Indeed I have read the attitude page, that was the first thing I did earlier in the year when I joined, for the most part I have been couteous and respectful, and have tended not to get embroiled in petty "Tit for Tat" arguments or discussions. Both on this forum and in everyday life. They seldom lead to a satisfactory conclusion.
" Hyperspace Fool" surfaced suddenly with his "mini lecture", I can't remember ever passing a comment his way before. I was simply asking for some credible information sources from "Toppy" to justify some, quite frankly ridiculous statements. I will continue to ask in the future for credible sources, as "Light Beams firing out of the pineal" "Vibrating pineals"
" Juicy tryptamine saliva" etc. etc. won't make the grade.

You have to expect some flak when you write such posts.

Peace

Hyperspace Fool:

I don't doubt people may have personal experiences that their pineal gland throbs. The problem is that when you claim that it actually does so when people are high, you are making a very spesific claim about a very spesific physical thing and how it works. When you do this, people will demand sources for the claim, and what they then demand is scientific evidence. If you'd say that "it feels like my pineal gland throbs while I am high" it would be a whole other story. Furthermore, for the n-th time on this forum, personal anecdotes are worthless. Either the pineal gland actually throbs (that is physically), or it doesn't (and may only subjectively feel to be doing so, that is psychologically). I think you see this difference.

As far as this pineal gland business goes:

That tryptamine-N-methyltransferase is not produced in the pineal gland constitutes a huge argument against the claim that DMT is produced there. How can it not? Mainly DMT can be produced in the lungs and livers, but not in the pineal gland. I see you suggest that tryptamine-N-methyltransferase could be transported to the pineal gland, but here is the cache; How can it do this? Problem solved - it simply doesn't. Enzymes are used where they are needed. This enzyme is not needed in the pineal gland, because the tryptamine inside the pineal is supposed to be converted to melatonin, not to DMT. The enzyme we're talking about breaks things down to DMT, making DMT kinda like a waste product of biochemical reactions.

@AstraLex

Very interesting experience there. I have only experienced this light tunnel phenomenon in reverse, and with light of a much different tint. (more golden with silver highlights or rainbow hued golden light), but the general shape and description coincides... and there are a multitude of pictures describing a similar effect that I have seen. Not the least of which being some amazing Alex Grey paintings. As well as this one by A. Andrew Gonzalez.


It is possible I have experienced this inward version and have forgotten it, or simply didn't think to observe it. Often times in my spiritual work, I have my eyes closed and am preoccupied with inner visions. Come to think of it, the cover of Stevie Wonder's LP Innervisions has a guy with a ray coming in or out of his 3rd Eye. Synchronicity, as I only remembered this coincidentally by typing the above sentence.

arcanum: asking for clarification/evidence is much different than rude name calling. we can have civil conversations here.

Indeed, that's what impresses me about the Nexus.
My apologies to "Toppy" and "Hyperspace Fool"
Though I hope we can agree to disagree.

Perhaps my quote was misleading. I'm not questioning the pineal's role in converting serotonin to melatonin. I think this has been pretty well established and is not a matter of conjecture. What is most definitely a matter of conjecture is whether or not psychedelic tryptamines exist there. As far as I know, the pineal gland having anything to do with producing or facilitating the psychedelic experience is backed up by nothing but anecdotal information. It's a theory generally attributed to Rick Strassman - and even he no longer believes it.

And yes, it was your comment about throbbing pineal glands that mainly caught my attention. You present this as objective fact, when there is ZERO eveidence OF ANY KIND to back up your contention. Understand that your personal experiences are meaningless so far as they relate to objective fact, as are any of the anonymous yogis and mystics you mention as additional proof of your claims. Please refrain from stating conjecture or subjective experience as fact. Ask yourself before doing so, can I cite a credible source? If not, please direct all such fututre posts to The Shroomery.

I'm not asking for credible evidence from those who claim to spin tin foil on string and shoot laser beams from their pineals. To those of you who do... alrighty then. Nanu nanu. Shozbot.

Here here! Thank you Mr. Uncle Knucles!

@arcanum

No worries. This wasn't the first, and it won't be the last time that someone here voices disdain for metaphysics or mysticism. If my reply to you seemed angry, know that it was not... lack of voice tone and facial expression doesn't let you see my smile.

I understand that for those who have never experienced these things, they can seem rather off-the-wall. But considering the fact that most DMT experiences would be considered unbelievable, in-credible, and downright loony to anyone who never experienced them... it seems kind of supercilious to draw an imaginary line where certain incomprehensible things are fine, but a few meters further down the rabbit hole, and it is wacky-ville.

Very few of us here are irrational or even slightly crazy. Regardless of what you might think of our experiences, they are no less valid than the idea that you can vaporize a couple dozen milligrams of a crystalline substance and be propelled into experiences of timelessness, hyperdimensional spaces, machine elves, jesters, and psychedelic carnivals. There is no scientific reason that we should be able to experience OOBEs, carrier waves, and entities either.

Science does not have all the answers when it comes to entheogenic exploration. Not even half of them.

This leads me to:

@Citta

If someone tells you I have a sharp pain in my kidney, or a throbbing in my liver... you don't subject them to ridicule and ask for proof that it is possible to have a stabbing pain in the kidneys. Whether or not it is likely that there is actually something poking into the kidneys or that livers are capable of throbbing, we take people's word for their experience of their bodily sensations.

If a doctor is fine with a patient saying that they experienced a pulsing in a gland... why would we need to phrase it differently here. This tired yarn about expecting anyone talking about metaphysical or undocumented phenomena to always phrase their subjective experience reports with some ridiculous disclaimer is a tad bit obnoxious. It is obvious that we are all speaking about our experiences, and if someone isn't capable of recognizing this simple and glaring truth, adding an extra blurb to remind people every post is not going to help.

Has anyone cut open their head to observe the pulsing of their pineal gland? Obviously not.

Let's not be ludicrous here.

When someone asserts that they have experienced throbbing or pulsing in their third eye or their pineal gland, what they are saying is that they have experienced this sensation in that region of their forehead or deeper in towards the center of their head. Could it be muscles twitching? Sure. But even if it was the surrounding tissues doing the pulsing, it changes nothing.

When I say that I have felt pulsing in the pineal gland, I am quite familiar and sensitive to my body. I know where the pineal gland is, and have been purposefully stimulating it. When I say that following this pulsing I experience an odd and peculiarly flavored rush of liquid that seems to come down from the soft palette... I mean exactly that. And, when I say that swallowing this juicy fluid made me ridiculously high... I mean that as well.

You can choose not to believe me. I don't expect you to.

But I have no reason to make stuff up, and I am not the only person here to experience such things.

So... if you have a hard time believing this stuff, fine. No reason to call names or demand that I prove to you that my experiences are possible. This is a ridiculous double standard. We don't expect people posting trip reports to verify the scientific validity of their subjective experiences. They are simply anecdotal.

Deal with it, ignore it... just stop acting like I have no right to share this with the many people who are truly interested in this.

Peace, bro.
HF

Perhaps not crazy, but there are many, too many, on the nexus that presents themselves as completely irrational. This is worth fighting against here, and it is worth fighting against elsewhere in society. It is in fact a huge problem, and this is why I come down hard when I see nonsense.



Yes, there is. You blatantly disregard for example what neuroscience has to offer while claiming this.



Incredible claim. How can you know? Are you so versed in science and entheogenic research? Can you foresee that in the future science is not going to develop in addressing central questions about entheogenic experiences? We are already pretty far.


The problem is not to take personal experiences at face value. I don't doubt for a single moment that you possibly can experience the things you claim, that has never been the problem. But you make claims that come off as being objective, and this is where the criticism is shot at. I don't give a damn about what you experience in your sleep, in your lucid dreaming, OBEEs or anything. I care when you, on the basis of these experiences, come with claims that concerns objective phenomena. In the second you use your personal experiences to claim something about the universe, you are on very thin ground, Hyperspace Fool. So is everyone else, and this happens very often around here.

@polytrip (& Art & Citta as well)

I am afraid none of you have a clue what rationalism or a rationalist is. Perhaps I should enlighten you all once again, as maybe you guys missed my previous lessons on epistemology.

Rationalism is not a word that means scientific materialism or has anything to do with the viewpoints expressed by you all here. In fact, Rationalism is directly opposed to materialism. If anything, mysticism is a far more rationalist stance.

I implore you all to study a bit of philosophy and logic before you go around acting like you are the spokespeople for a philosophical stance you seem to know very little about. At the very least, read the linked article, because you continue to look foolish on thread after thread. No offense.

For those too lazy or sure of themselves to click the link... the cliff notes on it is this. Rationalism is any method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive." Science and scientific materialism (not the same thing) are based on empirical sense data and inductive reasoning primarily. Thus, they are the antithesis of rationality.

Rationalism asserts the primacy of thought and thinking as methods for ascertaining the truth. Science promotes objective experimentation and the scientific method. Both have their use, but they are not identical or even related.

This does not mean that either of them are wrong. This does not mean that there are not rational elements to certain branches of science. What it does mean, is that you don't really seem understand what rationalism is.

**************

At any rate, we who you 3 love to attack are not anti-rationalists. Really not. It is not rational to say that people must cite scientific studies backing up their subjective experiences. Rationality would take the approach that the truth could be found through thinking about the experiences and reasoning them through... as we do here.

You three, despite how you might see the world and choose to present yourselves... are not the voices of reason, logic or rationalism. You are merely thumping your chests to assert the supremacy of your particular worldview. It is rather fundamentalist of you to demand that everyone else subscribe to your narrow way of seeing the world... and even more so to insist that all discourse here be conducted through the lens of what you think is valid.

Get over it. Mystics are not going away. We've been around before the scientific method was invented, predated the Greeks, and have always been a major part of the human experience. If you choose to see our anecdotes as unbelievable, that is your prerogative. But you can not try and enforce your sense of what is acceptable to think or say.

You are not the thought police.

I will leave you with an analogy you probably will not appreciate, but nonetheless...

If you were on a thread debating with a trio of avid Christians, and they refused to acknowledge the truth of your scientific conjectures (as creationists are known to do), and told you that your quoting from scientists and researchers was not a valid corroboration for your arguments (because they do not value those people and their credentials), and then went on to insist that you could only back up your assertions by pointing to and specifically citing passages and examples from their books of choice and their field of expertise... if they insisted that only quotes from the Bible or a biblical scholar they respect would be valid... you would throw a fit.

But this is basically what you do. You come onto every thread where people are discussing anything metaphysical or outside of science's purview and insist that we all play by your rules.

I am personally an individual who values science. I have studied upper division and grad school physics. I am rather adept technologically. I was programming computers and the like before most current programmers were born.

However, I will not be bombasted by you skeptics into not addressing what (for many of us here) is a very important and integral part of our experiences as psychonauts. I will state my experiences and my opinions however I see fit, and if you don't like them or agree with them, you are free to do so.

My PM box and the record of a number of threads shows that I am not alone in this thought and in the feeling that your insistence on scientific materialism as the only valid point of debate is getting rather annoying.


Be well.
HF

Thank you for your typically condescending tirade, the aptly named Hyperspace Fool. I appreciate that you once again have deigned to teach and enlighten me.

These aren't my rules, but rather the rules as politely laid out by our host. Respect them and be welcome. Reject them and be booted. The choice is entirely yours.

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=27881

@Hyperspace Fool: I love that first picture you posted. It's beautiful, and totally brings me back to a piece of my last journey.

@Everybody: Hopefully both sides can be respectful of the rules and each other. We're all on the same team and make each other stronger, even when we're not seeing eye-to-eye. If one side was absolute in the strength, rightness and truth of their view, then it wouldn't be hard to make it understood by others, but we're not there yet. We've got work to do, and these "battles" force us to grow and learn. Keep fueling the fire.

And for the record, making claims that have little to stand on will always meet opposition here, but I'm personally very naive and trusting, and I like believing in everybody's impossible ideas and experiences. No matter how outlandish they get, I think the real truth is even crazier.

the whole thing about "irrational" vs "rational" is something I have never understood. Both have thier limitations and I would rather not choose to be called a rationalist or a irrationalist. But for those that do prefer these categories..have at it. You will be at it until the end of time. Enjoy

Art, the pineal as far as I know has not been proven to produce DMT..it is only found there. Though if you talk to some people who definatily have the credentials here(like joedirt) it becomes obvious that the idea that the pineal does not produce DMT is still up in the air-noone knows. What we do know is that other possibly psychedelic alkaloids are produced in the pineal, and this is way beyond the Strassman study. 6meoTHBC(pinoline) is a pineal metabolite and is most likely psychoactive and possibly psychedelic. It is not a tryptamine, technically it is tryptoline beta-carboline..others also exist endogenousily like 10-methoxy-harmalan and a few others..I am not sure if all of them are produced in the pineal, though I think at least some of them are as well. It's not really debatable anymore the visionary/psychedelic aspects of certain beta-carbolines. So there is alot of reasons based on what we do know about the pineal gland to assume that there probably is psychedelic chemistry going on there without having to even bring DMT into the equation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinoline
^does not really state there if pinoline is in fact produced in the pineal, but it at least occurs in the pinal as a melatonin metabolite. Maybe someone like benzyme or others can verify its production in the pineal and also comment on other endogenous beta carbolines like 10meo-harmalan and 2meoTHBC which I think is endogenous as well..

There also seems to be more support to the idea that 5meoDMT could be produced in the pineal, but again someone like benzyme would know more about that.

Anyway, the whole "pineal DMT" is a bit overplayed. There is obviousily so much more going on there than just DMT, and enough that we dont have to cling to DMT as the only endogenous alkaloid capable of producing endogenous psychedelic experiences. Most likely a number of beta carbolines as well as melatonin and possibly other tryptamines are all synergistic here, as Callaway pointed out in his "endohuasca" theory.

Sure the pineal gland probably does play some role here, but there are other factors as well..like what about agmatine? Agmatine is found to be endogenous as well and is an NMDA antagonist..and all the studies done trying to find other endogenous NMDA antagonists, or "endopsychosins" which would be active at the "PCP receptor"..
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2156135

The whole issue of endogenous experiences is just soo so complex. All we know for sure is that they happen.

"The compound pinoline is also produced in the pineal gland; it is one of the beta-carbolines"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineal_gland

So we do at least know for sure that pinoline is produced in the pineal, and has long been suspected to have activity in humans in line with the other beta carbolines like harmine, harmaline etc..

Oh, yes. I think we're all in for one very big surprise.