I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs.
Sagan is not talking merely about sensation; he is talking about ideas he gets while high. He gets insights into the way the world works which he finds convincing when high, but unconvincing when he's down. For example: "... that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men...." He describes how he tries to explain these ideas in voice recordings, how he tries hard to convince his morning self that he's not being crazy. And still he can be skeptical in the morning.
I find this schism of the mind to be frightening. I am aware that dreams, drugs and psychoses can convince you that certain things are true. I wouldn't want to be two people, a high Nisan and a down Nisan, who hold different beliefs and who don't believe each other.
On the other hand, maybe Sagan is too much of a scientist? Science only goes so far, and there are plenty of valid "perceptions" that are not scientifically testable, whether for practical reasons or for theoretical reasons. For example, "a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds" might actually be nothing more than the pot convincing Sagan that he is being especially empathic. This is a possibility that a scientist should consider, and which it would be difficult to disprove. But, as I will allude to in my blog post about Les Mis, for some purposes it doesn't matter whether two people are really connected, or whether they just think they are. It can be a useful feeling that facilitates emotional bonding. I'd be more comfortable with Sagan's high self if he were willing to admit that this perception might be unreal, even if it were worthwhile.
I do believe that there are many ways to perceive the world, and that people generally only use a few of these at a time. There are easy examples of this: If I'm being led through an unfamiliar big house or city or forest without paying attention, I can be unaware of its floorplan or layout; if I'm leading someone else through a familiar place, I'm aware of the layout and its relation to the part I can see at any given moment. For another example, I can see the eruv in the community I used to live in; it stands out so much, it might as well be highlighted, and I can tell at a glance if it's broken. I know it's invisible to everyone else. As a third example, I can listen to a piece of music, especially classical music, and hear the melody, and the variations on the melody, and the other parts harmonizing with the melody and alluding to it, and certain notes being delayed or being left unsaid. And some people don't hear this.
In fact, Sagan mentions that cannabis use has given him such an appreciation for music. If, as Sagan claims, cannabis tends to make you receptive to things you customarily ignore, I'm sure it is an effective way to find new modes of perception. I have heard that meditation can do things like that too. I believe that there are many ways. You can learn a new language, or learn to play music, or learn how to recognize plants and animals. You can meet lots of people with different sorts of lives and see things from their perspectives; you can do something dangerous; you can try to repair your own bicycle or make your own furniture.
All these activities can enrich the array of modes of perception you have available in your everyday life, often in surprising ways. They are activities that force you to recognize patterns that you normally wouldn't. And afterwards you can see that, yes, these patterns are really there in the world. I am suspicious of the patterns Sagan sees while high on cannabis which seem to disappear and become implausible when he comes down.
I wondered above if Sagan was too much of a scientist. I say this because he started experimenting with marijuana at "a time when [he] had come to feel that there was more to living than science...." I don't know anything about Sagan, but I know there are people who believe that only science is significant or important. They say that any statement that is not falsifiable is nonsense. Such people cannot have a deep appreciation of music or visual art; apparently, neither did Sagan. From what little knowledge I have, it seems plausible that cannabis opened Sagan's mind to new and entirely unscientific perceptions, and that he was at first unable to integrate this with the strictly arid and scientific mindset of his down self.
Once when riding in a warm car at night, I got lost in my own thoughts and was seized by the startling certainty that strong artificial intelligence was entirely easy to create, if one only implemented a few simple principles. I did not know exactly what those principles were at the time. By the next morning, it was clear to me that artificial intelligence is not so easy, and that I must have been deluding myself the night before.
I don't expect I will ever have this particular delusion or fantasy again, but I can recognize that such moments of sureness and euphoria can be essential in doing anything creative. Indeed, during a similar warm car ride at night I was once seized by a scene from a yet-unwritten story that was very emotionally moving at the time. This inspired me to produce a story which I believe to be inspiring and of intrinsic value.
I brought that up so I could illustrate the idea of properly interpreting feelings and perceptions that might appear to make no sense. I'm glad I accepted and appreciated my fantasy about artificial intelligence for what it was, rather than becoming one of the countless pitiable cranks who believe they are geniuses. If, while high, Sagan was overcome with the idea that "there is a world around us which we barely sense", he could interpret that as the feeling of his mind being willing to perceive things in new ways. If he became convinced that "we can become one with the universe", he could regard that as an extremely intimate meditation on an idea you can pick up from religious texts. If he realized that "certain politicians are desperately frightened men", he could then tell himself that while such an intuition could be true, it might be false, for all he knows, and it might also describe other people he has yet to meet.
I do not want to believe that there are "valid levels of perception" which are unavailable without the use of drugs. I am willing to believe that cannabis can lead you to good places, but not that it's the only way to get there. And if there are ideas it gives you that you don't understand while outside, I don't believe they are real.
1 comment:
First off, I don't necessarily think there needs to be a schism between a high self and a down self. Everything is one and a part of everything else. I am myself regardless of my many facets: high, down, depressed, happy, excited, stressed, etc. All of this is a part of me and who I am, and I don't necessarily think they have to be in contradiction. While something you may have thought the previous night while stoned may not make any sense to you in the morning, that is a part of the experience too. Does every story you may write in your free time always make perfect sense? Your poetry? Does it still seem relevant later? Or has it lost all its magic and so it seems dumb and not worthwhile pondering about or even posting on your blog (for example)?
And I think it is more pleasant for two people to actually *be* connected than to just think that they are connected. The former implies an actual level of understanding between the two. The latter implies superficiality and transiency.
I also don't believe that one is necessarily more aware of their surroundings if they are familiar. Have you ever walked to campus and let your mind wander and realized that you're halfway there and you don't specifically remember the steps in-between your starting point and where you are now because you were so deep in thought? We often ignore the familiar because it is exactly that: familiar. What if you can take the familiar and see it as it was when you saw it for the first time?
Forgive the harshness of these next words, but you take the spirituality and transcendence that is meditation and (arguably) being high and try to compare the receptiveness of these things with the commonplace nonsense of learning something new and tangible: a new language, learning how to play music, gardening, etc. You would have been better served likening meditation and being high to the tranquility of praying instead of the commonplace nonsense you listed. Yes, playing a guitar or a piano or learning to garden or whatnot may bring you peace. Maybe you even feel like you're learning something new. But you are certainly not opening your mind to the possibilities that this world holds for us should we just open our eyes to see them. Learning a guitar is far different from noticing the texture of the strings under your fingers...the sound of the pick playing perfect rhythm across the strings as you pick each respective string...the unfamiliarity of a song that you have heard a thousand times and are hearing now as if you have never heard it before... Your new trivialities cannot teach you that.
And is it possible the patterns you see in the world are not actually the patterns of the world, but patterns of your mind being laid out across the world as if it was one giant blanket? Visible to the naked eye as plain as day when you are high, and completely invisible to the unreceptiveness of your dull mind when it is not...when it is focused on the commonplace around you and not realizing that the commonplace is so very extraordinary all the time and you are just too dense to see it usually because you must be focused on your schedules and your clocks, your work and your play, and never stopping to realize how wonderful it all is? Have you ever just sat and contemplated how much the world moves when you're still (either the physical planet, or the hustle-bustle of everyone outside rushing from one place to the next)?
And I guess to close my really long comment...no one ever said that getting high was the only way to experience transcendence in the way that Carl Sagan has experienced it. Through meditation it is equally possible if you are willing to have an open mind about all that you will experience. (I will leave aside any comments about whether religion can bring upon this same feeling because my feelings on this subject are rather pessimistic, but I do not necessarily believe this is true in all cases.) I believe that some people can reach these levels of perception without any mind-altering substances at all, and those people are rather fortunate. I also believe that some people who take mind-altering substances, do not necessarily need them to achieve this level of consciousness. But I also believe it is the only way to achieve this level of openness for some people...and that is not necessarily wrong.
If it is entirely possible that there is a world around us which we can barely sense, then I believe that our minds should remain open to it, and not explain it away with "oh, he's just perceiving things in new ways". It takes all the magic away from it. It is too literal. It is exactly that type of magic that mind-altering substances can put back into the minds of some people. How much did you use to wonder and imagine as a child? And how much do you do that now?
Can an elephant really fit into your fridge? And does its size really matter? Does time really matter? Does existence really matter?
And if you were a kid, what would you say if I asked you those questions?
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