Consensus reality

DMT feels in these respects, only stronger. I realized my body was lying on my bed, frozen, with my jaw hanging open in a state of astonishment. I knew that whatever I d taken was not DMT, but as I identified these effects as DMT-like, I felt that I d taken a step towards escaping from the spell which I found myself under. As I continued to struggle back to consensus reality there were moments when it seemed the spell would never end, and... 

A culture can be seen as a group which has selected certain human potentials as good and developed them, and rejected others as bad. internally this means that certain possible experiences are encouraged and others suppressed to construct a "normal" state of consciousness that is effective in and helps define the culture s particular consensus reality. The process of enculturation begins in infancy, and by middle childhood the individual has a basic membership in consensus reality. Possibilities are partially shaped by the enculturation that has already occurred. By adulthood the individual enjoys maximum benefits from membership, but he is now maximally bound within this consensus reality. A person s "simple" perception of the world and of others is actually a complex process controlled by many implicit factors. 

By the time an ordinary person reaches childhood, he has attained a basic membership in the consensus reality of his culture. A normal child has a pretty good idea of the dos and don ts of his culture and behaves in a generally acceptable fashion. Many of the potentials present at the time of his birth are gone by now, but consensus reality has been formed from the few that have been cultivated. 

A child s basic membership in consensus reality is not complete. The mind of the child can still do many strange (by adult standards) things. As Pearce 49, p. 56 comments ... 

The adolescent is very much a member of the consensus reality of his culture his ordinary state of consciousness is well adapted to fit into, and he has a fair degree of control over his physical environment. For most "ordinary" adolescents, there are far fewer possibilities for unusual functions of consciousness than there were... 

Because of the power over physical reality given them by their consensus reality state of consciousness, adults are the most free yet, because they are the most thoroughly indoctrinated in consensus reality, they are the most bound. They receive many rewards for participating in the consensus reality in an acceptable way, and they have an enormous number of external and internalized prohibitions that keep them from thinking and experiencing in ways not approved by the consensus reality. The Sufi teaching story, "Bayazid and the Selfish Man" 58 p. 180, shows how difficult it is for an adult to free himself from the power of ordinary consciousness and consensus reality, even when he believes he wants to ... 

I stress the view that we are prisoners of our ordinary state of consciousness, victims of our consensus reality, because it is necessary to become aware of this if we are to have any hope of transcending it, of developing a science of the mind that is not culturally limited. Enormous benefits result from sharing in our consensus reality, but these benefits must not blind us to the limits of this reality. 

An illusion, then, is Input-Processing s interpretation of a stimulus in a way that does not match consensus reality standards, whether the interpretation added by the illusion is a richer and more accurate perception of a stimulus pattern, or a more distorted and less accurate one, varies with individual cases, in terms of d-ASCs we know about, my general impression is that they possess the property of making our perception more accurate in some ways and less accurate in others. 

Psychedelic-drug-induced conditions are particularly noteworthy for the experience of feeling in contact with the raw data of perception, and this makes perceptions exceptionally beautiful, vibrant, and alive. By contrast, usual perception in the ordinary d-SoC, seems lifeless, abstract, with all the beauty of reality removed to satisfy various needs and blend in with consensus reality. 

Now, unless you a rare individual indeed, you have seen the difficulty of stopping activity of your Evaluation and Decision-Making subsystem. This enormous psychological inertia is excellent for maintaining your social membership in consensus reality, but if your personality structure and/or consensus reality is unsatisfactory and/or you wish to explore other d-SoCs besides you ordinary one, this endless activity of the Evaluation and Decision-Making subsystem can be a tremendous liability. 

I can say no more about the nature of the observer here because we know so little about it in our western scientific tradition. However, I think it is extremely important to find out to what extent the Observer s apparent objectivity is a reality and to what extent a fiction, insofar as it is a reality, it offers an objectivity and a possible escape from cultural consensus reality conditionings that are highly important. 

Self-observation, observation of others, and psychoanalytic data indicate that various stimuli can produce marked reorgnaizations of ego functioning very rapdily, even though these all remain within the consensus reality definitions of "normal" consciousness. These identity states are much like d-SoCs and can be sutdied in the systems approach framework. They are hard to observe in ordinary life because of the ease and rapidity of transiton, their emotional charge, and other reasons. The isolation of knowledge and experience in various identity states is responsible for much of the psychopathology of everyday life. 

Third, all a person s ordinarily used identity states share in his culturally defined consensus reality. Although certain aspects of reality are emphasized by particular identity states, the culture as a whole implicitly allows a wide variety of identity states in its definitions of "normal" consciousness and consensus reality, within the cultural consensus reality, for example, there are wel1-understood concepts, perceptions, and allowed behaviors associated with being angry, being sad, feeling sexual desire, being afraid. 

An identity state is a specialized version of the ordinary d-SoC, a structure acceptable to consensus reality (ignoring obviously pathological identity states). The extrainformational "This is me" quality from the Sense of identity subsystem added to certain contents/structures constellates the energies of consciousness around them and produces an identity, a rolef21 that a person partially or completely identified with for the time. The identity "eats energy."... 

SoC in which, because you do not take too seriously the apparent rationality of your culture s consensus reality. You can function well enough in an ordinary d-SoC, but you do not value that d-SoC as highly as do those who have no other reference experiences of higher states. 

Can you argue that the orthodox ordering is more workable for surviving in consensus reality what about those other adherents to the relatively high state of ordinary rationality who order napalm dropped... 

The straightforward perception of the meaning of this word in its agreed-upon form is an instance of clear or relatively enlightened consciousness within the given consensus reality. Someone says Hi to you and you understand that this is a greeting synonymous with words like hello and greetings. 

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