I don't know. I've also had the feeling, under the influence of various
substances and other times as well, of exchanging energy with the people I
was hanging out with. I remember thinking a number of times that the
actual words didn't make any difference. I've had conversations with
people (this is a common experience) while stoned when I was unable to
remmber what we were talking about, even as I was responding to somebodies
comment. It's like the speech-analysis center short-circuted directly into
the speech-creation center and ignored the "me" that I usually percieve to
be in there.
Dennet would argue that the "me" I'm reffering to is not a real thing; that
my perception of myself is just my brain's "user-illusion". If that's the
case it seems like my brain is able to conduct a perfectly reasonable
conversation with other people (who were, admittedly, also baked) without
this self.
Reminds me of meditation, and the concept of attempting to enter a state
without a self. At one time I couldn't imagine how I could continue to
function without a sense of "me". But it seems like my brain is perfectly
capable of acting and reacting without "me" driving it.
In situations like that I get this really cool feeling of being "in touch"
with the people I'm with. We'll laugh and nod and smile and sometimes just
listen to wind rustle the leaves. It's a very different feeling from where
I work, which is a research laboratory; fluorescent lights, dusty shelves,
machinery...a cacaphony of distracting sounds, smells, feelings...it's an
alien world...a thing created by rational minds and abstract thinking.
But, you know, I like lab. I like the smell of acetone, and bleach. I
like the hum and gurgle of a good vacuum pump, the sizzle of liquid
nitrogen, the way light refracts through a flask of benzene. I like the
focused, rational, methodical process. It's a real rush in its own way.
The thing is, if it "felt like" you were in some kind of communion, that is
what counts. That experience is real, that "sublime" is significant; worth
telling people about and remembering. You don't have to verify things like
that, or look for support from third parties. When I feel like that I
don't ask myself "was that real? I mean was it really real?" That's just
another part of me trying to make everything make sense, because it feels
like everything MUST make consistent sense.
And you know? I think everything can make sense, or rather one can make
sense of just about everything. There is always a model to explain the
mechanism...at least potentially. But some things don't have to be
incorporated into some kind of consistent world view/conciousness, they
just are.
That's my problem with Religion. It seems to me like most religions
involve people having "trips" of one sort of another and coming back to
recount them. But you can't just say "Wow, dude, that's really cool...a
Trinity within one God huh? And he's this old guy on a shining throne?
Yeah I see it...that's really vivid"
It isn't good enough becuase the devout keep insisting that such things are
real, universially true, for everyone. I experience it, therefore it must
be real...crap like that. It isn't metaphorical or abstract, it is (this
is a quote from a friend who was trying to convert me once) "more solid
that the rocks".
If you peer too closely behind the curtians of perception, you'll find that
nobody is home. But that doesn't make living any less fun, or any less
vivid.
Reed Konsler
konsler@ascat.harvard.edu