An insight into understanding the human brain

Quite sometime ago I posted this on myspace - but because Jill Bolte Taylor's message was so powerful and beautiful I decided to repost it here. Sorry String lol rehashing old blogs :)

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding --she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Lately I have found myself wondering what life would be like from an atheists perspective. How would my perception of self and the world change ? Atheists do not believe in God. Do they believe in “A collective unconscious of mankind ?“ Can a person that does not believe in a higher form of intelligence ie a creator ever take that step to the right hemisphere of the brain ? Are all right hemisphere experiences spiritual in concept ? Do atheists have the same experience but just not recognise it as such and if not what would their interpretation of the experience be ? Because it is only through a harmonious blend of right and left aspects of brain function we can ever wish to reach our full potential as human beings . We perceive reality with our senses and our intuition, then we evaluate our perceptions by our feelings and by thinking. Below I have copied a wonderful summary of Jungs " Four functions " from a book I purchased quite some years ago - by Sallie Nichols :

When we develop ego consciousness - we think of ourselves as one. But as we grow in awareness, we gradually come to realise that we are two - conscious and unconscious, ego and shadow. If we are to reconcile these opposing aspects within us, we must discover an inner mediator, a number three which can correlate these two so that they can work harmoniously together . When this happens, then " out of the three " through the activity of the third factor - comes " the one as the fourth, " a growing feeling of wholeness, a unified personality that can function as one, but now at a new level of awareness.

Jung believed every human being was born with four characteristic potentials for apprehending raw experience. He called these four states " the four functions ." The two functions by which we apprehend the world he called sensation and intuition -functions that operate spontaneously and because of that were deemed by Jung as irrational functions. The other two functions, thinking and feeling, he termed rational functions because they describe ways we order and evaluate our experience. Early in life it usually becomes apparent that there is one function for which we show a special aptitude. This is called the superior function. In time we find that we have some degree of competence in two other areas so that we ultimately have in a limited way a second and a third function otherwise known as auxiliary functions because we can call on them to help our superior function. The fourth function always remains relatively unconscious and therefore unused. Jung called this the inferior function because it is not directly accessible to conscious training. Consequently its performance remains unreliable compared to that of the other three functions.

Because we tend to choose tasks that are easy, avoiding difficult chores, most of us automatically develop and improve our more accessible functions, leaving our inferior function unrecognized and undeveloped. Often it is only when this function intrudes itself in unexpected, inappropriate and immature ways that we become aware that it exists at all.

An intuitive is not very observant of the world around him. He lives primarily in a world of future possibilities. He is little concerned with present reality, and hates coping with details. For example after attending a committee meeting an intuitive might be relatively unaware of many details of this conference, but he would probably come away from it inspired with a dozen ideas for projects this group might " someday " accomplish. The practical problems involved in this accomplishment he is apt to leave to others.

A sensation type would be best at observing the practical realities with which the committee would have to cope if the committees ideas are to be carried out. A sensation person is not given to fanciful notions,; his sensory awareness is geared to reality. They will observe in accurate detail the conditions of their outer environment. Like a good news-reporter, they are interested in specifics : who, what, when, where, why and how. Just how can the intuitive dreams for the future be squared with existing conditions ? Is the room large enough to seat the audience ? Can a piano be brought through the door ? Is there money in the budget for this project ? Each of these two types reacts to life spontaneously. The intuitive smells out future possibilities and gets hunches without knowing how they arrive at the information. In a similar way, the sensation person records sensory experience automatically.

Thinking and feeling on the other hand operate more deliberately. The thinking type organises their experience into logical categories and arranges them in a systematic order. Feeling types are more empathic from the Greek word (empatheia), "physical affection, passion, partiality" which comes from (pathos), "feeling". On a committee , for instance, they might make a list of the things to be done before the next meeting, and they might work out an agenda for this meeting. If there is to be a speaker on the program the thinker might express concern that the lecturer be an authority in his field.

The feeling type would react differently. They would not care so much that the speaker be an authority, so long as the speaker can express themselves well and present the material in an interesting way. They would evaluate any program more according to its feeling tone that its content. " Feeling " as Jung uses the term, does not mean unbridled emotion. Quite the contrary Jung characterized feeling as rational function because it can be exactly as precise and discriminating as thinking. It too is a means of evaluating experience On a committee, the feeling person might be good at hospitality chairman or toastmaster. They would help everyone feel at home but , at the same time, they would be quick to discourage behaviour that does not " feel " appropriate to the occasion.

Understanding personality types can help us understand how others function for example a child of the intuitive type does not keep losing things because he is stupid or disobedient; he is simply unconcerned with material objects. In a similar way, realising that our neighbour is a thinking type can help us to understand that he is not being disagreeable on purpose when he disturbs the feeling tone of a party by interfering tactless truths which seem to him apropos.

Sometimes it is difficult to decide which is your first function because your superior and your first auxiliary function are both so well-developed that it is hard to tell which one represents your innate type. In this case it is sometimes easier to locate your inferior function. One way to do this it to observe what sorts of tasks you consistently postpone doing because you have " not time" for them. Often you will find that certain kinds of jobs are ignored day after day, whereas other tasks ( which are actually more time consuming and complicated ) do get done. Once you have located discovered your inferior function, you can easily locate your superior one, because it will invariably be the other function in the same category as the inferior one. For example, if your inferior function is an irrational function ( say intuition ) then your superior function will be the other irrational function sensation and vice versa. If your inferior function is a rational function (say feeling ) then your superior function is bound to be the remaining rational function ( thinking ) or vice versa.

AS we first become aware of these four potentials within us, we tend to label ourselves according to our superior function. In other words, our ego becomes identified with our superior function. We may not describe our feelings in the exact terminology used here, but we do tend to think of ourselves as one unit - a person with one special aptitude, excluding other potentials of which we are less aware. We become recognized by ourselves and others as " the one who is clever with our hands " or " the one who is good at mathematics." But later we usually come to recognise and develop our secondary functions - at which point " one become two . " We are " good with our hands " but we also enjoy reading and writing poetry , for example. Later comes a beginning awareness of capacities in a third area, corresponding to our third function. But this function, is so deeply buried in unconsciousness that it is difficult to excavate, so that it is often many years before one begins to have a sense of himself as having three areas.

During this time, the fourth function usually remains hidden. It is so buried in darkness, so unpracticed and therefore so threatening to our ego status, that we cannot approach it directly. But as we continue to develop and use our third function, the fourth function also begins to emerge into consciousness. By employing the third function, it is then, " out of the third, " that we gain access to our fourth. When this happens, there eventuates " the one as the fourth " For now there is potential for unity - a wholeness that includes all four aspects of our psyche and transcends the ego unity with which we began our exploration.

A Stroke of Genius

Language of the Birds

Those of the outer world will be like drowned men as regards my discourse; but men of the inner world will understand its secrets.

Like my predecessors I have revealed the bird of my soul to those who are asleep. Perhaps the sleep which fills your life has deprived you of this discourse; but, having met it, your soul will be awakened by the secret which it reveals.

From Farid 'The Logic of Birds'

LOL Sorry this is so long

The Language of the Birds is also known as the Green Language or the Language of the Gods. It is a mystical, perfect or divine language, or a mythical or magical language used by birds ( spirit ) to communicate with the initiated, is postulated in mythology and medieval literature. It embraces Kabbalah, Astrology, Alchemy and Tarot. Its grammar is symbolism, more to the point, holographic symbolism, when properly understood. Birds further reference ascension of human consciousness in the alchemy of time. Thoth the Scribe is the ancient Egyptian god who scripted the languages of our reality, to be viewed as symbolic messages through the ages, and finally brought to light at the end of the cycles of time. Reality is thought consciousness.

Could we deem this mytsical language : The Noetic Quality ?

“The Noetic Quality, as named by William James, is a feeling of insight or illumination that, on an intuitive, nonrational level and with a tremendous force of certainty, subjectively has the status of Ultimate Reality. This knowledge is not an increase of facts but is a gain in psychological, philosophical, or theological insight. "

I began my education at a Catholic school / Convent run by the Sisters, located at Cape Peron - in Rockingham - Perth. The school sat on the end of a peninsula, with spectacular ocean views to the northeast and the southwest. We had direct access to the beach and spent many an hour exploring rock pools - craggy coastlines and isolated coves ... all part of our nature / science studies - and from a historical perspective were introduced to tales about a magical world of hidden treasure that lay buried in the waters between Cape Peron and Shoalwater Bay in the form of spectacular submerged reefs and shipwrecks.

The islands of Shoalwater Bay abound with seabirds, many of which are rarely seen on the mainland. They are important seabird breeding sites. The reef areas supported a variety of temperate and subtropical invertebrates including sea stars, urchins and mollusc's as well as a number of fish species oh and can't forget to mention the beautiful Bottle-nose dolphins that were spotted occasionally by very excited little children pointing and hooting as they surfed the waves - leaping playfully into the air as they chased one another.



So really my first years of school were a combination of the artistic, practical and theoretical - with a " green " focus that included nature studies and ecology. To be honest I was blissfully happy and thriving :)

Then my family moved to the Eastern Seaboard of Australia. Once again I was enrolled in a Catholic school but the emphasis on teaching strategies differed greatly - the teachers focused more on theory and religion. We began and ended every school day with prayers, and seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time doing bible studies with a very cranky old Irish priest that often gave the impression he really had no time for children AT ALL lol :) God bless him :) So we spent many hours drawing stations of the cross posters - reading and discussing numerous stories from the Bible. I was the kind of child that questioned everything … sometimes to my detriment :) For example on one such occasion I recall the priest proclaiming in a very authoritative voice ;



" God commanded Moses to stretch out his rod and divide the waters, "a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left," so that the Egyptians are destroyed when Israelites cross over and the two walls collapse. "

I thought this was absolutely amazing - I was in total awe lol I was so excited I put my hand up and said " So it was like magic ? "

BIG mistake - he went bright red and whilst hyperventilating told me under no circumstances was I ever to refer to it as " magic " it was called a " miracle ". He then went on to warn all the children in the classroom that the church condemns all forms of divination (attempts to see the future) and sorcery (attempts to tame occult powers) reading omens or signs :

So reading SIGNS was " EVIL " ? But I always observed signs ever since I could remember ?? In fact I thought everyone did ? I had finely tuned psychic feelers everywhere - they were part of my defence mechanism - and to be quite honest regardless of the Catechism and all the fear and guilt it invoked I knew I could never " Tune Out " - because that would of left me feeling vulnerable and disorientated - like a bird without navigation / homing abilities. ( Could that be deemed a form of spiritual blindness ? ) I wonder ?

The attitude of the Bible toward divination is on the whole distinctly hostile and is fairly represented by Deuteronomy 18:10, where the prophet of God is contrasted with diviners of all kinds as the only authorized medium of supernatural revelation. Divination is seen as an abomination but there are some notable exceptions where some forms are apparently sanctioned such as in the New Testament when Matthias is chosen as the replacement for Judas by casting lots. (Acts of the Apostles 1:26 ) LOL How convenient that some forms of divination have been / are SANCTIONED ?

In the Quran, divination is described in Surah V (The Table) as an abomination: "O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination; of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper)

Sorry that I go on and on about this but it really IRKS me. All I can say in response is " O ye who have little faith ! Intoxicated by the lower echelons of thought , The biggest ABOMINATION throughout the history of mankind was the veiling of TRUE SPIRITUAL AWARENESS - eschew such ( abomination ), that ye may prosper for Jesus said, "In the Garden of Jehovah stands the holy Tree of Life. High in its branches sings a bird. Listen for the voice of the bird, for when you are properly aligned with heaven and earth, she will tell you all things."

God is everywhere - God is in everything and ultimately at the end of the day God will communicate through any means God sees fit. Personally I believe divining through objects is merely useful / effective in the sense they act like a bridge by connecting our conscious mind to that of our subconscious - there is absolutely nothing evil or satanic about it ? How can seeing archetypal imagery and interpreting patterns be satan's handiwork ??? The imagery and patterns all stem from an original template and are inherent in all lifeforms - I think it is pure arrogance on the part of any group that attempts to block the workings of the primordial prototype - the very cornerstone and foundation of all existence.

Soon after I turned 11 my family moved into a new estate - a suburb so new in fact -the Catholic school had not been built yet - as a consequence I ended up attending the local government school. On a spiritual level this move was a huge turning point in my life because I could now experiment more freely with the magical world of psychic phenomena without religious guilt / paranoia - it was during this time frame I also noticed an increase in the lucidity of my dreams. Bored to death one day I told one of my friends I would try and " SEE " into her past. So I closed my eyes and began to focus - I have a habit of losing interest in things quite quickly and got bored after about 5mins lol I became really frustrated and anxious because I wanted to prove to my friend beyond a shadow of a doubt telepathy / Extra Sensory Perception were REAL phenomenas.

Suddenly from deep within my subconscious the first set of images began to emerge - I saw several horses rearing up on their hind legs - it was obvious something had spooked them - I then tried to focus my attention on the cause of their panic - I saw two vehicles and flashes of blinding bright light - the final image was that of a horse surrounded by fire. They say a picture paints a thousand words and if the totally blank and mystified look on my friends face was anything to go by - I could only conclude there was no event in her past that came close to my vision lol so reluctantly I asked if the imagery meant anything to her " Errrrr NO " she replied in the most ridiculous voice she could muster :) We both laughed - I used excuses and put it down to a glitch in my technique. Never one to give up I knew I would try time and time again until I got it right.




That following Monday morning - I was making my way to the High School locker room when my friend ran up behind me and asked if I could give her a detailed description of my vision again - for the briefest moment I thought I detected fear / suspicion in her eyes ? I was not sure and because of that repeated the account with a certain amount of trepidation and caution . She then went on to tell me that during the weekend her mother and father had driven out to their property - which was about an hours drive from the city and on entering the farm were absolutely devastated to find her horse lying dead on the ground. Apparently her horse died from injuries sustained from a bullet wound. Her parents noticed a lot of fresh tire tracks running the full length of the property and as a consequence decided to make a few enquiries with some of the local farmers , as to whether or not they had heard or seen anything out of the ordinary during the course of the weekend.

The neighbours told them there were a couple of " Spotlighters " hooning around the night before . I had no idea what a " Spotlighter " was - so I asked her ? She told me spotlighters used off-road vehicles - light four-wheel drives - trucks and utilities to hunt animals ( usually kangaroos.) The shooter and spotter would stand side by side behind the cab, holding onto a bar at the front of the tray or on top of the cab, which would allow them a good 360 degree view. The spotter sweeps the surrounding countryside with a powerful hand-held lamp - they stun the animal by shining the large spotlight into their eyes and then shoot them. I can't remember why but she also mentioned the fact her father ended up burning the horse's carcass.

Most of my female friends were quite open minded about ESP and the supernatural but I often found this was not the case with guys ;) lol in fact most of the guys were extremely skeptical. One day a large group of us were sitting in the classroom waiting for role call when Neil a friend of mine piped up and told me about this new neighbour that had recently moved into the house next door to him. He was smitten lol kept ranting on about her skimpy shorts and long legs lol anyway - he said they had a conversation about astral travel / lucid dreaming etc and asked if I thought it was possible for him to learn how do it. I looked at him with utter contempt ;) (joke) - and told him I had just lost all respect for him ;) that just because a sexy new neighbour 10 years his senior moved into the house next door was absolutely no excuse to suddenly become interested in something he had ridiculed me about for years ;) lol his mates laughed and agreed with me - I did eventually cave in and give him some very basic instructions - we decided the best time to test would be later that night - his target - me.

Later that evening we all attended the school disco and to be honest I had completely forgotten about the experiment. It was around about 11:00 pm when I finally got home - I pottered around - played some music - and eventually headed of to bed sometime after midnight. I was just in the process of falling asleep when I saw a really clear distinct image of Neil flash through my mind - I thought wow that's weird lol then remembered our experiment - I jumped up turned on the light - went out into the dining room - checked the time - then returned to bed - it was 12:20 I wrote it on a piece of paper and did not think about it again for the rest of the weekend. On Monday morning I asked Neil if he did in fact try to astral travel. He told me he did - but stopped after about 15mins because for some strange reason felt spooked. He was staying at a friends house that night - so he called out to Dave and asked him to check the time on the clock radio. To avoid any lying or cheating we decided to write our times down on two separate pieces of paper - and then swap them. Sure enough both pieces of paper had 12:20 on them - everyone was amazed including Neil:)



Now onto a subject that has fascinated me for years - Synesthesia. Is there a connection between this mysterious condition and psychic phenomena? Sharing a root with anesthesia (meaning “no sensation”), synesthesia means “joined sensation” (Greek syn = together + aisthesis = perception), wherein two or more senses are coupled such that a voice, for example, is not only heard, but also felt, seen, or tasted. Could synesthesia explain the phenomena of seeing " Auras " or " Out of body experiences "

As children, synesthetes are very like children with extra sensory perception - they are often quite shocked to discover that others do not share their sensory experiences. Often ridiculed and disbelieved, they learn to keep their atypical perceptions private. Nonetheless, the phenomenon remains involuntary and consistent throughout their lives.

Lexical synesthesia, pertaining to letters and words, is the most common form. Sensing color upon hearing, reading, or thinking of letters and integers accounts for two-thirds of synesthetic instances. Whole words are often sensed as also having depth and movement.

Spatial synesthesia - location and shape are bound to concepts involving serial order. Numbers and words are seen outside the body .

Statistics show some type of synesthetic experience occurs in 1 in 23 individuals.

People with a form of synesthesia in which they see colors when viewing letters and numbers really do see colors, researchers, led by Edward M. Hubbard of the University of California San Diego, have found. What's more, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of their brains reveals that they show activation of color-perception areas.

David Abram, following Merleau-Ponty, finds this synesthetic unity in the very nature of perception itself.

Although contemporary neuroscientists study synaesthesia the overlap and blending of the senses as though it were a rare or pathological experience to which only certain persons are prone (those who report “seeing sounds,” “hearing colors,” and the like), our primordial, preconceptual experience, as Merleau-Ponty makes evident, is inherently synaesthetic. The intertwining of sensory modalities seems unusual to us only to the extent that we have become estranged from our direct experience (and hence from our primordial contact with the entities and elements that surround us.):

…Synaesthetic perception is the rule, and we are unaware of it only because scientific knowledge shifts the center of gravity of experience, so that we have unlearned how to see, hear, and generally speaking, feel, in order to deduce, from our bodily organization and the world as the physicist conceives it, what we are to see, hear, and feel.” (Merleau-Ponty)

“History is the result of an over elaboration and separation of the senses - Blake’s vision of man’s natural condition and the condition man shall return to following the apocalyptic disclosure of the present era—is that of a psycho-sensory unity in which each sense is not a “narrow chink walled off from the other senses but in a state of communication with them. This state of sensory interfusion, often referred to as synesthesia, is presupposed by a consciousness in which body and soul are realized to be one, and in turn presupposes a social order so totally different from the present one that its closest approximation is to be found in the remnant of so-called primitive societies.” (Arguelles)

Jose Arguelles in his analysis of William Blake quotes the famous lines of Blake’s adopted by Huxley to describe the psychedelic visionary state:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”

“The first thing I saw was the ‘visible language’! … The ‘elves’ appeared. They sang - I saw - read - felt - heard. They are ‘made out’ of the visible language. The message is conveyed by the medium itself in several simultaneous sensory modalities.” (DMT, Vaults of Erowid)

Cytowic estimates the occurrence of the synesthetic experience to be statistically rare, one in 25,000. When psychedelics are the testbed of synesthesias, the occurrence of synesthesias increases dramatically.

Cytowic states that “Questioning its reality [synesthesia] without first having some technological confirmation shows how ready we are to reject any first-hand experience. We are addicted to the external and the rational. Our insistence on a third-person, “objective” understanding of the world has just about swept aside all other forms of knowledge.” At the same time, this very ineffability, is, for Cytowic, a bug not a feature. He sympathizes with Heinrich Kluver, who, in trying to get his subjects to report on their mescaline hallucinations, “was frustrated by the vagueness with which subjects described their experience, their eagerness to yield uncritically to cosmic or religious explanations, to “interpret” or poetically embroider the experience in lieu of straightforward but concrete description, and their tendency to be overwhelmed and AWED by the “indescribableness” of their visions ”

Hallucinogenic discourse, both of scientific and “recreational” nature, faces a similar rhetorical dilemma as the rest of the ecstatic traditions it responds to: It must report on an event which is in principle impossible to communicate. Writers of mystic experience from St Teresa to William James have treated the unrepresentable character of mystic events to be the very hallmark of ecstasies. Hallucinogenic discourse faced a similar struggle in the effort to report on the knowledge beyond what Aldous Huxley (and Jim Morrison…) described as the “doors of perception.” (Doyle)

All language is psychedelic by definition, functioning to make manifest the mind, to bring thoughts, feelings, information, from the interior of one mind and make them available to be interiorized in another. David Porush calls this “Technologically Mediated Telepathy.” And Porush, Abram, and Erik Davis all relate the story of how this psychedelic, originally synesthetic, oral language-making connected us deeply and reciprocally to our natural environment, a mutual be-speaking that was progressively lost when writing, and most particularly alphabetic writing, froze knowledge-making into eternal signs in rows on flat surfaces, signs you could come back to—and they hadn’t changed. These signs deployed progressively deeper disconnections—among the senses, between time and space, between reason and emotion. The alphabet: the cybernetic technology that changed everything. Synesthesia, in this light, comes to stand for the promise of reconnection, of noesis, of recovery of some long lost unity, within ourselves, among ourselves, within the world. McKenna himself comes back to these language experiences time and again in his books and lectures: new forms of language perceived, theories of the evolution of language and consciousness catalyzed by psychedelics are proposed:

The article below explores the relationships among synesthesias, psychedelic experience, and language, highlighting Terence McKenna’s synesthetic language experiences on DMT . The complexities of creating and performing with a system that provides the means to weave together, in multiple mappings, two or more complex visual, aural, and linguistic systems, are briefly described. Altered states of consciousness are portals to multiple worlds. Many of these worlds are populated by sentient entities: gods; demons; plant teachers and animal spirits;

The DMT Experience by Terence Mckenna

What can be said of DMT as an experience and in relation to our own spiritual emptiness? Does it offer us answers? Do the short-acting tryptamines offer an analogy to the ecstasy of the partnership society before Eden became a memory? And if they do, then what can we say about it?

What has impressed me repeatedly during my many glimpses into the world of the hallucinogenic indoles, and what seems generally to have escaped comment, is the transformation of narrative and language. The experience that engulfs one’s entire being as one slips beneath the surface of the DMT ecstasy feels like the penetration of a membrane. The mind and the self literally unfold before one’s eyes. There is a sense that one is made new, yet unchanged, as if one were made of gold and had just been recast in the furnace of one’s birth. Breathing is normal, heartbeat steady, the mind clear and observing. But what of the world? What of incoming sensory data?

Under the influence of DMT, the world becomes an Arabian labyrinth, a palace, a more than possible Martian jewel, vast with motifs that flood the gaping mind with complex and wordless awe. Color and the sense of a reality-unlocking secret nearby pervade the experience. There is a sense of other times, and of one’s own infancy, and of wonder, wonder and more wonder. It is an audience with the alien nuncio. In the midst of this experience, apparently at the end of human history, guarding gates that seem surely to open on the howling maelstrom of the unspeakable emptiness between the stars, is the Aeon. The Aeon, as Heraclitus presciently observed, is a child at play with colored balls.

Many diminutive beings are present there–the tykes, the self-transforming machine elves of hyperspace. Are they the children destined to be father to the man? One has the impression of entering into an ecology of souls that lies beyond the portals of what we naively call death. I do not know. Are they the synesthetic embodiment of ourselves as the Other, or of the Other as ourselves? Are they the elves lost to us since the fading of the magic light of childhood? Here is a tremendum barely to be told, an epiphany beyond our wildest dreams. Here is the realm of that which is stranger than we can suppose. here is the mystery, alive, unscathed, still as new for us as when our ancestors lived it fifteen thousand summers ago. The tryptamine entities offer the gift of new language, they sing in pearly voices that rain down as colored petals and flow through the air like hot metal to become toys and such gifts as gods would give their children.

The sense of emotional connection is terrifying and intense. The Mysteries revealed are real and if ever fully told will leave no stone upon another in the small world we have gone so ill in.

This is not the mercurial world of the UFO, to be invoked from lonely hilltops; this is not the siren song of lost Atlantis wailing through the trailer courts of crack-crazed America. DMT is not one of our irrational illusions. What we experience in the presence of DMT is real news. It is a nearby dimension– frightening, transformative, and beyond our powers to imagine, and yet to be explored in the usual way. We must send fearless experts, whatever that may come to mean, to explore and to report on what they find.