Speed and weed is a good combo (Leary and Kesey liked amphetamines and LSD, Huxley chose a phenethylamine), but I agree with your first footnote: they seemingly have a tendency to expand pathways of thinking, and then deeply groove/reinforce those pathways. In the quest to view all things through all lenses, collecting as many shiny things (or connecting as many dots) as possible, while not giving anything too much weight, is good advice. So is weighing altered thoughts against sober ones.
Separately, I wondered about Dick’s usage of “plasmatic”, assuming he meant amorphous… but, if I’m not mistaken, plasma is only visibly at its boundary conditions, sorta like the Zebra…
I wish I had a mystical experience as well. But, while I cannot deny the reality of the experience itself, I cannot assert the content of this experience is real.
I finally caught up on Vinge's True Names the other day, and in Marvin's afterword he discussed how the conscious process of the brain is itself ignorant of how it works; the brain thinks but does not know how it thinks. I was wondering if perhaps with enough twists and turns mediated by drugs, the brain might in fact get that rare opportunity to inspect itself, maybe some of the really out there experiences are the brain getting a glimpse into its own hidden layer and like a mirror reflecting itself, encountering infinity. Maybe rather than perceiving true reality, we might perceive our true selves. Maybe it was not God touching Dick or Dick touching God, but infact Dick touching Dick, albeit just the tip.
Speed and weed is a good combo (Leary and Kesey liked amphetamines and LSD, Huxley chose a phenethylamine), but I agree with your first footnote: they seemingly have a tendency to expand pathways of thinking, and then deeply groove/reinforce those pathways. In the quest to view all things through all lenses, collecting as many shiny things (or connecting as many dots) as possible, while not giving anything too much weight, is good advice. So is weighing altered thoughts against sober ones.
Separately, I wondered about Dick’s usage of “plasmatic”, assuming he meant amorphous… but, if I’m not mistaken, plasma is only visibly at its boundary conditions, sorta like the Zebra…
I wish I had a mystical experience as well. But, while I cannot deny the reality of the experience itself, I cannot assert the content of this experience is real.
I finally caught up on Vinge's True Names the other day, and in Marvin's afterword he discussed how the conscious process of the brain is itself ignorant of how it works; the brain thinks but does not know how it thinks. I was wondering if perhaps with enough twists and turns mediated by drugs, the brain might in fact get that rare opportunity to inspect itself, maybe some of the really out there experiences are the brain getting a glimpse into its own hidden layer and like a mirror reflecting itself, encountering infinity. Maybe rather than perceiving true reality, we might perceive our true selves. Maybe it was not God touching Dick or Dick touching God, but infact Dick touching Dick, albeit just the tip.