Reading this article reminded me of an acid trip I had (thanks Steve Jobs), where I was completely surprised by how much was going on when the "filter" was removed and I felt as though I was able to look at what my subconscious was doing. I wrote a really long essay about it (unreleased), but I didn't feel all of it was relevant so I'll just summarize my thoughts here: I was pretty surprised at the depth of thoughts I could access when I tried LSD.
I was surprised at the speed of the processing: simple thoughts like "bike" would trigger an enormously long chain of associations and thoughts that would go all the way back to my childhood, and I would vividly recall pictures of my first bike, but even now when I try to think of it I have trouble recalling such vivid memories.
I'm not quite sure whether the LSD caused me to think more about things, or whether it simply removed a filter that otherwise would exist without the drug. Either way, I walked away from that trip thinking, "there's so much more going on up there than I realize."
even now when I try to think of it I have trouble
recalling such vivid memories.
Are the youth memories part of what you captured to paper, and are you able to find an external way of verifying that they're authentic?
I have zero experience in this field and no education in related disciplines (other than CS :) ).
A theory about experiences such as from dreams - that it might feel like memory recall but actually be caused by stuff being written directly to the recall system at the time of recall.
By way of analogy, you used to be able to buy devices that plugged into floppy drives, and wrote magnetic signal directly to the reader head, without there being any actual movement or a real disk in there.
Continuing this (still entirely speculative) theory, after we wake up, a whole lot of internal correction rebuilds our knowledge map. This could explain why our memory of dreams fades as we wake up - that stuff we experienced wasn't a genuine experience and our brain has ways of knowing and chucking the junk.
>>I'm not quite sure whether the LSD caused me to think more about things, or whether it simply removed a filter that otherwise would exist without the drug.
Alcohol puts some parts of your brain to sleep. Too much alcohol eventually starts killing brain neurons. LSD obviously causes some temporary changes in your brain.
I was surprised at the speed of the processing: simple thoughts like "bike" would trigger an enormously long chain of associations and thoughts that would go all the way back to my childhood, and I would vividly recall pictures of my first bike, but even now when I try to think of it I have trouble recalling such vivid memories.
I'm not quite sure whether the LSD caused me to think more about things, or whether it simply removed a filter that otherwise would exist without the drug. Either way, I walked away from that trip thinking, "there's so much more going on up there than I realize."