The Way Things Look In Altered States

[Awestruck_]

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(I originally posted most of this in another thread, about remote viewing, and it apparently killed that thread, so I'm trying one more time here. Please ignore the remote viewing comments. I'm too lazy to retype the post. What I'd really like to know is how other people see things when they're not seeing things as they normally do.)

The way things look when you're in a particular state of consciousness has always fascinated me. I've never found anyone even remotely interested in discussing it. I've been in a number of different states of consciousness myself, being an old hippie, and years later having several perhaps paranormal experiences. Despite my asking, no one has ever really described to me how they see things, so my way of seeing may be unique to me, or may be common to everyone. I am curious to learn more.

As far as remote viewing goes, I briefly studied it with David Morehouse. There are two types that I'm aware of. The first is called Coordinate Remote Viewing, (CRV), and the other is Extended Remote Viewing, (ERV). CRV is done while conscious, and ERV, (if I understand it correctly), is done while unconscious. I experienced CRV a few times, but not ERV, although I think I once saw things the way they are seen during ERV. I'll try to explain what I'm talking about.

While experiencing CRV I only saw anything when my eyes were closed, and what I saw was in black and white, and as though it were real but with a kind of static pattern over it. Much like a black and white TV picture with static. It seemed that when I saw things this way, I was getting correct information. If I saw things too clearly it would turn out to be a symbol. CRV can be difficult because the information is coming in a way that our minds often turn into symbols. This is one of the difficulties in learning CRV. That is, learning how to penetrate the symbol, which is an illusion, and see the actual image. Another difficulty is that you sometimes see the thing you are trying to view from strange positions, like being too close to the thing you are attempting to view, or upside-down, or.... I once saw an island, (it turned out to be the correct target), from above, like a bird.

I've never formally studied ERV, but my understanding is that ERV is actually a controlled out of body experience entered from a lucid dream state. I believe I have experienced being out of my body one time in my life, and the way I saw then, was exactly the same way I see when I'm wide awake. So I believe that when experiencing ERV what you see is reality in real time, just as you see the world when you're awake. You also don't have to worry about breaking through symbols, or viewing things from weird positions when experiencing ERV. The difficulty is getting into the state that allows ERV in the first place.

I've only had one little flash of a location unknown to me that was crystal clear, and felt like a memory. It was many years ago during a relatively short period of time when I smoked grass occasionally. I had just taken a couple of puffs when, (I must have closed my eyes), I saw reins, and the backside of a horse calmly walking down a road with tall golden grass, or grain, on either side gently waving in the breeze, and a house in the distance. My vantage point was that of someone sitting on the front seat of a wagon, and holding the reins of the horse. I could feel the breeze, and the wagon seat under me, and the movement of the wagon. It was totally real. It didn't last more than a few seconds and then it was gone, but it was so vivid it has stayed with me all these years. Because it felt like it was ME sitting on that wagon, I've alway wondered if it could be a past life memory, or maybe it was just the pot.

I'd like to add one more thing. A witch once took me, and a couple of other people on a "guided visualization" to Apple Island. My understanding is that in the Wiccan tradition this is the place where the dead reside. Well, my experience there was fascinating, and the way everything looked was unique to that experience. It was somewhat similar to remote viewing, except the graininess was softer, my progression through the landscape was smoother, and everything appeared to be in a fairly dark twilight. How do other people see things when they're in an altered state?

 

[James_H]

If you're talking drugs, then I agree... People just scoff at the subject, because, well, it's drugs, but I do think that some genuinely fortean things have happened to me under various influences.

 

[elprincipeoso]

under the influence

I feel it's only fair to voice my opinion here....

I like a smoke as much as the next hippy, but I haven't had any odd experiences on pot. Now LSD on the other hand has induced what I could only describe as clarity, in which many things seem to make a lot of sense and all the little things that we normally ignore or are oblivious to, seem all the more profound.

Since embarking on a few LSD trips with a guide (a friend who is a hypnotherapist,) I honestly feel that the human mind spends most of it's time asleep. I haven't done any drugs for 5 years or more, but I know when I do it will feel like coming home. my LSD experiences were never spent marvelling at the wonders of the dripping wallpaper or the swirly floor, but instead coming to terms with the underlying depth of existence, and learning how to navigate myself through the many delusions that we convince ourselves of when we are NOT on drugs.

I say Yes, drugs do affect the mind and your experiences of reality, but I don't think these experiences are any less real or valid than something you may choose to believe on the news.

and yes, maybe I'm wrong, and drugs are bad (m'kay) but I wouldn't be the man I am today without them, an I think I'm doing ok...

 

[elprincipeoso]

under the influence 2

oh yeah, and in answer to the original question, when on drugs, I find my eyesight is actually clearer, my long sightedness amazes me and the colours are all the more vivid and distinct. maybe they're like that anyway, but when we're not drugged, we don't see it? :shock:

 

[decipheringscars]

Some altered states aren't due to drugs, but "natural" brain chemistry.

I'm bipolar, and during certain mood swings - especially going into hypomania - the world looks much more saturated in color. Like when you turn up the saturation on your TV or on a photo in Photoshop. I can also physically feel the mood swing in my head. That part is harder to explain. The whole phenomenon I call a "moodache". I think migraines probably produce similar but more physically painful experiences. I only get optic migraines, though, and haven't had any really interesting ones since I've been on a mood stabilizer (an off-label prescription of an anticonvulsant/anti-migraine medicine).

 

[James_H]

I've actually been discussing this with a friend of mine who doesn't do drugs at all - it is entirely possible to get into severely altered states by mood alone. Today and yesterday I have been feeling curiously hyper, and also hyper-conscious, also experiencing almost passionate pleasure for stuff like trees and saxophone solos, etc. Just like previous poster said, the mind does spend a lot of its time half asleep.

All this is something Colin Wilson is very interested in - I recently struggled through another incredibly turgid novel of his to find it had some pretty interesting insights about this kind of stuff.

 

[IamSundog]

I haven't had any remote viewing experiences, but since you've asked and for what it's worth:

1. I have to more or less agree with elprincipeoso regarding pot & LSD. On LSD - in my foolish youth - I would sometimes see so much visual richness at once (the "filtering" effect of normal conciousness being reduced) that I'd get confused about what I was seeing or imagine movement where there was none. I was always able to sort things out by just concentrating though. I don't think I saw things as looking different, mostly that my brain was just awash in more input. I'd sometimes feel I was seeing something as it really was for the first time. I believe these perceptual breakthroughs were generally valid and were again a result of reduced filtering. Usually I was noticing the social or spiritual or political aspects of things, though, and not their strictly visual appearance.

The more profound effect of these drugs IMHO is the ocassional crystalization of a mental concept into a clear visual image. I will always remember one trip listening to a Bach Brandenburg Concerto and "seeing" it as a multi-dimensional shape unfolding in space with all the parameters of the music represented and working together. What was uncanny was that the visualization persisted for as long as I cared to have it there and I was able to sort of examine various aspects of it at leisure.

2. During a depression/nervous breakdown I had a spell of perceiving everything in the world as hollow, like paper mache props. The world seemed frighteningly insubstantial. Its was awful and hinted of insanity. I can't say that things looked really looked different visually, more that my interpretation of them was very different.

3. I had a brief series of "religious experiences" many years back - I posted here about it - where I visually perceived everything around me as if made of clear crystal and glowing from within with a blueish light. Each object was iconic and had sort of an aspect of infinity about it, and at the same time looked completely normal and mundane.

4. I could add something crude about how much better some of the opposite sex appear to be under the influence of beer but I won't stoop to that.

 

[GNC]

Could numbers 2 and 3 be examples of the dreaded "acid flashbacks"? No offence intended, just wondering.

 

[PeniG]

As someone who's never done acid, I can vouch for the unreal appearance as an effect of depression. I don't see things as papier mache, though - I see them flat and unreal, almost like a Sims game (and I don't mean Sims2).

I also get difficult-to-describe visual effects when my sugar's fluctuating. Everything's clear and normal-sized, but it's still a long way away. Or it's clear if I focus consciously, but normal unconscious focusing is impossible. Or the light just gets dimmer (I've checked that with my husband, and it's definitely me, not the light actually dimming).

 

[IamSundog]

Could numbers 2 and 3 be examples of the dreaded "acid flashbacks"? No offence intended, just wondering.

I've spoken to people who've had flashbacks and they say that they're just like being on LSD. Assuming that's so, I've never had a flashback.

 

[GNC]

Could numbers 2 and 3 be examples of the dreaded "acid flashbacks"? No offence intended, just wondering.

I've spoken to people who've had flashbacks and they say that they're just like being on LSD. Assuming that's so, I've never had a flashback.

OK, thanks.

 

[elprincipeoso]

I was thinking this might be getting a bit bogged down, and it occurred to me that in my humble experience, the issue is really about the nature of reality, not all the different ways in which our understanding of reality can be filtered (drugs, chemical imbalance etc) When we think about past events our mind formulates images, snippets of sound, smells etc. When we plan for the future the same thing happens. At these times, where is our consciousness? What is our reality? When I'm asleep I'm unaware of my physical surroundings, but my dreams seem as real as when I'm awake. Finally, when we are focussing on the here and now, we are receiving info about loads of things (look both ways before crossing the road...) but are conscious of fewer, and will remember fewer still.

I have read studies that suggest that the heart sends and receives information on frequencies of which our mind is unconscious. I guess that the depth of reality depends very much on your individual ability and will to perceive it. If this is the case, then fortean phenomena could be no more than collective misperception, or more than we could ever imagine!

Some posters in this thread have made mention of the minds ability to create experience similar to drug induced states, btu without the use of drugs. I could not agree more. when you take a drug, the experience you have is your body trying to get it out of your system. The body could obviously do this before the drug was introduced!

Anyway.... I guess I'll lay off the drugs...

 

[Awestruck_]

I thank everyone who posted their experiences, and thoughts here. I've only recently returned to pleasurable pursuits, (of which visiting this site is one), from a period when I could only deal with the most essential things. I really did not mean to ask about drug induced visuals, but it was all fascinating nonetheless.

elprincipeoso, I am moved by your comments. The nature of reality is at the end of the day really what we want to know, and yet it always seems upon investigation to be quite incomprehensible.

IamSundog, I would so much like to read more about your "religious experiences." I'm going to try to find them here. What you saw seems to me to be absolutely beautiful beyond words.

And H_James, I'm going to look up Colin Wilson.

 

[Matalosse]

Not sure if this applies or not but here goes. I've been in hospital before (not on any drugs of any kind at the time) and became aware of a second reality underneath what was actually there. It was the same ward but it was as if I was viewing it from a week before or after. At the time I could describe who was in the beds around me for the other 'time' in quite good detail. I often wonder if I had gone back to the hospital a week later if I would have seen the people who I saw. I didn't close my eyes and see it, I just 'knew' if that makes any sense. I think I've talked about it some where here before.

 

[squarepeg1]

i also have been through a major depression/breakdown. Things were flat and grey--food had no taste which was fine because i had no inclination to eat it. I did have "fugues" for lack of a better word where everything around me seemed to slow down rather like scenes in a movie. Then just as suddenly everything would speed back up. I also had auditory hallucinations that i am sure were causee by the Prozac.

At the time I didn't wonder--mainly because I wasn't able to wonder--if the speeded up version of life was the right one for me to be living in. Maybe I should have been living in the slowed down molasses/treacle version?

 

[IamSundog]

IamSundog, I would so much like to read more about your "religious experiences." I'm going to try to find them here. What you saw seems to me to be absolutely beautiful beyond words.

==> Here it is.

BTW, I was recently having a very deep "nature of reality" talk with a guy who's been HEAVILY into Zen Buddhist practice for decades. Now he has some experiences to tell, although "strange experiences" apparently hold little interest for serious students of Zen. I told him about my experience and he identified is as "Kensho", which he says happens to meditators but also spontaneously to normal shlubs like me during stressful or unusual circumstances. I Googled it and learned that "Kensho" means "seeing one's true nature" but otherwise haven't found much to satisfy my curiousity - no descriptions of what the experience is like for others. So, can't tell you if that's what I had.

 

[IamSundog]

Quoth elprincipeoso:

the issue is really about the nature of reality, not all the different ways in which our understanding of reality can be filtered (drugs, chemical imbalance etc)

I say it's impossible to seperate the "nature of reality" from our filters. We live behind our filters and can never know anything else (Plato and all that). Let's say we assert that the "filters" are (1) the subset of perceptual information that we are able to pay attention to, (2) how we have been trained to interpret perceived information, based on culture, past experiences, etc, and (3) our brain chemistry at the moment. We can adjust any of these things and get a different view of reality. Since all views of reality are filtered, "real reality" is unknowable (Lord Berkeley and all that), so all we can do is choose our filters.

Brain chemistry can be altered by depression, anti-depressants, recreational drugs, alcohol, coffee, food, falling in love, spiritual practices, or the influenza virus. Some of these we revere, some we tolerate, some we regard as diseases.

So my first general question is: why should recreational drugs be the only illegitimate means of altering brain chemistry? Not the legal issue, the question of whether drug experiences are inherently "false". They aren't. As one example, I for one continue to be impressed by how judicious use of marijuana, in spite of all its bad press, improves my creativity, attitude, focus, energy, relationships. I can't help but feel there's positive value to me and to society there.

My second is: how do we judge what a "normal" brain chemistry (and outlook on life) ought to be? Is our caffinated video-news-junkie Western-civilization brain the "right" one? I doubt it. Maybe for air traffic controllers, but not for when they get home to their spouses and kids.

I'm not driving this thread but I don't see how we can even begin to talk about dreams, memories, and Awestruck's remote viewing in the same conversation. Those are entirely subjective experiences, so there's nothing about which to compare notes, and no underlying "reality" involved. That's an open invitation for an argument, by the way.

 

[IamSundog]

Not sure if this applies or not but here goes. I've been in hospital ... and became aware of a second reality underneath what was actually there. It was the same ward but it was as if I was viewing it from a week before or after.

Fascinating. A timeslip?

Matalosse, you say you did not close your eyes to see it, but you "just knew" it. How did the knowledge come to you? Did you visualize the appearance of the patients? Was there any visual component to it at all? Was it like a memory? Was it like recalling information read in a book?

And how strongly are you convinced that what you experienced was based in reality and not your own imagination?

 

[whiner]

Hello, for anyone who's never had depression, you can be in and out of altered states, everything around you can be so clear, or so hazy, you wonder why people can't see things as you see things, Depression can give you amazing highs and lows, It seems strange but even the lows can be enjoyable, The feeling of being slighty out of step with everybody else.

 

[AngelAlice]

I admit it's long concerned me that we impose our very subjective western, puritan 'scientific' view of reality on the world as if it had some form of objective justification. And we actively punish any deviation from it with a scarily religious zeal. People who see things they aren't 'supposed' to see are routinely pathologised on the basis of very little objective data. What we call 'schizophrenia' for example can too often be reduced to 'anyone who has experiences of reality different from the accepted norms and is foolish enough to report them'.

In my early professional life I witnessed people diagnosed as schizophrenic who manifested little clinical suggestion of psychosis, who were coherent, cogent, aware of the anomalous nature of their experiences (usually hearing persistent voices), and had approached their medical practitioners in profound good faith, looking for solutions. They were often prescribed chlorpromazine, a devastating drug, which basically destorys many brain functions. It can wipe out the voices, but largely because it wipes out so much of the brain's cognitive and perceptual abilities. It's a drug that really should only be used as a last resort, but frequently is not.

It seemed to me even at a young age, that we were not so much treating these people as effectively punishing and silencing them, because their experiences were disturbing to the collective idea of what was real.

Of course I don't suggest that all psychosis can be dismissed this way. When you get people who are filled with compulsions to kill, self-harm, or whose mood disorders are threatening their lives or functionality, then there is an obvious place for diagnosis and prescription meds. But when a cogent person arrives oin your office and says "I know it is insane, but I hear a voice talking to me" then I think there are a lot of other investigations that could be made beofre a prescription is written.

Another peturbing possibility (once we allow the potential for other realities) is that even the more disturbed 'schizophrenic' sufferers, may have been driven a little crazy by the experience of hearing the voice, or perceiving whatever other 'impossible' things they tend to perceive. In other words, the voices might engender the madness, not the other way around. This is highly plausible, because not only do the voices themselves frequently offer disturbing commentaries, but the sheer strain of coping with the experience of hearing them in a world that has no tolerance of them and dismisses you as insane would place such a burden of confusion, isolation and bewilderment on the sufferer they might well suffer partial or total breakdown as a result. And when that happens of course we can say 'see, he's psychotic, that's why he heard the voices'.

 

[Awestruck_]

I say it's impossible to seperate the "nature of reality" from our filters. We live behind our filters and can never know anything else (Plato and all that).... Since all views of reality are filtered, "real reality" is unknowable (Lord Berkeley and all that), so all we can do is choose our filters.... I'm not driving this thread but I don't see how we can even begin to talk about dreams, memories, and Awestruck's remote viewing in the same conversation. Those are entirely subjective experiences, so there's nothing about which to compare notes, and no underlying "reality" involved. That's an open invitation for an argument, by the way.

Oh, but I must say I absolutely know for a fact that at least sometimes, people do perceive things the same way. An objective reality does exist, or an endless number of objective realities exist, but at least some of them are shared by some people, sometimes. I know this because I have asked, and people have described the same thing that I experienced. My question here was about how things looked, rather than things experienced if that makes sense. I didn't mean to suggest that I had absolutely no information about others experiences compared to my own, (although re-reading it I realize that's exactly what I did). I'm sorry, I'm afraid I haven't been very clear, or articulate. I asked the question that I asked at the start of this thread, because I'm looking for other visual experiences like mine. I've never been able to learn as much as I'd like to about this subject. People are always more ready to talk about what they've experienced, rather than the quality of the visuals they've had during those experiences.

Re objective reality, an example in remote viewing would be multiple people independently viewing the same target, and then writing virtually identical reports describing that target. This is not a fantasy. It is a normal outcome in remote viewing for at least some, if not all of the members of the group to make it to the target, and report the same environment. Maybe there is some other explanation for this, but this alone seems to me to be good evidence in support of the existence of an objective reality.

 

[disgruntledgoth]

Some altered states aren't due to drugs, but "natural" brain chemistry.

I'm bipolar, and during certain mood swings - especially going into hypomania - the world looks much more saturated in color. Like when you turn up the saturation on your TV or on a photo in Photoshop. I can also physically feel the mood swing in my head. That part is harder to explain. The whole phenomenon I call a "moodache". I think migraines probably produce similar but more physically painful experiences. I only get optic migraines, though, and haven't had any really interesting ones since I've been on a mood stabilizer (an off-label prescription of an anticonvulsant/anti-migraine medicine).

I'm bipolar to and get similair thing, also things get louder, a lot louder, because my hearing seems to get lots better

 

[Graylien]

I admit it's long concerned me that we impose our very subjective western, puritan 'scientific' view of reality on the world as if it had some form of objective justification. And we actively punish any deviation from it with a scarily religious zeal.

Is this actually true? Or is this just another biased generalisation? How many people have really been 'actively punished' for seeing things out of the ordinary? In what way? And when you say 'we impose...' who exactly do you mean by 'we'?

I don't mean to pick upon you in particular, but I often come across these kind of generalisations expressed in Fortean discussion, and there seems to be more than an element of self-imposed martyrdom about them. Are people really burning us at the stake because we say we've seen an UFO or had an OBE? Or are we ourselves the ones being intolerant simply because 'they' don't all immediately accept our own 'altered' view of reality?

 

[escargot]

I wonder if this is a 'can't see the woods for the trees' situation. Having been raised and socialised in a certain cultural mindset, can we ever, without a very determined effort and perhaps a little chemical de-programming see things from a different point of view?

As an example, each culture has its own system of medicine, which may be incomprehensible to outsiders.

Thus, the phenomenom of 'hearing voices' is interpreted as madness by western cultures, which medicalise it as a symptom of mental instability. Yet in other cultures, the voices are believed to be those of one's ancestors kindly giving helpful advice.

I was taught about this at university and was appalled to learn about 'voice hearers' being hospitalised on their arrival in Britain because they were obviously mad.
Can they both be right or are they both wrong, or just one, in which case, which?

 

[Moholo]

Not sure if this applies or not but here goes. I've been in hospital before (not on any drugs of any kind at the time) and became aware of a second reality underneath what was actually there. It was the same ward but it was as if I was viewing it from a week before or after. At the time I could describe who was in the beds around me for the other 'time' in quite good detail. I often wonder if I had gone back to the hospital a week later if I would have seen the people who I saw. I didn't close my eyes and see it, I just 'knew' if that makes any sense. I think I've talked about it some where here before.

Matalosse, I hope you don't mind my asking (I quite understand if you do not wish to reply), but what were you in hospital for?

 

[rynner2]

Thus, the phenomenom of 'hearing voices' is interpreted as madness by western cultures, which medicalise it as a symptom of mental instability. Yet in other cultures, the voices are believed to be those of one's ancestors kindly giving helpful advice.

I was taught about this at university and was appalled to learn about 'voice hearers' being hospitalised on their arrival in Britain because they were obviously mad.
Can they both be right or are they both wrong, or just one, in which case, which?

The recent Horizon Programme "How mad are you?" was interesting, and relevent here, I think.
Part 1 is currently available on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ou_Part_1/

 

[escargot]

Yup, we enjoyed that. Isn't there a second instalment this week?

 

[James_H]

Some altered states aren't due to drugs, but "natural" brain chemistry.

I'm bipolar, and during certain mood swings - especially going into hypomania - the world looks much more saturated in color. Like when you turn up the saturation on your TV or on a photo in Photoshop. I can also physically feel the mood swing in my head. That part is harder to explain. The whole phenomenon I call a "moodache". I think migraines probably produce similar but more physically painful experiences. I only get optic migraines, though, and haven't had any really interesting ones since I've been on a mood stabilizer (an off-label prescription of an anticonvulsant/anti-migraine medicine).

I'm bipolar to and get similair thing, also things get louder, a lot louder, because my hearing seems to get lots better

I'm beginning to think that I might be bipolar, because for the last week or so I've been experiencing something that sounds very much like 'hypomania'. Everything is almost unbelievably intense, and a bit of a blur in general. I feel unstoppably creative, talk too fast and feel just dandy in general. And I can definitely 'physically feel mood swings'. It's a bit weird though, because I feel 'not myself' in a way.

EDIT: after having looked it up, I feel this is an exact description of what I'm experiencing. However, I've never been correspondingly desperately depressed, just a bit miserable from time to time.

 

[LaurenChurchill]

I and many other people I know have often suspected myself of being bipolar. Every description I've ever read of it has been me to a T. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, especially after I read somewhere that bipolar disorder is linked to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (which I have been officially diagnosed with). I believe the connection has to do with a gene that appears to be related to the expression of both 'diseases', for want of a better word.
At the same time, much as I would like to have someone tell me "yes, you're right, you do have this" I know they'll either put me on medication, or not do anything. Neither of which I want, so I'd rather just go undiagnosed.

 

[James_H]

quite.