Dreaming LIFE

"A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claimed yesterday.

Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his 1960s hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US have for the first time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the laboratory.

They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported for centuries. They are "descriptively identical". "

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What worries me about headlines like this is that reaffirms this idea that consuming hallucinogenic substances automatically makes you more enlightened. Taking shrooms and tripping does not turn you into some enlightened guru!! Nevertheless, quite a fascinating article on the controlled use of mushrooms as a gateway to mystical experiences. This type of research is part of a broader movement based on studying the neurology of religion, known as "neurotheology."

And with a kickass name like neurotheology, I think this type of research will be sticking around for awhile.

 

"Those dreams about being chased by wild animals may not be meaningless after all. And the bottomless pits, the running but not moving, and those rooms with no doors and windows, they also may have a real purpose."

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An interesting piece about nightmares and dreams being an evolutionary response to recognizing and dealing with the problems faced by our ancestors. Researchers says dreams are a playground for the mind to replicate threatening situations, allowing us to develop skills to deal with life-threatening experiences in the real world. They claim the majority of dreams contain threatening events. This universal nightmare of being chased by monsters is familiar to everyone, hinting at the idea of early humans being chased by another type of monster - hungry wild animals.