Why may DMT occasion veridical hallucinations and informative experiences?

Why may DMT occasion veridical hallucinations and informative experiences?

Ede Frecska

Against the fallacy of neuroscience, my counter-proposal sounds like this: we are more than one network. Usually I hate the holographic principle because New Age literature is abusing it, but regardless, I have to refer to it. Matti Pitkánen—the Finnish physicist—said, "The universe emulates itself on every level/' Statements like this can illustrate what I am trying to do by translating into Western language what is said by mystical teaching or indigenous people. Phis statement, “the
universe emulates itself on every level,” is a contemporary version of the hermeneutic wisdom "as above, so below.” My basic tenet is: at the bottom or the top—it doesn’t matter where we enter non-local realms— there is a non-biological web embedding our existence and consciousness
non-locally in the universe.

For parapsychologists, nonlocality comes to the rescue as an explanation of psi phenomenon. However, the second pillar of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, makes their research and replication difficult: sometimes this kind of interaction comes up with fuzzy results. Therefore, if I try to use quantum correlations to explain some anomalous phenomena, I have to admit that at times their spooky effect can be pretty obscure and unreliable.

[Ninshub]

From that book chapter (p. 166). I don't know if it's accurate, but intuitively it sounds compelling:

What, or who, are the DMT entities? According to this model, some DMT entities and spirits are informative components of the nonlocal domain that are brought into the perceptual-cognitive processing in a culturally specific manner. They are quasi-autonomous structures; “quasi-” because they have some autonomy but are basically belief systems; our expectations have a morphing-plastering effect on them. And not only ours—for people from the past and future who had or will get into contact with them, their expectation shapes them because they are in a nonlocal realm; so not only current cultural expectations may be influential. Entities emerging from the nonlocal domains may have veridical potencies, or not; as you know, they are tricksters, so most of these encounters are uninformative. For many they can be totally misleading, and getting reliable information via divination needs a shaman or an initiated person.

From that book chapter (p. 166). I don't know if it's accurate, but intuitively it sounds compelling:

Yeah I've been digging into this question of veridical information reports via OOBEs or any kind of Psi while on DMT, and it is hard as what little is there seems to be behind paywalls.

Even this chapter I linked in my OP notes there's veridical info but doesn't get too deep into reports of veridical information. What you posted may support certain ideas related to what I tentatively call "Hyperspatial Dualism" to get away from the idea that the mental is non-spatial. With the entities in that description these could be creatures whose physical structure doesn't have the same limits in appearance as found in our reality. OTOH, sadly they could just be made up by people's imagination while on drugs. At this point we'd probably have to go into isolated regions where tribes had no knowledge of DMT/ayahuasca and give them the drug and try to get unbiased reports on what they see.

As an aside it's interesting that a young Sam Harris talking in awe about DMT entities at some atheist convention seems to have been scrubbed from the internet...maybe he was on to something before he took a wrong turn.

[Ninshub]

I don't know however if your word "creatures" fits what the author describes in that paragraph when he calls them "belief systems". Yet he himself calls them (or some of them, as he says) as "entities" and even "spirits", but at the same time they are basically "just" belief systems, albeit semi-autonomous. Kind of like imaginal realities that are separate from the drug consumers' consciousnesses, yet are morphed by them.

Is this a bit like Jungian archetypes? At the same time, these "entities" seem to have a personality/individuality, and not just abstract universal Ideas or Archetypes.

I don't know however if your word "creatures" fits what the author describes in that paragraph when he calls them "belief systems". Yet he himself calls them (or some of them, as he says) as "entities" and even "spirits", but at the same time they are basically "just" belief systems, albeit semi-autonomous. Kind of like imaginal realities that are separate from the drug consumers' consciousnesses, yet are morphed by them.

Is this a bit like Jungian archetypes? At the same time, these "entities" seem to have a personality/individuality, and not just abstract universal Ideas or Archetypes.

Hmmm I recall Kastrup talking a bit about this sort of thing, but I fear this idea of belief systems that are "quasi" autonomous escapes me. Perhaps they are sort of like viruses, which seem to be in a middle space between what is "alive" and "not-alive"?

There's actually some responses [from] Bernard Carr at the end of the linked excerpt where he cautions that drawing too much on "quantum" ideas may lead to folly as it's burying explanation in mysteries. I'll admit I feel this concept of living belief systems, while intriguing as a Science Fiction / Fantasy idea, could be doing the same with the idea of "information".

As an aside it's interesting that a young Sam Harris talking in awe about DMT entities at some atheist convention seems to have been scrubbed from the internet...maybe he was on to something before he took a wrong turn.

I hold out hope for Mr. Harris.  I could see his worldview changing over time.  He's too much into mysticism to find the materialist/reductionist explanation satisfying.  We'll see.