Altered Consciousness
I'm going to try to describe the experience of being on LSD. Not to reflect on any particular one of my own or to talk about meaning or existential questions, but rather to try to encapsulate what makes it an experience that so often eludes description. Imagine your conscious experience is a house. The house is an anchor, a context; you have a clear idea of where you've been and where you're going—a chronological chain of events. Each moment of conscious experience is a room. Each time you enter a room, your experience is contextualized by the interrelated components of the house. You are aware that you came from a previous room, you know why you are in the room you are, and you know which room you plan to enter next (although you don't know exactly what the experience will be like, you can easily imagine some approximation). It's this sense of continuity that gives our conscious experience coherency. LSD does away with all of that. It's common to feel a di