Music as a psychedelic!

[st.bot.32]

OK I didn't do psychedelics until rather late in life (compared to most). During a conversation with a friend a while ago I realized however, that for me music had served a similar purpose even many years ago.

Just a few small examples:

-Walking around town listening to Selected Ambient Works II noticing how the ambience, the tones, etc changed my emotional reaction to the world around me, and how I interpreted things

-Listening to strange drone music, minimalism, etc and noticing how different kinds of music really affected my sense of the passing of time. With very minimalist music, if you get into it, 15 minutes can seem to pass in 6 minutes. With drone/noise, you are so focused on the immediate now that you can lose all sense of time whatsoever.

-Falling asleep listening to music, in the hypnagogic state just between being awake and sleeping, the mind breaks down into incoherence, and how you perceive music changes, sometimes I feel like I'm listening to different chunks of the music at different times, able to predict what happens or even change it somehow

Just being alive is quite trippy sometimes!

 

[Dantediv86]

oh yes indeed life is the most psychedelic experience

 

[Psychoid]

-Falling asleep listening to music, in the hypnagogic state just between being awake and sleeping, the mind breaks down into incoherence, and how you perceive music changes, sometimes I feel like I'm listening to different chunks of the music at different times, able to predict what happens or even change it somehow!

That happened to me so often when I was going to highschool when I was coming back from school in the bus (a 1 hour ride) and had smoked in the day I'd keep falling asleep then awake then fall asleep again etc... And I always listened to trance when in the bus, and had some pretty weird experiences sometimes.

I have found the key of cannabis.

 

[????????]

I realized however, that for me music had served a similar purpose

I totally understand this. I think that art, in and of itself, is very psychedelic, even when the artist has not intended so. I once thought that every form of art is but an echo of the primordial psychedelic experience, the one that words or images or any primitive medium made by us can't do justice. But we, regardless, make thousands of words and drawings and whatnot in attempts to describe it

Falling asleep listening to music

Oh I definitely know what you're talking about here. To me it happens when falling asleep and when waking up too, do you get it when waking up? I have heard songs in this hypnagogic state (feels like a limbo of some sort doesn't it?) and usually the songs get into my mind in a special, more vivid way.

 

[st.bot.32]

Yeah, totally get that sometimes when falling asleep, hearing music, and sometimes clear, organic visuals as well. Especially days when I'm well rested and really happy.

I noticed that a few weeks after I dropped for the first time that this was happening frequently at night, and extremely vivid. But it was also coincidentally the start of a very happy time in my life as well! (also to be fair a good day of the outdoors can do this as well.)

As for waking up, not so much, unless I'm falling asleep again.. Although when I was a child I used to get hypnagogic hallucinations when waking up, like, seeing someone standing in the room, then I would fully wake up and they would vanish.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Music is music, psychedelics are psychedelics. If music is psychedelic (i.e. "to make the mind manifest") it is in that it gives a view into the mind of the artist, not into one's own mind (lyrics not considered).

Music inspired by the use of psychedelics will have psychedelic characteristics, just like an iron bar that has been in a fire for a while will have the essential qualities of fire: light and heat, and even an ability to set other objects on fire. This is why some music can be labeled as psychedelic (as in the music genre 'psychedelia'). But charming and meaningful as some music may be, its effect on the psyche cannot be compared with the cognitive-dissociative state that results from the ingestion of psychedelic compounds.

 

[yourownworld]

But we, regardless, make thousands of words and drawings and whatnot in attempts to describe it

That's a reason why I love to draw whith mush/lsd , I can get a lot of ideas about what it could reveal of my soul. Also it helps for what you put in the drawing, because you can know why you're doing this shape, or not put something here, or not end a side of the work,... I once had the same experience in finding why I did each movement, I did could tell the reason I was doint this or that, reason I hold my cigarette this way, reason why I take a cigario instead of a cigarette, and the rest you know the psychedelic introspection about your past actions and how you became what you are.

 

[????????]

As for waking up, not so much

yeah but I'm talking when you wake up and stay a while in bed, not moving. You're not asleep anymore but aren't quite conscious, yet. This is the "hypnagogic limbo"

Music is music, psychedelics are psychedelics [...] charming and meaningful as some music may be, its effect on the psyche cannot be compared with the cognitive-dissociative state that results from the ingestion of psychedelic compounds.

well yeah, thanks, captain obvious :wink:

 

[Spaceman]

Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions for the Electric Guitar (1975)

 

[tryptonaut]

I totally understand this. I think that art, in and of itself, is very psychedelic, even when the artist has not intended so.

I recently saw a documentary on a selection of art from mentally ill patients, and it was very psychedelic. It really freaked me out how a mental illness can be so alike a psychedelic experience (but 24/7 for the rest of your life).

As for the music, yes and no. Yes, music can be very psychedelic, and it can be extremely beautiful, meaningful, mood changing. But no, psychedelics are a lot more than just music. I'd rather have good music and psychedelics

 

[GOD]

The shamanans drum is psychedelic trance music , a key to altered consciousness .

 

[Meduzz]

yes, a lot of old believes state that the universe is contituted out of sound.
kabalists believe in 3 basic sounds "aleph" "mem" and "shin".

and the shaman's drum is tuned to have a resonance with the human body.

and indeed, modern findings show that the universe consists of waves.
and isn't energy one of the most important terms in physics? well sound is a very simple form of energy that is being transmitted.

 

[Guest]

If I'm at a Drum 'n Bass party I'm not even there, there are no people, there is no world, there's just me dancing and everlasting bliss for as long as the music keeps playing or I don't realise that I have to go to the toilet or get something to drink :mrgreen:

Or at a concert, totally being blown away, floating in between the notes, spacing away.

 

[Meduzz]

yeah drum'n'bass is magic
It just goes right trough you and you feel so light...
After the exams first thing i do: DJ Hype @ antwerp

 

[Brugmansia]

Every reaction within receptors in the brain activated by a psychoactive may also be caused by yourself with a specific method.

As Hofmann pointed out, when he was intoxinated for the very first time and rode his bike to home; he immediately recognised the experience he had as a child at 10 years old up in the hills laying in the grass and being tied with nature.

When I have had an extreme cardiovascular session till I have run out of my carbohydrates and take a warm bath and relax, I feel like I'm wraped in an extremly pleasant satisfied world with no needs. These endorphines are the same activated by heroin and opiates.

 

[Creatus]

Its because music goes much much further then we as humans realize, we have practically evolved to make music apart of us rather then just entertainment. It is a human characteristic we all possess and applys to almost all parts of our minds.

 

[figment]

yeah drum'n'bass is magic
It just goes right trough you and you feel so light...
After the exams first thing i do: DJ Hype @ antwerp


Interesting, it is also the first thing I'll do after exams =). In fact I still have an exam that day.

 

[Nitroman]

Hello everybody,
I like this subject, music. I was wondering if you have the same thing that I have often when I fall asleep.

Before falling asleep, between sleeping and beeing awake, like in the twilight zone.. very often I hear music then. It is very beatiful music that sounds very familiar but when I wake up again (before I felt asleep) I cant remember it.
:roll:

 

[st.bot.32]

Hello everybody,
I like this subject, music. I was wondering if you have the same thing that I have often when I fall asleep.

Before falling asleep, between sleeping and beeing awake, like in the twilight zone.. very often I hear music then. It is very beatiful music that sounds very familiar but when I wake up again (before I felt asleep) I cant remember it.
:roll:

I sometimes get that when falling asleep, especially if I have had a very happy and energetic day.

 

[Forkbender]

^I only have this on loads of hash. But I am conscious while it happens and would even be able to write it down if I knew how to do it. Feels like inspiration.