re: What's scarier, the idea that we are alone in the universe or the idea that we aren't?

quote:

---

the idea that we are alone in the universe

---

quote:

---

It is also quite numerically possible that many advanced, intelligent civilizations were born, flourished and then disappeared long before we got our start.

---

quote:

---

What's scarier, the idea that we are alone in the universe or the idea that we aren't?

---

quote:

---

Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects

Show less
Alan K Davis, John M Clifton, Eric G Weaver, Ethan S Hurwitz, Matthew W Johnson, Roland R Griffiths

First Published April 28, 2020 Research Article Find in PubMed
LINK
Article information

---

quote:

---

Abstract

Background:
Experiences of having an encounter with seemingly autonomous entities are sometimes reported after inhaling N,N-dimethyltryptamine.

Aim:
The study characterized the subjective phenomena, interpretation, and persisting changes that people attribute to N,N-dimethyltryptamine-occasioned entity encounter experiences.

Methods:
Two thousand, five hundred and sixty-one individuals (mean age 32 years; 77% male) completed an online survey about their single most memorable entity encounter after taking N,N-dimethyltryptamine.

Results:
Respondents reported the primary senses involved in the encounter were visual and extrasensory (e.g. telepathic). The most common descriptive labels for the entity were being, guide, spirit, alien, and helper. Although 41% of respondents reported fear during the encounter, the most prominent emotions both in the respondent and attributed to the entity were love, kindness, and joy. Most respondents endorsed that the entity had the attributes of being conscious, intelligent, and benevolent, existed in some real but different dimension of reality, and continued to exist after the encounter. Respondents endorsed receiving a message (69%) or a prediction about the future (19%) from the experience. More than half of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterwards. The experiences were rated as among the most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose, and meaning attributed to the experiences.

Conclusion:
N,N-dimethyltryptamine-occasioned entity encounter experiences have many similarities to non-drug entity encounter experiences such as those described in religious, alien abduction, and near-death contexts. Aspects of the experience and its interpretation produced profound and enduring ontological changes in worldview.

---

quote:

---

Results

Details of the most memorable entity encounter

As shown in Table 3, 21% of respondents went into the experience with the intention of having an encounter experience, with most (69%) reporting that the entity initiated the encounter. The primary senses involved in the encounter were visual (92%), extrasensory (e.g. telepathic; 85%), auditory (54%), and touch (34%), with less than 10% reporting taste or smell. Most respondents indicated that some form of communication occurred in the encounter, with 49% reporting the communication was one-way (from entity to respondent) and 40% two-way. Very few (2%) respondents reported one-way (respondent to entity) communication.


Table 3 also shows that respondents selected a variety of descriptive labels for the entity. The most commonly endorsed were “being,” (60%) “guide,” (43%) “spirit,” (39%) “alien,” (39%) or “helper” (34%). Other labels selected by small proportions of respondents (range 10–16%), included the terms “angel,” “elf,” “religious personage,” or “plant spirit,” and very few (range 1–5%) reporting the terms “gnome,” “monster,” or a “deceased” person. Most respondents reported having had an emotional response to the experience (99%). Respondents reported experiencing joy (65%), trust (63%), surprise (61%), love (59%), kindness (56%), friendship (48%), and fear (41%) during the encounter experience, with smaller proportions reporting emotions such as sadness (13%), distrust (10%), disgust (4%), or anger (3%). In another question, respondents reported that love (21%) was the single most prominent emotion experienced during the encounter. Over one-half (58%) reported that the entity also had an emotional reaction to the encounter. The single most prominent emotion that the entity appeared to have was love (17%), kindness (11%), or joy (10%), with low rates (?2%) of emotions with a negative valence (e.g. anger, fear, distrust, disgust, sadness).

---

quote:

---

Conclusion
The present survey study is the largest to date to provide detailed information about the subjective phenomena, interpretation, and persisting changes attributed to experiences people report about having an encounter with a seemingly autonomous entity after inhaling DMT. Aspects of the experience and its interpretation had metaphysical implications for most (80%) of the respondents about their fundamental understanding of the nature of reality. For example, most respondents indicated that the entity had the attributes of being conscious, intelligent, and benevolent, existed in some real but different dimension of reality, and continued to exist after the encounter. These experiences were also rated as among the most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose and meaning attributed to the experiences. More than half of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterwards. Although further research is needed to provide more information about causality and mechanisms (Winkelman, 2018), it is possible that the “ontological shock” occasioned by these vivid unusual experiences may play an important role in the enduring positive life changes in attitudes, moods, and behavior attributed to these experiences. As such, it is possible that, under appropriate supportive set and setting conditions, DMT could show promise as an adjunct to therapy for people with mood and behavioral problems (e.g. depression and addiction). However, regardless of whether or not DMT will be shown to have therapeutic efficacy, future double-blind human laboratory studies investigating dose-effects and correlated brain activity may provide a unique window into the psychological and biological nature of such anomalous subjective experiences of encounters with nonhuman entities that date back to the beginnings of recorded human history.

---

quote:

---

We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time

Strange particles observed by an experiment in Antarctica could be evidence of an alternative reality where everything is upside down


SPACE 8 April 2020

---

quote:

---

IN THE Antarctic, things happen at a glacial pace. Just ask Peter Gorham. For a month at a time, he and his colleagues would watch a giant balloon carrying a collection of antennas float high above the ice, scanning over a million square kilometres of the frozen landscape for evidence of high-energy particles arriving from space.

When the experiment returned to the ground after its first flight, it had nothing to show for itself, bar the odd flash of background noise. It was the same story after the second flight more than a year later.

While the balloon was in the sky for the third time, the researchers decided to go over the past data again, particularly those signals dismissed as noise. It was lucky they did. Examined more carefully, one signal seemed to be the signature of a high-energy particle. But it wasn’t what they were looking for. Moreover, it seemed impossible. Rather than bearing down from above, this particle was exploding out of the ground.

That strange finding was made in 2016. Since then, all sorts of suggestions rooted in known physics have been put forward to account for the perplexing signal, and all have been ruled out. What’s left is shocking in its implications. Explaining this signal requires the existence of a topsy-turvy universe created in the same big bang as our own and existing in parallel with it. In this mirror world, positive is negative, left is right and time runs backwards. It is perhaps the most mind-melting idea ever to have emerged from the Antarctic ice ­­– but it might just be true. …

---

quote:

---

SCIENCE
'Upside-down cosmic ray shower' detected in Antarctica may be proof of a parallel universe - researchers
19/05/2020
Matt Burrows

---

quote:

---

While the discovery itself was made many years ago, it has risen to prominence more recently as other, more palatable explanations for such a phenomenon have been ruled out.

Now, researchers believe these particles may actually be travelling back through time, indicating there is a parallel universe close to ours in which the standard laws of physics operate in reverse.

"Not everyone was comfortable with the hypothesis," Prof Gorham admitted to New Scientist.

Speaking to the University of Hawai'i, he said the phenomenon "could be an indication of some new type of physics, what we call beyond the standard model of physics".

---