Anandamide and (some) mystical experience
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 3:49 am
Anandamide is an endocannabinoid, which means it's something that acts like marijuana, but is produced by the body itself. I was skimming Wikipedia articles on the topic and got to wondering: would there be mystical traditions that had unknowingly stumbled upon concentration loops that could be used to (in a way) intentionally trigger abnormally intense bursts of anandamide and related synthesis in the brain? (One article said that endocannabinoids are synthesized "on demand," meaning here and there, not maintained like serotonin or adrenaline or something; so an on-demand control of this on-demand mechanism is what I'm considering.)
Although stoners are regularly derided for memory problems, anecdotally speaking this has not been the case for me. I did, at a relatively early age (c. 15 years old I think) learn extremely effective mnemonic "tricks" so my memory has never really been an issue anyway, and though sometimes when I'm blazed I might not remember everything altogether too clearly, generally my experience has been dramatic mnemonic amplification while under the influence of THC and like compounds. My neophyte computer-programmer's kind of take on the phenomenon is that the THC/similar crystals form a grid in the brain (along bound-to receptor fields) that generates a special, and if harnessed correctly very useful, information state-space. Like plugging a lot of little USB drives into a computer to boost its RAM (random access memory(!)). So, when I'm blazed, I have a feeling of "everything being connected" on some "deeper"/"higher"(!) level. Parsed spiritually, the feeling is of a transcendental unity or oneness to things. Focusing on this unity then "pulls" parts of disparate thoughts together, allowing for example extremely easy acts of lexical coordination (e.g. virtually endless exercises in assonance).
For someone with a more traditionally religious bent, if one knew a method of thinking that corresponded to some autonomic anandamide feedback loop or whatever you'd call it, would the results of meditation in that form of thought, resemble the purported contents of certain states of "mystical" consciousness? (Of course there could be interrelations among anandamide feelings and acetylcholine/serotonin/etc. systems, ones that resulted in different "mystical" feelings, and hence different religious traditions would include different "contents" or "revelations" in the deliverances of their mystical faith. For example, a highly serotonin-charged mystical feeling might be analogous to being on the drug ecstasy, with an attitude of beatific love recommending itself under the circumstances, whereas a more acetylcholinergic experience would represent the conceptual austerity of Buddhist nirvana, perhaps (a neuroscience-buff coworker of mine told me that acetylcholine is associated with concentration/attention and I have a theory that nirvana results from focusing on one's ability to focus, so much that one "intuits" the phenomenological emptiness of the attentionality function.)
There have been two instances in my life now, where I felt blazed, but not because of having done THC. Although THC use was in the temporal vicinity of these episodes, there was some other cause, even if an overdetermining one in the second case, of the total depth of the episodes. There seems to be some (sub-)cognitive system that I activated, to abruptly generate an enormous flare of anandamide; at least, that's my hypothesis at this point. When I read philosophy articles/books/the like, I also often feel "stoned," and this was true even before I had ever smoked weed (in fact, the feeling I had from philosophy was one of my major comparison classes for analyzing my newfound stoner emotional/intellectual universe). Certain forms of philosophical judgment played into the two cases of possible voluntary anandamide flaring, inasmuch as I was asking (and trying to answer) certain philosophical questions, during these episodes.
Although stoners are regularly derided for memory problems, anecdotally speaking this has not been the case for me. I did, at a relatively early age (c. 15 years old I think) learn extremely effective mnemonic "tricks" so my memory has never really been an issue anyway, and though sometimes when I'm blazed I might not remember everything altogether too clearly, generally my experience has been dramatic mnemonic amplification while under the influence of THC and like compounds. My neophyte computer-programmer's kind of take on the phenomenon is that the THC/similar crystals form a grid in the brain (along bound-to receptor fields) that generates a special, and if harnessed correctly very useful, information state-space. Like plugging a lot of little USB drives into a computer to boost its RAM (random access memory(!)). So, when I'm blazed, I have a feeling of "everything being connected" on some "deeper"/"higher"(!) level. Parsed spiritually, the feeling is of a transcendental unity or oneness to things. Focusing on this unity then "pulls" parts of disparate thoughts together, allowing for example extremely easy acts of lexical coordination (e.g. virtually endless exercises in assonance).
For someone with a more traditionally religious bent, if one knew a method of thinking that corresponded to some autonomic anandamide feedback loop or whatever you'd call it, would the results of meditation in that form of thought, resemble the purported contents of certain states of "mystical" consciousness? (Of course there could be interrelations among anandamide feelings and acetylcholine/serotonin/etc. systems, ones that resulted in different "mystical" feelings, and hence different religious traditions would include different "contents" or "revelations" in the deliverances of their mystical faith. For example, a highly serotonin-charged mystical feeling might be analogous to being on the drug ecstasy, with an attitude of beatific love recommending itself under the circumstances, whereas a more acetylcholinergic experience would represent the conceptual austerity of Buddhist nirvana, perhaps (a neuroscience-buff coworker of mine told me that acetylcholine is associated with concentration/attention and I have a theory that nirvana results from focusing on one's ability to focus, so much that one "intuits" the phenomenological emptiness of the attentionality function.)
There have been two instances in my life now, where I felt blazed, but not because of having done THC. Although THC use was in the temporal vicinity of these episodes, there was some other cause, even if an overdetermining one in the second case, of the total depth of the episodes. There seems to be some (sub-)cognitive system that I activated, to abruptly generate an enormous flare of anandamide; at least, that's my hypothesis at this point. When I read philosophy articles/books/the like, I also often feel "stoned," and this was true even before I had ever smoked weed (in fact, the feeling I had from philosophy was one of my major comparison classes for analyzing my newfound stoner emotional/intellectual universe). Certain forms of philosophical judgment played into the two cases of possible voluntary anandamide flaring, inasmuch as I was asking (and trying to answer) certain philosophical questions, during these episodes.
