Hallucinogens and Memories: Philosophy Forums

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Hallucinogens and Memories

fearandwonder
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Posted 07/27/08 - 05:12 PM: Subject: Hallucinogens and Memories	#1
DISCLAIMER I'm a little nervous about starting this post because last time I tried, the topic hit someone too close to home. They ended up writing paragraphs about how their son is in the hospital during the holidays because of drugs. I'm not going to be glorifying drugs; I personally think they're scary and can and do ruin people's lives. So I want to limit this topic to the more innocent ones like weed and mushrooms and their effects.. Some time ago I was on the two mentioned above. I was laying down, listening to an amazing song by Opeth, and unconsciously watching the images streaming like a crazy movie in my mind. Most of the images were random and changing colors as the music changed, but then they started to become images of a forest and I almost instantly remembered five different dreams I've had over the last maybe 3 or 4 years. There's a certain place and time period that I haven't yet been able to name, but I know the vibe, and all of the dreams I remembered seem connected because they contained that vibe. Then I saw something else (that now, conscious and not wanting to lose the safe reality sold by the US mainstream, scares me only a little, but scares me in a deep part of myself). Everything was black and I was somehow speaking with someone, and I can't remember for sure what shape it took and how it was there, but someone seemed to be holding a rainbow shaped square.. And when I saw that, I felt deep down that it had been a real event years ago that had been hidden and locked in my memory. Which comes to the point of this topic, does anyone think that hallucinogens can unlock old memories (and maybe a more secondary point, does the memory I described seem to feel real to anyone)? I'm sure to a lot of people, all of this can sound ridiculous. But I'm someone that deeply believes the spirit/soul is immortal, and that the memory I described could have been real, and not simply created in that moment by what I was on.

Kelby
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Posted 07/27/08 - 10:32 PM:	#2
it was created in that moment by "what you were on."
Embodied Cognition: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm#H2

swstephe
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Posted 07/27/08 - 11:55 PM:	#3
Is it possible that a hallucinogen would uncover a nearly forgotten memory of actual events? I suppose it could, since there is a lot of research into how a strong smell can trigger the same thing. Your brain could be making an association between a memory that's been out of circulation for a while, or it could be a completely false memory. There was a study where they describe in great sensory detail about seeing bugs bunny at Disneyland as a child to a volunteer. Later, the volunteer remembered actually experiencing that before, (I assume that they had actually been there in reality), despite the fact that bugs bunny is not a Disney character. A strong sensation is like gently nudging your brain to stir things around. Hallucinogens are probably like stirring things around with a stick. I don't think any memory recovered through the use of hallucinogens would hold up in court ... however, I wonder why some memories recovered through hypnosis would. The philosophers here are probably more distracted by the "rainbow shaped square" -- whether that you perceived that or just made a typo.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

fearandwonder
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Posted 08/16/08 - 11:30 AM:	#4
swstephe wrote: Is it possible that a hallucinogen would uncover a nearly forgotten memory of actual events? I suppose it could, since there is a lot of research into how a strong smell can trigger the same thing. Your brain could be making an association between a memory that's been out of circulation for a while, or it could be a completely false memory. There was a study where they describe in great sensory detail about seeing bugs bunny at Disneyland as a child to a volunteer. Later, the volunteer remembered actually experiencing that before, (I assume that they had actually been there in reality), despite the fact that bugs bunny is not a Disney character. A strong sensation is like gently nudging your brain to stir things around. Hallucinogens are probably like stirring things around with a stick. I don't think any memory recovered through the use of hallucinogens would hold up in court ... however, I wonder why some memories recovered through hypnosis would. The philosophers here are probably more distracted by the "rainbow shaped square" -- whether that you perceived that or just made a typo. interesting reply why is that distracting? (it wasn't a typo). i know most of what i saw was made up in that moment, but that thing about the rainbow just FELT real.

unenlightened
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Posted 08/16/08 - 08:13 PM:	#5
The distraction is that rainbows are not square in shape, they're sort of roundish. So a round square is a bit of a classic philosophical no-no. If it was a rainbow coloured square - no problem. But scary? Why? Any more detail? How did you see if everything was black, did the square glow? There is probably no satisfying answer to whether it was 'real' or not, but more interesting may be whether it has any meaning. It seems significant whether it is dream or reality. I am inclined to look at it as a dream, and take the figure in the dark as your unconscious trying to tell you something - perhaps that your life needs more colour - that probably doesn't mean more drugs by the way. More emotional colour I would guess; more commitment. What is fairly obvious is that the drugs do not come up with this sort of vision of themselves, they only allow something that is already potential in the brain to become manifest.
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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