This is a great article related to this subject http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs...ng-of-life
The thing with psychedelics is that they will work no matter what if you take a sufficient dose. But a psychedelic experience is not something which is exclusively attainable by psychedelic substances - you can have a psychedelic experience any moment but the strength and duration will vary. It seems that the people who are the most inside their head have problems ever experiencing spiritual experiences because these experiences somehow seem to happen when you completely let go(ego death/softening/dissolving). They are slaves to their reason without realizing the limits of rationalism(Richard Dawkins...). Many completely dismiss the idea of a spiritual experience because people cannot properly put them into words(what you can explain = true) and show them empirically. You see, it is almost impossible to describe a taste of something completely extraordinary to someone else if he hasn't tasted it. You can try to describe it by trying to compare it to something he has already tasted, but it is just apples and oranges, and he will only ultimately understand it by tasting it himself. The more alien the "experience", the harder it is to "transfer to someone else".
Fasting, near death experiences, tiredness or illness are some of the ways to get your body and mind to a state where experiencing something beyond your cognitive prison may be easier. Fasting and different rituals like some African tribes sending their young to wilderness to become a man are part of many religious practices. It seems that you either have to get your body so weak(fasting, illness) that your mind(ego) cannot sustain itself and it is easy to let go, or get so intense that adrenaline cuts of your head from your body.
I have experienced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia awake. Basically it is very easy for me to see pictures(sometimes very blurry, sometimes very sharp and sometimes color/less) my eyes closed, usually when I am very relaxed or very tired. I have also experienced what they call "satori" in zen - a glimpse of awakening, how I feel is that I experience everything without any focus on one single thing in a slightest way: hearing, seeing, feeling and touching without hearing, seeing, feeling or touching anything specifically. The feeling inside the mind is very similar to the state experienced on heavy psychedelics such as DMT. Also, when I started meditating, it wasn't very difficult to start getting distortions in my vision, and when got really deep, the images inside the head would occur. After searching zen and meditation, it is apparently very common to get these images during a meditating and many call them "demons"(mara) because when you can shut down the language chatter, the mind starts popping up images to keep the mind occupied. The goal would be the complete silence, but it is almost irresistible to not focus on these images because they are so incredibly fascinating turning the meditation into an entertaining process for the mind.
I believe schizophrenia is something "wrong" inside the brain which fortunately allows to percept reality beyond the normally functioning brain. Our brains have evolved only to show enough for us to be able to function & survive in the reality, without having a complete grasp of it
This is what I have found out, I still have a long way and no way to go.
The thing with psychedelics is that they will work no matter what if you take a sufficient dose. But a psychedelic experience is not something which is exclusively attainable by psychedelic substances - you can have a psychedelic experience any moment but the strength and duration will vary. It seems that the people who are the most inside their head have problems ever experiencing spiritual experiences because these experiences somehow seem to happen when you completely let go(ego death/softening/dissolving). They are slaves to their reason without realizing the limits of rationalism(Richard Dawkins...). Many completely dismiss the idea of a spiritual experience because people cannot properly put them into words(what you can explain = true) and show them empirically. You see, it is almost impossible to describe a taste of something completely extraordinary to someone else if he hasn't tasted it. You can try to describe it by trying to compare it to something he has already tasted, but it is just apples and oranges, and he will only ultimately understand it by tasting it himself. The more alien the "experience", the harder it is to "transfer to someone else".
Fasting, near death experiences, tiredness or illness are some of the ways to get your body and mind to a state where experiencing something beyond your cognitive prison may be easier. Fasting and different rituals like some African tribes sending their young to wilderness to become a man are part of many religious practices. It seems that you either have to get your body so weak(fasting, illness) that your mind(ego) cannot sustain itself and it is easy to let go, or get so intense that adrenaline cuts of your head from your body.
I have experienced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia awake. Basically it is very easy for me to see pictures(sometimes very blurry, sometimes very sharp and sometimes color/less) my eyes closed, usually when I am very relaxed or very tired. I have also experienced what they call "satori" in zen - a glimpse of awakening, how I feel is that I experience everything without any focus on one single thing in a slightest way: hearing, seeing, feeling and touching without hearing, seeing, feeling or touching anything specifically. The feeling inside the mind is very similar to the state experienced on heavy psychedelics such as DMT. Also, when I started meditating, it wasn't very difficult to start getting distortions in my vision, and when got really deep, the images inside the head would occur. After searching zen and meditation, it is apparently very common to get these images during a meditating and many call them "demons"(mara) because when you can shut down the language chatter, the mind starts popping up images to keep the mind occupied. The goal would be the complete silence, but it is almost irresistible to not focus on these images because they are so incredibly fascinating turning the meditation into an entertaining process for the mind.
I believe schizophrenia is something "wrong" inside the brain which fortunately allows to percept reality beyond the normally functioning brain. Our brains have evolved only to show enough for us to be able to function & survive in the reality, without having a complete grasp of it
This is what I have found out, I still have a long way and no way to go.