I have no doubt the brain is capable of creating experiences that feel more real than the ”normal” reality we encounter everyday. I also have no doubt it’s possible to induce states of “consciousness” where we pick up signals that usually passes unnoticed. There’s quite a bit of information available on the net in this regard.
Here’s one: Horizon:
Psychedelic science by Bill Eagles.
One interesting DMT study was done by Rick Strassman, where people regularly reported OBEs and alien contacts. Here’s a short
interview. As with many such studies,
intent seems to be important in how the experiences are interpreted. For instance, Nobel laureate Kary Mullis attributed much of his scientific breakthrough to LSD, especially in the way of having the
intent to understand DNA while tripping.
But with all such experiences, there’s a huge difference in taking those experiences at face value or translating them into something meaningful outside one’s own subjective context. Thus a visionary insight still require some kind of critical thinking in order to make sense, otherwise it remains a fairytale – only real in the sense that it actually happened within the narrative. It seems somewhat clear that extraordinary states of consciousness are reflections of what’s happening in the brain, what we make of them, how we interpret and translate them is the tedious part. Sometimes people become so attached to their whole experience that they refuse to translate them altogether – and that’s shame, because there might have been some insight of value for everyone else. It’s kind of like mistaking a metaphor for the real thing.
