More than half a century ago, astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan, one of the most renowned scientists in the US at the time, smoked a joint and took a shower. His friend Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard Associate Professor of Psychiatry, later published Sagan’s report on his shower experience without disclosing Sagan’s identity in his landmark book Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Sagan wrote:
“I can remember on one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidity of racism in terms of Gaussian distribution curves. (…) One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work, I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. I can’t go into the details of those essays, but from all external signs, they seem to contain valid insights.” [1]
I like to contrast Sagan’s experience with a shower story of an acquaintance of mine, who also went under the shower after smoking a joint. There, he reached out for a plastic bottle and poured some of the liquid content over his hair to shampoo himself. He told me it felt awkward, like motor oil, and the liquid neither foamed nor washed off. He looked at the bottle again; it really was his shampoo. It felt like an eternity to figure out what had just happened. At some point, he looked up to find the cause of his confusion: he had forgotten to turn the water on.
So, what is it, then? Can cannabis elevate our minds and lead us to profound insights, or does it leave us feeling dazed and confused, as depicted in the movie of the same name?
Seeking to be Dazed and Confused
Many factors influence the psychoactive effects of cannabis. The plant contains more than 100 known cannabinoids, over 200 terpenes, 20 flavonoids, and varieties differ significantly in their phytochemical profiles as they contain different quantities and ratios of these substances.
Some varieties tend to be more sedative and sleep-inducing, whereas others are more uplifting and energizing. Some have stronger effects on the body; others are reported to have “dreamy effects,” generating winding, visual trips at large doses. Additionally, the spectrum of psychoactive effects depends on the dose taken, the method of application, the mindset and setting, the age of the plant material, and other factors.
In my guidebook The Art of the High: Your Guide to Using Cannabis for an Outstanding Life, I argue that during the long years of prohibition, we have seen the evolution of a vicious dynamic system in which many stressed users lacked access to information about the many enhancing effects of cannabis. They were looking to it mainly for effects they heard of in popular culture and their subculture: to de-stress by feeling happy, dazed, and confused, forgetting about their problems in their past and future.
A Narrow, Stereotypical Perspective on Cannabis
The black market satisfied these needs and gave them cannabis varieties tailored to these effects. To some degree, this may explain the still-prevailing stereotype of cannabis as a “narcotic,” as a substance to induce sleep, to de-stress, and to enjoy relaxation during a “couch lock” feeling of being stoned.
Interestingly, this stereotype is diametrically opposed to the still-prevailing stereotype of cognitive-enhancing or nootropic substances (from Greek noo- combining form of nóos, contracted noûs “mind, intellect,” plus the French -trope “changing in the way specified”). Nootropics were originally believed to enhance memory and learning and to increase mental alertness and focus.
Arguably, however, the “dazed and confused” stereotype of cannabis does not apply to many cannabis varieties and their effect on the mind under favorable conditions, which can lead to very different effects on the mind, far from being sedating and confusing.
Cannabis and its Many Mind Enhancements
We have countless detailed reports of cannabis users throughout history reporting dozens of various mind enhancements during a high. Philosophers, artists, musicians, writers, poets, scientists, actors, filmmakers, comedians, and others have used cannabis for a whole spectrum of mind enhancements and left us very articulate descriptions of the manifold effects of a cannabis high on them.
The most influential jazz trumpet player of all time, Louis Armstrong, for instance, once said in an interview:
“I believe that marijuana has played a significant role in my creative process. It has helped me see things from different perspectives and has inspired many of my compositions. It’s a tool that has enhanced my artistic expression.” [2]
The Multidimensional High: A New Research Approach
In the last twenty years I have developed and used the New Guinea approach to researching the high. The acronym New Guinea stands for a new guerrilla-neurophilosophical approach. In short, I analyzed detailed anecdotal information from hundreds of users, including reports from literature, as well as from cannabis growers and breeders from often illegal “guerrilla” subcultures. One of the many resources for my research was my late friend Lester Grinspoon’s amazing report and essay collection marijuana-uses.com.
From a critical analysis of those reports, I proceeded to evaluate this information in light of scientific information about the endocannabinoid system, medical cannabis, and the cannabis plant, also integrating knowledge from the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, and the philosophy of mind.
The emerging picture is fascinating: under favorable conditions, cannabis varieties can enhance a spectrum of cognitive and mental functions. Users have experienced a focus of attention, an intensification of sensory experience, greater acuity in perception, synesthetic experiences, the feeling of awe, an enhancement of episodic memory, rapid associative thinking, an altered perception of time, enhanced pattern recognition, body image perception, imagination, deconditioning from repetitive or addictive behaviors, enhanced introspection, empathic understanding, creativity, and sexual experiences, changes in mood, and an enhanced ability to produce spontaneous, valuable insights.
Remarkably, some of these abilities, like creativity, introspection, and empathic understanding, are considered to be core human abilities, the most complex, highest-order (pun intended) mental abilities known in the universe.
A cannabis high, then, can be far more than just a state of being happily dazed and confused: it is marked by a multidimensional effect on our minds.
The Surfboard Metaphor: Riding a High
Louis Armstrong mentions in his quote above that cannabis was a “tool” for him. In the past decade, I have come to understand that this notion is central to our understanding of the effects of cannabis and other psychoactive substances.
I have introduced the metaphor of a surfboard to refine this metaphor and to put the focus on a centrally important aspect, which is maintaining balance. Surfboards are magnificent tools to have blissful experiences in the waves, but we need to learn how to use them. We need to understand how various surfboards and their different shapes and sizes can be used for various situations as we learn and make progress in our ability to ride them.
We also need to learn how to balance on those boards, to paddle or dive through breaking waves, and we need to be mindful of our capabilities as we go into higher waves.
Analogously, if we want to get high and minimize risks while experiencing various mind enhancements, we need to be able to “ride a high” to balance various factors like dosage and setting to get into a flow experience and to benefit from a high. In my new book, Elevated: Cannabis as a Tool for Mind Enhancement (Hilaritas Press, 2023), I have called this approach the PERMIS-approach: the persistent mindful surfer approach to getting high.
You have to be persistent and mindfully pursue a certain goal if you want to use cannabis more successfully for various mind-enhancing purposes. It may take a while of mindful experimentation with various varieties, doses, settings, and trying cannabis in specific situations to find out how to alter your consciousness in a way that enhances various mental abilities.
A New Perspective on Mind Enhancement and Cannabis
Many years ago, I read a remarkable report of a German student experimenting with Ritalin for several weeks to study for an exam. He stated it helped him stay awake and concentrate for long periods of time. However, as friends later told him, he did not attend much to emotional signals during that time, and often acted without empathy towards others.
Generally, substances usually considered as nootropics, like Ritalin (methylphenidate) or amphetamines, do not enhance the total performance of our mind, which is a multidimensional tool to deal with the world. When you hyperfocus on studying, you might ignore the fire alarm going off in your building. Some mental abilities become more pronounced, and others decline.
Also, it should be noted that the original narrow definition of “nootropic” or “cognitive enhancement”, stemming from almost half a century ago, has also significantly broadened to include, for example, mood-improving substances. It may need to be further broadened when we talk about mind-enhancing substances and techniques.
Psychoactive substances like LSD, psilocybin, or cannabis can enhance, for instance, your imagination while distorting your sense of time or your perception in a way that can be dangerous in some situations, for instance when driving a car. Ultimately, then, I would argue these substances can be seen as mind-enhancing, although they do not seem to fall under the originally conceived notion of “nootropic”, once we come to understand that the states of consciousness induced by them can bring a multitude of various potentially useful alterations of cognitive and perceptual abilities, even if other cognitive abilities simultaneously decline significantly.
Only if we understand how to use cannabis and other substances effectively can we minimize risks and learn how to use them as magnificent mind-enhancing tools. Sadly, while many are now beginning to reconsider psychedelics from this perspective, they still underestimate the incredible psychoactive potential of cannabis, mostly because of outdated stereotypes.
It is time to reconsider marijuana, again.
Resources
[1] Grinspoon, Lester (1971). Marihuana Reconsidered. Cambridge, M.A. Harvard University Press, p. 128.
[2] Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong (2014): Master of Modernism. W.W. Norton & Company, p. 267.
