Quantum physics has shown that cause and effect does not necessarily apply at the level of subatomic particles (and smaller). Studies into consciousness are showing that quantum synchronicity, not cause and effect, may be what dictates how our brains function at the neural level, how we store and organize memories, how we develop a sense of self, etc.

All in all, quantum physics seems to be cementing what eastern and shamanic traditions have been teaching for thousands of years. Reality is not what it seems. Consciousness may in fact be the underlying fabric of a universe that is one giant hologram.

I encourage you to look into the holographic universe theories as well as the work of Fred Alan Wolf, aka Dr. Quantum. He puts things really simply, though does carry his presumptions a bit far sometimes.

Anyways, this idea would seem to hint that DMT is in fact a key to other dimensions/universes, possibly even a key to our own "universe dream". Any thought?!?

I don't know enough to add to the science, but more and more people are taking the idea of a universal consciousness seriously. I have a friend who is a retired (red brick) university lecturer in physics. He sent me a paper he wrote the other week that basically stated his belief that this could be the case. I would love to see someone make a breakthrough in science that takes this idea further.

The holographic universe, by Michael Talbot is a great read! you should check it out man

I don't know if the universe is permeated by some sort of cosmic mind, my intuition and experiences point towards this, but who can say for sure. I do know that if i got to choose the direction a species was going for the next couple billion years i would definitely have a similar goal in my sights..

I would love to see that paper, if possible!

hmmm, I dont agree too much. Its interesting to some extent, the general idea of hologram and how the universe works, but he starts over-using this to explain all sorts of phenomenon (psychic stuff, etc), he pushes it too far IMO. It starts becoming pseudo-science at some point, using the arguments to prove basically everything that is not mainstream science, making a big mix. At least thats the impression I had, but its been years since I read it.

I always loved physics and am very interested in reading as much as I can understand (Kip Thorn's Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, and Michio Kaku's Hyperspace are amongst my favourite books), but I feel that the new age movement perverts this whole quantum idea to "prove" (to the layman only, of course) whatever it is that its in their agenda at the moment, like chakras, crystals, 2012, psychic healing, energetic massage, aura cleaning, whatever else.

I dont know if DMT has any connection to the quantum world any more than all other substances and states of consciousness do. I also dont know how much we can really conclude from any talk we might have here. I feel that the best we could do in this sense would be to try to come up with testable hypothesis which we could somehow devise experiments for. The whole SHE thing and checking against the random number generator was one idea, but nothing really came up with that.

Quantum mechanics is so much more complex than what we layman can understand. The few metaphors like 'its all connected', or 'beyond linear cause and effect' are interesting but I dont think its really enough to be able to connect things in anything more than a 'fun chat over the internet' kind of level, at least from what Ive seen so far.

I would love to be proven wrong, though, and I would be very very interested in good scientists coming up with reliable ideas about how quantum physics may give us useful explanations and practical knowledge regarding how consciousness works (or regarding dmt hyperspace).

I remember that burnt (a scientist) once said that Quantum mechanics theory is, actually, extremely reductionist and that it had nothing to do with consciousness.

This is just my opinion, but I think that some answers regarding psychedelic visions (not all of course), will be discovered thanks to neuroscience and biology research and not so much thanks to physics. I think that physics will make great discoveries about 'this' reality and how can humans improve technological artifacts and stuff like that.

I would love to put it on the Nexus actually - it is a really interesting read. This guy has ZERO interest in pseudo science or any kind of wackery. I have often found him blunt and harsh in his contempt of that area. This made me all the more surprised when I read the paper. The only problem is I don't believe he intends to publish and he doesn't know about my interest in psy's, I don't think posting it here would go down too well :-(

I might recycle some of his ideas and credit them anonymously or something, unless that is an intellectual faux-pas? Is sharing a paper that has not been published deeply un-cool?

Unfortunately I think you'll find that most researchers in these new age areas are bordering on pseudoscience.

Scientists can't get their theories recognized if they don't go all-out balls to the wall with it.

Yes. We have only begun to scratch the surface of understanding the human brain and all the complex neural interactions that take place. If the psychedelic experience is ever explained, whatever that means, the explanation will come from the field a neural science. Topics on alternate realities and extra dimensional existence ect opened up to us by the psychedelic experience belong in a psuedo-science thread or forum at best.

I do sometimes feel, that science has evolved in such a way that it is becoming more and more impossible to 'deal' with it: both particle physics as neurosciences have become so complex that no layman is truly capable of understaning what's going on there and hardly any scientist in the field is capable of seeing the big picture.

It's like in the hitchhikers's guide to the galaxy where some people build a supercomputer to find an answer to the most important question in the universe. The answer appears to be '42'....

We have to watch out that we don't start building very big particle accelerators and brainscanning machines that give us those kind of answers that are totally impossible to interpret.

I do think that we have to start looking for new way's of looking and thinking about things to translate scientific data into some kind of model.
Finding a new perspective has always been the way to new scientific breakthroughs and i think it still is.
As a matter of fact string theory and quantum loop gravity have thusfar been little more than just new mathematical models. Little experimental data yet exists in these fields.

But to be honest, i don't think new-age theories have anything to contribute here: The whole chalenge is to bridge the gap from technical to theorethical data and i know of no new-age theorist who would actually dare to deal with complex technical data.

Yet you see that in time, scientific revolutions do become part of our way of thinking and understanding.

It's a delicate balance with this issue. It's true you cannot believe everything you read especially anything based on quantum physics. It's a field of study where there are still many question marks and thus allows for liberal interpretation. But on the other side if some major groundbreaking discovery was made and society shrugged it off it would be a major loss to all. The issue is people do not know enough about quantum physics to figure out if the theory is realistic or not and they must rely on 'educated' professionals to tell them what to think. The same professionals who are putting out this theory. Universities are rated on their professors who are themselves rated on how many papers they publish. These days it pays to be sensationalistic, but we also actually hove the technology to learn things we couldnt imagine so who knows.

The more we dig, the farther down the rabbit hole we fall. Science will never answer the questions it wishes to, because there is no answer; i.e. the Question is the Answer.