Before we move on from the book The Botany of Desire, I would like to make a comment on the way Pollan views the conscious part of the mind in the chapter on marijuana. It seems that Pollens point of view in this chapter is that there are only two forms of the ones conscious, which is the conscious (ie during the day while one is awake) and the unconscious (while one is sleeping). It is his belief that the use of intoxication drugs, such as marijuana, which leads to altering our conscious. I have to agree with Pollen that drugs will alter your conscious, but I disagree with the fact that there is only one level of conscious which drug can only alter.
As far as the conscious is concerned there are a multitude of different levels. The levels depend on two things, a person’s awareness of the physical world and the person’s awareness of his mind. To reach the highest of these levels, one would have to be under periods of excessive adrenaline. While in this state, one is fully aware of only the physical world around oneself and what one would take into account very fine details in your surroundings. An example of this is car accident we were discussing in class. The next level down would be you average conscious level, in which one is at throughout most of the day. At this level one is well aware of one self’s physical environment and partially of what is going on in one self’s mind. A step further down and one would find one self slowly shutting of the physical world and turning inward, in the world of one selfs’ mind. An example of this would be if one were daydreaming while in philosophy class (which I know you weren’t because of the great discussions). Eventually one would progress down into the state of unconscious, when one is asleep.
With these different levels of the conscious, one must ask himself, do drugs only alter one sense of the conscious, or does it take one to different levels of our conscious? Could this explain for the various accounts of seeing things that are not there or visions from God? I think so, but do you?
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I may be misinterpreting your question, so I will try to look at it in several ways. I think that intoxicating compounds only alter the level of consciousness that the person is currently experiencing. The reason I say this is because if someone is in a meditative level of consciousness, it wouldn’t make sense if the ultra aware, adrenaline level became modified. A state cannot be modified by the drug at that time if it doesn’t exist in the first place. That being said, I do think that intoxicating substances induce different effects in different levels of consciousness. Physiological experiments show that neurotransmitters are the substances that change our levels of consciousness. Since the drugs we are considering are neurotransmitters (the ones from marijuana are called cannabinoids, although many others exist and vary from drug to drug), they have the potential to work with the other neurotransmitters already being utilized by the nervous system for bodily tasks (pain perception, sight, hearing, movement, etc.). Different levels of consciousness involve different endogenous neurotransmitters, and thus will result in different combinations of neurotransmitters interacting. In this way, I think that the effects of intoxication differ between levels of consciousness.
ReplyDeleteAs for whether intoxicating substances can change our level of consciousness, I think the answer is yes. Some drugs, like stimulants, can raise the level of consciousness; leading to increased alertness, etc. Others, like depressants, lower the level of consciousness towards sleep.
I’m not sure if the transition between conscious states explains why people see things during hallucinations. I think that since neural pathways are regulated by neurotransmitters, the biological effects of these chemicals on the systems are the cause. However, it is always up to the individual to interpret what is going on inside their head, so this is the likely cause of why many people have different experiences while under the influence.
Human Physiology by Stuart Ira Fox, 10th ed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressants