DMT, the NeXT and the Soul of the Human/Machine

by imfreemind • 13 years ago

136 60 13 years ago

Lapsa4• 13 years ago

If you are an indie following your heart, your passion and your dreams, then a world of individual sovereignty, collaboration and interdependence becomes possible.
or will we use the technology to set ourselves free?
a universe of possibilities when we each come from a place of We instead of I.

I've always thought of psychedelics use as a trade of Seeing for loss of self identification. Unless you can alternate between those states freely - it's pointless and you are shackled either way.

If everyone tells to "think outside the box", ironically - that's what box becomes to. A virtual reality - distorted picture of real thing and source of Terence`s 'Alien love'.

hosh5• 13 years ago

You know, I used to think that way.

This isn't something you "alternate". There's a way of being where you can be in unity consciousness at the same time you are experiencing duality and the material world.

The other thing is that, any picture or image or story you form is always going to be the distortion of Reality. Reality is inherently non-dual, so defies description (even what I just said). It means, to be free of whatever box you find yourself in, you are constantly mindful of the present moment.

Sure, just saying this will give distorted teachings. Mystics from ages past have always tried to speak of this, and it has always distorted into things like "religion" for the masses. This is fine though. This is part of the human experience.

Lapsa4• 13 years ago

always going to be the distortion of Reality "Food you cook from scratch doesn't need a nutrition label."
This isn't something you "alternate". There's a way of being where you can be in unity consciousness at the same time you are experiencing duality and the material world.

I made a song about this: https://soundcloud.com/lapsa/vk (quote by Castaneda)

It's "finding yourself in" step what's important.

coldtea5• 13 years ago

I've always thought of psychedelics use as a trade of Seeing for loss of self identification. Unless you can alternate between those states freely - it's pointless and you are shackled either way.

Only if you consider "loss of self identitification" a negative.

Lapsa4• 13 years ago

As I said - just pointless.

Ego is what enables empathy. It's a tool that makes it possible to "become something" in your mind and understand from within.

What good it is when it's in size of universe? Everything just looks alike. Striving to understand universe as a whole is pointless - you just hit infinity right away by the very fact you are trying to achieve.

This dimmed vision hits emotions too. When those start to look the same, man starts to seek "stronger" and more colorful emotions. Also - that is why loss of self identification is seen as a highway to addiction and scares so many away.

api6• 13 years ago

I can't wait for the social media IPO coke binge hangover to wear off and the Valley to rediscover its roots as a hotbed of real innovation, real intellectual daring, and the courage to dream big and then do it.

Bigger and better things than, you know, Facebook games and click through ads.

lukifer• 13 years ago

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." - Jeff Hammerbacher

workbench• 13 years ago

They knew what they were signing up for.

Maybe their minds are not that great after all.

otisfunkmeyer2• 13 years ago

"best minds" needs many air-quotes attached.

rjsw• 13 years ago

At least we now know that they are also helping to protect the free world.

antimagic2• 13 years ago

I prefer to think of this as the on-ramp. Learn your craft by selling eyeballs, or some other relatively trivial technology, make FU money, and then go and do something real. The archetype of this is of course Elon Musk.

I know that what drives me is the hope that one day I will have amassed enough money that I can stop going to work for somebody else, and instead choose to work on what interests me.

njloof• 13 years ago

Or writing high frequency trading battlebots.

bandy• 13 years ago

It's not going to wear off until things are restructured. As it is, there's the story of the occasional person who makes it big on an IPO that goes out, which stimulates the rest of the start-up "community" to go off and flog the next great thing, trying to get a cadre of twenty to one hundred people to give up their lives for a few years so that perhaps four or five of them can cash out and have the vaunted bundle of "f you" money, if for a few months, until the IRS comes and audits them, taking most of it, if not all, away, and the cycle begins anew.

sillysaurus• 13 years ago

This is the first I've heard of the IRS retroactively taking most of the proceeds from selling stock. Is this a real threat? How should you protect yourself?

llamataboot2• 13 years ago

From what I can gather, startup culture is a weird toxic mix of aggression, advertising hucksterism, cheesy motivational-speak, masculinity, and a pseudo-belief in letting the free market determine value.

I wonder what "restructuring" you have in mind though? It seems stronger wealth redistribution and higher taxes could be one form of structural change that might eliminate get--rich-quick schemes.

gnosis• 13 years ago

Startup culture has mostly become a get-rich-quick scheme, and most of its participants will go where the money is.

If the less risk-averse minority believes innovating will make them a quick buck, they might give it a go. The majority, however, will try to follow the rest of the lemmings to the pot at the end of the rainbow, which right now seems to be Facebook games, iphone apps, and web services.

rbanffy• 13 years ago

Getting rich quickly leaves more time to do the really great things. It all depends on what the goal is. Money is just a tool.

Karunamon• 13 years ago

What's with this "social media bad" meme that seems to be so pervasive around here nowadays? Last I checked, looking for new and better ways to connect people was a Good Thing.

api6• 13 years ago

Social media isn't bad per se, but there's definitely a lot of money going to a lot of ideas in that sector that are both unsustainable and boring as hell.

rdouble• 13 years ago

There have barely been any IPOs compared to the 1990s.

jes5199• 13 years ago

I think it's entirely possible that the next period of real innovation will be happening somewhere else - and it's possible it's already started somewhere, and that all of us in the Bay Area can't see it over the noise we're generating

api6• 13 years ago

I have a suspicion this could be the case. The cost of living in the Bay Area seems to me as if it does not permit experimentation or DIY anything.

tankbot2• 13 years ago

I don't disagree, but after reading the OP I feel like you might be feeding the wrong wolf! :D

andrewljohnson2• 13 years ago

I could stand never to hear this comment again. I don't think you can zoom in so close on the graph of innovation and see anything.

I also don't see how the narrative even fits in a world where we've seen Google, SpaceX, Tesla, and the Apple smartphone revolution emerge from the Valley recently.

Facebook, social, and the boy-hacker culture is just one thread in the recent history of the Valley. I do find the systematization of "get-rich-quick" to be interesting in of itself, though.

brickmort• 13 years ago

I think the spirit of it still very much alive, growing just as it always has. It's only being veiled by the big IPO social media coke binge (etc etc...) projects.

Just look at hot huge github has become in the past five years. not to mention open source linux distros, which have arguably taken over Microsoft in the 'best desktop OS' field lately (yet still behind, in my opinion, OS X). There's also new devices like Raspberry Pis, Arduinos and Beagleboards, which are bringing a new age in 'open source' learning. It's a rather amazing time we're living in, actually.

ErikAugust• 13 years ago

"US publishing houses did not buy in, sales faltered. And this is where Steve wandered from his path - he began courting the Fortune 500 and the dark agencies - NSA and CIA - because these people could afford his expensive machines."

Thought this was interesting...

cypherpunks01• 13 years ago

Anyone curious about the very strong psychedelic-PC connection should read John Markoff's book:

"What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036769

deepvibrations• 13 years ago

Wow, loved this, brilliant read, gives me hope for the future!

rohall• 13 years ago

I loved reading it, but it actually made me concerned. Maybe it's just where I stand, but it seems that culture has slipped far from where it was.

hosh5• 13 years ago

Generally, the people I talked to who have taken entheogens feels that about the world in general. But the same attitude is there for accomplished yogis and meditators too.

tankbot2• 13 years ago

Love this article. It makes me think of my friends who are all techies, but somehow we're all hippies, only in our late twenties/early thirties.

The culture Andrew envisions is still alive and kicking. It's never on the front page, but it's always there, guided as ever by psychedelics and love of creating.

hosh5• 13 years ago

Next up: the Hippie Makers.

Abundnce10• 13 years ago

"... here's a technique you can employ in a minute: inhale deeply through your nose with power, exhale, repeat until you can't stand it. Hold your breath. When you feel the rush, stop, let go, and let it unfold. You'll experience the onset of the DMT experience. With practice, you'll learn to go through the portal, without drugs except the ones produced right in your very own body."

Zelphyr• 13 years ago

Aren't you just hyperventilating when you do this? How is hyperventilating yourself a portal to new consciousness?

That sounds unintentionally negative. I'm genuinely curious.

qwerty_asdf• 13 years ago

Well, oxygen deprivation does get you high... That happens to be one of the main reasons why huffing volatile chemicals is so much fun.

hosh5• 13 years ago

He simplified things.

There are some technical details like: allowing the diaphragm to expand fully, the ribs to expand, and the collar bones to expand. Other details such as: doing this while relaxed (relaxed enough to let go of volitional control over the breathing while still being aware of the movement), not forcing the breath, where you can't hear the breath.

Hyperventilation, as in, nervous or panic reaction usually coincides with shallow breathing, where the diaphragm and ribs don't move much, if at all. You don't circulate much oxygen. The technique the author is talking about significantly increasing the amount of oxygen circulating in your body.

Finally, the most important point. This isn't something you can dissect from the outside. You try it and experience it.

josscrowcroft• 13 years ago

If interested, I believe he's talking about something like Holotropic Breathwork, pioneered by Stan Grof. I've heard great things..

wwwarhawk• 13 years ago

Anyone have a 1-page version of this?

mlwarren• 13 years ago

Here is the PDF version (http://stone.com/dmt/DMT-NeXT-and-the-HumanMachine.pdf).

kpennell• 13 years ago

This spirit definitely still lives on in the Bay Area and tech world in general, but I think it's slowly being squashed by the sheer number of people who are going into tech for money (and only money).

Changing the world, connecting the "we", expanding consciousness are secondary to "crushing it". The things the author talked about in that article are seen are hippie, raver, or burner...

Why try to make this happen in the bay anymore when you're going to have to fight simply to get a room that you pay $1200 for? Better to flee to cheaper areas where you can have more time to hack and work on hippie projects. Or Oakland? I don't know.

On a sidenote, these guys seem to be fighting the good fight for this cause: http://freespace.io/events/

cnp• 13 years ago

I loved that little essay.

If anyone is interested, there's a 27-video playlist of the author speaking about his experiences with DMT for the Spirit Molecule documentary.

His commentary is my favorite out of all the participants. Very heart-felt and fascinating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM_PJoDA2lo&list=PLC3FC3395C9...

dwaltrip• 13 years ago

Very interesting article. As a side note, does anyone have links to solid research on the long term effects (physiological and psychological) of these psychedelics? It amazes me how little conclusive information there is, although I know gov stifling certainly hasn't helped.

dbpokorny• 13 years ago

For anyone who is interested in LSD and/or DMT, I highly recommend heading over to reddit.com/r/lsd or reddit.com/r/dmt.

Long and short of it is, yes, these drugs can change your life, yes, these drugs can fuck up your life, and no, the results are not predictable.

Anyone considering taking mind-altering drugs, I urge you, please give nine minutes of your time, and spend each of those nine minutes listening to the first nine minutes of this video, Ayya Khema "Why Meditate ~ 4 Kinds of Happiness"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zAQU8MEHnM

Thank you, that is all --DBP

P.S. If you're really pressed for time, just listen to the one minute between 5:00 and 6:00.

DMT, the NeXT and the Soul of the Human/Machine

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