The brain can mimic the _feeling_ of having had an incredible idea when in reality nothing actually incredible or mind opening has been understood. But some people do indeed have deep realizations, while others just deeply feel the feeling of having had a deep realizations, if that makes sense.
the visceral realization that something feeling incredibly deep and meaningful doesn't necessarily mean it's actually incredibly deep and meaningful, can, itself, be incredibly deep and meaningful. an opportunity to reset and recalibrate what you feel you want out of life.
Thats why this stuff works the best of very deeply depressed people or people struggling with trauma because it shows them their brain can be happy / not in a bad state again in a demonstrable way.
It's also why many bros are super confident in whatever crap they believe though, because they thought about it while high and even though they can't explain it, they feel very strongly it has to be true because of the strong feelings felt during.
> because it shows them their brain can be happy / not in a bad state again in a demonstrable way.
I took my first (RC) benzo when I was 30 (to stop long acting stimulants/panic attacks) and it was a profound experience precisely for this reason.
Just carrying a pill in my wallet ended a half-year streak of panic attacks and just knowing you're not at the complete mercy of anxiety eased the anxiety greatly and also pushed me to actively want to change the way I feel by other non-chemical means.
There are also other problems: while on acid once I came to a realisation that really changed how I experienced things later on. My realisation was that most of my perceptions of things were really "coloured" by a layer of society. For example, during that trip I found some husks of dead lobsters, that were sundried and quite rotten and gory. But during the trip they were this amazing structure of iridescent craziness on a dimpled hard and shiny shell, combined with dried out half rotted soft meat on the inside. I knew that I should keep the germs away from my mouth or cuts/wounds and I think I played and analysed it for a bit, being amazed by its structure, textures and colours. After that the trip got a bit stronger and the focus was on other things, however. Some hours after the trip I came by the same place that I had happenstanced the lobster husk. The same lobster was lying there. It was ugly and disgusting. I had washed my hands thoroughly after playing with it but really had an urge to wash my hands again.
I laughed at how my amazement of the dead lobster had felt so profound just hours earlier.
But. The next day after a nice rest I actually started to see that many things are actually very special and beautiful but our upbringing has destroyed the ability to experience this beauty. Society has teached us that rotten things are ugly. But that is just a layer on your perception. The materiality of things has their intention embedded in them and if their intention is of great beauty, then the materiality tends to be beautiful as well.
What I am trying to say is that first order dismissal of "deep insights" might not be warranted. You might have really had a deep insight, but you cannot correctly assess it because the setting has changed.
I did know a guy who claimed to have lived years of family life with a wife and kids once on DMT. I doubt it was actually years but it probably felt like it and it did fuck him up a bit. He had to mourn the loss of the perfect family life he'd gotten used to. He knew all of their names and favorite foods and sports and colors and what happened at school and first kiss and pregnancy announcement and wedding and stuff. Honestly kinda scared me. He just started reciting a whole life, and then he refused to talk about it again
The biggest thing that DMT taught me is that time is an illusion, created by our minds as part of the construct that allows us to exist and focus on survival. This is true for all life that experiences an internal chronology, but as humans we can only know how this applies to humans. Sorry, time travel hopefuls :)
DMT also taught me that our perception is our reality, and that we cannot actually perceive "objective" reality in any form. It helped me understand my mother, who we believe was suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia (she was never able to be diagnosed before physical health issues became the primary concern). She would tell me about these stories of traveling to write movies or novels. Prior to my DMT experience, I would respond like many would, "oh but you never left the bed! you've been here the whole time!" in the gentlest way possible. After my DMT experience, I would sit with her and ask her about them. She was never able to go into quite as deep detail as the person you are talking about, but from that point, I truly believed that, in her perception, in her reality, she did very much indeed travel to write movies and novels. Or at the very least, I believe that is how her brain interpreted what the DMT was presenting her.
I believe DMT is ultimately the "guide" for death. It doesn't cause or induce death, but our brains release it in response to death. And sometimes, like all biological machines, it happens at the wrong time. Sometimes before, and sometimes maybe the brain misses the signals and is unable to secrete DMT at the appropriate time, for whatever reason. I believe dementia is merely the early natural introduction of DMT into the brain. I guess I'll find out when I feel what it feels like if I end up suffering dementia.
There's a lot of "belief" here, sure. Some may even go so far as to call it "woo". But DMT gave me this profound understanding at a deeply visceral level. This even took some time to realize upon lengthy reflection on the experience and what it took me through, with surprisingly strong remnant memories of the visuals of being forced through a "time loop" where my eyes were sort of "dragged" along the very path I'd looked around the room in the early part of the trip. We do scientifically know our brain will sometimes "rewind" to fill in gaps in our vision (think of the classic example of looking at a clock with a second hand and the first second kind of seems to linger, that's our brain rewinding and lying to us about what we were seeing in that moment, using all available information once our eyes stabilize).
What you remember (that wasn't mind-blowing) was what you thought, would be a reminder to the first sign post along a trail of thoughts that led to the much bigger idea, which was the thing that was mind-blowing. But of course, it's too big of a thought to communicate via words, so all you're left with is a feeling of reminiscent awe and a trudge of disappointment.
Yeah, that's common. Only slightly more common than having actual mind blowing realizations that help people see how others see them, give them empathy they never knew, and give the motivation to fix their lives before they die unhappy.
The big problem is that there's only so many actual realizations you can have, but it feels big every time you take it. So the people that take acid every month inevitably end up with a mind full of so much "incredible importance" that it turns into mysticism and the realizations are at best buried, at worst completely lost. If you take shrooms one every 3 years i bet your gonna have actual realizations every single time, and they're gonna help you reevaluate and plan your future. If you take it every week you're gonna go insane.
> Only slightly more common than having actual mind blowing realizations that help people see how others see them, give them empathy they never knew, and give the motivation to fix their lives before they die unhappy.
I don't think that's true? I know that's what Tim Leary was hoping would happen, but it never panned out.
I know plenty of people who have experience with hallucinogens, and none of them really had those kind of life changing revelations. Most found it fun, a few appreciated the new perspectives it offered, but none of them came away with a new path in life. I know I certainly didn't.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think it takes a certain type of person, in a certain state of mind or view on life, that has those sort of life changing experiences.
And that would make sense? If hallucinogens give you a glimpse of a world view that everyone is human, everyone has struggles, life is short and human connections are what matters - if you already have that world view (or something close to it), then those perspectives wouldn't be revelations, but rather reminders of what you always knew.
