not...

As someone who experiences a low grade tinnitus, I've bought about this phenomena in the past. I wonder if a mechanism might have been missed in the normal nerve damage etyology offered. I know you have taken an interest in sensory processing and neural noise. You may have heard about this perceptual phenomenon whereby a vague or pixilated image is made much more clear by the introduction of some visual "white noise" this effect is as shocking as the change blindness effect when first encountered... anyone interested can easily confirm it with appropriate search on interweb. So, I wonder if there isn't a noise aspect in sound processing that also enhances acuity. Definitely life tends to take a useful

evolved mechanism and find multiple applications for it... so on these grounds at least it is not ruled out. Another suggestive observations is that hearing damage often causes tinnitus. But what if its a compensatory response to hearing
loss and not just a side effect of nerve damagë. For this to be
likely, the response would have to be one utilized (perhaps its
modulated up and down according to ambient sound environment) in normal hearing. A mechanism that only kicks in w damage is a less likely adaptation... anyway. Its a testable question, but not one I'm likely to pursue experimentally. I wonder if there is anything known that would discount or support this idea???

While I'm discussing sensory noise: I've also long wondered about point like white light spots that swarm in my field of view when I pause to notice them by opening and relaxing my gaze on the sky. They seem to almost dimple the visual field where they appear. They move rapidly and in all directions and they take curving paths but seem to disappear after moving only a few degrees of visual arc. If conditions are just right the sky can possitively swarm with these points of light. Never had anyone confirm nor explain this experience... and I've asked... maybe I just have a noisy noggin;)

I do all this on phone and can't edit or look back. Sometimes I f-up as a result. Hope I've made sense
Have a great day now!

Ill drop in with a quickie comment.
Good to hear from you two. Made me reflect on they real reason I ever entered the stream of an alternative culture (more like dipped toe in maybe). It was all about restoring a contact. Inchoate, stumbling all along the way, but it was the wish or felt need to bring together two aspects of my experience. These are the mental/personality faculty (this gets a lot guff from the groovy side of society, but the mind is also our vehicle for creativity, humor, and the only and natural way to manage ourselves in life) and the bodily, the life of sensation and feeling that is other obviously real side of our lives.

That contact is the thing we all look for, but we (I) mostly do like Mullah Nassrudin and look for the lost key under the streetlight where we can see clearly instead of in the house where we lost it. And we forget entirely where we left it...

The alt society is the effort to remember that...

Trips are just trips unless they point you toward home!
Love to you all!

Now I'm gonna go do something!

Thanks for the response. I've always felt like religion has something to teach everyone, including atheists. I want to pick up a copy of the book on monasticism you mentioned. I get frustrated with the militant atheists because I've had plenty of mystical/spiritial experiences that helped me feel more connected and guys like Dawkins dismiss these experiences outright. Seems a little shortsighted to me.

Hey guys, glad everyone enjoyed the podcast this week, always love and appreciate the comments, intellectually stimulating. I'm just going to address a few things but not everything in the comments (have to save something for a youtube video or podcast haha), and I'll let James address what you all have written to him.

Thesunwasnoman: Thanks for the love, glad you've been listening, hope you continue to do so, we always appreciate the support. We're not really crapping on psychedelics, I just offer a different opinion. I see them as a tool, if you see that as downplaying them I apologize, but that's not what I'm trying to do is all, just attempting to illustrate a point.

Chris: Glad you enjoyed the show. I am not an atheist, and to get a full grasp on my metaphysical beliefs would take quite a bit of explanation, to much to explain here, but feel free to contact me via email or if enough are interested I could make a video on it. In my personal life I practice Western Christianity, with a pantheistic view, taking particular interest and practice in the monastic tradition (Benedictine, Coptic, Cistercian, Carthusian, etc.) but really respect and believe there is truth in many mystical traditions. My opinion is that one must be chosen and practiced in order to achieve something. I can pull all sorts of information and such from different mystic traditions and things like that and try to apply them to your life, it tends to end up a little messy and off center. That's my main area of study is Western and near eastern mysticism, mainly Christianity, early mystery cults, gnosticism, etc. It's just where my roots are, and where I feel compelled to research and practice, and of course as everyone has experiences as do I, but it would take to long to go into those.

Eugene: I'm assuming you've read the Will to Believe by William James? Very interesting book, can't disagree with what you've said, since I've said it on the podcast myself, the only thing we KNOW is that we exist in the present moment as a consciousness system. Interesting about your meditative retreats, I'd be interested in hearing more about them. I've never gone to far eastern methods, mainly near eastern (Coptic, Greek Orthodox, etc.) and Western (Benedictine, Cistercian, etc.) but I'd be interested in exploring that area at least academically if not practically.

Hope everyone is well, thanks for commenting and listening. If there's something you want to hear, or you have a suggestion or anything like that, feel free to contact us through the contact form on the website, both James and I get it. Thanks again everyone, hear from you soon!

Great show guys; thanks for engaging in these fun discussions. Here are my comments to three points brought up in your dialogue:
1) What is Real? I approach this topic with a simple question. In this very moment, what is the only thing that I know for certain, without any inch of doubt. What is real beyond any thought, argument, concept, or belief? What I come up with when I ask myself this question is that the only thing I know is real for certain in this moment is that I AM, I exist in this moment in time. That is it. Everything else is a deduction, a thought process, a belief. Even material reality has been demonstrated by neuroscience to be a relative reconstruction of individual brains. As every brain and nervous system is constructed slightly differently, every individuals 'reality' is slightly different. And then if you take a completely different nervous system, say that of a bat or a snake, we can deduce that their 'reality' looks completely different than that of a humans. Each brain reconstructs what is 'out there' within the limited parameters of its structure. And James mentioned, we perceive the slightest sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, 1% actually, the rest is totally invisible to us (our instruments merely translate and reduce the information into numbers so that our brains can conceptualize it). This relativity of reality is at the hardware level, but then you have the relativity at the software level; a Marxist view of the world is different than a Catholic view, is different than a physicists view, is different from a Republicans view, etc...What is real? Being itself is the only indisputable primary reality; everything else is an afterthought, a reconstruction, and therefore relative. And our 'material reality' turns out to be 99.99% empty space, a vast vacuum with probabilities that manifest and actualize as solid only as they interact with the appropriate hardware--our brain.
2) In response to Jake, I agree that the monastic setting is an ideal place to reduce external stimuli in order to explore the deeper dimension of Being. At least twice a year I do a ten day silent vipassana meditation retreat. Total silence for ten days with nothing more then meditation will definitely calm the surface mind-chatter, and allow one to explore that deep dimensions of pure Being, pure Consciousness that I argued in the first part as the only REALITY that requires no proof, no validation, and dare I say no science or philosophy; Pure experience.
3) I was slightly confused by Jame's comment that there is "no fixing." As a programmer James, people come to you with something that does not work, and you help them fix it. You brake an arm, and the doctor fixes it. As a psychotherapist, people come to me with psych issues (they are suicidal, so depressed they cant get out of bed, so anxious they don't leave their house, etc) with their corresponding neural programs. My work is not to " fix" them, but to help them rewire their brain, reprogram their mind so that they can lead healthy, productive, happy lives as defined by THEM. Healing is not a destination, its a journey, akin to growth, maturation, development, and evolution. And finally, for me psychedelics showed me the way to freedom and expanded consciousness; then I had to walk the path (for me that meant meditation, yoga, etc.) Anyways, sorry for the long post...just fun to engage other minds. Peace

Great show guys. Really appreciate the honest talk on psychedelics. I used to think tripping all the time was a smart idea, but without proper integration, things start to take a toll on the body and mind. Responsibility is key when working with any tool. Proper dose for what you want out of the experience is real important

Jake, I like how you respect the mystical traditions. Do you consider yourself an atheist? I use the word atheist in its most basic sense as non belief in metaphysical beings. Possibly a pantheist?

Been listening since day 1. Love you guys. Seems like the show is crapping on psychedelics though more and more.