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DMT And The Alien Abduction Experience

barfing_pumpkin

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For a start, consider this, which comes from www.serendipity.li/dmt/cl_rpts.html :

Full contact. They landed and took parts out of me and/or put parts in. Or — another possibility — they showed me the performance of such an act, whether it was physically carried out on me or not. But being shown something is equivalent to its happening. The whole of our experience is a long-flung fireball illumination of what's shown to us. This is a UFO landing: when someone is open for contact (through DMT or whatever). I wonder if anybody else saw them. I wonder if they put things into me (those insects they were talking about last time). I wonder if they can now contact me at any time now or just when I'm high. I wonder if they actually take people with them, I wonder if they'll take me with them.

There were sloppy serpentine parts hanging out of buckets — revolting, although I felt oddly calm about it, considering they were parts of myself. Mildly interested in the process, despite the fact that I felt I was being victimized, no matter how you look at it: lying there amidst a mass of extraterrestrial thighs, being operated on.

UFO phenomenon, electrically buzzed and illuminated by my own pulse, all the while coming of its own volition, each and every time and as often as possible, instant response to the invitation. Maybe even when not summoned? Now that's the edge of fear that I feel: That I'm way out of my depth, that I haven't got a clue as to what I'm doing, that these beings have thus far avoided fully exposing themselves to me — so far I've seen backs of heads, thighs and the wasp they sent ahead — while they are subjecting me to their tests and operations.

Who knows where it'll go next? We're travelling faster every time; this is the eighth trip and the leaps and bounds towards DMT space increase between each one. When I say DMT space, this is not a contradiction of the fact that this apparent operation took place in my room, as my surroundings were transported toward DMT space.

Scarier and scarier, but I wouldn't dream of stopping now.

Not a 'genuine' alien abduction experience, but a report made by someone under the influence of the hallucinongen dimethyltryptamine - DMT for short.

Extracts from another report (http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/journeys.html):

Some of these light trips included a space-age-looking being taking me down a river of geometry going past other beings in their "street". Quite pleasant. Also very faint impression of a short being with stethoscope-type instrument made of light which was placed on my forhead; very inquisitve little fellow but very faint, dreamlike.

This was my first very real alien encounter. The being was controlling the way I was breathing ... The being, thin, multi-coloured, with an unwavering grin, was moving its hands down my head controlling my breath.

I found myself being driven into this small square room with very real walls made of continuoulsy changing, sharp, perfect geometry. Everything was backlit like a fluorescent tube of pure cold light...

There are plenty of other reports in this (http://www.serendipity.li) site, as well as http://deoxy.org/hs_cehn.htm - and note the praying mantis!

So, the question: is the reason why the DMT experience seems so much the same as an alien abduction experience is because they are actually one and the same? If so - and presuming that most alien abduction 'experiencers' do not take DMT - what causes it? I remember an FT article by Peter Brookesmith from way back ('Do Androids Dream of Jacob's Sheep?') where he too linked the DMT trip with alien abductions, and stated - if I remember correctly - that DMT is a naturally ocurring substance within the brain, and is related to language function.

Is it so improbable to think, then, that the root of the alien abduction experience might lie in some sort chemical imbalance in the brain? Has anyone on these boards taken DMT, and has some insights to share with us? Or is it that just because some experiences are similar, it does not make them one and the same?

My take on it? That the DMT experience is so similar to the Alien Abduction experience that - in lacking of any other reasonable theory - they must be the same thing.

[Emp edit: Making some of the links clickable]
 
DMT experiences are characertised by encounters with small creature, e.g. McKenna's Machine Elves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Elves

See also:

Several highly speculative and as yet untested hypotheses suggest that endogenous DMT, produced in the human brain, is involved in certain psychological and neurological states. As DMT is highly probably naturally produced in small amounts by the human organism, some believe it plays a role in dreaming, near-death experiences and other mystical states. It has been speculated by the researcher Jace Callaway that DMT might be connected with visual dreaming. It is also speculated that DMT can be found in elevated amounts during times of visual dreaming or after near-death experiences.

Writers on DMT include Terence McKenna and Jeremy Narby, though scientists who study psychedelic drugs treat their writings with skepticism. McKenna writes of his experiences with DMT in which he encounters entities he describes as "Self-Transforming Machine Elves". Other users report visitation from external intelligences attempting to impart information. These Machine Elf experiences are said to be shared by many DMT users. From a researcher's perspective, perhaps best known is Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule (ISBN 0892819278); Strassman also proposed that DMT is made in the pineal gland, although this is only speculation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltr ... eculations

However, the abduction experience you draw parallels with is more often than not a narrative derived through some kind of therapy (hypnosis, guided imagery, etc.) and appear to have no actual "reality".

You could though draw parallels with encounters during SP which may fit in with some of the speculation quoted above.

----------------
See also:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12166
 
Although they needn't be actual Elves:

But what is astonishing and immediately riveting is that in this place there are entities - there are these things, which I call "self transforming machine elves," I also call them self-dribbling basketballs. They are, but they are none of these things. I mean you have to understand: these are metaphors in the truest sense, meaning they're lies! Uh, it's a jeweled self-transforming basketball, a machine elf. I name them 'Tykes' because tyke is a word that means to me a small child, and I was fascinated by the 54th fragment of Heraclitis, where he says: "The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls" ... and when you burst into the DMT space this is the Aeon - it's a child, and it's at play with colored balls, and I am in eternity, apparently, in the presence of this thing.

There are many of these things, but the main thing that's happening is that they are engaged in a linguistic activity of some sort, which we do not have words for, but it's visible language. They are doing the visible language trip. When you break into the space, they actually cheer! The first thing you hear when you pass across is this 'hhhyeaaaaaayyy' - you know the Pink Floyd song? "The Gnomes have Learned a New Way to Say Hoo-Ray?" This has gotta be what these guys were talking about; how else could it be? It doesn't make any sense otherwise.

You break into this space... the gnomes say hoo-ray! And they come rushing forward

http://deoxy.org/timemind.htm

Instead, what happened was there was an encounter with what can only be described as an elf hive, a colony of self-transforming, hyperdimensional machine creatures that came bounding forward with joyful squeaks to dribble themselves like self-transforming jewelled basketballs on the floor in front of me, and I was dumbstruck with amazement. Occasionally people ask me "Is DMT dangerous?", and I think the honest answer is "only if you fear death by astonishment." Well, I was astonished, I mean, I was an intellectual of the Hegel/Camus crowd when I went through that violet scintillating doorway, and I came out a true believer, because these creatures in this place are filled with a kind of zany, affectionate, reckless humour and a desire to communicate with human beings, or at least with me in that moment, and what they were doing and how they were communicating was by generating, through their songs, objects, so that what I was surrounded by was a crowd of diminutive, self-transforming blobs of intentionalised ectoplasmic material, and they were producing out of their bodies objects which looked like Faberge eggs or exquisitely tooled machines made of ivory glass and gemstone that were themselves undergoing some kind of transformation, emitting musical sounds, condensing liquid metal out of the air and causing it to rain down on us.

http://deoxy.org/h_twha3.htm

See also:
www.serendipity.li/dmt/cl_rpts.html

---------------------
On a sidenote one could also argue that DMT, SP, various other drugs and shamanic rituals are just putting us in contact with..... something else possibly that our minds can't grasp so we throw out those "metaphors."

I am unsure how we could decide whether it is an internal or external process at work - the internal idea is cleary simpler as we already know we are very good at seeing things that aren't there.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
I remember an FT article by Peter Brookesmith from way back ('Do Androids Dream of Jacob's Sheep?') where he too linked the DMT trip with alien abductions, and stated - if I remember correctly - that DMT is a naturally ocurring substance within the brain, and is related to language function.

Sort of. Its only a paragraph in a longer article [FT83:22-30] which largely draws on other people's comments - most of that is from a quote by Paul Devereux. I'll see if we can't get this online as it should be an interesting talking point.

What is interesting is that it goes on to quote him again about Alan Worsley's work "trying to enter a lucid dreaming state without any intervening sleep" where he reports he thought he was "examined in the dark by robots" and "operated on by small beings."

Seems to be from:

Paul Devereux (1994) Beyond Ufology: Meeting With the Alien. New Ufologist. 1 (6). 4 - 12.
 
So lets follow this one:

Keep The Aliens At Bay

©1995 Linda Lane Magallón

Have a problem with ghosts, goblins or aliens? Who you gonna call? How about calling on your own dreaming skills? That's what author Keith Thompson suggested in his book, Angels And Aliens(1).

I discovered the persistence of the alien theme during my analysis of the 7 shared dreaming projects held between 1984 and 1992. It was intriguing to note how many of the lucid and archetypal dreamers in the projects could dream about aliens and UFOs, even when this was not their conscious goal.

In order to put those alien dreams into a wider context, I began to researching the alien encounter literature. Soon I found most encounters describing a passive, helpless, hopeless, I'm-trapped-what-can-I-do? attitude. But Thompson changed this perspective when he considered how abductees might help themselves recover from their experiences of trauma. He made this suggestion, "Suppose they learned the shamanic art of remaining lucid in dream states."

Hmm, I thought, what if they did? Then I discovered that someone was already practicing this "art" to face fear. It was Alan Worsley, famed sleep-lab subject of Keith Hearne, the pioneer of lab-induced lucid dreaming in England.

Here's what author Jayne Gackenbach wrote about Alan(2).

"Veteran lucid dreamer Alan Worsley...explains that occasionally when he induces lucid dreaming by lying still for up to two hours or more on his back, he too has found himself at the mercy of aliens. 'I am not given to superstition or believing in 'unnecessary entities' but perhaps the term 'dream' is a little too bland to do justice to the ultra-realism of these experiences.' he explains.

"'For instance, if one 'dreams' as I have, in rich tactile and auditory imagery, of being examined in the dark by robots or operated upon by small beings whose goodwill and competence may be in doubt, or abused in various ways by life-forms not known to terrestrial biology, it can be very difficult to keep still. I have found that if I do not keep still this peculiar state of consciousness usually evaporates in a moment. That can be a very useful as an escape route but it can be annoying to lose it when the success rate is not high and each attempt takes two hours or more. I like to regard myself as a least a moderately intrepid investigator, but I have to admit that in spite of being intellectually of the opinion that what was happening was only internally generated imagery, I have flinched during these episodes on more than one occasion...I suspect that many 'UFO abduction' experiences, as well as out-of-body experiences are examples of the same kind of thing."

Reading the above passage had a strong effect on me. It incubated the following dream.

"Helped By Astral Hands," Linda Lane Magallón, 2/1/95, 3:00 A.M.

I am lying on my left side, leaning towards my front, trying to return to sleep. I finally get myself into a particular state of consciousness that feels "plastic" and which I recognize as the precursor to the out-of-body experience. I try to separate from my physical body by rolling over. The first time I try it, I actually move my physical right arm. Then I let it collapse to its original position lying against my torso. The second time I seem to roll about a quarter way round when my husband Manny actually moves his physical body and I am pulled back to waking consciousness.

I realize that my right hand is wrapped around my front. I am partially lying on it, causing a restriction of blood and slight numbing feeling which is helping me to achieve the OBE state.

The third time I manage to roll my astral body clear over so it is lying on its back. But I can't seem to pull up and out. I know that I could continue rolling to the right and off the bed. But because of what I've read about Alan Worsley's experiences, I decide to try an experiment. I ask for help to be pulled upwards.

Sure enough, I feel two hands. At first they are placed round my shoulders (subliminally I know that they are located "inside" where the pillow is in physical reality). Then as my torso is being lifted, the hands slip down to my waist and pull gently on me. I am raised to about a 45° angle when I think it would be better if I were to be pushed instead of pulled. Immediately, the pulling hands sensation dissipates and is replaced by a pushing hands sensation. I am pushed until my head is vertical.

The whole sensation is ultra-realistic. I feel that actual hands are supporting me. And I have the strong feeling that the hands are attached to some real entity, or entities, perhaps: one in back and one in front. At the same time I know that the sensations and feelings have immediately followed my request to experience them. Are entities always hanging around just to respond to my bidding, like guardian angels are supposed to do? To have them appear on command seems just a little too convenient.

At this point I think that anyone who is close enough to push me would have his head quite close to mine. Immediately I can hear the sound of breathing directly to my left. A head begins to form just inches from my face. I start becoming afraid. But then I remember that just before I'd gone to sleep, Manny had said "Good night" with halitosis on his breath. So I think "bad breath" and both the fear and the head disappear. Throughout this sequence I am virtually in the dark. So the man's form is very vague.

It is time to be pushed completely out, I think. So I am, and find myself being propelled down a long corridor. It feels as though I am being pushed forward but when the visuals come up, I find myself seemingly moving backwards through the corridor. I am floating in a vertical position. Holding me is a man, to my left. He is accompanied by two other folks: a woman directly in front of me and another of indeterminate gender.

I think "aliens" and the man's face begins to contort into a scarier version. I can feel my fear rising but when I halt it, so does the facial metamorphosis. I remember Whitley Strieber's Communion version of the alien and it seems that I can see those kind of traditional bug-eyed alien shapes "underneath" the two other people's forms and faces, as if I were using x-ray vision. But it is only a hint and very vague. The visuals are still quite dark because the corridor is illumined just by an eerie blue light. It is the only source of light throughout the entire OBE so I can't see very well.

I begin asking question like "Who are you?" but the other folks simply look at me, mute. As I concentrate my focus on the man, the other two seem to move back and out of my line of sight.

Finally the journey is at an end and the man and I walk into a room where still more people are standing, separated one from another, silent and eerie. I look around, again asking questions. But no one answers. I think about setting up a scenario in which I am lying horizontal, being examined by aliens, but decide against it. Enough for today.

There is no sense of return to my body. I just awake suddenly and find my physical body in its original position. Then I fall into deep sleep until morning.

http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flyin ... hor1479976

Explaining the paranormal

While studying the work of Dean Shields, an American anthropologist, LaBerge found that 80% of out of body experiences happened when people were sleeping. This led him to believe they might be a direct result of lucid dreams and not a paranormal experience at all. Sleep researches now believe lucid dreams could be responsible for many accounts of alien abduction, astral travel and other psychic experiences.

www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/micro ... ature.html

One wonders why they pin it all on lucid dreams as SP can induce OoBE symptoms.

--------------
Book mentioned:

Angels and Aliens: Ufos and the Mythic Imagination
Keith Thompson
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/04499 ... ntmagaz-21
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0449908 ... enantmc-20
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/00993 ... ntmagaz-21
 
Excellent stuff, Mighty_Emperor; definite food for thought.

What I find most striking about these DMT reports (and what also makes me suspect a fundamental link with the Alien Abduction experience) is the way they resonate so much with Whitley Streiber's experiences - especially the atmosphere of surrealism which pervades the events he writes about in Communion et al. There's also a definite resonance with many of the experiences John Mack described in his book on the AA subject (I forget what it was called - read it ages ago), especially the piece about the guy 'who felt he was an alien', and someone else (or maybe even the same guy) who spoke of actually visiting the alien planet - it's vague, but I recall something about lying on an altar in the middle of a vast plain. Anyways...

However, the abduction experience you draw parallels with is more often than not a narrative derived through some kind of therapy (hypnosis, guided imagery, etc.) and appear to have no actual "reality".

True...very true. And the problem is compounded by the fact that certain researchers are prone to enforcing their own beliefs upon the subject when said subject is suggestible, and thereby reducing the value of the evidence on offer. A commited 'darksider' like Jacobs, for instance, might see this part of a witness account:

There were sloppy serpentine parts hanging out of buckets — revolting, although I felt oddly calm about it, considering they were parts of myself. Mildly interested in the process, despite the fact that I felt I was being victimized, no matter how you look at it: lying there amidst a mass of extraterrestrial thighs, being operated on.

And, ignoring the context completely, take it as yet another example of the nastiness of these evil little grey doctors. Therefore, the whole experience becomes part of the cosmic villainy that Jacobs subscribes too, and further questioning of the subject would then be based on this very same premise.

Still, I understand that there are a good many reported abduction experiences which are not gleaned from hypnosis, and it's those we have to trust and compare to. I understand that BUFORA once implemented a moratorium on recovered AA testimony - does anyone know if this moratorium is still in effect?

BTW - the Brookesmith article I referred was actually called 'Do Aliens dream of Jacobs' Sheep'. I got it mixed up with the PKD title which the article played upon - which is sort of funny, considering the similarly visionary experiences that Phil underwent.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
Still, I understand that there are a good many reported abduction experiences which are not gleaned from hypnosis, and it's those we have to trust and compare to.

This is what struck me as one of the (many) interesting thigns in Clancy's book - she was suprised how few abduction tales were derived form sources other than therapy.

The majority of abductees she studied think they've been abducted because. well they because they think they've been abducted. They have no memories they have a general mix of things including feeling different from other people, mystery bruises and SP (or other related parasomnia) encounters with mysterious entities. For them abduction is the most logical explanation and his often sets them on a path (or they may already be on the start of the path) which includes: researching things on the Internet, reading books like Streibers and finally joining groups for abductees (online and offline) and being refered on to trusted therapists who can recover the memories they think they've represssed. As these therapists are trusted they all have a similar world view to the abductees and the abduction narrative emerges from that. It sometimes seems to take a few goes before it all forms iself into a coherent story.

Thats not to say that these experiences don't appear in people's memories spotaneously but its less common than I thought.

I would say that while I'd not pin down a DMT = abduction linkage I would be open to the idea that DMT, lucid dreaming, parasomnia, shamanic practices and other things (TLEs and high levels of EM?) can access or trigger the relevant part of our psyche.

Here is the quote from Clancy (page 58):

although it's possible for some people to develop memories in the absence of imaginational therapy, this is uncommon. Most of my subjects who had abduction memories - like most subjects in the scientific literature who report such memories - acquired them through hypnosis or other related psychotherpeutic techniques. For example, of the leven that agreed to participate in the memory study discussed in Chapter 1, eight had their memories emerge under hypnosis (two underwent other techniques to recover memories, and one recovered them atfer watching a TV show about aliens).

The problem i when we are told an abduction tale it is a story that has been worked on a lot and we don't get to here how they arrived at their narrative and what their initial thoughts were.
 
Well, whether DMT is central to the AA experience or not (I subscribe the that fact that it 'probably is', though the idea that it may be part of a composite situation involving shamanism, parasomnia etc seems reasonable enough too), what is undeniably fascinating is how many diverse visionary experiences appear to involve contact with strange 'visitors'. The aforementioned Phil K Dick, for example - he referred often to these 'three-eyed beings', and though we can't entirely pin-down what actually happened to him, the aspect remains. Even via other hallucinogens - magic mushrooms, LSD etc - occasional reports are made of 'meetings' with strange visitors. Given, then, that the mind - for whatever reason - has a tendency towards this sort of thing, it surprises me that so many people are still prepared to give more credence than is deserved to the idea that the AA experience can be put down to literal, objective 'aliens' and literal, objective 'UFO's.

Perhaps, in needing to get some idea of what is really going on, it might be necessary to look inwards before looking outwards...
 
DMT/Alien Abductions

The internet is full of people having alien experiences whilst taking DMT - a synthesised version of the chemical found in very small doses in our brains. I even read about a rave in the USA in 1991/2 where the band EMF were attending and that almost the entire party (50+ people ) witnessed a UFO land and a CE3 type experience take place.

My question is this.....


If DMT is a naturally occuring chemical in the human brain... can not all abduction experiences be due to some kind of possible imbalance/manipulation of this chemical?

Brain food for thought?
The Middleman
 
If DMT is a naturally occuring chemical in the human brain... can not all abduction experiences be due to some kind of possible imbalance/manipulation of this chemical?

This is pretty much what I reckon - though I doubt it applies to all abduction experiences, especially those that have been recovered by hypnosis (where the prejudices of the investigator might be more responsible as to the precise nature of the experiences). Even so, I strongly suspect (ah, how nice those split infinitives sound!) that DMT does play a large part in the phenomenon as a whole. The question, howver, is this: what causes the chemical alteration in the brain in the first place?
 
I think the problem is you'd need to identify what the levels are and what might infleunce the onset of a DMT-induced episode. It would also be interesting to see if there are any characterisitcs that might indicate DMT is at work - possibly minor details that might be normally overlooked. That'd invo;ve some... interesting experimentation ;)

Its early days but it certainly might explain some of the abduction scenarios - by no means all as there are plenty of other explanations.

-------
Of course the opposite take on this is that DMT in the brain, along with other factors (shamanic practices, what is currently defined as SP, etc.), are keys which open the doors to some very real experiences - presumably accessing alternate relaities of higher dimensions. It appears to be the conclusion Rick Strassman comes to (I'm clearly going to have to buy the book - I hear too many references to the experiments) and a number of researchers seem to be leaning towards this.

How one would develop criteria to test if this is an external event (as opposed to the more likely internal one) is anyone's guess. Similarities between different experiences could just be down to our having similar brain wiring. Anyway he similarities are crude ones and the range of experiences might suggest it isn't so simple. However, if you could somehow pass informaiton into "DMT space" and then get someone to extract it then that might be a sign of something operating externally but then you'd need to eliminate other internal explanations like RV or telepathy (Occam's Razor slashing left, right and centre!!).

-------
TheMiddleman: Also do you have any links to resources about the EMF incident? Possibly start a new thread (unless they were all on DMT I suppose).
 
The EMF incident I can't think where I read about it... no fear, I'll try emailing the ex-lead singer and see what I can find out. It was in an interview as a quote from band members from what I can recall.... in somewhere like Utah. I'll post here if I get anywhere.

TheMiddleman
 
How one would develop criteria to test if this is an external event (as opposed to the more likely internal one) is anyone's guess.

But does it really matter, one way or the other? On the face of it, the DMT experience appears internal and subjective, but to the experiencers it undoubtedly seems something more than that (I guess, anyway). The simple fact is that if a series of tests were done on a large number of DMT experiencers, and the result was that the experience itself had no objective effects (aside from the physical symptoms of taking the drug itself), then it still wouldn't matter at all to those who believe they've uncovered a living, breathing dimension because of it. Provided that (a) the experiencers don't attempt to make outlandish claims that the experience has a nuts-and-bolts reality, and (b) they don't try and make a religion out of the thing, I think the question can be safely left alone - for the time being, at least.

EDITED for apparent self-contradiction: when I said 'provided that...the experiencers don't attempt to make outlandish claims that the experience has a nuts-and-bolts reality', I meant it in the sense that it doesn't have any bearing on consensus reality. If a DMT user if happy that it seems real enough to him or her - and only him or her - then I don't see a problem with the situation.
 
TheMiddleman said:
The EMF incident I can't think where I read about it... no fear, I'll try emailing the ex-lead singer and see what I can find out. It was in an interview as a quote from band members from what I can recall.... in somewhere like Utah. I'll post here if I get anywhere.

Cheers. I was thinking it'd be easy enough to track the band down but it sounds like you are on the case. It' be worth posting here actually:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25220

---------------
barfing_pumpkin said:
How one would develop criteria to test if this is an external event (as opposed to the more likely internal one) is anyone's guess.

But does it really matter, one way or the other?

I'm not really sure what you are saying with the rest of hat post. To answer the question - yes it does matter if the various methods are providing some contact with external entities. It would be a fundamentally important discovery and could change human society for good.

They'd have to create a NASA for journies into inner space - real space cadets and everything.

Perhaps we should have DMT Day were everyone gets dosed up and has a chat with the machine elves?

---
An aside: At the end of the Invisibles volume "Counting to None" Morrison throws out the idea of psychedelic tourism
 
I'm not really sure what you are saying with the rest of hat post. To answer the question - yes it does matter if the various methods are providing some contact with external entities. It would be a fundamentally important discovery and could change human society for good.

But as it stands, it's essentially unprovable. AFAIK if someone is happy that they're 'communing' with entities that seem real enough, then good luck to them. Unless a genuinely objective dimension to the experience is unearthed, then I think the question is kind of redundant. My main interest in the DMT experience is in the parallells it has with the alien abduction experience - and the fact that it might provide a major counterpoint to the 'travelling spaceman' theories beloved of Hopkins et al.

But an international DMT day...
Hmmm. Intriguing. One would wonder, however, if the machine elves (provided that they are real, of course) might take umbrage at all this mass immigration. And bear in mind that no matter how hard we might try to make ourselves worthy of their attentions, it would be completely spoiled if, amongst our chosen human representatives, we included:

A. Theonazis ( :D )

and

B. Local government officers.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
I'm not really sure what you are saying with the rest of hat post. To answer the question - yes it does matter if the various methods are providing some contact with external entities. It would be a fundamentally important discovery and could change human society for good.

But as it stands, it's essentially unprovable.

Not necessarily - it should set up predictions that can be tested. As I noted above some of these might be tricky to separate from other explanations but if you could say pass a message into Otherspace and then someone else get it back it would show that something very strange was at work. If you could brin back some unique piece of knowledge

Interestingly the idea that they are external entities is, I believe, the background to Graham Hancock's New book. Granted he tends to steal other people's ideas but at least he steals well. It may be that the book may also shed some extra light on the external entity hypothesis that might allow for the formulation of testable predicitions

One might hypothesise for example that doing something like a PET scan of a brain under the influence of strong hallucinogenics (say LSD or Salvia) might be different from brain activity of you were in contact with something out there.

Also if say EM or shamanic rituals were also giving access to Otherspace then one would expect there to be similarities between brain activity under these circumstances as opposed to the merely hallucinating.

I would iamgie with a bit of thought it should be possible to come up with a range of tests that could be run.

barfing_pumpkin said:
My main interest in the DMT experience is in the parallells it has with the alien abduction experience - and the fact that it might provide a major counterpoint to the 'travelling spaceman' theories beloved of Hopkins et al.

And as I've said there is no one explanation and direct comparisons with the full abduction scenarios might be unwise as it appears to largely be a fiction brewed up between abductee and researcher.

What I would say is that it may be part of wider weirdness (whihc we can file under encounters with the Other) but one would have to find a way to identify characeristics of a DMT experience so that it can be identified in amongst all the other factors at play.

barfing_pumpkin said:
But an international DMT day...
Hmmm. Intriguing. One would wonder, however, if the machine elves (provided that they are real, of course) might take umbrage at all this mass immigration. And bear in mind that no matter how hard we might try to make ourselves worthy of their attentions, it would be completely spoiled if, amongst our chosen human representatives, we included:

A. Theonazis ( :D )

and

B. Local government officers.

I dunno - perhaps they are the one's who really need to speak to the machine elves ;)
 
Seems like setting up ways of testing it might be tricky.

Stanislav Grof has doen experiments with LSD and has achieved effects that I was suggesting would be a test of whether entities are internal or external and they brought back information given to them by.. something (it all borders on mediumship I suppose):

In The Adventures of Self Discovery, Grof describes "One particularly unnerving session [in which] a young man suffering from depression found himself in what seemed to be another dimension. It had an eerie luminescence and although he could not see anyone he sensed that it was crowded with discarnate beings. Suddenly he sensed a presence very close to him, and to his surprise it began to communicate with him telepathically. It asked him to please contact a couple who lived in the Moravian city of Kromeriz and let them know that their son Ladislav was well taken care of and doing all right. It then gave him the couple's name, address, and telephone number" (Talbot).

In The Adventures of Self Discovery, Dr. Stanislov Grof goes on to say that "I went to the telephone, dialed the number in Kromeriz, and asked if I could speak with Ladislav. To my astonishment, the woman on the other side of the line started to cry. When she calmed down, she told me with a broken voice: 'our son is not with us any more, he passed away, we lost him three seeks ago" (Grof). In the context of a non-local universe, connections like this mean that there are tremendous possibilities for conscious sharing telepathy in our universe. Religious and drug-induced experiences of 'super-consciousness' may be accessible to any well-trained, compassionate mind.

www.humboldt.edu/~ddw4/files/Evolution% ... usness.htm

Stanislav Grof:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14341

And his depression may or may not tie in with:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25484
 
Well, apparently 'telepathic' events are nothing new in both the realms of psychadelia and mental illness. Remember Philip K Dick, who received a disembodied commincation diagnosing a serious medical problem concerning his young son which proved to be correct? Even Dick himself was unsure as to whether or not something genuinely 'miraculous' had taken place, or if was simply down to chance, or some vague cryptomnesia-like recall (!) based upon his mindset at the time.

Another parallel that intrigues me is the way in which demons were traditionally considered as 'bringers of knowledge'. I once formulated a wonderfully half-baked theory that traditional demons were not fallen angels or bad spirits, but quasi-autonomous (and completely subjective)aspects of the experiencer's conciousness. Based on the idea that the 'summoning' of demons requires a series of physical and mental practices (and possibly some mind altering drugs) that could conceivably induce a meditative state where certain subsets of our own conciousness are capable of being examined without the flim-flammery of intrusive, 'everyday' thought-processes, I would suppose that these 'quasi-autonomous aspects' (note the phonetic ring with 'self-transforming machine elves. Ho ho) might appear to take on a life of their own and so appear objective in some way. So you have 'demons' which grant knowledge of music, art, mathematics etc. - but what is really there is what was already there, except that it has manifested in a way that makes it more accessible to the experiencer. The links with the 'strange teachers' that one encounters under DMT are obvious - but if it makes my theory even more half-baked or less, I'll leave for others to decide. I like it, anyway.[/i]
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
So you have 'demons' which grant knowledge of music, art, mathematics etc. - but what is really there is what was already there, except that it has manifested in a way that makes it more accessible to the experiencer. The links with the 'strange teachers' that one encounters under DMT are obvious - but if it makes my theory even more half-baked or less, I'll leave for others to decide. I like it, anyway.[/i]

No that makes sense - I would imagine there are mny paths to Otherspace. It is also the flipside to what Hancock seems to be arguing (that drugs and shamanic practices lead to us to meet these teachers. I'm getting his book for my birthday as I believe the paperback isn't due until October) and could, in theory, have some interesting implications for the development of the modern mind (although personally I'd argue that there really isn't such a huge difference between us and animal apart from language which was merely a side effect of moving out onto the savannah a couple of millions years ago).

-----------
Getting back to internal vs external entities the main arguement that theya re external entities revolves around the fact that there seems to be a similarity in the experience but beyond the Other largely conforming to a basically human bauplan (which one would expect) the wide range of behavior and morphology suggest its actually not "real" (either it is external or i there are entities behind it they aren't the entities you think they are, like some mad galatic puppet master - which clearly adds an extra level of complication into an already complicated explanation).
 
Hmm a very interesting thread that has inspired me to re read food of the gods and buy another three books. Is DMT legal to posses in the UK? 8)
 
crunchy5 said:
Hmm a very interesting thread that has inspired me to re read food of the gods and buy another three books.

I have Food of the Gods right here - alongside other recommendations: Plants of the Gods and Pharmako-poeia. See:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 674#303674

crunchy5 said:
Is DMT legal to posses in the UK? 8)

Its class A - its relatively easy to synthesis from triptophans which are failrly common lab chemicals but they are themselves closely monitored (all of which comes from a chemist I knew who was awfully interested in the area and a naturally brilliant chemist - his interest in bombs had already got him in trouble with the anti-terrorist and I wouldn't be suprised if h hadn't blown himself up by now).

Its also not something the unwary should try - its difficult to find in the UK and you'd need to have a long talk with someone who knew what they were doing - given its rarity they may be thin on the ground (bit of a Catch 22 I know but still). I know some guys who had a "NO FEAR" approach to drugs (two of whom are dead now) and quite a few of them were thoroughly freaked out taking Salvia which is in a different league to DMT (so I'm led to believe anyway).

Interesting Garudian article suggesting you should also be wary if you are buying over the Net:

Goodbye ecstasy, hello 5-Meo-DMT: new designer drugs are just a click away

Psychedelics legal in US but banned in UK are openly available on the internet

David McCandless
Monday February 16, 2004
The Guardian

British recreational drug users are turning to a new generation of designer class A drugs from the United States as demand for ecstasy plummets, the Guardian has established.

The majority of these new drugs are powerful synthetic psychedelics from the same chemical families as LSD, magic mushrooms and mescaline. They are too new to have enticing street names; instead their lengthy chemical names are shortened to abbreviations such as 2C-I, 4-HO-DiPT, and 5-Meo-DMT. Unlike ecstasy, methamphetamine or other synthetic recreational drugs, the new compounds are not made in illicit factories or backroom kitchen laboratories. Instead, "research chemicals", as they are euphemistically known, are synthesised by commercial labs, often based in the US, which openly sell their products on the internet.

The rapid growth in the transatlantic online trade in such chemicals has been fuelled by international differences over legality. While Britain has outlawed all of these drugs - under an amendment to the Misuse Of Drugs Act in February 2002 - they remain legal in most other countries, including the majority of EU member states. Even in the US, despite some of the most draconian anti-drug laws in the world, the bulk of research chemicals are legal to manufacture, sell, possess and consume.

With ecstasy dropping in price and popularity, users and dealers in this country are looking further afield to obtain new highs. A recent Home Office survey found that ecstasy use had dropped 21% in the last year. The street price had also dropped to an all time low of £2-£3 a pill.

But while most research chemicals are too psychedelically powerful to make it as club drugs, one, 2C-I, is rapidly gaining popularity in this country as a dance drug, thanks to some similarities in effect to MDMA, the main ingredient of ecstasy. More than 125 pills of the drug were seized by police last year, including 65 at the Glastonbury festival, and some London dealers are offering it for £10 a tablet.

British police acknowledge that the internet drugs trade is a growing problem. "It is one of our key priorities," a spokeswoman for the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, responsible for policing internet crime, told the Guardian. "Supply of class As is one of the areas we are examining."

Most research chemicals come as crystalline white powder. They can be swallowed, snorted, smoked or injected. Some users prefer to administer them via enema.

Psychedelic stimulants such as 2C-I and 2-CT-2 induce visual hallucinations, energy surges, and euphoria. The most powerful is 5-Meo-DMT, doses of which are smaller than a grain of salt. When smoked, its effects are nearly instantaneous, propelling the user into an alternate reality, described as like "being shot out of the nozzle of an atomic cannon". The experience lasts 10 minutes.

Competitive

Online drug trading is becoming an increasingly competitive and sophisticated industry. Last month, the Guardian revealed that at least five British websites were selling cannabis online.

The leading research chemical sites compete openly to offer the purest product, the best customer service, the fastest deliveries and the lowest prices. Sophisticated e-commerce technology, electronic payment systems and next day courier services guarantee swift, effortless "one-click" transactions. Most sites offer between five and 15 different drugs, with prices ranging from $95 to $350 (about £50-£185) a gram excluding delivery. The maximum order is 5g. Customers must be over 21.

Credit cards and international money orders are accepted. Drugs like 2C-I can be shipped, via UPS or Fedex, worldwide. Next day delivery is often guaranteed. Most will ship to the UK and other EU states with one caveat: "All purchasers are responsible for compliance with any applicable city, county, state, federal or national regulations related to the purchase, possession and use of any and/or all product," reads the disclaimer on one site.

"It's very easy to get them if you know where to go and you're prepared to take the risk," said Charlie, 34, a photographer and graphic designer from south London. He calls himself a regular customer of a research chemicals company based in New York.

Every three months he buys a selection using his credit card. It usually takes three days to arrive via UPS Express. Most recently he made a repeat-order for 1g of 2,5-dimethyoxy-4-ethylthiophenethylamine (or 2-CT-2 for short), a class A psychedelic similar in effect to mescaline. It costs $175 excluding delivery.

"It's pure. You know exactly what you're getting," he said.

Research chemicals are advertised online as 99% lab pure, but experts warn that that does not mean they are safe. Compared with similar drugs like LSD and magic mushrooms, which have undergone decades of informal human experimentation with relatively few direct fatalities, research chemicals are unknowns. Few human or animal toxicity studies have been carried out.

Even their proponents are at pains to point out the unpredictability and danger involved in reckless experimentation. "It is not reasonable to assume that these chemicals are in any way 'safe' to use recreationally," states the FAQ at erowid.org, the internet's biggest underground drug resource. "When you take a research chemical, you are stepping out into the unknown, and you could be the unfortunate person to discover a new drug's lethal dose."

Safety is a big issue among avid users of research chemicals. Detailed "trip reports" and harm reduction tips are shared through an extensive network of websites and bulletin boards. First time users are expected to read up on their drug of choice and start with small amounts.

Nevertheless, with active doses running to hundredths or even thousandths of a gram, overdoses triggering unexpected reactions can be a very real threat, even with electronic scales sensitive to these weights.

In October 2000, Jake Duroy, 20, from Oklahoma, snorted 35mg of a research psychedelic called 2-CT-7 he had ordered from the web. He was an experienced user but this was a massive amount of the drug to take nasally, which can greatly amplify the effect. He quickly became agitated and violent and two hours later died of a heart attack.

In April the following year, a 17-year-old died after snorting a similar amount of the same drug. A year later in July 2002, 2-CT-7 was emergency-scheduled by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. In their statement, they cited information from trip reports on the internet. After these tragedies, 2-CT-7 was removed from the online marketplace and has not reappeared.

Police warning

The EU recently recommended that member states ban 2C-I as a matter of urgency, although they turned up no evidence of large scale manufacture. The police, however, were quick to sound the alarm. "The chemicals to make this are available and it can be made pretty much anywhere," a source said.

Most research chemicals were invented by one man, Californian biochemist Dr Alexander Shulgin, 78. As an expert witness and adviser to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, he held a licence permitting him to study psychoactive drugs. Over decades, he created hundreds of new mind-altering compounds and then tested them on himself and a small coterie of fellow "psychonauts". The recipes for more than 170 of his materials were published in two biochemical cookbooks in the 1990s and now form the backbone of the research chemicals industry.

Despite the risks, Charlie is prepared to order again, although he admits he gets nervous every time. "I track them via the delivery company's website and can watch when they pass through customs safely," he said. "Then I know I can relax."

Strange and outrageous chemicals

DMT Dimethyltryptamine

Found in minute quantities in certain Amazonian plants and in the human brain. Smoked, the effects are nearly instantaneous and very strange. "The closest you'll get to experiencing death bar actually dying" as one user put it.

Dose 2-60mg
Duration Less than 10 minutes
Legal status Class A
Price £100 a gram on the street

5-Meo-DMT Methoxydimethyltryptamine

A more powerful sister compound of DMT, occurring naturally in the venom of the Bufo alvarius toad but generally smoked in synthesised form. Not uncommon for those who take large amounts to suffer psychological and emotional difficulties for weeks afterwards.

Dose 1-20mg (smaller than a grain of salt)
Duration 5-20 minutes
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $175 (about £90) a gram

2C-I (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenethylamine)

Most likely candidate for the coveted title "the next ecstasy".

Powerful psychedelic stimulant described as a cross between MDMA and LSD but with much gentler side-effects. Already appearing in pill form on the UK dance scene.

Dose 10-25mg
Duration 5-8 hours
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $299 a gram web price; £10 a pill on the street

2-CT-2 (2,5-dimethyoxy-4-ethylthiophenethylamine)

Respected psychedelic, from the same phenethylamine family as MDMA and mescaline.

Noted for its warmth and "outrageous visuals".

Dose 10-25mg
Duration 5-8 hours
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $299 a gram web price; £10 a pill on the street

www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1148955,00.html
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
some vague cryptomnesia-like recall (!) based upon his mindset at the time.
Recent findings on the decision making abilities of the unconcscious.


barfing_pumpkin said:
these 'quasi-autonomous aspects' (note the phonetic ring with 'self-transforming machine elves. Ho ho) might appear to take on a life of their own and so appear objective in some way.
I suspect you might be playing with fire there. Please leave copious notes in a safe location.




What about S cien tologists and their 'T hetans'? This all sounds like one explanation would be multiple, un-assimilated personality aspects that can be summoned with the proper ritual.

As has been said, the real proof in the pudding would be if the machine elves provided information that the experiencer could not have previously known.
 
Getting back to internal vs external entities the main arguement that theya re external entities revolves around the fact that there seems to be a similarity in the experience but beyond the Other largely conforming to a basically human bauplan (which one would expect) the wide range of behavior and morphology suggest its actually not "real" (either it is external or i there are entities behind it they aren't the entities you think they are, like some mad galatic puppet master - which clearly adds an extra level of complication into an already complicated explanation).

The reason I'm loath to get into this particular debate is because it's likely to end up on one of those hippyish loose ends such as 'how do we know what is real and what isn't' type things. As it stands, what we consider as objective reality pretty much has to be taken at face value - and, I suppose, the same would go for subjective experiences as well. After all, it might be that the DMT universe is the objective one, while ours is the subjective one...but as you can see, I'm getting into all that 'what if it's all a dream, man?' business, which really gets us nowhere. As Turing said, as to whether a thinking machine would be truly self-aware as we are: if a machine appears to think like a human, talk like a human, emote like a human and so forth, then we have no other choice but to assume a human-like concept of self-awareness based on the available evidence. The same idea, I think, applies to objective reality - it appears to obey certain fundamental laws that are mostly outside human control, has a (mostly) consistent internal logic, is largely indifferent to the individual, and so it must therefore be taken as something outside of, and objective to, the human mind.

barfing_pumpkin wrote:

these 'quasi-autonomous aspects' (note the phonetic ring with 'self-transforming machine elves. Ho ho) might appear to take on a life of their own and so appear objective in some way.

I suspect you might be playing with fire there. Please leave copious notes in a safe location.

Um...no, you've lost me there. Could you please clarify?
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
Getting back to internal vs external entities the main arguement that theya re external entities revolves around the fact that there seems to be a similarity in the experience but beyond the Other largely conforming to a basically human bauplan (which one would expect) the wide range of behavior and morphology suggest its actually not "real" (either it is external or i there are entities behind it they aren't the entities you think they are, like some mad galatic puppet master - which clearly adds an extra level of complication into an already complicated explanation).

The reason I'm loath to get into this particular debate is because it's likely to end up on one of those hippyish loose ends such as 'how do we know what is real and what isn't' type things.

However, its not necessarily something we can ignore - that'd just be dismissing the whole thing out of hand. It is at least worthy of discussion and analysis otherwise a failure to engage the ideas is going to mean they are just goingto hang around and these things are on the rise partly drawing on advances in theory and/or quantum physics (see the Holographic Universe, the idea that we are living in a simulation, the Daimonic Reailty, etc. ) all trying to show some kind of higher (or lower?) level of organisation in the Universe. Now if, for example, we are living in a computer simulation (as popularised in the Matrix) then I'm just prepared to shrug and get on with things as there is little that can be done about it. However, an increasing number of people are using it as an explanation for things "out there" screwing with us (or as Hancock is suggesting teaching us - and whatever you think about him his books shift units and help get the ideas he lifts further into the mainstream further suggesting its not going to go away), I was suprised when a lot of Ufologists said (on the Discovery show running at the moment) that they thought the best explanation was more along the idea that relaity wasn't quite what it seeemed.

You are always welcome to assume that its all baloney but its not going away so I'd rather see what the claims are and hold them up to the light and see how they stand up.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
philo_t jabbered:
barfing_pumpkin wrote:

these 'quasi-autonomous aspects' (note the phonetic ring with 'self-transforming machine elves. Ho ho) might appear to take on a life of their own and so appear objective in some way.
I suspect you might be playing with fire there. Please leave copious notes in a safe location.

Um...no, you've lost me there. Could you please clarify?

Sorry for the near thread derailment.
I was just pointing out that you seemed to be engaging in the same kind of language play that such entities use to work their magic.
 
...the real proof in the pudding would be if the machine elves provided information that the experiencer could not have previously known.

But what if the machine elves don't particularly want to prove they exist? I don't go around trying to prove to lesser lifeforms that I exist. Why should the Gods/elves/Cosmic Jokers trouble themselves over whether or not we believe in them?
 
Graylien said
But what if the machine elves don't particularly want to prove they exist? I don't go around trying to prove to lesser lifeforms that I exist. Why should the Gods/elves/Cosmic Jokers trouble themselves over whether or not we believe in them?

Good point well made, applies equally to the oft posed question why don't ufo's land on the white house lawn.
I've got a v good friend who has taken DMT twice, once post millennium, and said there wasn't much to it, not as good as peyote and I prob wouldn't be too impressed. He did also say he hadn't had any"MAO"?inhibitors which are apparently necessary for the full blown effect, I don't know if this is correct but I do know such inhibitors are needed for some drug effects.
Is DMT the drug some people held up as a one hit heroin addiction cure, saw a doc some years ago on the topic?
 
graylien said:
...the real proof in the pudding would be if the machine elves provided information that the experiencer could not have previously known.

But what if the machine elves don't particularly want to prove they exist? I don't go around trying to prove to lesser lifeforms that I exist. Why should the Gods/elves/Cosmic Jokers trouble themselves over whether or not we believe in them?

Quite - we could really be mixed up with something our primate minds can't grasp. On a broader note there is the Subanthropic Principle (which refers to extraterrestrials but just as easily refer to ultraterrestrials if, as is noted there, there is even a difference - more advanced civilisations may naff off out of our universe to a better parralel one when they can):

Do mountain gorillas know that their ‘civilization’ is embedded in a larger ‘civilization’ corresponding to a much more evolved and intelligent species than themselves? Do they know that they are a protected species inhabitating a natural reserve in a country inside the African continent of planet Earth? The answer to these questions is certainly no, they do not know anything about our social structure, our countries, borders, religions, politics, ..... nor even about our villages and cities, except perhaps for those individuals living in a zoo, or adopted as pets.

In the same way, the human civilization of planet Earth could be immersed in a much larger civilization unknowingly, corresponding to much more evolved and intelligent species than ourselves.

...

In this situation, the answer to the usual remark ‘if there are advanced extraterrestrials around, why they do not contact us openly and officialy and teach us their science and technology?’ seems obvious. Would any country in this planet send an official delegation to the mountain gorilla territory to introduce themselves ‘openly and officially’ to the gorilla authorities? Would they shake hands, make agreements and exchange signatures with the dominant males? About teaching us their science and technology, who would volunteer to teach physics, mathematics and engineering to a bunch of gorillas? In addition one has to take into account the limits of the brain capabilities, independently of the culture or education.

....

Our intellectual faculties and habilities are limited by our brain capabilities that are by no means infinite. Therefore it is most natural and sensible to assume that there may exist important key scientific and technological concepts and results whose understanding is completely beyond the brain capabilities of our species, but is within reach of much more evolved and sophisticated brains corresponding to much more advanced civilizations.

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0308078

See also:
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0512062

This is alos touched on by Michio kaku the famed theoretical physicist:

I personally think that SETI is looking in the wrong direction. If, for example, we're walking down a country road and we see an anthill, do we go down to the ant and say, "I bring you trinkets, I bring you beads, I bring you knowledge, I bring you medicine, I bring you nuclear technology, take me to your leader"? Or, do we simply step on them? Any civilization capable of reaching the planet Earth would be perhaps a Type III civilization. And the difference between you and the ant is comparable to the distance between you and a Type III civilization. Therefore, for the most part, a Type III civilization would operate with a completely different agenda and message than our civilization.

Let's say that a ten-lane superhighway is being built next to the anthill. The question is: would the ants even know what a ten-lane superhighway is, or what it's used for, or how to communicate with the workers who are just feet away? And the answer is no. One question that we sometimes ask is if there is a Type III civilization in our backyard, in the Milky Way galaxy, would we even know its presence? And if you think about it, you realize that there's a good chance that we, like ants in an anthill, would not understand or be able to make sense of a ten-lane superhighway next door.

So this means there that could very well be a Type III civilization in our galaxy, it just means that we're not smart enough to find one.

www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main ... t0585.html

=====
On a sidenote the same interview has some interesting things to say about the nature of reality that we discussed above:

Are we living in a simulation?

Is there any possibility, similar to the premise of The Matrix, that we are living in a simulation?


Well, philosophically speaking, it's always possible that the universe is a dream, and it's always possible that our conversation with our friends is a by-product of the pickle that we had last night that upset our stomach. However, science is based upon reproducible evidence. When we go to sleep and we wake up the next day, we usually wind up in the same universe. It is reproducible. No matter how we try to avoid certain unpleasant situations, they come back to us. That is reproducible. So reality, as we commonly believe it to exist, is a reproducible experiment, it's a reproducible sensation. Therefore in principle, you could never rule out the fact that the world could be a dream, but the fact of the matter is, the universe as it exists is a reproducible universe.
 
However, its not necessarily something we can ignore - that'd just be dismissing the whole thing out of hand. It is at least worthy of discussion ...

Oh, definitely - but the 'nature of reality' topic is so huge in itself that it probably requires another thread (if there isn't one there already). Also, the problem of proving whether our reality is 'real' or not is made extremely awkward - if not impossible - by the fact that the only tools with which we can test our reality are part of the same reality itself. It was a problem that preoccupied PKD a lot of the time - do you remember that scene in Three Stigmata, when Bulero believes that he has escaped Eldritch's dream construct, and finds himself back in his office...only to discover a scrabbling thing under his desk which makes him realise that he is still deluded? That's the problem with reality - there's no true way to tell if it's real or not!

Anyways...

Sorry for the near thread derailment.
I was just pointing out that you seemed to be engaging in the same kind of language play that such entities use to work their magic.

You know...to be compared to a Machine Elf...is strangely flattering.
 
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