I’ve decided that the most interesting job in the world would be to be the guy at the sanitarium, who stares at the rest of the world, wide eyed in horror, while you all do terrible things to each other. What else can I do, but document the ways you could be looking into yourself more deeply and finding more beauty in each moment. So here I am... the metatron, at the junction between reality and dreams... watching beautiful moments pass you buy.
Being the warden gives me the opportunity to plan the education program for the inmates, but no one is required to attend, since wrangling you inmates towards any single purpose is such a chore, I’ve decided to leave this here for you. Think of it as an explanation of why you don’t realize you’re insane.
The first stop on our tour is going to be your head. Most of you haven’t figured out how to use it yet, so I’m going to go ahead and highlight some of the good parts.
Human biology is a complex tempest in a tiny teapot, cosmically speaking... (Back of the Book) From our point of view, the interactions that make us are vast and complex... until you realize that all the pieces are connected to you, inside and out. You can’t move without the rest of reality moving with you. I know, some of you don’t like to think about being connected, because it scares you. It’s okay. There are people giving away free hugs. Find one and hold on until you understand that connections are a good thing.
One of the most important “sets” of connections for you is your brain. Magic happens here... okay, maybe not magic, but a lot of confusion. Philosophers and scientists can't agree on what consciousness means, let alone how to quantify it. We do know that without a brain, you are clearly going to be at a disadvantage... and a few other things.
Being the warden gives me the opportunity to plan the education program for the inmates, but no one is required to attend, since wrangling you inmates towards any single purpose is such a chore, I’ve decided to leave this here for you. Think of it as an explanation of why you don’t realize you’re insane.
The first stop on our tour is going to be your head. Most of you haven’t figured out how to use it yet, so I’m going to go ahead and highlight some of the good parts.
Human biology is a complex tempest in a tiny teapot, cosmically speaking... (Back of the Book) From our point of view, the interactions that make us are vast and complex... until you realize that all the pieces are connected to you, inside and out. You can’t move without the rest of reality moving with you. I know, some of you don’t like to think about being connected, because it scares you. It’s okay. There are people giving away free hugs. Find one and hold on until you understand that connections are a good thing.
One of the most important “sets” of connections for you is your brain. Magic happens here... okay, maybe not magic, but a lot of confusion. Philosophers and scientists can't agree on what consciousness means, let alone how to quantify it. We do know that without a brain, you are clearly going to be at a disadvantage... and a few other things.
Science is working on building models of the interactions in the brain that influence mood and perception and how we can control and benefit from these interactions. The chemistry in your brain is more delicate than an award winning dessert recipe... tinkering with it should be handled responsibly.
We're starting to gain some real ground on methods of watching it function, but we still haven't gotten all of our lines sorted out. It's a delicate mixture of chemicals and electricity. Playing with the chemical combinations effects the brains abilities in some pretty interesting ways LIKE...
Hallucinogens. Admit it... you were all thinking about them anyway. No need to pitch a fit over it. Everyone who was whispering about it 10 years ago is talking about it out loud today. In fact, they're talking about it in laboratories equipped to track how hallucinogens impact activity in the brain on a pretty amazing scale.
The main actors in this arena are a series of enzymes that impact the transmission of signals between brain cells. Hallucinogenic compounds demonstrably increase the flow of these chemicals by interfering with the regulatory process inside the cells of the brain. The chemicals in the hallucinogen plug gaps in enzyme sequences, causing production enzyme switches to remain on longer than a normal "healthy" brain would.
The downside to the artificially induced activity is that it deprives the body of those same neurotransmitters later. Beware of mood crashes. A normal body will take time to replace the raw materials that were used.
Brain chemistry is a deep rabbit hole... the fringes of the sciences of the mind... but there does appear to be evidence that psychoactives that stimulate the release of enzymes in the brain are part of shamanic rituals for a reason. These drugs alter the way that your mind and reality intersect in ways that are hard to describe to anyone who has never experienced it. Jill Bolte Taylor takes a stab... and my personal experiences as someone with a schizotypal disorder resonate with her description.
But as it turns out, this typical dissolving of self appears to have certain benefits for individuals who have trauma in their past. There is a growing body of evidence that seems to support the benefits of a combined use of personal counseling and hallucinogens under a doctors supervision. It may turn out that the best therapy for trauma is prying open the third eye and allowing sunlight to act as disinfectant.
I'm looking forward to the day when doctors can use these drugs to clean out the skeletons in your closet in a hurry, rather than keeping you on a trickle dose of SSRIs for the rest of your life.
If you want to dig into the world of scholarly works regarding hallucinogens, psychosis, and fun in the brain try these. Don't be afraid of the words. They're here to heal.
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