How "real" do you consider psychedelic experiences?

Do you think that they can teach us anything, besides for giving the obvious insight into the influence of drugs on consciousness? Can we take philosophical/spiritual insights gained during a psychedelic experience seriously (in both a symbolic and literal sense)?

Ex. If I feel a greater sense of "connectedness" when high, do you think I am perceiving a connectedness that exists in some real sense? Or is it just a drug playing with my emotions, thoughts, and perceptions?

Why do you say so?

Thanks again!!!

 

It is like dreaming. Dreaming is very real, but the things we dream about are in our minds. I would no more believe that aliens are real because you contacted one under the influence of drugs than I would believe aliens are real because you contacted one in your dreams. And yet dreams can push and pull our lives in huge ways, the same with trips, peoples' lives change after them. They have content and meaning, but they are internal metaphor, deeply personal and ineffable, and still liable to misunderstanding even by the one audience for which they exist.

 

I think it's "real" because I'm not seeing anything that isn't there. It's just that the information is just getting kind of scrambled as I'm processing it in my mind.

 

As real as I consider the everyday experience.. I try not to take them literally though, which can be tricky in the moment.

 

Kind of a science fiction vision I've had but perhaps in the future there can be nano tech which can bind to receptors in a similar way to psychedelics and for some brave explorers willing to go through that experience we may be able to see how real these experiences may be. The DMT trip in particular makes me think that there is perhaps some underlying dimension or expanse in our consciousness that is not accessible to us in normal consciousness.

As of now, psychedelic experiences can help some gain new perspectives, spiritual insights, personal growth, etc. so there can be information and lessons of real value that can be gained from psychedelics.

 

Psychedelics are very much popular in netherlands because dutch govt.has banned sale of mushrooms but psychedelics or so called truffles are still available in smartshops. I have read in a blog that Magic truffles are psychoactive because of its color changing, mind expanding and closed eye visualization effects.

 

If you want to really get technical about it, LSD gives you more real.
It allows more sensory information to reach the cortex and in a very true and real way you are experiencing "more" of reality.
Why music is better, color richer, etc, etc, because more information is being relayed to your cognitive process's

An important thing to bear in mind is that the content for the "trip" will come from within you, your memories, experiences, emotions, thoughts, relationships all provide the raw material for the journey.
When you fully grasp that, every psychedelic experience can yield a wealth of personal insight and learning.

It is whenever folks start thinking all that is coming from "out there" or from god or something, then it isn't quit as conducive to personal and interpersonal growth because there isn't the same import of ownership and responsibility for what was brought out during the experience.
Completely owning whatever may come during a psychedelic experience takes some courage and fortitude.

A long gone friend who was very practiced in yoga and martial arts passed on some wisdom his father told him and it applies to psychedelics.
"When meditating and you encounter a demon, make it your friend and understand it, because the demon is a part of you."

 

About as real as I consider everything else we experience to be.
Which I don't believe.is very real at all.

 

As anyone lives in/ grows in/ becomes besotted with the social conditions of their respective societies, layers and layers of that which

is accepted behavior of the particular societies becomes the "norm." Amazing to me is that when one has taken a strong psychedelic,

one can and often does, see the absurdity of much of the social conditioning that has begun almost immediately after birth. The result,IMO

is that a psychedelisized individual can, for a time, (maybe a minute, maybe for all time) see that "all is not as it seems."

The psychedelic-fueled 60s "revolution" turned out to be a logical extension of the beatnik era, whose feckless ways led to not much more

than some interesting literature.

If you have "demons" in your nomenclature, watch the fuck out---'cause they'll be showing up with certain substances.

 

To add: It was real enough for me. Alcohol problem combined with emotional BS probably insured that I would harm or be harmed seriously( or worse.) 1st hit=quit drinking for over 20 years and enabled me (forced me?), to begin some introspection that mattered.

(This may be childish---but I would like to see the Kochs, the Waltons and world leaders be dosed BIG TIME. be interesting to see how they felt about themselves and the world around them.

 

you know there is some speculation that JFK took LSD and that is in part why he began to take a different stance towards global issues and some believe it was a contributing factor leading to his assassination.

 

Interesting. I believe I recall that he was definitely going to end the Viet Nam war (which really began for the US in the 40s when we were helping France to hang on to their "colony." And he also was going to end the huge tax breaks that the oil industry were and ARE still
getting. Oil depletion "allowance" is what it was/is called. Piss off the wrong right wing folks and-----------adios Kennedys.

 

i think they are as real as any other experience. reality is external, experience is an internal projection constructed to represent an approximation of reality.

 

the most powerful and profound hallucinations I ever had come from Ethyl Chloride. /you can buy it in porn shops .. I probably abused a few liquid gallons of the stuff over the years.

Objects would come to life, ordinary things would disappear replaced with other things. my entire dinning room vanished and two winged cherubs stood there. everything i owned was changed 100 times , seeing all the differnt phones and ansering machines I had over time or could of had..

Hanging from my light in the kitchen was a mobile, it turned into some winged bat like creature and would return to its perch the mobile when the chemical wore off. Room would turn into this altar like place with furry creatures on the sides that seemed to welcome me as I entered the void.

Chairs would comes to life like Peewees playhouse and it was before I had ever seen the show. alien like beings would just appear out of nowhere rocking the chairs playing cards interacting with me, long slimy worms lay on the table going to the outside out the back door.

I was outdoors when transported to some African jungle where I appeared outside their huts and they looked as astonished to see me as I was to see them, a giant little man with a big head jumps off a cliff creating a sink hole in the ground that began to suck up everything around. "I wound up in the creek that time from running from the sinkhole..

An old man with his neck slit walks out the woods saying "many young people come down here to find themselves", hot air balloons floating around in my room, giant frogs explode on the floor throwing neon paint on the walls that said "happy birthday from stevie ray vaughan" ..
.
my friend opens the freezer when mountains of snow fall out ; I said "who is going to clean that up?" .. not long after friend lifts the carpet on the stairs and an avalanche of dust buries him ...

Pack of matches with camel logo on it comes to life.. the camel whistles and I look at him, he then runs off the pack off the table and vanished ..

while looking in the mirror my head vanished as I touch for it, my hands vanish and run around the table like the adams family thing..

a silver plater floats around the room stopping ever so much like a record being scratched.

rag turns into xmas angel that shed glitter like the xmas angel on the tree...

nothing like the warping vision field of lsd and shrooms..
all these seemed to be real.. Ive a 100 other more visions but they are just to hard to write about...

 

They merge the waking and dreaming worlds which enables you to learn more about how the mind works. Also, the senses heighten so you can experience reality on a deeper level.

 

Well, now we know whats wrong with you, huh?...lol kidding

I don't think your experiences with chlorothane are applicable to the OP.

Ethel chloride is not a psychedelic drug.

Like other chlorinated hydrocarbons, it is a central nervous system depressant.

People hallucinate all the time under stress of severe trauma. Like the ingestion of poisonous substances, for instance.

 

Is the world we experience in our everyday non psychedelic state of consciousness 'real'?

What do we mean by 'real'?

 

during thee early production of Ethyl chloride in the 1920 . factory workers reported hallucinations, psychotic behaviors, insanity.. I think some 20 people died to overdose/exposure then..

I believe neodude1212 posted in the past that he has a psychedelic experience from alcohol ..

How do you figure no applicable, ethyl chloride is a commonly used inhalant,, however its not considered very safe. There was one death in my city related to it. In South American during Carnival lots of people are said to use it there..

Would you say the same thing to Jim Morrison use of TCE / way way heavier than Ethyl Chloride. Pamela Des Barres recounts doing "Trimar" with Jim, and describes it as "like liquid PCP.. (attention kiddies do not try this at home) ..

A psychedelic experience is personal. Its not to be only associated with LSD, and Mushrooms.. any drug/ substance/chemical that effects the psyche could be a psychedelic .. but the experiences with those substance would be a personal account.

I was just a kid when my first exposure to EC was in a guitar cleaning spray.. I was like WOW and in my child's eggshell mind I associated it with music .. It certainly opened my minds eye, blew my imagination away, and makes me wonder what just exactly is reality. I wouldnt say it ruined the effects of drugs like LSD and Shrooms, but in a way made them more easy to deal with ..
One my EC experiences soda cans on my desk began to sing in harmony GLORIA .. That was classic LULZ.. And I dont care if I do get liver cancer.. NBOMES are killing a kid a week in search of a psychedelic experience. Just saying..

 

I don't really understand.
Anyone can give an example of something that can be experienced but is not real?
I think that only things that exist can be experienced.
We need to compare existence with reality.
Is it possible to exist without being real?
Experiences are subjective.
Reality is subjective. Is existence subjective too?

Im confused by the question but I understand what the op means.

I guess the best answer I can give is : very real, because to me a psychedelic visual is just as real as a non psychedelic visual.
I am aware that the little grey goblin in the corner of my eye is just a vision. But visions are real. It they would not be real then there would be no visions.

If we talk about a full on breakthrough and hyperspace then I guess... its something that will be never known till we perfect the procedure of changing consciousness with other beings, digitally coping minds into artificial bodies because till then we are unable to perceive the universe from a point of view that is not ours. even in heavy ego death stages when the mind is not aware of itself, the vision is still subjective.