psychedelics, consciousness and things of beauty

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krahmes

Social climber

Stumptown

Jul 11, 2011 - 05:00pm PT

Doc Ellis talking about his no hitter...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14

And the old orange video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDRbnmjzY7U

BrianH

Trad climber

santa fe

Jul 11, 2011 - 06:50pm PT

Some people think there is pretty much a straight line between the Greek mystery religions of millennia past and the Burningman Festival in Nevada.

Humans have always looked for ecstatic experience. Sometimes it goes well, other times, not so much.

The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

-A community of hairless apes

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2011 - 09:01pm PT

"Between 1972 and 1990 there were no government-approved human studies with any psychedelic drugs anywhere in the world. Their disappearance was no mystery. The worldwide ban on psychedelic drug research was the result of a political backlash that followed the promotion of these drugs by the counterculture of the 1960s. This reaction not only made these substances illegal for personal use, it also made it extremely difficult for medical researchers to obtain government approval to study them."

s: Pate's link

http://www.staplenews.com/home/2011/5/30/landmark-clinical-lsd-study-nears-completion.html

Pretty amazing fact. What a shame.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

-A community of hairless apes

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2011 - 09:03pm PT

BrianH,

No worries, man.

It was a rhetorical, tongue in cheek question more than anything.

.....

I was born at night. But not last night. ;)

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Jul 11, 2011 - 09:29pm PT

Paul writes

It's interesting that people on here say that evil scientists are out to debunk the benefits of these drugs.....did ya ever think the other way around in which some evil scientists are out to prove these drugs are actually safe?

How is it that the scientific community agrees that these drugs are harmful, yet everyone else that uses them think that they know better?

It's politicians who keep insisting certain drugs are dangerous that scientists haven't credibly established the danger on. Obama's administration just insisted Marijuana is dangerous and has no accepted medical use but the actual scientific data is either mild, scarce or nothing. No one has ever died of a Marijuana or LSD overdose but asprin and alcohol can kill you (even separately)

Science will also tell you that neither are physically addictive while Alcohol, Tobacco and painkillers like Vicodin are.

More harm comes to society from the legal system around some drugs than they could ever cause if decrminalized.

Note: Meth, Coke, Crack, Herion and a host of other drugs are very dangerous and bad, but better be careful with those legal anti-depressants cause they are as dangerous as almost anything.

Peace

Karl

edit: check out this roundup on the scientific literature on weed, exposing myths

http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_myth.shtml

Doug Robinson

Trad climber

Santa Cruz

Jul 12, 2011 - 08:58am PT

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement on my book. Racing to completion, and this helps.

As far a soapboxes go, I am a neurochemist. No formal degree, but a lifetime of careful study has led me to regularly read papers at the research level. I do this because it's the best formal scientific avenue to understanding consciousness, which strikes me as the most interesting question around.

But I'm also a climber and a writer. For me, the most potent arena is out where the science meets the strong experience that comes to us in wild nature. Including the wild nature inside our skulls. So I write about that.

And yeah, scientific understanding of any of this is pretty rudimentary. It makes sense to me to go beyond that and try to understand our marvelous experience using the best tools we've got, which includes this fledgling science, and psychedelic insight, and pondering the linkups. Call it soul. And for some reason there's a lot of love floating around those realms.

Intelligence loves company. And oxytocin, "the cuddle chemical," rewards us for rubbing up against one another.

Thanks, Karl, for taking on the politics. Consciousness includes some pretty weird and scary sh!t, and the job of the straight, mainline culture is to perpetuate itself. It does that for other aspects of wild nature with flood control, weather forecasting, and drive-on-the-right. I'm grateful for civilization's infrastructure, but excuse me if I don't buy into all its petty prejudices. No surprise it gets threatened by the great unknown and puts up the DEA against what it sees as scary stuff that arises from human nature.

Lumping psychedelics and marijuana in with addictive substances like heroin and meth is, pharmacologically speaking, just a bad joke.

It is a shame that these very promising compounds have been so restricted by the culture that for decades that science has given up in frustration at the red tape. But that era is cracking apart, and some really exciting new science is emerging.

A groundbreaking study published last July showed some of the most promising results ever using MDMA (approximately, Ecstasy) to open up therapy for PTSD. Look here: http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/ This was the first study to be conducted on US soil since that effective ban in 1970. Important because the protocol was approved by the FDA and the MDMA was allowed by the DEA.

One woman in the study, a rape victim who had tried numerous other therapeutic approaches, was helped so dramatically that she came out with her cure in a feature article in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine. It's worth reading: www.maps.org/media/view/the_peace_drug/

That work expands the therapeutic approach. Call it truth. I'm more about beauty myself, along with the OP.

My battery's dying. More later.

Doug Robinson

Trad climber

Santa Cruz

Jul 12, 2011 - 10:00am PT

Wes,

I'm not sure you can do much to increase your tryptamine n-methyltransferase. But there are other approaches.

You say you're brain's not making DMT, but that may be a perception problem. Some of the organic psychedelic effects start out very subtle, like just a bit of extra glow or sharpness around the edges. One problem is that our culture doesn't teach us to be aware of thresshold increases in beauty or awareness. And the slam-dunk kind of doses of psychedelics that are around go so far beyond there, that once again our experience of those overwhelming doses doesn't help much either.

Bouldering may be a problem too. No offense to pebble wrestling, but it's not full-body aerobic like a lot of climbing, say a full day of trad or a big alpine route, so my guess is that it may not push the endurance facet to help bring on the psychedelic effect. Sport climbing may have the same problem. Fear factor they can get -- at least a little -- but again maybe not as much of a healthy dose to kick-start the psychedelic effect. I don't do enough of either to have much of an opinion.

My idea is that bringing on the psychedelic effect does not rely on increasing any enzyme, but rather flooding the system with the hormone precursors like noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Then, like a river reaching flood tide, trickles begin to breach the dikes that go straight into the channels leading to producing psychedelic compounds.

Neuroscience, when it thinks of this at all, refers to those as "minor pathways." Mostly though the science suffers from a bias toward studying a brain in a resting body, and the stuff we do is way edgy by comparison. So of course our experience is different from their expectations.

Bargainhunter

climber

Jul 12, 2011 - 10:02am PT

Fascinating thread. Thank you all for sharing your experience, especially DR.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Jul 12, 2011 - 12:37pm PT

Some characteristics I can see that climbing (think a long climb like El Cap) and intense spiritual practices have in common are reduced food and water, not much sleep and a voluntary acceptance of deprivation in pursuit of what seems to be a more important goal.

Both involve rhythmic movement whether jumaring or doing prostrations or ritualized dancing, reduction of sensory imput due to intense concentration on just a few tasks at hand, and physical activity to the point of exhaustion, even if that activity is just standing or sitting in a painful position for hours at a time.

Both also include the intense camaraderie that comes from sharing voluntary deprivation, physical exertion, and challenges of endurance and fear.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

-A community of hairless apes

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2011 - 12:59pm PT

Fellow explorers, this is interesting:

http://www.synchronium.net/2008/12/22/how-to-make-salvia-divinorum-extract/

.....

drljefe,

http://hifructose.com/

yeah, that's an interesting site. Thanks for pointing it out, seems to tie right in with this thread.

Maybe it's a sign?

bvb

Social climber

flagstaff arizona

Jul 12, 2011 - 11:29pm PT

Off said:

Chat me up at a campfire sometime and I'd share a couple stories. The Taco is not a campfire.

Dittos. Many interesting experiences to unfold around a late-night pallet fire in Josh.

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 12, 2011 - 11:56pm PT

Pate, that video is fekking priceless.

jogill

climber

Colorado

Jul 13, 2011 - 12:08am PT

Try Carlos Castaneda . . . minus the drugs. Works.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Jul 13, 2011 - 12:20pm PT

I just did a little survey and discovered that of the 24 people who have
talked about their personal experiences on this thread:

9 had positive experiences with psychedelics
3 thought everyone should do some at least once
4 had mixed reactions with both good and bad trips
2 thought they were entertaining but otherwise of no lasting value
3 thought they should never be used
4 people pointed out that you could get to the same place without them
(one person with this view also counted as positive for the drug experience)

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

-A community of hairless apes

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2011 - 02:07pm PT

Interesting.

.....

Who's to say... a high... or a stint of euphoria...

due to an electrical stimulation of the visual cortex and/or associated feeling centers...

is any more legit when it comes (a) from a back country climbing experience than (b) from an LSD experience?

Esp if more research in the future shows the use is safe and therapeutic.

Just who is to say? Should it be your political leadership? A Bush or Bachmann? A legislator? A Boehner? Should it be the guy down the street who goes to church, who follows Jesus, who's never tripped once?

Who's to say?

.....

So Pate,

Looks like you gave Salvia a thumbs down.

.....

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1165008/salvia-divinorum

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1349218/Anyone-try-Salvia

Pretty eye-opening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7974kY4R_s

re: salvia

noshoesnoshirt

Definitely more than a recreational drug. It took a few tries but it eventually launched me into another universe; I had no idea where I was, how I got there, or even who I was. Scary strong stuff, but educational.

You can only imagine the spin, or interpretations, our ancient forebears or shamans struggled to come up with to explain the effects of this drug. Esp knowing as little as they did about mindbrain, consciousness, life processes, the ways of the world.

Gateway to another world. Here, have a peek.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Jul 15, 2011 - 12:55am PT

DMT-

I didn't include you in those stats because I couldn't tell what exactly your stance was. I liked your comments about there was a lot of Big Wall Theory going on here which seemed maybe positive. Then you made the comments about don't take psychedelics if you have low self exteem but it wasn't clear from that whether you favored them or not for those who don't have self esteem problems.

If you want to be included in the poll, you have to commit more clearly than that.