I have used LSD and Mescaline on a few occasions, and know without any
shread of doubt that there is definately a use for such substances. The
effects of both are the ability to see patterns in much more complex
situatuations than normal, the two best examples that I can describe from my
own experiences are clouds and trees. Under the influence of mescaline I
noticed something different about a large tree in my back lawn, I couldnt
place what it was, untill I realised that I could see a massively increased
range of colours, obviously most leaves are slightly different colours and
the ability to see these subtle variances was increadable, patterns start
jumping out (not literally) from everywhere, and as such the perception you
have of the world changes, and I can say permanantly, its like reading a
book, you dont remember the whole thing the next day, but things that have
some sort of deeper influence on the reader stay and allow a slightly
different perception. I had an LSD trip with a friend of mines dad, who
holds a doctorate in psycology and is an associate professor in the
biological sciences department of Massey university. We took a video
camera, polaroid photos and wrote down the experiences we had, later
comparing them to see what we could make of it. Both of us had similar
perceptions of the clouds, it was a dark day with that monotonous grey
coverage, usually you can see differnt parts of the cloud because of the
change in colours but it is not much. Under the influence of lysergic acid
we were able to see an enormous amount of detail, which we could also see on
the polaroids, which we drew on to show where the patterns were, the next
day the patterns were invisible on the polaroids - untill we looked under a
microscope, there we saw the same patterns, with our thin pen lines marking
accurately the boundaries. It is not just colours but motion that is able
to be seen in an enhanced way, different strata of clouds, which normally
seem to be the same, can be seen swirling and merging, this was again
recorded (on video) and on later investigation the same patterns could be
seen, but only through playing around with tone and contrast. As far as I
can ascertain EVERYTHING is patterns, we are patterns, the sky is patterns,
atoms are made up of patterns, which form other patterns and so on, these
psycadelics seem to be able to let us see alot of the patterns that are
otherwise invisible to our eyes (psyllocibe mushrooms are psycadelic but do
not offer these sensations, these appear to be an intoxicant with no valid
use)
As far as excellence under the influence of drugs is concerned, there are
many many examples in the music and art fields, and Aldous Huxley was
fascinated so much by psycadelics he experimented himself, The doors of
perception is entirely about a mescaline experience, and the way he explains
the whole situation makes understandable sense. A billionaire was busted in
New Zealand with a personal stash of cannabis. I think one reason why it is
in the arts that it is popular is that the static patterns associated with
'normal' jobs are so increadably boring when under the influence.
Just one more thing, has anyone here taken MDMA (extacy)? It is the closest
thing to soma that is available, it is absolutely increadable (the closest
way to describe it woud be a 5 hour orgasm) The reason I write this whole
thing is that drugs are becoming socially acceptable again in youth culture,
much like the 60-70's. Alcohol and ciggarette consumption has fallen, as
has that of heroin, extacy, the ultimate love drug has increased everyyear
for the last 4 years, as a sociology student I find this fascinating in a
sociological aspect. We had free love and hippies etc in the 60-70's before
authoraties deemed it to be wrong (remember this is when ecological problems
were pointed out, by the very same hippies, as well as the need for peace
and the futlity of war in the face of the cold war) the drugs they took were
hallucinogens and cannabis. After this in the greed riddled 80's and early
90's cocaine and heroin became the prevalent drug, and not a lot of social
good came from any of these people, today we have an increase in
hallucinogen consumption as well as the 'new' MDMA as well as amphetamines -
cannabis consumption has remained pretty steady. Violence in clubbing
circles is almost non existant, everyone gets on well, and people TALK, not
about nonsense either but about socio political problems and environmental
concerns and unfortunately about the seeming futility of our self
destructing culture.
Finally I am not naive about drug consumption. I appreciate that there are
risks involved, however I have studied the drugs I use for effects, safe
doses, contraindictions, longterm effects etc, with the help of my friends
father (the doctor of earlier). I also know for a FACT that the risks and
side effects given to us by govenment agencies are plainly scaremongering,
using statistics and 'facts' that are increadably dated as well as
misleading. The safety of most drugs is reliant on three things, dont take
excessively, dont take with anything else and have a sober mate(s) there.
The amount of death, injury and psycosis associated with drug use is tiny,
even in realative terms, when compared to alcohol and ciggarettes (I am not
including the stupifying drugs like cocaine, heroin, PCP etc, these are
undoubtably dangerous)
Please dont consider me as a drug addled lunatic, and please dont criticize
the experiences if you havent experienced them yourself.
evolve
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