Streaming Psychedelic Computer Visions

Based on the same type of technology referred to in the post Computer Visualization Similar To Psychedelics, here we have Large Scale Deep neural net dreaming, steered by chat. 

Inputs from chat continuously steer the computer based visions as if in a strange fractal dream.

Consciousness is less in Control

Consciousness has less control than believed, according to new theory.

Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella's "Passive Frame Theory" suggests that the conscious mind is like an interpreter helping speakers of different languages communicate.

"The interpreter presents the information but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared," Morsella said. "Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn't do as much work as you think."

This is very much in line with insights from classic enlightenment that everything is just happening and that our attachment to self identity is illusory.  That consciousness is like some kind of delusional reporter, continually late to the scenes of crimes and yet imagining itself to be involved or even causing the crimes.

Computer Visualization Similar To Psychedelics

In the field of pattern recognition, the current state of the art technology are the so-called deep neural networks, with many layers of neurons that learn to recognize features.  The way that these learn to pick up certain features such as the edges of objects and then build them into an image is similar to the way our own visual processing works.

This page hosts some images, like that shown here, of places in these layers that are processing images, at the stage of the incomplete feature detectors.  I find these have a lot in common with the way that visuals are perceived on psychedelics.

The original article is Inceptionism:  Going Deeper into Neural Networks.

Self-awareness not unique to mankind

From the article Self-awareness not unique to mankind.

Researchers suggest that any animal capable of simulating an environment (i.e. what we do with our brains) must have some form of self awareness, possibly a sense of self.  Perhaps an illusory sense of self, I might add.

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-self-awareness-unique-mankind.html#jCp

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-self-awareness-unique-mankind.html#jCp

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-self-awareness-unique-mankind.html#jCp

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-self-awareness-unique-mankind.html#jCp

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-self-awareness-unique-mankind.html#jCp

Dharma Talk 016 - Thinking Out Loud

I think the first time I ever really did something close to this exercise of thinking out loud was while rehearsing for a talk that I had to do at school.  I did the whole in front of the mirror thing.

What I mean by thinking aloud (there's actually an intended pun in there) is actually thinking out loud, i.e. talking to oneself.

Over the years I discovered that my personal internal thinking style might be categorized as somewhat more abstract or intuitive.  While I was a classically good objective thinker, on the inside I was a bit less concrete, going a bit more by feel and intuition.  Occasionally, in the real world, some of my ideas might have initially felt pretty solid, but it was sometimes difficult to translate these into words.  And every now and then I might find that once I got an idea out into the cold hard light of day there were some serious holes in my thinking.

In response to that phenomenon, I began to occasionally flesh out my thinking on certain topics by actually thinking about them out loud.  Talking to myself.  I found this fairly useful, but it was fairly rare that I actually did this.

After getting seriously into meditation, specifically noting practice, at some point I adopted this thinking out loud thing as a kind of informal practice and tried to do it whenever I could, often on a daily basis, or at least when I had something to work on thinking wise.  Having a bit of time alone is helpful for this.  While driving the car, for example.  Maybe in the shower.

The results of doing this fairly regularly for several years is quite striking.  There is something about turning those vague and sometimes sticky thoughts into something immediately physical and objectifiable that has paid great dividends.  I suppose individual results may vary.  Clearly, I have seen people walking down the street talking to themselves that are quite embedded in their thoughts and lost in that way.  I'm not talking about that kind of thing, I'm talking about really being truly and continuously aware of what you are thinking and saying.

When thinking out loud, the thoughts are "out there" in a very dramatic way.  The thoughts are experienced on multiple physical dimensions.  Beyond the thinking itself, the thoughts are heard, and the vibrations of the voice are felt.  Somehow this process, which could be thought of as a slight variation on out loud noting practice, gave me some extra "distance" from the thoughts.  At least for myself, it becomes very difficult to space out and lose myself in thought the way that can happen when I am thinking to myself.  I can think as long as I want and never get stuck.

Given that attachment to thought is generally one of the stickiest things to overcome, a technique like this can be really helpful.

Hallucinogens and God Survey at Johns Hopkins

Straight from the website:

Have you ever taken a hallucinogen and had a personal encounter with God or a Higher Power?

The States of Consciousness Research Team at Johns Hopkins needs your help. We’re conducting an anonymous, web-based research study to characterize experiences of a personal encounter with something that someone might call “God” (e.g., the God of your understanding), “Higher Power,” or “Ultimate Reality.”

If you’ve ever had such an experience, we would greatly appreciate it if you would take our survey. If you know of others who’ve ever had such an experience please send them the link and encourage them to participate. This includes people who had such an experience long ago.

As you may know, our team has conducted survey and laboratory studies characterizing experiences with psilocybin and other hallucinogens. You can see our body of work here: csp.org/psilocybin. This new survey is an important extension of our published and ongoing research about mystical experiences occasioned by psilocybin and other classic hallucinogens.

To participate visit the following website:
www.PsychedelicEncounteringTheDivine.org
Principal Investigator: Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Protocol IRB00054696

Approved February 27, 2015

Pro Psilocybin 920 Coalition

Mushrooms are medicine.

The 920 Coalition is organizing dozens of events on 9/20/2015 in the US and around the world focused on recent research on the role of psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms in our society and health care system. We are a collaboration of non-profit organizations and individuals, we hope you'll join us!

United States Psychedelic Churches

The Peyote Way Church of God is an Arizona based non-sectarian organization offering a Spirit Walk that requires 24 hours of fasting followed by a solitary peyote experience in natural surroundings.  There are a number of states that do not restrict the use of peyote when used as religious sacrament, either within the Native American Church (NAC) or similar religious organizations.  The current US states that allow this outside the NAC are AZ, CO, MN, NV, NM & OR, with various others allowing it for members of the NAC.

Similarly, various ayahuasca experiences seem to be available in the United States through the Churches of Santo Daime, UDV (Uniao De Vegetal), and the NAC.  There does not seem to be much information available directly online, you would probably need to contact some of these groups although I'm not exactly sure how, it seems you would need to know a member.

Here is a short documentary about a Santo Daime church in Ashland Oregon.  The church is known as the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen, as mentioned in the article The Holy Dose: Spiritual adventures with Southern Oregon's psychedelic crusaders.  The Santo Daime experience, at least in Ashland, comes with quite a bit of ritual, special clothing and chanting.

The UDV is apparently happening in Colorado, New Mexico, California, Florida, Texas, and Washington.  Santa Fe's UDV church has been mentioned in the news.

Ayaquest offers an ayahuasca ceremony which I believe is in Kentucky and within the NAC.

In the past there has been a Church of the Sacred Mushroom although the link seems to be dead.  To me, this seems like something that we should be doing in the sense that the mushroom experience takes one to a similar territory, is not as puke-inducing as ayahuasca or peyote, and it fits into a slightly more manageable time frame.  But, to each their own.

At any rate, there are many alternative experiences and treatments available, even with the US.  For example, I recently heard of someone looking into ketamine treatments for depression.  And outside the US, ibogaine treatments are available.

Addenda:

Soulquest Ayahuasca retreats in Florida

Mixed Results on tDCS: Prejudice Down, IQ Down

Electric brain stimulation decreases racial prejudice scores while lowering cognitive improvement scores.

Ibogaine Reduces Nicotine Addiction

Metabolite of psychedelic drug ibogaine reduces nicotine self-administration in rats.

Metzinger: Spirituality & Honesty

Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty is a 30 page essay by German philosopher Thomas Metzinger, author of The Ego Tunnel (a book strong on the idea that the self is a bit of an illusion).

It's a mildly heavy intellectual essay, not sure I would necessarily wish it on anyone, but there were a few ideas that stood out to me.

We could see vipassana or mindfulness as something that teaches us to see things as they are, to see things clearly.  Along these lines, Metzinger sees spirituality as an "inner ascetism", an incorruptibility towards oneself, something that requires us to let go of our comfortable inner prejudices in order to see reality.  He sees intellectual honesty as a special form of spirituality, and as the opposite of dogmatic religion.

I tend to look at the enlightenment game as potentially encompassing this broader view where one might go in the direction of actually letting go of many beliefs, in a sense back towards "ground zero".  That view would contrast with the idea of those people that we could consider to be conventionally enlightened, but are still operating within a religious framework that I would consider to be "extra" layers of belief.