Are skeptic brains less susceptible to hallucinogenic atrocities?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It seems to me that some people who believe in various paranormal things refuse to accept the possibility that their minds are playing tricks on them. After all, if they do, then it's a slippery slope to contemplating the possibility that their favorite paranormal thing is just an illusion.

~~ Paul

[Dogdoctor]

On a different tack the guy who shot the face off his friend did so because he thought it all wasn't real. He thought it was all a halucination and in fact was laughing after the fact because it all looked so real.

[ExMinister]

I knew a guy in high school who stabbed himself in the leg on LSD. That pretty much put me off LSD or any of the hallucinogens.

I am now a skeptical person with a naturalistic worldview, but I still struggle with the nighttime hallucinations, thinking I am under attack by a "real demon" when I am experiencing what feels every bit like a real attack by a real demon. These things don't feel flat like dreams. It feels like there is a real presence there, an actual living thing. While it is happening, it feels real. Only after it's over can I rationally look at it, and even then I may be afraid to go back to sleep. My husband and I switched sides of the bed after one of these and I still don't want to switch back. The logic is there but the terror was too intense and because of that it can sometimes swamp the logic and make me irrational. As time passes, the terror does fade.

One night recently I was drifting off to sleep and realized I was listening to a woman's voice talking in my head. Her voice was nice and well-modulated, like a news reporter, though it was almost too loud for comfort, somewhere just inside my right ear. I was attempting to follow along with what she was telling me, but I realized on some level that this was not a spirit or anything paranormal, and I also realized that in years past I might have interpreted it that way. But when I realized I was hallucinating a voice, I thought of schizophrenia and it was that thought that freaked me out and jolted me fully awake.

So even as a skeptic sometimes I can tell, sometimes I can't. Maybe that is because I was New Age half my life.

[Dogdoctor]

I went through a period of my life with sleep paralysis occuring several times. At first I was scared but then I figured out I was sleeping and then I found it curious and fun. Then it quit happening darn it.

[ExMinister]

Originally Posted by Dogdoctor

I went through a period of my life with sleep paralysis occuring several times. At first I was scared but then I figured out I was sleeping and then I found it curious and fun. Then it quit happening darn it.

That's funny. You know, the sleep paralysis I still get occasionally but it isn't the scariest thing. It can be, definitely. But I guess I am used to it and most of the time I can figure out what is happening pretty quickly now, even if it still does get my heart racing. I can't imagine I would ever miss it though, ha.

These other things are different, not sleep paralysis. I won't bore anyone with the details. Anyway, I think I have talked about them in other threads. I take seizure medication and that has slowed them down. Hasn't stopped them, though.

[Halfcentaur]

I've got a lot to comment on, but I've been awake now for about 36 hours and think I'll just add something that has seemed a behavior I observe in many people. I think there are some people who have a sort of mental arrangment in their head where when they are supposed to be "high", they suddenly permit themself to do things that seem completely counter intuitive, almost on purpose.

I think it's related in some ways with the shared behavior most human societies have of "running amok". When you feel like it's time to freak out based on some scale in your mind of when "enough is enough". Here in the US currently, when someone hits this point they decide it's time for a mass shooting. In Malaysia it was attacking bystanders with a machete. In China recently it was grown men attacking school children with butcher knives.

There's this thing I've seen a lot of people do where they exaggerate everything when they are high as if it is expected of them to act this way. I think there are some people who just see an excuse to throw off personal accountability and see what happens later. It's been a source of great frustration for me over the years dealing with these kinds of people and working them through this sort of thing. I actually had a friend who had been planning a suicide for weeks and chose a night when tripping on some of the most potent and mind twisting LSD I had encountered when still partaking in such activities to walk in front of some cars going 55 mph at 3am, ending his life at 16 years old. To this day many people seem to ignore that before this incident he gave away all his most treasured personal possessions (being a musician he gave away several amps and his guitars) and discussed his funeral plans in "light conversation" with his mother.

On a side note. I don't really hallucinate from sleep depravation. I see visual disturbances and anomalies in the the corner of my eyes, like static and rods flitting about. No spiders.

Benadryl however,... wolf spider legs,.... *shudder*. I spoke in depth of Benadryl hallucinations last month in the science forum in a topic concerning belladonna alkaloids.

The first sleep paralysis I experienced at 13 I was convinced it was a real paranormal event, a true psychic attack from a demonic presence attempting to smother my very essence into black oblivion.

Upon learning of what the experience is, the last few I've had in life end up with me afraid or choking on my tongue at first, about to panic, before realizing what is going on and suddenly losing myself in another random dream, or waking up flustered and in control.

I can't lucid dream for more than fleeting moments. It's always hard to concentrate and I keep forgetting I am aware and falling back into the assumed reality of dream. I hate when I dream of telling people in dreams about dreams I just had,... all within a dream. Sometimes I get suspicious then, and people in my dreams act like I should not be thinking in this manner and that I need to stop of face consequences, like thought police coming to get me stuff.

I dream in vivid color and smell, feeling pain and even dying in dreams before without waking at my death.

[BStrong]

I have no recreational experiences with hallucinogens, but have been around folks who were, and they all seemed to have a good time of it.

I did have the unfortunate experience of ingesting LSD at a party without foreknowledge, and for me it was not fun.

I'll stick to jumping out of airplanes and riding motorcycles at extreme velocity around corners.

[Dogdoctor]

I grew up with abilities to recognize that I was sleeping and to somewhat control my dreams. In the case of sleep paralysis I never tried to control it because I found it interesting and I would try various things to see what I could actually do while in that state. Initially I struggled to get up and worried that I could not but rapidly realized I was still asleep and then calmed down and found that I soon enough woke up. But it was trippy to feel like I was under water or something pressing down on me. Other nightmares were quickly recognized for what they were and I woudl usualy back track in the dream and start over from an earlier point to try to find a way for the problem in the nightmare to be resolved.

[ExMinister]

Originally Posted by Dogdoctor

(snip) Other nightmares were quickly recognized for what they were and I woudl usualy back track in the dream and start over from an earlier point to try to find a way for the problem in the nightmare to be resolved.

Impressive. So you are actually able to approach your nightmares from a problem-solving perspective?

Having read that, I decided I am going to plan to try to deal with my next hallucinatory experience more rationally, without giving into the terror, and see what happens. I also have frightening lucid dreams that can happen at any hour of the night, and I am going to focus on approaching them that way too.

[Halfcentaur]

Once while using MDMA I came to the stunning realization that nothing about everything I knew seemed too far fetched for me to have created myself, and I then became suspicious that I was a consciousness without any form or frame of reference existing in a state without distance or space and that I had invented distance and space as a means of exploring ideas like interaction and autonomy. I then had created the whole universe and my human experience as part of this.

I became literally disturbed, and then I felt weird, and then I remembered making fun of a friend once who thought he was God while using mushrooms, and I sort of stopped worrying about it. It was very hard to worry about anything on MDMA.

At one point I was aware that if you were to cut off my arm in front of me, I would have simply regarded it as a matter of fact and accepted it immediately.

The depression and weirdness I felt the next day had me suspicious of somehow having traveled into a subtly different parallel universe and I was forever stuck in a place I would forever feel off-kilter within. I blame that on Star Trek.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally Posted by ExMinister

One night recently I was drifting off to sleep and realized I was listening to a woman's voice talking in my head. Her voice was nice and well-modulated, like a news reporter, though it was almost too loud for comfort, somewhere just inside my right ear. I was attempting to follow along with what she was telling me, but I realized on some level that this was not a spirit or anything paranormal, and I also realized that in years past I might have interpreted it that way. But when I realized I was hallucinating a voice, I thought of schizophrenia and it was that thought that freaked me out and jolted me fully awake.

I've been reading Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia" recently. Apparently, auditory hallucinations like you've described are more common than you'd think. Most people don't talk about them because they're afraid it means they're crazy.

[xtifr]

One thing to be aware of with the so-called hallucinogens (which generally don't create real hallucinations)--there's absolutely zero consistency in the effects. The results very much vary from person to person. Even pupil-dilation is not 100%. If I were me, this would not exactly inspire me to rush out and try them.

As for dreams, I frequently run credits at the end of mine. Or, if I enjoyed it, I rewind it and watch it again. And for nightmares, I usually just change the channel. Been doing this since I was a kid. Not sure how I came up with the concept, but it works for me.

[ExMinister]

Originally Posted by aggle-rithm

I've been reading Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia" recently. Apparently, auditory hallucinations like you've described are more common than you'd think. Most people don't talk about them because they're afraid it means they're crazy.

That was my fear too. This, on top of the "exploding head syndrome" thing from a few months ago. I really think if there were any way to just avoid having to sleep at all I would. Have read most everything else by Oliver Sacks. Will get Musicophilia. Thanks.

[Stomatopoda]

Originally Posted by Halfcentaur

Once while using MDMA I came to the stunning realization that nothing about everything I knew seemed too far fetched for me to have created myself, and I then became suspicious that I was a consciousness without any form or frame of reference existing in a state without distance or space and that I had invented distance and space as a means of exploring ideas like interaction and autonomy. I then had created the whole universe and my human experience as part of this.

Meh. I get like that from just sleep deprivation.

[Dogdoctor]

I went with no sleep for 96 hours and just felt like the air had substance almost like water and everything buzzed and vibrated. The most inteligent person I ever met did LSD and he was one of the many who took really high doses. He had his drugs tested prior to taking them. He never had a bad trip. Not a religous person he said he felt permanently changed after taking about 5000 micrograms of LSD. He said if he was religious he would say he talked to god but since he didn't beleive in god he would say he communicated with the universe.

[Halfcentaur]

Originally Posted by Dogdoctor

he would say he communicated with the universe.

I would say it has more to do with coming to certain realizations than actively communicating with something, but it certainly can feel this way.

[Dogdoctor]

I would say if you take a little LSD it makes you feel good if you take a lot you won't remember it but somewhere in between you will halucinate and remember it. Whatever significance you want to attribute to it depends on your personal take on it.

[whatthebutlersaw]

On the topic of LSD: has there been any progress with the reports of it possibly being an effective treatment for chronic and treatment resistent, mild to moderate depression? Was that wishful thinking from the stoner contingent or is there some merit to it?

[Tacita]

When I have hallucinated I knew logically that it wasn't real. The first time was trazodone (for insomnia and boy did it NOT WORK). I had audio hallucinations, and did at first think it was real because it was music and I knew that nearby coworkers did sometimes play music. Then I realized it was the same verse over and over again, and that whenever I came near the source, it would go away. Hmmm, I thought.

Then I began hearing voices. People I knew, just outside my bedroom door, or in another room, talking badly about me. People I knew were not there. Two songs at once on the radio. An ambulance while driving (that was the scariest). I looked up trazodone and realized what was going on and quit cold turkey.

The second time I still logically knew none of it was real but this time I was scared to death of what I was hearing (it was all audio also) because it was all horrorshow. I was in the hospital at the time and had to call a nurse, tell her, "I'm freaking out right now, please turn off this IV and give me drugs" (the IV was talking to me). They turned off the IV for the night and gave me drugs, and I was fine in the morning.

[Marduk]

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I AGREE

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Irish Murdoch

I never did DMT, and wouldn't have cared to from the descriptions I've read of it. But it seems that an awful lot of people who do are utterly convinced that the creatures they "meet" are real--indeed, more real than what is encountered in the workaday world. Pretty obviously, they are wrong about that: but, Halfcentaur, why do you think it is that you weren't dragged down that particular blind alley?

Irish, I've got someone on another forum who wants to know why you're so sure the creatures aren't real.

~~ Paul

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by EGarrett

A couple years ago, a cage-fighter named Jarrod Wyatt drank coffee spiked with hallucinogenic mushrooms, then became convinced his training partner was possessed by the devil, and proceeded to murder and dismember him in brutal fashion.

If a person's brain is already predisposed away from believing in devils and other supernatural things, does this make this less likely they would commit something like this, or would the drugs in question simply override all of this and make you believe in the devil anyway (simply from having heard of the concept), or would you come up with something less supernatural (like the government's mind control rays) to cause you to believe your friend had to be dismembered?

(Note: I have not stated nor implied any particular answer to the question. I am bringing it up for discussion.)

This argument I think does not follow from it's premises. First, you are describing the actions of a crazy person. There is no extrapolation from that to normal behavior. We can classify people as crazy in various ways, although applying labels to behavior in and of itself may not advance understanding. Regardless, the broad range we consider normal is quite different and in particular, is different with respect to propensity for violent behavior.

Technically an argument exists that these states are circuituous logic: we say the ax murderer is crazy, the normal does not ax murder, therefore they are not crazy. But you get the point.

[Halfcentaur]

Originally Posted by ExMinister

That's funny. You know, the sleep paralysis I still get occasionally but it isn't the scariest thing. It can be, definitely. But I guess I am used to it and most of the time I can figure out what is happening pretty quickly now, even if it still does get my heart racing. I can't imagine I would ever miss it though, ha.

These other things are different, not sleep paralysis. I won't bore anyone with the details. Anyway, I think I have talked about them in other threads. I take seizure medication and that has slowed them down. Hasn't stopped them, though.

Whenever I have experienced sleep paralysis, I also had evil purely malevolent beings there in my room that felt absolutely real as if I was awake trying to psychically smother me into oblivion and I believe it took all my effort of will to keep from being scattered to the cosmos by this sinister evil force, there was even a kind of non localized red hazy light in the room, like those heaters some bathrooms have in the ceiling with a fan that cause the room to dimly glow red and feel hot.

As a 14 year old I was convinced it was a real demon. As I've had them later in my life when I knew what they were they still always end up turning into some ridiculous dream state after a bit of emotional hell.

[asydhouse]

I concur with the experiences expressed so far that "hallucinations" on acid and psilocybin are obviously not real to the tripper.... even on DMT I have always been clearly observing (and enjoying immensely!) manifestations of my senses/sensorium overlaid on the actuality, and had no trouble conceptually about the "real" world. I could watch the walls flashing colour changes moment by moment, and objectively remark to myself that these colours bore no relation to the actual colours of the wall, even as swarms of multi shaped 3d geometrically patterned objects were tumbling out of that wall into the room. The lamp standing next to my chair had the looming presence of an entity, a sentience looming there beside me. One time I thought the world was celebrating like a cheering crowd all around me, because I was the final person in the world to wake up at last and see the reality for what it was, and the world had been waiting for me to wake and join the party.... but I "knew" that it was just a trip!

Whereas on salvia divinorum I did not know that I was tripping, nor remember anything from before the trip began, so I was simply a point of awareness trapped in a dream (very dreamlike in its absolute reality!)... one thing led to another, and the direction of the pull of gravity shifted slowly but inexorably away from vertical, until I was sliding along the ground like on the deck of a sinking ship.... and I fell into the blue sky and began an infinite drop into space.... terrified, sense of falling (in reality I was falling off the sofa), (which lasted longer than the split second it should have), total panic.... man, was I relieved when it started wearing off a minute later! Terrible drug. Did not feel nice in the body like the other classic psychedelics do. No discernible aftereffect. I will not try that again! I was that terrified, I was able to drag myself upright and fling myself headlong into an armchair, thinking it was an open barn door (I was trying to escape from a high-voltage cable on the ground)(time was all messed up, and the sequence of events was not linear despite having some sequential connections between the segments of events... but those segments occurred in the "wrong" order).... evidently I could see the dark area, and interpreted it in my "dream".... lucky it wasn't a stairwell or a window!