I call Shenanigans. Sure, if this is true then it means that I'm wrong, but this story seems pretty anecdotal. Can you provide further evidence in support of your claim?



Beliefs are tools, in my opinion. They can be beneficial or detrimental to one's health, depending on how they are used. I wouldn't say that they are necessarily like constructing a dead end in your mind because beliefs can sometimes help us figure out what to do or how to behave. It's just important to scrutinize your beliefs and verify that they are in accord with reality.



Love it.

What I said wasn’t a contradiction at all. For example, some people never have any entity contact whatsoever. Some people only see geometric forms. Some have experiences where the visual aspect is subdued, and the physical or emotional aspect predominates. Others have experiences from their past, or maybe their future – very personal experiences. Of those who see entities, some see more familiar beings – jesters, elves, various animals – birds, jaguars, etc. Others see entities as extremely alien – like nothing they’ve seen or imagined before. In this sense, individuals experiences are unique.

However, if we take the subgroup that sees “familiar beings” – there is a subgroup of them that sees jesters. A subgroup that sees dragons. A subgroup that sees jaguars. But there isn’t a subgroup that sees coffeepots. Nor is there a subgroup that sees wool socks. The imagery is not random. Among this group, the imagery is very specific. When animals are seen, it is usually specific types of animals. Why is this? And to simply throw out the word “archetypes” does not explain it.

Regarding the “if you don’t believe, then you didn’t smoke enough” statement – it’s a crude way of expressing a more subtle idea: if a particular experience uniformly changes beliefs, then it is reasonable to assume that those whose beliefs haven’t been changed haven’t yet had the particular experience.

But I must agree with you that this statement is wrong. There is no experience which will across the board “force” people to change their beliefs to conform to a specific belief. One doesn’t have to look too far to see that. Copernicus suggested that the Earth was not at the center of the heavens, yet many continued to believe that it was. In spite of ample evidence, there are still many who believe that man never walked on the moon. There are still some who at least claim to believe that the Earth is flat. There are some who believe that Barack Obama isn’t a US citizen. I could go on and on. Some people believe what they want to (or need to) believe, regardless of experiences that challenge those beliefs.

Finally, would you mind sharing why your beliefs changed, then changed again?

I agree that more observations and less beliefs is a great approach.. we should avoid getting attached to labels we use to define the experience, because it can lead to mistaking the menu for the meal..or in this case: Our interpretation as being the reality of it. It narrows and limits; and can serve to funnel all perceptual info as to support our labels/beliefs, while ignoring/twisting any contradicting signals. Nothing wrong with admitting what we don't know. Like someone already said in this thread- read Robert Wilson!!

Don't take this the wrong way though house, but from your post i get the impression that you've simply swapped one set of beliefs and labels, for another set. Saying that everything we encounter in hyperspace is all us, or just imagination, is itself believing that this particular model/label of the experience is the truth of the matter-regardless of whether or not its the only one that makes sense to us.

That said, i don't know what the jesters are, i just call them that for convenience and lack of a better term..but i feel they are maybe more a part of our psychology than most other bizzare critters encountered. The first time i saw what i assume people mean by jesters the thing did cartwheels, showed me machines, and then mimicked my behavior by comically mirroring my sitting/breathing/self-centering as it sat down across from me..while also stopping its shifting facial patterns for a minute so that it looked just like my face.

They often have a zany behavior which reminds me of the dormant jokester aspect in all of us, that most people rarely let out. I don't know if that means it is a part of me i don't usually encounter, some alien fucking with me, or something else- but this and other experiences lead me to ponder the idea that they might be dormant aspects of our psyche or personality, exaggerated within inner-imaginal space. But then there is another conundrum, since many beings and experiences feel so convincingly alien and beyond imagination..so i dunno..i often feel like I'm experiencing the deep within, and the deep outer, as it unfolds into one big explosion of experience.. just my 2 pennies : ]

Gibran2:

Good, then we can agree that the spesific statement concerning "not changed beliefs -> not smoked enough" is unfair and in several cases wrong. However, it might apply to many other cases, so I definitely see the point. Anyway, that is initially the statement I reacted on.

As far as my own beliefs goes: The reason I changed beliefs the first time was of course because of the intensity of the experience. I got convinced. It was the single most weird, bizarre and also in many ways one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had. It really felt like I got fucking cannooned out of my body and straight into this place. I went on believing that this place was totally autonomous for perhaps a year or two (and yes, I smoked DMT a few more times in between).

I started to change beliefs again simply because I felt like "shit, I don't know" (I still really don't). I got the experience on a little bit of distance as time went by. At the same time I started to think of the experience more as a visual language communicating a message from deeper structures of reality and aspects of my own(/our) consciousness and being. I found it too far out to consider these beings as separated entities from my own DMT-flushed mammal brain, and I felt like I were underestimating the power of the human mind and imagination if I continued to think of it as such. Your mind artistically creates a 3D interactive world that seems real and separate from yourself every night when you go to sleep for example. Besides, I think that any object rightfully treated as an entity will act and appear like one.

Further I found myself realizing that there is no way (as of yet) to perform any clinical tests to confirm the beliefs I had, and as such they were just far out beliefs not bringing me anywhere. All of this was also definitely influenced by my continued education in the sciences and accumulation of knowledge of the material world. And at last I found it unimportant and insignificant whether or not these realms were totally autonomous, because what mattered to me, and what still matters to me, is the experience itself.

So in short I changed beliefs because: I got a little bit of distance from it, I thought about it and reflected upon it, I got more educated and I found the question insignificant. But with that said, I don't know and I don't claim to know. DMT is still pretty mysterious to me, and my beliefs are my own. And they are just that, beliefs

What about you gibran2?

That’s a lot to comment on, but I’ll try.

First, the following statement is logically true: “If there exists a particular experience that uniformly changes beliefs, then it is reasonable to assume that those whose beliefs haven’t been changed haven’t yet had the particular experience.”

The only problem with that statement, as I’ve previously indicated, is that, to the best of my knowledge, there does not exist an experience that uniformly changes beliefs.

(But DMT comes very close. )

Let me explain why I first came to this conclusion. I’ve had probably several hundred experiences since I’ve started using DMT. Of those, maybe 75% have been breakthroughs. Of the breakthroughs, maybe one in twenty (or less) is different – true “mystical” experiences as described in Shulgin’s rating scale as +4. These experiences are rare, and not dose dependent. They come when they come, and there’s nothing I can do to deliberately make one happen.

There have been 2 or 3 experiences that went even further. It’s very hard to describe these experiences, but after they were over, I seriously doubted that I’d ever again be able to function as a sane person in society. (Thankfully, there were no long-term adverse consequences.)

Then there was one experience that was unlike all others, before or since. This experience was not like any other DMT experience I’ve ever had. During the experience, I was fully aware and rational, and was trying to understand what was happening. It was clear that I wasn’t having a DMT experience (at least as I understood it), and I concluded I must have died. I’ve never tried to duplicate this experience, and doubt that I could. It may remain forever unique.

Anyhow, the variety of experiences made me think – if certain kinds of DMT experiences are exceedingly rare, isn’t it possible that some others haven’t yet had such experiences? It seemed possible and reasonable, and still does. And since our beliefs are shaped by our experiences, then it seems reasonable that those who haven’t had such rare experiences haven’t yet had the “opportunity” to change their beliefs. Isn’t this reasonable?

To move on, you say “Your mind artistically creates a 3D interactive world that seems real and separate from yourself every night when you go to sleep for example.” In fact, your mind is also creating the 3D interactive world while you’re awake. So how do we determine what is real? This is the question that DMT experiences force me to ask myself. If it is so easy to be convinced that something is real when in fact it isn’t, then how can we be sure that our everyday reality is “real”? What does it even mean to be “real”? Reality is not a property of things – rather, it is a collection of definitions, a set of defining characteristics that are somewhat arbitrary.

I have a technical/scientific background, I consider myself to be reasonably well educated, thoughtful and skeptical, I’m outwardly quite conventional, and I value rational, logical thought. Even with this background, it is not possible to dismiss certain aspects of certain DMT experiences as “just” a product of a very complex brain.

I know what I believe, and I also know that reality/truth exists independently of my beliefs (and everyone else’s). If the brain is able to create novel realities that bear no resemblance to our everyday reality, then the brain is much more than we can understand. If there are independent realities beyond our familiar one (why is this so hard to believe for some?) then reality is much more than we can understand.

Regardless of what is true, something amazing and wonderful is going on.

Good post, I like where your thoughts take you.

I would love to comment more, and I might, but right now I just gotta say pass because I don't really know. I just don't know =)

In general, I define reality through what is empirically observed and constant, not to discount the vast areas of reality that are yet to be discovered and/or confirmed. The physical universe is very consistent; it is easy to quantify various aspects of it. The visions experienced via psychedelics are very much real because they are happening and observable. It's the autonomy of these extradimensional beings that is questionable. Sentient beings are absolutely conceivable, but haven't been verified in any way. More subjectivities need to overlap in order for any form of consensus to be reached. Just because it feels real doesn't mean it is real, nor that one should interpret what is happening as literal truth. This is a slippery slope to fundamentalism.

The beings described by the OP, dream_denizen, seem to have been ready for him. The act of forcing an apparatus down one's throat is an act extremely familiar to our physical realm. So, they knew he would be entering their dimension and at what moment. This means they were aware of his intent and thus prepared the required equipment for god knows what they were trying to accomplish. Why would beings that know us so well that they foresee our appearance in their dimension need to perform experiments on us? What could they possibly gain? They know us as well as we know ourselves. Who do you know the best? Yourself. This is an argument for them being extensions of the self. Besides the number of people that have seen jester, how many have been abducted by them? Greys and reptilians are more common, are they not?

I don't really have beliefs, just notions of likelihood. I think it is likely that the memes and manifestations of archetypes are from a collective unconscious much like Jung hypothesized, but I don't think it is hardwired in our genetics to influence our psychological personalities. It's possible that the collective unconscious is something outside of the individual self. That which seems alien [i]is[/is], but not neccessarily with a sentience peculiar to that individual entity.

There is the possibility that some singular consciousness prepares these experiences. In this case, those who feel they were abducted by sentient beings would be objectively wrong, when the fact is that the only extradimensional being relevant to the experience is the aformentioned entity that created the perceived beings. This is unlikely, but it is another possible interpretation of the experience. Who's to say? I think our best bet is to question everything.

Thanks for your insight, blue_velvet. Your intelligence is beyond that of an ordinary human. I will just have to dig deeper into hyperspace to understand this new reality better. I go with an open mind, thanks everyone.

I think that it is an extremely ignorant and narrow minded view to believe that in the span of the massive multiverse and with theories like m-theory that there couldn't be sentient life forms in space or in other dimensions that DO bear a resemblance in physical form or use technology similar to that employed by us on Earth.

I don't find it selfish at all to be open to any possibility. As house put it, although not in the context I would agree with, you should keep an open mind. On the one hand we are asked to be open minded but at the same time, I am seeing the classic scientific reductionism going on in this thread: It's just your mind on a drug. This is just methodological naturalism again...knowledge through the natural world before all else. We must remember that the human like Jesters, elves, and clowns are obviously not the only entities we encounter in the complexity of hyperspace, but we have the capacity to visit and be visited by absolutely alien things that words sometimes fail to describe. Guardian beings of a fractal nature, liquid machinery based life forms, gumby like creatures, opticus, greys, Demons, mantises, reptilians it goes on. At one point, I noticed that plenty of threads started popping up about people collectively seeing crystal like caterpillar creatures. I was really taken aback by such a coincidence.



I personally think that it is an entirely selfish view to think that there COULDN'T be other beings floating around out there similar to us. I am even open to the possibility that there's another alternate ME out there, so why not a Jester? I know you want hard data, you asked for it straight up.
You understand that whatever dmt is doing to a person's brain chemistry alters it in the same way that it does another person's brain? (acting on the same receptors) The same thing goes for two people who are "high" on normal reality. Now you want someone to show you something from hyperspace that can be quantified from a purely scientific view? But that's kind of like discrediting the entire field of astronomy isn't it? Mathematical measurements of the distance of giant celestial bodies notwithstanding, it's pretty much the same scenario isn't it? A bunch of astronomers whose brain chemistry are tuned to the same frequency, that of reality, collectively agree on something that not many people will get to quantify even if they wanted to. You just have to believe that space is real. At least as real as hyperspace is to the psychonauts.

A lot of people in this thread who went from believing that hyperspace and its inhabitants were once a real separate experience to believing that it was instead aspects of their own consciousness, now to me that was more selfish. And I don't mean that in a bad way. You have every right to be selfish. You would expect me to go into Descartes but i'm not talking the philosophical 'I am god' route. Nor am I talking about a collective unconscious 'we are all one'. I don't mean to get personal, so please excuse me I want to be as respectful as I can, but it does come down to the self. You guys have shifted from right brain mode, to left brain mode in order to cope with the real world. Reality suddenly comes first, and survival in it. And you guys have every right to care about yourselves first. But let me explain. House got burned, he was totally out there with dmt and it was affecting his life in a bad way. He needed to cope with it, went cold turkey, wanted to have all of his posts deleted, and did a full 180 on his most of his beliefs. He's just trying to prevent others from falling into his situation and I admire him more for that. And Citta, you said it yourself, there's just no way to perform clinical tests and you wanted to continue something practical that can be applied to the real world through continued education in the sciences and accumulation of knowledge of the material world. I just wish more of us were like you. I can be totally wrong and completely off base here guys, I am just trying a little psychology to understand the shift in beliefs.

And the best thing to say is I do not know for sure...maybe umm possibly? Or maybe anything that can happen, will happen, has happened, or is happening now.

Speaking of Jesters, I originally wanted to just pop in here and post the one representation of the aspect that changed my life forever at the humble age of 10:



This guy here, this is the guy.

If you were a little shorter and looked just like Bill Cosby, you would look just like Bill Cosby. It is those measurements and the constant, coherent motion of the heavens that makes astronomy a viable science. You can point out the moon, orion's belt, the north star, and other people can see the exact same thing. Psychedelics do not afford us this luxury. Saying it is the same discredits the field of psychology; think it is safe to say psychology plays a pivotal role in studying altered states of consciousness. What if you are abducted by aliens and they force you to copulate with some strange animal? What if the alien abduction was real, but the bestiality was unreal, objectively speaking? How is one to sort out which is objective experience and which is purely hallucination? We need some kind of science to verify what is happening.



This was written in 1948. Since, we have seen developments in computer technology, fractal geometry, chaos theory and strange attractors, quantum physics, psychedelic psychotherapy (which fell by the wayside. fortunately we have MAPS). Convergence of these fields will allow us to know what is really going on. Meanwhile, the psychonauts are collecting and recording preliminary information. Interpretation of the subjective experience lies entirely on the individual and/or the psychologist for now. What good does believing in them do for us? You could see them one night and then never again. What will we gain? Again, we need to question everything unfailingly. Multiverse theories, TOEs, and even physical laws need to be questioned.

We could ask the same questions about our everyday reality.

Geez, I didn't realize this thread was still going.... Alright, I've read all the responses and there's a lot I could comment on, but I've decided I'm only going to add one more thing to this topic and end it at that.

gibran2: I agree with many of your views on the nature of subjective reality, the way our minds create the world we see before us, and in general just most of what you've had to say in this thread. Maybe you've been able to put in words what you're trying to get across better than I have, but as far as I can see, what really separates our views are our beliefs shaped by our experiences in relation to things that cannot be definitely proven by us or anyone else one way or the other. You claim that your DMT experiences have made you consider that, as you put it, "it is not possible to dismiss certain aspects of certain DMT experiences as 'just' a product of a very complex brain", and that it is possible that others have simply not had such a powerful experience yet. I respect this view and your right to hold it entirely, however as I've said this comes down to faith on your part. I have my own faith that the brain is in fact that complex and deep, and that no matter how infinitely vast the experiences I receive through these substances are, they are still completely within the realm of the human brain's capability to create our subjective realities. It is because of this that I must suggest that we agree to disagree on this point; I don't believe there is any 'logic' in continuing an argument of faith that neither of us can conclusively win. Are my views subject to change? Of course they are, everyones' are. But just by listening to other peoples' views, I think not. Until a day may come when I might have such a mystical experience like you speak of, I'll hold on to what I believe, but at present I can't see that occurring any time soon.

It’s not an argument, at least not in the sense that there can be a winner. What we’re doing is exploring - we’re exploring possibilities, and just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s true. I agree with this completely.

My psychedelic experiences haven’t so much convinced me of the reality of other realms as they have lead me to consider the possibility that this realm – the realm of our everyday experiences – may in fact not be at all what it appears to be.

Psychedelic experiences lead one to ask many questions about the nature of the psychedelic experience, and those questions are valuable, but there’s another even more important set of questions that they draw out – questions about the nature of our everyday experience.

The brain is indeed complex, yet we can’t prove that it or anything else in our physical world actually exists. We accept on faith that reality is more or less as it is presented to us by our senses. I’m not surprised that people have doubts about the reality of DMT induced experiences, but as time goes by, I find myself becoming more and more surprised that people accept the abstraction created within as existing in the same way outside of their conscious perception.

-Isaac Brock

They begin at the center as per the definition of a circle: the set of all points equidistant from a fixed point. Interestingly enough this origin is exluded from the set itself, but serves the tacit function of a reference point. Philosophical analogies abound.

I love arguing.

Shockingly relevant video:

Didn't the author of this thread write ANOTHER thread at one point about kicking alien ass? Dude, not to be mean, but if you're going into hyperspace with feelings of 'vengence' and aggression, I doubt you will find much more than that...allow them to experiment, they have the right, even tho we are unaware of this. They are essntially human "mods", performing upgrades on our species...perhaps messing with your mouth allowed a certain DNA activation? Being a badass in hyperspace means nothing, dude..

Why are you here?

Our brains are not responsible for awareness.