Hi Johnathan, Kim, Stathis
I agree with you Johnathan. Scientists learn a lot from extreme cases, and altered states of consciousness is worth to study, even to understand better what is a "normal" (if that exists) states of consciousness. Now remember that our brain seems to generate already by itself a numerous of different "naturally", or self-altered, consciousness states. The most amazing and well known is the state of the so called paradoxical sleep, or REM period, or dream state, or reality simulation state. It is a state unknown by the dinosaurs and the reptiles. It appears with the birds and then all the homeothermic animals. Michel Jouvet called it paradoxical, because it makes the animal hallucinated and paralyzed which makes it an easy prey for the predator, yet that states has survived 65 millions of years, nobody really knows why, but we suspect its importance. During sleep, with some training you can be "lucid" not just during the REM paradoxical state, you can be somehow lucid during the slow wave states, and that gives roughly speaking another collection of four "natural altered states". Fever, some headache, some stroke could lead to variants. Why altered states? I can find plausible that in situation of stress, like for a mouse in the mouth of a cat, your probabilities of surviving are made higher if your brain has a system of self calm down, if not self lying. It is known that mouse indeed generates endogenous morphine like pain killer, and as you know the brain is full of enhancers and inhibitors. Most drugs coming from plants are molecules looking like our own inhibitors of enhancers, general or specific. Which means (but don't repeat) that the first big drugs constructor is the brain itself (don't repeat because make they will make the brain and computer illegal). Like anything alive a big part of the work consists in self-repairing and all those endogenous drugs, well all, depending the amount, can alter *a little bit more* the state of consciousness, than it does in normal circumstances, so that, again, a normal state of consciousness is a sum of altered states in a equilibrium, belonging to some neighborhood of states. And why does plant constructs altered states of consciousness molecules? In my opinion it has all to do with the incredibly complex relationships that plant have with animals, in general, and insects in particular. Many plants have to detract predator insects. By killing them, or by just smelling like, or imitating the smell of, of the appearance of the worst predators of the insect (sort of lies!). But they must also to attract insects, feed them, and manipulate them in such a way that Mister plant can send its Message to Missis Plant which leaves at five miles from Him. You bet that with millions of years they knows about manipulating insects and animals, from predator and pollinator to consumers. And which explains perhaps why there are so much medicinal and "psychedelic" plants (entheogen). Now I agree with you Johnathan, that for discussing about consciousness, we should distinguish between drugs which alter the mood and the perception, like cannabis and alcohol from hallucinogen, like some mushrooms and cactus, and dissociators like Ketamine. Salvia Divinorum, strictly speaking, is a bit of both a dissociator and an hallucinogen. The first alter your "actual" consciousness, the second triggers an actual different in nature experience, like an out of body experience, or a near death experience, or a dream, or a dream-like scenario. Typically and without training you don't remain lucid: you forget you are under the product. You can't take Salvia casually, you take it to live a particular experience which requires your attention, and preparation. Now, I would not compare the effect of Salvia with anything produced by any other entheogen. When smoked, it produces an effect which lasts in general between 3 and 6 minutes. Unlike cannabis, alcohol, LSD, and many others, the effect is disphoric, meaning not typically pleasant. Animals does not push twice on the "button" with salvia, showing in particular it is not addictive. Normal, "my thesis" in four minutes, the poor animals! The effect are quite different from people to people, and according to the concentration of the salvinorin molecules. You find it from 1X (the leaves), to 5X, 10X, ... 40X (beyond it seems to me only the price grows up, not the effect). Many meet typical archetypes (elves, carnival wheel, clown). Some will relive childhood events, or complete life of someone else. Most will talk about a strong pulling or pushing rotation, physically felt, which can sometimes leads to being cut in billions parts and send to as much parallel realities (some can panic here). All talk about realities and perception of realities. many% (on about 1000 reports) talk explicitly about feeling a "feminine presence", which "teach" you something, the last point of it seeming unmemorable. Some lives the experience very badly. In my own experiment, with 30 participants (one by one), they made rewarding experiences, you just need to be patient and to increase the amount of concentration incrementally, and to encourage the respect of the plant. Most learns this by experience. Is it safe? The effect are impressive, but apparently not dangerous. If you look at the YouTube Video, you see that used in the worst conditions it leads, in the worse case only to bruises and nightmares. (With alpinism, a slight error can kill you and others). Like cannabis, no overdose level exists. Given big amount of "infinityX" (pure salvinorin) to rats makes then "sleep" for 4 minutes, and then they resume their activities. It is estimated that on the last 2 millions of American who smoked salvia, there are zero death related to it, nor even emergency calls. There are thousand of death related to alcohol consumption, and many more injuries, just to compare. Salvia is above all a medicinal plant. Incredibly enough, I did cure a severe migraine recently. The person told me she did try all possible medications, without success, she has to just keep calm in the dark for 12 hours. A little hit of leave made it disappear in three minutes. It is one of the main use among the Mazatec. It helps for nasal congestion too, it helps for sleep (always 1X here). It is antidepressant, and it is antiaddictive. It is a medication against drugs! And yes Kim, it is easy (far more than cannabis which is already easy) to grow your own plant and to multiply it. It is alas less easy to find the plant, there are no seeds available, because Salvia Divinorum has literally abandon sexual reproduction (I think she did have its own predator as pollinator, explaining the subtleties of her message). You don't need light, she hates light, she loves the dark, heat and water a lot. She lives, or at least her ancestors were used to live (because since 700 years she has been cultivated by the Mexican Mazatec) in dark hot and humid forest, in the nightlight of the day within the shadows of trees with many branches. Below 0° (celsius) she dies. I am glad I found my master. A plant! (grin). But I will continue to explain UDA+AUDA for those who prefer the pure third person communicable way. Don't worry, (or worry, perhaps :). It is a question of taste. Reality is creative, beyond wonders and surprises. People who does not like wonders, surprises should not study computer science and logics, neither physics, and should avoid Lewis Carroll and Salvia Divinorum. That plant likes joking. Here a video of someone very sensible, and a bit unprepared, who seems to appreciate the joke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1QavlZe2H8&feature=channel_page About that plant, I would like to add that I am certainly in favor of some regulation. But criminalization of it is no less than criminal. The plant becomes really dangerous: it can send you to hell (jail), even without smoking it! We should have laws forbidding defamation about products related to health. Against the abuse of systematic well known errors of logic, the ignorance of what is a trance states, etc. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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