Pipe Dream I

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

I would classify my first experience of heightened consciousness on Spravato as a “mystical experience.” Since I’ve never had any such thing before that will have to do as far as classification is concerned.

I disassociated from my body, as usual. But this time it became so disconnected from the world around me that I was only aware of my bare thoughts. I just sat there thinking “I am here, I am sitting here,” “I am present,” and similar things. I had an image of a black pool of rippling water; my thoughts were a trail of smoke circling around above it, forming words which then dissolved. I tried to stay in that space and not let myself think of anything around me or any other thoughts. It was pretty easy to retain that focus. It also felt really pleasant: calm and tranquil, emotion free, steady, reassuring, apart from and unaffected by worries, concerns, desires, and attachments.

I also had one the “epiphanies” I sometimes have. In this case, it was the realization that people have little to no control over their feelings and emotions. We’re all so used to this that we take it for granted but from another angle it’s kind of weird, right? I mean, why shouldn’t we be able to decide how we feel about things? Why shouldn’t we be able to decide what we desire, what we care about, what makes us jealous, what makes us angry, and what makes us sad? Why can’t we decide to be happy about the reality around us, whatever it may be? Probably that wouldn’t bode well for our survival as a species–we need to be motivated, compelled, driven by our desires and fears so that we will work hard to survive and thrive. If we could just decide we didn’t care about what other people thought of us society would collapse.

In the future perhaps humans will be able to control the chemicals and signals in our brains so that we can make these sorts of decisions intentionally, rather than leaving it to our instincts, id, unconscious, or whatever. What kind of civilization would that imply? For instance, why create art when anyone can choose to be deeply moved by some random garbage thrown against a wall?