The Importance of Schizophrenic Experience

Without doubt, schizophrenic experience (be it drug-induced or otherwise) helps bring about a better understanding of both the world in general and of human experience; in short, enlightenment. For example, how could one possibly ponder in-depth the question of the existence of God without having first-hand experience of that which people throughout the ages have called God? This applies to several other questions, for example the monism/dualism question: how could one possibly discount dualism as a philosphical doctrine without having the experiences that have led people throughout the ages to affirm dualist theory as correct?

Schizophrenia (drug-induced or otherwise) is a neccessary port of call on the voyage to enlightenment.

I would ask which drugs you used to achieve this. The pharmacology of drugs is not all the same and entheogens (those which create God) are a very distinct class from disassociatives (which create a state that is clinically indistinquishable from schizophrenia).

I don’t know too many people smoking sherm and saying what a wonderful experience they had getting closer to God – nor have I ever heard of anyone who I would consider sane recommending disassociatives.

It is far too easy to think that tearing down the walls of sanity is a step towards enlightenment, but I would argue that madness is the opposite of enlightenment. The idea is to transcend not to merely flee.

I have experienced both drug-induced and naturally occurring schizophrenic symptoms quite extensively. Those times when drugs were involved they included methamphetamine, cocaine, LSD, mescaline, ether, MDMA, salvia divinorum and marijuana.

Well, that is tricky, since none of those drugs induce the clinical symptoms of schizophrenia.

I think you are thinking of something else. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats a good serotonin- or adrenaline-analog, but schizo they ain’t. It isn’t a catch-all term, you know, but rather a fairly specific disorder.

Salvia brought me into a hallway of hell:

a suspended moment that I panicked eternal

as my friends and I remained stuck,

our abdomens merged in the walls.

The portal moved forward eternally,

blank and waiting for footsteps.

I knew the number of these tubes was infinite.

I remained stuck,

my torso merged into the present wall behind me,

face to face with two friends

–now unrecognizable demons

laughing insanely

at this new

terrified

unhabituated human

who

after an unmeasurable amount of time

will have completely given in to his curse

and laugh without pity.

Lots of shrooms

led me to make a perceptual shift

as

when glancing at a fat man

I noticed not his entire body,

–and labeling it by name–

but instead noticed each individual piece,

the moment before my brain would connect them.

And further backwards:

A honeycomb of infinite images–

all the same scene in front of my eyes,

but each unique from its neighboor by the slightest altered interpretation.

I witnessed

every possible universe my mind could create

from the sight stimuli that floated in my brain

–waiting for me to fit it into a convenient organizing principle–

but all I could label was “confusion”.

And further backwards:

back

through the tunnel of sight perception

“I’m not supposed to be here…”

A sense that can’t be described by sight, sound, touch, feel, nor taste

“This is the place that the insane travel…”

Panic!

I need to go back

BACK

[size=150]BACK[/size]

[size=200]BACK!!![/size]

And then back,

looking around,

the kitchen is another universe,

another dream.

What is the blinding light in front of me?

It has no source

and it remains stationery over me

regardless of where I move my head.

Such brilliance, such radiance

and I

so out of it

and desperate for normalcy

just tell myself

that it is nothing

but the insane effect of a dangerous drug,

passing off the opportunity to communicate

with what some would call an angel

when it very well may have been my inspiration:

breathing into my soul

images so beyond my imagination.

Tell that to the family whose son or daughter has just been sodomised and slaughtered by a drug-addled maniac. ‘Without doubt’ my ass. There are plenty of schizophrenics out there who aren’t in the slightest bit enlightened. There are also plenty of people out there who like to claim to have experienced mental illness coz, like, it’s cool, innit?

So go to a tabernacle and sing. Don’t take LSD, talk bollocks and claim you’re enlightened.

Those ‘experiences’ may well just be associations of words. You don’t need drugs for this.

Like I say, tell that to the people who’ve lost the lives of loved ones to schizophrenics, or even worse, to the people who’ve lost the lives of loved ones to sad young people who lack imagination and take drugs in the hope of having something to talk about.

‘Yes Mrs Turner, your daughter’s face was ripped off as she clattered into the tree after the van hit her, but it’s alright, because the driver has dropped acid and was seeking enlightenment, so we won’t be pressing charges and you’re best off just going home and taking some drugs so you too can seek enlightenment…’

Somehow I don’t see you doing this. If you truly believed ‘without doubt’ what you’ve said, you would do this. But you don’t. So you won’t.

I have always thought that seeking enlightenment through substance abuse (or altered mental states in general) was a silly way to go about it.

Sounds to me like mental laziness. I can’t be bothered to actually learn all this stuff, so I’ll drop a few tabs, stare at the sky, prattle out some profound-sounding nonsense and claim I’m enlightened without being able to explain how or why. And I’ve taken plenty of drugs in my life, most of which did absolutely nothing to enhance my intelligence or imagination.

I can understand your point but sometimes the best way to leran is to experience first hand. I admit it may not be for the majority of people. Although I have had such experiences would not recommend it to others as the outcome is too varied to make a safe recommendation. From my experiences though some good some bad I did find that it gave me a unique perspective on many a issue, including the way my mind works. (which I have found to be a valuable lesson). So in conclusion like many a thing the drug use issue is dependent on the person and for some, experiences wether it be drug induced or not can be a unique lesson.

Impious I can see your point, I would amend it as a schizophrenic experiences can bring about a greater unerstanding of many a thing but to remain in such a state would cause the deterioation of ones mental capacity. So a drug induced state of mental altering, which may have similarities to the states of schizophrenia may give a person the ability to experince a change in mental state but not endure the permanace of schizophrenia. For true schizophrenics they have a distorted grasp on reality and i believe the way to acheive enlightenment is to fully understand ones environment and then that gives you the knowledge and opportunity to then start to dismantle the socially accepted norms/ideas.

I don’t know man. Taking drugs means you know God better? That seems biased to me.

Will anyone please read Julian Jaynes’ “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” in which he compares the mindset of the writer and first readers of “The Iliad” with the mindset of current shizophrenics? Drugs aren’t necessary for producing so-called spiritual experiences. The human brain provides chemicals that are quite capable of producing all of the mental weirdness one could desire.

You can’t tell us what he said? We have to read!? NOOOOO!

I believe that all brillant people are crazy or doomed to become crazy because the mind cannot handle the insanity which is our lives.

People believe that the 90% of the brain we don’t use is reserved for the paranormal, I believe that it is meant for a higher level of understanding

It’s not just that, but anytime you think something different and people can’t understand it they think you;re wrong. You could be a fucking genius, but if everyone thinks you’re a retard you would think you were a retard. You wouldn’t know any better.

Sometimes, yes. Not ‘without doubt’. Not as an a priori rule of human experience. Hell, I’ve read Timothy Leary’s book on his experiments with LSD and it did give me much food for thought. But I’ve seen so many people’s lives be worsened by drugs, their minds rotted, their spirits dashed. I know full well that one can only be a consistent drug taker while maintaining a productive life if one is of that character to begin with. In the hands of the mentally and physically idle drugs are just an excuse for failure.

This is one of the main problems with ALL political discussion about drug use, and drug rehab, and drug crimes. They overlook the rather obvious and proveable point, which you dwell on in your following sentences.

I have a lot of problems with ‘unique’. All perspectives are unique. They are what they are and nothing else. Taking of a non-unique perspective makes no sense. People might say the same thing in answer to a given question, but that doesn’t mean that their mental processes are the same.

Again, I don’t understand why you’d emphasise the uniquity of the lesson. Drugs will always induce some sort of response, whether good or bad. They will always teach some sort of lesson, whether effectively or pointlessly.

Is that a fact? I think you’ll be lucky to find a psychiatrist who agrees with that. For a start, all of those drugs are capable of inducing hallucinations, which is one of the most common clinical symptoms of schizophrenia.

You’ve just proven that you have no idea at all what you’re talking about. Serotonin and adrenaline are two of the main chemicals linked to schizophrenia.

Absolutely true. Just as there are many people who’ve gone to school and haven’t learned jack shit.

To have gone through schizophrenia and matured well is something to be proud of.

I have been experiencing a range of hallucinations etc (at a frequency of once a minute or more) for the best part of 4 years. Intelligent people will learn a lot from hallucinations, dumb people won’t. Add this to the fact that schizophrenics and people on drugs are often vastly more aware than the average person. I didn’t just ‘drop a tab and claim to be enlightened.’ Anyone who does doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Umm, no.

I never said you did. But drugs can help you have the experiences neccessary.

Yeah, cos all drug users are like that…

You’re someone who likes to assume all sorts of stupid shit about people who take drugs or suggest that drugs might indeed be good. I know your type. Scum. That’s the best word for it.

If I experience constant hallucinations and thought disturbances I could be diagnosed as schizophrenic. But those two symptoms don’t neccessitate that I have a distorted grasp on reality. Schizophrenics are not all mad.

It was more a reference to the idea that i dont beleive i would have experienced such things from any other source. So therefore the lessons learnt from those experiences I consider to be unique.

A disorted grasp on reality isnt what I would consider to be “mad”. Also there are a number of perfectly sane people who are considered to have a distorted grasp on reality. In the majority of people hallucinations and thought disturbances are not the norm. Also there are many degrees of schizophrenia and for the most part individuals are not so seriously affected by the whole range of symptoms. What i refered to as true schizophrenics are those who have the majority of symptoms to a severe degree.

So that’s the choice is it, take drugs and become an enlightened schizophrenic or go to school and learn jack shit?

I never advocated education, so your attack on it is irrelevant to this argument. You said that schizophrenic experience induced by drugs was ‘without doubt’ a good thing. It isn’t. Ergo you were wrong.

If you are making a blanket advocation of schizophrenia then I’d suggest you have not matured well as you fail to recognise that people are vastly different from one another and respond to such things in vastly different ways. Again, dress up your mental illness as a virtue all you like, I’m not convinced. And I’ve taken plenty of drugs and experienced mental illness both personally and in other people.

I’ve seen intelligent people be destroyed by hallucinations, becoming paranoid and stupid and closed-minded as a result. Again, you stack up your assumptions to glorify yourself and make your own alleged accomplishment (which is doubtful in itself given your attitude to all of this) as a general policy of human experience.

Vastly more aware? How does one measure awareness? This is just another glorification of yourself dressed up as a general policy. Like I say, talking bollocks.

Nothing you’ve claimed or argued convinces me that you are schizophrenic, that drugs have been good for you or that they’d necessarily be good for other people. You have more or less just claimed to be enlightened (or ‘more aware’) and taken that assertion of your own authority to be a valid argument for all subsequent claims.

So the monism/dualism question is not an association of words?

Not only do you not understand mental illness and drug culture, you don’t understand philosophy either. Great ‘maturity’ you’ve got yourself there.

Again, the experiences aren’t necessary. They may or may not help. Drugs may or may not help induce them. You keep leaping from the occasion to a general rule, and producing contradictory nonsense as a result.

No, but many are.

And here we get the voice of the addict - ‘don’t take my drugs away, drugs are good, they are always good, even though they make me dependent on them’. Terrific.

If you had the intelligence and maturity and awareness you claim to have then you’d notice that I said I’ve taken drugs, I’ve read about experiments with drugs, that they can have beneficial effects. Check this thread, I said all of those things in an unambiguous fashion. But you’d rather misrepresent me and try to insult me than deal with my arguments. How pathetic you look. How pathetic you are.

Is that what your maturity, increased awareness and intelligence and unique experiences have taught you? That insulting people who disagree with you is a good philosophical argument? Please, try not to attempt more ‘philosophical’ contributions here, you are just wasting your time. You can’t tell the difference between someone who says that drugs can cause harm and good and someone who says drugs are always bad. Hallucinate all you like, you’re still going to be thick as pigshit…