On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>> I thought it was impossible to live that and to be able to come back from >> such an experience, but it happens that with salvia divinorum, some subject >> can live the experience of quasi-total amnesia, where not only you forget >> which human you are, but you can forget what a human is, what time is, what >> space is, and yet, retrospectively, after coming back, you realize that >> despite having forgot everything, you were still conscious, and you were >> still considering you as a living entity of some sort. > > I've not had that experience, but I might try it. I think though that even > in such a state one must have some short-term (~second) memory to have a > human kind of consciousness. Obviously you now have memories of what it was > like. I have known people with severe Alzheimer's disease who seemed merely > reactive and apparently had no memory, even short term. I don't think they > were as conscious as my dog or the fish in my pond. Experience reports of Salvia Divinorum (or salvinorin A, it's chief psychoactive compound) use in the literature contain many common themes related to memory deficits, and represent a fascinating "uncontrolled study" in the phenomenology of consciousness. There are of course many concurrent effects (visual and auditory hallucinations, somatic sensations, distortions of body image, etc.) shared with other hallucinogens, but the impact on memory seems unique. At typical dose levels resulting from smoking the plant leaves or fortified extracts of the plant leaves, many users later report that they had forgotten they had taken a drug, and were confused (and often terrified) about why they were experiencing what they were. This is reported as a sudden onset phenomena, not a gradual one, and is often compared to the feeling of waking up in a strange place with no memory of how one got there. This suggests that one action of the drug is to disrupt the last few minutes of episodic memory formation. However, these same reports also state that as the effect of the drug began to peak and then wear off, usually in a matter of a few minutes, the users suddenly recalled the events leading up to their intoxicated state. This then suggests that, at these doses, the drug only disrupts access to recent episodic memory, but the memory is still formed for later recall. This is different from the form of permanent memory loss that occurs in head injury cases where the victim cannot ever recall the moments leading up to, say, a vehicle collision. At higher doses, a common theme is that (along with the prior episodic amnestic effects) the user reports having forgotten key fundamental concepts like "what being human is" or "what space is". This sort of semantic memory loss is difficult to imagine, but it is fascinating that even under such extreme conditions, the user is experiencing a stream-of-consciousness that can later be recalled. Less frequently, reports at higher doses describe feeling like "all of my prior reality was a joke being played on me", and "I was experiencing the REAL reality, and everything that happened before was just a construction or movie set." Some users go on to report even more bizarre cases where they report "having lived another lifetime somewhere else", and are shocked and dismayed when the drug begins to wear off that it was all a "dream", and that this reality is the real one. This sounds like a more extreme version of our normal REM sleep, where when dreaming, one doesn't usually realize one is dreaming, but sorts things out upon awakening. Compounding these impacts on memory are reports of changes in body image and identity. One recurring theme (that is shared with other hallucinogens) is the feeling of "merging" with objects in one's visual field. This is reported as both incorporating the physical object into one's body image and changing one's perspective to be that of the object. In one case, a user reported that "I actually KNEW what it was like to be a swing set, to live every day in the playground and be happy when children were using me, and sad when the park was closed." Another unique aspect of the effects of salvinorin A is its extremely short-lived activity. Most reports seem to indicate that the smoked form of the drug wears off in as little as 10-15 minutes, completely returning the user to "baseline" in less than a half-hour. All of this indicates that salvinorin A has potent but short-lived effects on the brain systems involved in memory, identity, body image and perception of time and space (along with a host of other effects not discussed here). Regardless of one's view on the use of these substances to alter one's cognition, it seems there is a great opportunity to study these effects to zero in on how these brain systems are related to our subjective experience of reality. Johnathan Corgan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
