Bruno,
I enjoyed your pretty comprehensive post!
Thanks!
John
PS> one little question: have you ever been 'present' when in REM? JM
On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi Johnathan, Kim, Stathis
>
>
> I agree with you Johnathan. Scientists learn a lot from extreme cases,
> and altered states of consciousness is worth to study, even to
> understand better what is a "normal" (if that exists) states of
> consciousness.
>
> Now remember that our brain seems to generate already by itself a
> numerous of different "naturally", or self-altered, consciousness
> states.
> The most amazing and well known is the state of the so called
> paradoxical sleep, or REM period, or dream state, or reality
> simulation state. It is a state unknown by the dinosaurs and the
> reptiles. It appears with the birds and then all the homeothermic
> animals. Michel Jouvet called it paradoxical, because it makes the
> animal hallucinated and paralyzed which makes it an easy prey for the
> predator, yet that states has survived 65 millions of years, nobody
> really knows why, but we suspect its importance.
>
> During sleep, with some training you can be "lucid" not just during
> the REM paradoxical state, you can be somehow lucid during the slow
> wave states, and that gives roughly speaking another collection of
> four "natural altered states". Fever, some headache, some stroke could
> lead to variants.
>
> Why altered states? I can find plausible that in situation of stress,
> like for a mouse in the mouth of a cat, your probabilities of
> surviving are made higher if your brain has a system of self calm
> down, if not self lying. It is known that mouse indeed generates
> endogenous morphine like pain killer, and as you know the brain is
> full of enhancers and inhibitors. Most drugs coming from plants are
> molecules looking like our own inhibitors of enhancers, general or
> specific. Which means (but don't repeat) that the first big drugs
> constructor is the brain itself (don't repeat because make they will
> make the brain and computer illegal).
> Like anything alive a big part of the work consists in self-repairing
> and all those endogenous drugs, well all, depending the amount, can
> alter *a little bit more* the state of consciousness, than it does in
> normal circumstances, so that, again, a normal state of consciousness
> is a sum of altered states in a equilibrium, belonging to some
> neighborhood of states.
>
> And why does plant constructs altered states of consciousness
> molecules? In my opinion it has all to do with the incredibly complex
> relationships that plant have with animals, in general, and insects in
> particular. Many plants have to detract predator insects. By killing
> them, or by just smelling like, or imitating the smell of, of the
> appearance of the worst predators of the insect (sort of lies!). But
> they must also to attract insects, feed them, and manipulate them in
> such a way that Mister plant can send its Message to Missis Plant
> which leaves at five miles from Him. You bet that with millions of
> years they knows about manipulating insects and animals, from predator
> and pollinator to consumers.
>
> And which explains perhaps why there are so much medicinal and
> "psychedelic" plants (entheogen).
>
> Now I agree with you Johnathan, that for discussing about
> consciousness, we should distinguish between drugs which alter the
> mood and the perception, like cannabis and alcohol from hallucinogen,
> like some mushrooms and cactus, and dissociators like Ketamine. Salvia
> Divinorum, strictly speaking, is a bit of both a dissociator and an
> hallucinogen. The first alter your "actual" consciousness, the second
> triggers an actual different in nature experience, like an out of body
> experience, or a near death experience, or a dream, or a dream-like
> scenario. Typically and without training you don't remain lucid: you
> forget you are under the product. You can't take Salvia casually, you
> take it to live a particular experience which requires your attention,
> and preparation.
>
> Now, I would not compare the effect of Salvia with anything produced
> by any other entheogen. When smoked, it produces an effect which lasts
> in general between 3 and 6 minutes. Unlike cannabis, alcohol, LSD, and
> many others, the effect is disphoric, meaning not typically pleasant.
> Animals does not push twice on the "button" with salvia, showing in
> particular it is not addictive. Normal, "my thesis" in four minutes,
> the poor animals!
>
> The effect are quite different from people to people, and according to
> the concentration of the salvinorin molecules. You find it from 1X
> (the leaves), to 5X, 10X, ... 40X (beyond it seems to me only the
> price grows up, not the effect).
>
> Many meet typical archetypes (elves, carnival wheel, clown). Some will
> relive childhood events, or complete life of someone else. Most will
> talk about a strong pulling or pushing rotation, physically felt,
> which can sometimes leads to being cut in billions parts and send to
> as much parallel realities (some can panic here). All talk about
> realities and perception of realities. many% (on about 1000 reports)
> talk explicitly about feeling a "feminine presence", which "teach" you
> something, the last point of it seeming unmemorable. Some lives the
> experience very badly. In my own experiment, with 30 participants (one
> by one), they made rewarding experiences, you just need to be patient
> and to increase the amount of concentration incrementally, and to
> encourage the respect of the plant. Most learns this by experience.
>
> Is it safe? The effect are impressive, but apparently not dangerous.
> If you look at the YouTube Video, you see that used in the worst
> conditions it leads, in the worse case only to bruises and nightmares.
> (With alpinism, a slight error can kill you and others). Like
> cannabis, no overdose level exists. Given big amount of
> "infinityX" (pure salvinorin) to rats makes then "sleep" for 4
> minutes, and then they resume their activities. It is estimated that
> on the last 2 millions of American who smoked salvia, there are zero
> death related to it, nor even emergency calls. There are thousand of
> death related to alcohol consumption, and many more injuries, just to
> compare.
>
> Salvia is above all a medicinal plant. Incredibly enough, I did cure a
> severe migraine recently. The person told me she did try all possible
> medications, without success, she has to just keep calm in the dark
> for 12 hours. A little hit of leave made it disappear in three
> minutes. It is one of the main use among the Mazatec. It helps for
> nasal congestion too, it helps for sleep (always 1X here).
> It is antidepressant, and it is antiaddictive. It is a medication
> against drugs!
>
> And yes Kim, it is easy (far more than cannabis which is already easy)
> to grow your own plant and to multiply it. It is alas less easy to
> find the plant, there are no seeds available, because Salvia Divinorum
> has literally abandon sexual reproduction (I think she did have its
> own predator as pollinator, explaining the subtleties of her message).
> You don't need light, she hates light, she loves the dark, heat and
> water a lot. She lives, or at least her ancestors were used to live
> (because since 700 years she has been cultivated by the Mexican
> Mazatec) in dark hot and humid forest, in the nightlight of the day
> within the shadows of trees with many branches. Below 0° (celsius) she
> dies.
>
> I am glad I found my master. A plant! (grin). But I will continue to
> explain UDA+AUDA for those who prefer the pure third person
> communicable way. Don't worry, (or worry, perhaps :). It is a
> question of taste. Reality is creative, beyond wonders and surprises.
> People who does not like wonders, surprises should not study computer
> science and logics, neither physics, and should avoid Lewis Carroll
> and Salvia Divinorum. That plant likes joking. Here a video of someone
> very sensible, and a bit unprepared, who seems to appreciate the joke:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1QavlZe2H8&feature=channel_page
>
> About that plant, I would like to add that I am certainly in favor of
> some regulation. But criminalization of it is no less than criminal.
> The plant becomes really dangerous: it can send you to hell (jail),
> even without smoking it!
> We should have laws forbidding defamation about products related to
> health. Against the abuse of systematic well known errors of logic,
> the ignorance of what is a trance states, etc.
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Mon Mar 23 2009 - 18:50:44 PDT