personally i have experimented with recreational marijuana use. i wont get into details but i have gained quite an understanding of what smoking pot actually does to you,
firstly, smoking pot does not make you see crazy colors or flying purple elephants and it does not turn you into a rapist or morally corrupt person.
the first time you smoke pot 1 of 2 things happen. oddly either you feel absolutely nothing (the result of what i am not sure) or you get in a state of abnormal perception. you do not hallucinate but yes you may experience delusional stimuli (the floor rising as if you are dizzy or lights being bright). the first time is always the most intense (if it works the first time) and the first time you smoke it, and really the next 10 times or so have generally no effect on your demeanor once the effects wear off over night. most people continue smoking pot into addiction initially because they are “chasing the dragon” (the “good” intense experience of the first time) but they remain addicted because of marijuanas latent effects.
the recreational smokers state of mind is not one which even cares about being rational. they are simply having a good time.
to a heavy stoner (excuse my terminology)(a stoner is someone who smokes pot daily) , the desire to smoke weed can and always will be described as the desire to have a good time, but the difference of a stoner and someone who has just initially started smoking, is that the stoner requires pot to have a good time and not just to “enhance” it.
once you reach a state where you require anything for anything it is known as a dependency.
once Dependant on pot, thought while not under its influence becomes belittled in a sense; the stoner is always worried about how they will get the next supply of weed, as it is necessary to happiness. happiness can be defined as the purpose of ones life and in that sense the sober stoners life becomes sad portrayal of addiction. they think sharply and rationally like any non addict, but they are pestered with a constant annoyance or edgyness resulting from withdraw.
but what i am now interested in is what actual effects smoking marijuana has on direct thought. from personal experience pot is to thought as cold is to matter.
once you have smoked pot and you are experiencing the full effects, thinking things like 1+1 or remembering the date of a war become increasingly difficult. things you would normally use top-down processing all of a sudden can become confusing. memories become harder to access along with the ability to create new ones.
not only is your memory attacked, but your skills of reason are greatly hindered whilst under the influence. making rational inferences is something of a mystery to a stoner. when asked whats 1+1 he uses a calculator, and when asked why alligators are so aggressive, he says something like “because they’re angry”.
but it is not as if they become stupid, just slower. when i was high during a school test, (yes i would like to slap myself too) surprisingly i did just as well as when i was not high, it just took me 3 times as long to finish and i had to apply genuine effort in working my own thought process.
i can describe it like this
question 42: if some pigs are pears, and all pears are pomegranates, then are all pomegranates pigs?
normally (not high) when i read the question my brain creates images to represent the concept of some pigs being pears, and all pears being pomegranates and by the completion of reading the question the answer is then obvious to without any general effort applied
but when i was under the influence this is what happend: are all pigs pomegranates? tik tok tik tok tik tok… ummm what?.. ok some pigs are pears… ok some pigs are pears, and all pears are pomegranates… ok soo that meanssssssssssssss… hmmmm…
then with multiple repetitions of that, once i could finally grasp the concepts, mostly through familiarization, could i with dismal assurance, pass judgment on the answer (which was in both trials NO (the correct answer) though they were different questions)
smoking pot clouds and hinders the ability to think rationally about what you have to do for the day or that waffles go in the freezer and maple syrup goes in the cupboard, and not the other way around. im not exactly sure as of what this is a result but is there any psychologist out there that can shed some light on my experiences?
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