PsychosisAndReality
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I mentioned the Lacanian notion of the Real, and his (and others') suggestion that the Real MUST be mediated because direct contact with it is likely to precipitate psychosis. In response I got this:
"See also Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception where it is asserted that there is a valve in the mind whose purpose is to combat either psychosis or revelatory experience - Psychedelic Ed."
Mary's response: In my experience the effect of 'magic mushrooms' is precisely to weaken the effects of habitual structures on what perceptions 'mean'. In other words, you look at blades of grass and where the usual reflexive reaction might be 'those are blades of grass' with the substructure of assumptions that entails, under the influence of psilocybin the floor is thrown wide open for new interpretations of the data. The literature on this is abundant, and it has variously been incorporated into animistic cultures' interactions with the world or, under secular materialism (and the particular flavour of monotheism that preceded secular materialism) explained as confusion, spiritual enlightenment or lunacy.
It would be interesting to investigate whether the dangers of psychotropics - 'bad trips' - could be mitigated by attention yoga - that is, serious practice of attention control, learning to direct one's train of thought in a desired direction. Perhaps there's an experiment to be done here.
Another very hands-on (minds-on?) investigation might be into the role of narrative within psychotropically-induced 'guerilla encounters with the Real'. By the role of narrative, I mean the dynamic process of telling stories about what you are experiencing, and how that affects the experiences themselves. This is very intensely felt during the loosening of mind-habits enabled by psychotropics. I remember spending an afternoon tripping with a friend who seemed pathologically determined to turn every new trip-narrative dark or sinister. House windows became watching eyes, waving treetops were predatory ghosts or spirits. So every time she said 'the houses want to eat us' I'd say 'no, look, they're smiling' and suchlike. It was exhausting - I felt like a semiotic guardian or a pair of narratological oven-gloves, trying to contain or turn each story into a positive or 'light' one, to prevent both our trips turning dark and potentially traumatic.
After three hours of this interaction, as the effects began to subside, I fainted from the sheer exhaustion of interaction at the semiotic coalface. Interestingly, my friend still remembers the episode, we have discussed it since and our experiences were very similar (ie we weren't just caught up in contiguous but unrelated trips).
Other contexts within which narratological work is very hands-on, intense and potentially dangerous are (feel free to add to this list):
- Children's games (everyone must remember bursting into tears because so-and-so 'always gets to be the goodie' (or whatever)?)
- Adult SM scenarios (sadly one of the very few situations in which adults act at the semiotic coalface)
- Not sure if general fantasy role-playing games count, though I'm not an expert. I find it hard to imagine getting sufficiently emotionally involved. But others do. Thoughts anyone?) (On this, see the accounts of 'Shades' and 'The Vortex' in IndraSinha's 'The Cybergypsies'. Interestingly, given this discussion, when asked about the book, he often compares it to De Quincey's 'Confessions of an Opium Eater'.)
So how do we protect ourselves from 'letting the story turn dark?' I don't just mean within the context of a mushroom trip - please read this whole section as an examination of one aspect of cognition writ large. At least, I feel the distinction between trip- and non-trip consciousness is thinner than usually believed. The obligations of semiotic/narrative vigilance and good practice are equally applicable to people working with children playing, or indeed those engaged in other fantasy-based activities.
My view is that researchers into the Real (psychonauts) are best served by experiments (trips) buffered by structures able to contain 'loss of habitual meaning' within their frame of reference. Banishing rituals, for example, and/or support from a shaman of whatever flavour seems appropriate.
! Further reading
Daniel Pinchbeck, Breaking Open The Head (a whistle-stop tour of psychotropics and related initiation rites the world over, from someone who has tried many of them)
Aldous Huxley: The Doors Of Perception
