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That is interesting. So it is a bit like reducing your attention, and expanding awareness? What you described sounds very similar to the effects of mindfulness

That is interesting. So it is a bit like reducing your attention, and expanding awareness? What you described sounds very similar to the effects of mindfulness meditation. The idea in a sense is to increase awareness - that is, sensing the world as is, without the filters or influence of mental objects. The theory is that meditation can then help you free yourself of past negative conditioning that is no longer relevant and to be more present. It would be interesting to see more studies on both, but I understand that many things to do with the mind and subjective experiences are difficult to measure and therefore to study.

vmception 6y ago
there is a suspected overlap that both communities talk about check it out
jack_riminton 6y ago
Yes there are definitely parallels At a cellular level, it temporarily vastly increases the connections between the synapses. A lot of what your brain does is travel along well worn synaptic pathways, like running on autopilot. This is when you feel like you're in a rut, it's because your brain for efficiency reasons is just doing what it always does. The temporary frenzy of increased synaptic connections allows people to break out of those ruts
anonporridge 6y ago
Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than just a party drug, which I had little interest in. In it, he talks about how his early experiences with psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was something real worth pursuing in meditation and mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of the book is about using meditation as a tool for spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural explanations. The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics effectively force any mind into an objectively different state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people take mindfulness practice seriously.

vmception 6y ago

there is a suspected overlap that both communities talk about check it out

jack_riminton 6y ago

Yes there are definitely parallels At a cellular level, it temporarily vastly increases the connections between the synapses. A lot of what your brain does is travel along well worn synaptic pathways, like running on autopilot. This is when you feel like you're in a rut, it's because your brain for efficiency reasons is just doing what it always does. The temporary frenzy of increased synaptic connections allows people to break out of those ruts

anonporridge 6y ago

Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than just a party drug, which I had little interest in. In it, he talks about how his early experiences with psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was something real worth pursuing in meditation and mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of the book is about using meditation as a tool for spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural explanations. The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics effectively force any mind into an objectively different state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people take mindfulness practice seriously.