Metacognition
Trichocereus peruvianus, more commonly known as Peruvian Torch, is a South American species of psychoactive cactus containing the active alkaloid mescaline sulfate. Mescaline is a psychedelic drug, supposed to induce distorted sensory perceptions and feelings, altered states of awareness, or states resembling psychosis.
The young man and his friends ordered the cactus in powdered form off the Internet, under the pseudonym "Peruvian Torch incense." A few hours after ingesting the noxious substance, he burst into hysterical laughter.
Whoa. The ride had begun. Mescaline started to teach its lesson; all perception began to warp and garble randomly, but the human brain, constantly hunting for patterns, found significance. A giddiness washed over his soul; he interpreted it as euphoria and blessed the opportunity for this happiness. Objects grew brighter in colour and changed hue; he felt he was perceiving some mysterious, otherwise unknown property of the objects around him. His sense left him, but he saw it as a fundamental change in reality. As the world forgot the rules, he felt closer to the universe and joined in forgetting. Perception and reflection grew confused until observing and thinking were becoming one; his existence was growing more pure and less diluted by the exertion of the human psyche.
There was a curious sucking sensation as his ego expanded to fill the void left by his malnourished id and superego. He became pure immediacy and experience, simply a sentience whose only function was consciousness...
The sentience separately probed the now-independent aspects of the self to which it belonged. Every radiation of thought, feeling or action held infinite significance (that is to say, it was absolute and unquestionable), because it was contextless. Ethos existed still, but was perceived objectively by the sentience, as the two had been separated by the drug's deconstruction of the mind; much the same was true of the anxious worries of the left brain and the wandering fantasies of the right. Beliefs and feelings occurred to the sentience but could not be penetrated and analyzed. Instead all stimuli were cradled in pure awareness: there was no desire or suffering because the mind's thoughts did not belong to itself, but were merely experienced in a way that seemed vicarious. This is the notion of perfect mindfulness.
Every instant of consciousness was like the universe's great orgasm; the sentience was perfectly aware and awareness perfectly defined the sentience so that the mere act of existing dominated the whole self in the same way as sexual ecstasy. At last, no part of the mind impinged on another. The independent parts of the mind lay suspended in mutual reverence for one another (linked through acknowledgement instead of influence), paradoxically becoming a still and indivisible whole, flowing...
He remained in this state for several hours. Considering the experience in retrospect, he realized that what he learned had little to do with where he was, how he felt, or even his particular state of mind. Yes, he had taken mescaline, but meditation, emotional trauma, psychotherapy or even simple maturity could induce the kind of constructive self-analysis he had experienced. The important lesson lay in the realization that it was possible to achieve "perfect mindfulness". When the parts of his mind returned to their normal states, he had a greater awareness of them and the imbalances between them. Experiences with any kind of altered cognition teach us valuable lessons about our minds.
Whoa. The ride had begun. Mescaline started to teach its lesson; all perception began to warp and garble randomly, but the human brain, constantly hunting for patterns, found significance. A giddiness washed over his soul; he interpreted it as euphoria and blessed the opportunity for this happiness. Objects grew brighter in colour and changed hue; he felt he was perceiving some mysterious, otherwise unknown property of the objects around him. His sense left him, but he saw it as a fundamental change in reality. As the world forgot the rules, he felt closer to the universe and joined in forgetting. Perception and reflection grew confused until observing and thinking were becoming one; his existence was growing more pure and less diluted by the exertion of the human psyche.
There was a curious sucking sensation as his ego expanded to fill the void left by his malnourished id and superego. He became pure immediacy and experience, simply a sentience whose only function was consciousness...
The sentience separately probed the now-independent aspects of the self to which it belonged. Every radiation of thought, feeling or action held infinite significance (that is to say, it was absolute and unquestionable), because it was contextless. Ethos existed still, but was perceived objectively by the sentience, as the two had been separated by the drug's deconstruction of the mind; much the same was true of the anxious worries of the left brain and the wandering fantasies of the right. Beliefs and feelings occurred to the sentience but could not be penetrated and analyzed. Instead all stimuli were cradled in pure awareness: there was no desire or suffering because the mind's thoughts did not belong to itself, but were merely experienced in a way that seemed vicarious. This is the notion of perfect mindfulness.
Every instant of consciousness was like the universe's great orgasm; the sentience was perfectly aware and awareness perfectly defined the sentience so that the mere act of existing dominated the whole self in the same way as sexual ecstasy. At last, no part of the mind impinged on another. The independent parts of the mind lay suspended in mutual reverence for one another (linked through acknowledgement instead of influence), paradoxically becoming a still and indivisible whole, flowing...
He remained in this state for several hours. Considering the experience in retrospect, he realized that what he learned had little to do with where he was, how he felt, or even his particular state of mind. Yes, he had taken mescaline, but meditation, emotional trauma, psychotherapy or even simple maturity could induce the kind of constructive self-analysis he had experienced. The important lesson lay in the realization that it was possible to achieve "perfect mindfulness". When the parts of his mind returned to their normal states, he had a greater awareness of them and the imbalances between them. Experiences with any kind of altered cognition teach us valuable lessons about our minds.
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