On Being Stoned
Charles T. Tart, Ph. D.
Chapter 31. Summary
THE NATURE OF MARIJUANA INTOXICATION
ALTHOUGH MARIJUANA has been known to man for countless centuries,
our scientific knowledge of its effects is meager. A major source
of confusion that has hindered research has been the general failure
to recognize that most effects of marijuana are potential effects
rather than inherent properties of the drug itself. That is, a
variety of non-drug factors can markedly influence which potential
effects manifest at any given time (see Chapter 2). Thus most
laboratory studies and personal anecdotes are of limited value,
because the limited range of laboratory conditions and the particular
personality characteristics of the writers, acting on the state
of consciousness produced by marijuana, produced only some of
the potential effects and inhibited others. The personal anecdotes
often tell us more about the writer than anything else, and the
laboratory studies have produced effects generally unrepresentative
of those found in ordinary marijuana use.
THE PRESENT STUDY
The aim of the present study was to find out the total range of
potential effects that could be experienced and described by experienced
users of marijuana. By systematically asking them about their
experiences over a six-month period, the non-drug factors, which
determine the manifestation of potential effects, would have assumed
practically all possible combinations of values many times, thus
eliciting the total range of effects. By asking the users about
the frequency of various effects, it was possible to classify
various potential effects as characteristic, common, infrequent,
or rare, under conditions of ordinary marijuana use. Similar questioning
about minimal level of intoxication (see Chapter 2 for details
of this model) allowed rough classification of effects by the
level of intoxication above which most experienced users could
experience them (if the various non-drug factors assumed the right
configurations).
THE USERS
The 150 experienced users who returned satisfactory questionnaires
(see Chapter 4) had all used marijuana at least a dozen times
in order to be eligible for the study. Thus the effects of learning
to cope with the unfamiliarity of marijuana intoxication were
deliberately eliminated from the present study (although worthy
of study in their own right), and the results presented here should
not be applied to naive users.
Our 150 users are a predominantly young, highly educated group
of Californians, primarily students, but with a fair number of
older persons and professionals among them. Overall they have
a high interest in self-improvement (meditation or therapy), considerable
experience with more powerful psychedelic drugs like LSD, and
little experience with hard narcotics. Most of them used marijuana
once a week or more during the six-month period of the present
study. By combining various self-reports on marijuana use, we
can estimate that they have used marijuana about 37,000 times,
for a total of 421 years of experience.
The remainder of this summary chapter will cover the major effects
of marijuana intoxication (in terms of the users' self-reported
experiences) under five major headings, namely, the perception
of the external environment, interpersonal relations, internal
mental processes, the perceiver (self-concept and identity of
the user), and levels of intoxication. To keep this chapter brief,
I shall not summarize the various miscellaneous effects of Chapters
20 to 23 nor the analyses of various relationships and background
factors covered in Part III.
PERCEPTION OF THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
Vision
With respect to vision, seeing forms, meaningful patterns in
visual material that normally is ambiguous, and finding
visual imagery more vivid than usual are characteristic effects.
Common effects include contours seeming sharper, seeing new
shades of color, having visual imagery automatically accompany
thoughts and reading, being able to see a third dimension in pictures,
and experiencing a sensual quality to vision.
Hearing
For hearing, hearing more subtle qualities of sound is
one of the most characteristic effects found, as well as understanding
the words of songs better and finding a greater spatial
separation between sound sources. Common effects include auditory
images being more vivid, finding that space becomes organized
according to sound characteristics rather than visual characteristics,
and synesthesia, or sounds producing visual images in the
user's mind.
Touch, Taste, Smell
The sense of touch taking on new qualities and becoming
more sensual are characteristic, and experiencing vivid
tactual imagery is common.
New qualities to taste and enjoying eating very much
are characteristic effects. Again, taste imagery is markedly
enhanced is a common effect, as well as craving for
sweet things. It is also common for the sense of smell
to become enhanced and richer.
The Senses in General
In looking at the sensory changes, we should remember that sensory
perception is not, as we commonly assume, a passive process of
"seeing what's there," but an active process of constructing
percepts from the physical stimuli that come in. The level of
this constructive or pattern-making process is generally optimal
in terms of providing a good signal-to-noise ratio; i.e., we make
few mistakes about what is there. I suspect what marijuana is
doing is increasing the level of functioning of this patterning
activity, making it work in a more active way. This may result
in a genuine increase in the ability to pick signals out of noisy
backgrounds, but it probably also increases the number of mistakes;
i.e., it organizes things that are not actually related in the
real world into a coherent percept.
The Space/Time Matrix
Perceptions of the external environment are not isolated percepts;
they occur in the context of the space/time matrix. This space/time
matrix is normally background for perceptions—we take it for
granted. Marijuana intoxication can cause some radical changes
in the way the space/time matrix is perceived. For example, greater
separation between sound sources as, say, a pair of
stereo speakers, has already been mentioned as a characteristic
effect, and the distance experienced in walking some
place being radically changed is also characteristic.
Common effects on space are for distances per se to seem
greater or shorter, and for near things to seem
even nearer and for far things to seem even
farther, a depth-magnification effect. Infrequently, air
or space may take on a "solid" quality,
or the user may completely lose track of his physical
body and seem to float in limitless space.
Changes in time perception are striking. Characteristically, time
seems to pass more slowly, and the user feels much
more in the here-and-now, totally immersed in the present
situation without thinking about its relation to the past or its
possible future developments. Commonly, events seem to flow
more smoothly in time, although they may flow rather
jerkily at higher levels. Deja vu, the feeling that
one has done this before, may be experienced, and time may
seem to stop, i.e., it's not just that things take
longer but certain experiences are simply timeless; they seem
to occur "outside" of time. At high levels of intoxication,
particularly, the users' experiences are less and less structured
by the ordinary physical space/time matrix. Events and experiences
become more and more difficult to communicate as their relationship
to the usual space/time matrix is lost.
Paranormal Perception
Another mode of perceiving the environment is by experiences of
ostensible extrasensory perception, phenomena such as telepathy,
clairvoyance, and precognition. The users believed that they had
experienced a great many ostensible paranormal phenomena. Seventy-six
percent of them believed in the reality of extrasensory perception.
Feeling so aware of what other people were thinking
that the users thought it was telepathy was a fairly
frequent effect, with only 30 percent of the users saying they
had never experienced this. Precognition, foretelling the
future by more than a logical inference, was a rare effect, but
not absent.
An even more exotic ostensible paranormal phenomenon was out-of-the-body
experiences, which 44 percent of the users indicated they
had experienced at least once, although not always in conjunction
with marijuana. This incidence of out-of-the-body experiences
is much higher than has ever been reported for any other population
sample, so marijuana use is probably instrumental in promoting
this experience.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
Marijuana intoxication is seldom a solitary activity, where the
user just sits around perceiving the external world and his own
body. Users feel it is a social drug par excellence. What
does it do to social interaction?
Social Interaction
Characteristic effects on social interaction are being less
noisy at parties than when either straight or
drunk on alcohol, finding ordinary social games
hard to play, picking up on and saying much more
subtly humorous things, and having feelings of great
insights into others. Other common effects are feeling
more sociable at low levels of intoxication, less
sociable at higher levels, talking more at low levels
and talking less at higher levels, having more feeling
of group solidarity, playing either very childish or very elaborate
and involved games with others, saying things that seem more profound
and appropriate, and having a great deal of empathy with
others. Giggling a lot is also a common effect.
It seems as if marijuana acts as a potentiator of social interaction
from Low to Moderate levels of intoxication. At high levels, marijuana
may have two quite different effects on social interaction because
of the great intensification of inner experiences. The user may
become less social and withdraw from group interaction in order
to fully appreciate his inner experiences. If, on the other hand,
he continues to interact with others, he may feel this interaction
to be particularly profound, occasionally including such things
as feelings of merging with the other person or
feeling so aware of them that he believes it to be a kind of telepathic
interaction.
Sexuality
One of the most intimate kinds of interaction possible with another
person is sexual love. The majority of the users indicated that
marijuana greatly enhances sexual pleasure. Relevant characteristic
effects were: new qualities to touch and taste (with
new smell qualities being common)—what one might
consider the intimate senses—and new, pleasurable qualities
to orgasm. It was common for the user to feel more need
and desire for sex, and, particularly, to feel
more sexual desire if the situation was appropriate.
That is, marijuana is not an aphrodisiac in the sense of forcing
sexual drive, but rather it makes sex more desirable if there
is already an initial attraction. It was common for the users
to feel that they were better lovers when intoxicated,
to have much closer contact with their partner in making
love, it being much more a union of souls rather than just
of bodies, and to be much more responsive to the sexual partner.
Some users described making love at high levels of marijuana intoxication
as so ecstatic as to be beyond words in many respects, a blending
and fusing of essence and energy that took them beyond the bounds
of space and time, and into one another.
It should be noted, however, that one quarter of the users thought
they were worse lovers when intoxicated than when straight,
for, they reported, they became so immersed in their own intensified
and pleasurable sensations that they paid little attention to
their lovers.
INTERNAL MENTAL PROCESSES
Memory
A characteristic effect of marijuana intoxication on memory is
to forget the start of a conversation; that is,
there is a decrement in memory for things occurring over the last
few minutes. Nevertheless, it is a common effect for users to
feel that they can converse intelligently despite this
shortening of their memory span. It is also common
to have a good memory for events in general occurring
during the period of intoxication, but poor memory
for this period is also just as common, depending on
unknown psychological factors. Long-forgotten events commonly
pop into memory. At high levels of intoxication it is common
to forget even the start of one sentence,
and thoughts may slip away before being fully grasped.
Users often make special efforts, apparently successfully, to
continue to function well in spite of this large loss of memory.
State-specific memory occurs; intoxication experiences apparently
forgotten can be recalled the next time the user is intoxicated.
Thought
There are many effects of marijuana on thought processes. Characteristic
effects are: accepting contradictions more readily, not
getting upset just because things do not make immediate sense,
and having spontaneous insights into one's own personal
functioning, as well as being more here-and-now.
It is also characteristic to find it harder to read,
and to appreciate more subtle humor, as mentioned earlier.
It is common to feel that one has ideas that are much
more original than usual, to feel thinking is more
intuitive, to find thought automatically accompanied by
visual images, to see new significance in things
that ordinarily seem dull or commonplace, to
skip intermediate steps in problem-solving, and
to get so absorbed in thought that one's attention
must be forcibly gotten. At Low levels of intoxication,
it is common for the user to feel his mind is working more
efficiently on problem-solving activities, but at higher
levels it is common to feel that the mind begins to work
less efficiently.
Emotion
The only characteristic effect of marijuana on emotional mood
is to almost invariably feel good, which is what we would
expect in a group of experienced marijuana users. It is common
to feel emotions more strongly, to be more aware of
bodily components of emotion (muscle tensions,
heartbeat, etc.), and to have one's mood just before
becoming intoxicated considerably amplified. For these
experienced users, there is a generally good emotional tone to
being intoxicated that can override mildly negative emotions just
before becoming intoxicated. If they are in a very negative mood,
however, there is a chance of this emotion being greatly amplified
and producing a very bad trip. Most of the users had never had
a severe negative emotional crisis while intoxicated. Of
those users who had experienced such a crisis, most indicated
it had subsided by itself or that they had been talked down by
friends, with only one user needing professional help. In retrospect,
some of the users felt their emotional crises had been a good
thing in making them aware of aspects of themselves they had not
wanted to face.
Control
To what extent can experienced users control the effects of marijuana
intoxication sufficiently well to generally avoid negative experiences?
It is characteristic that users feel less need to be
in control of things, and that they can come down
at will, i.e., suppress most of the effects of intoxication
when necessary. Experienced users have a wide variety of psychological
techniques for increasing their level of intoxication at will.
Experienced users feel that most of the instances of strong negative
effects of marijuana are due to rigid, over-controlled, or unstable
people trying it and not being able to tolerate the change in
their experiences.
THE PERCEIVER
Experiences do not just happen; they happen to and are caused
by a unique individual with likes and dislikes, a past and hopes.
How might a user's feeling of who he is change during marijuana
intoxication?
The Body
One of the most important sources of sensory input that provides
a frame of reference for our identity is our own body. Although
there are many effects here, only two were characteristic: the
user gets very physically relaxed and is disinclined
to move about, and if he does move about, his movements
seem exceptionally smooth and coordinated. The direction
of attention is important in how the body is perceived, a common
effect being "if I am paying attention to some
particular part of my body the rest of my body
fades away a lot...." Getting so absorbed in
thinking or fantasies that all perception of the
body is lost is also common. With respect to pain,
it is common for pain to be easier to tolerate if attention
is turned elsewhere and for pain to be more
intense if concentrated on. It is also common for the body
to feel particularly light.
A number of common effects deal with becoming aware of internal
processes in the body to a greatly enhanced extent, such as feeling
a pleasant warmth in the body, being very aware
of the beating of one's heart, and being hyper-aware
of breathing. Another common experience that does not
seem to be simply an enhancement of ordinary sensations is getting
feelings in the body that are described as energy
or force of some sort flowing.
Sense of Identity
Marijuana intoxication has a number of effects on a person's feeling
of identity per se. For example, a characteristic effect is for
the user to feel more childlike, more open to experience,
more filled with wonder and awe at the nature of things than he
is ordinarily. Common effects on identity include feeling particularly
powerful, capable, and intelligent, feeling a lack
of separation between oneself and the world,
an at-one-ness with the world, and feeling that one's actions
and events become archetypal. That is, instead of John
Smith doing a particular thing with Mary Jones at a certain time,
it becomes Man interacting with Woman in the Way Man has always
interacted with Woman.
Spiritual Experiences
This shift in identity to archetypal levels takes us to a number
of experiences, which may be considered spiritual, that is, dealing
with the ultimate nature and destiny of man. Some of the users
have had important spiritual experiences take place while they
were intoxicated, others have had experiences occurring later
but considered a result of their marijuana use. Some of these
were spontaneous, others were deliberately sought through meditation
techniques practiced while intoxicated. Thus 22 percent of the
users felt that using marijuana had acquired a religious
significance for them. Particular experiences included
visions, ostensible paranormal experiences, the infrequent experience
of feeling directly in touch with a Higher Power,
and some other experiences already discussed but given a spiritual
connotation, such as sexual love seeming a union of souls, being
more childlike and open to the universe, and the space/time matrix
radically changing.
LEVELS OF INTOXICATION
Practically all the potential effects of marijuana intoxication
seem to fit the model (Chapter 2) of the minimal level of intoxication;
i.e., after a certain threshold of intoxication has been reached
for a given effect, it is potentially available at all levels
above that. One consequence of this is that more and more variability
as to which effects are experienced at a given time occurs with
higher levels of intoxication. Most of the characteristic effects,
for example, have common minimal thresholds in the Fair to Strong
range (See Chapter 24).
Categories of potential effects available as we go from Fair up
toward Maximal levels of intoxication may be described as follows
(these are graphed in Figure 24-3).
Beginning at fair levels of intoxication, there may be a number
of phenomena, which depict a sort of restlessness. This
is one of the few categories of phenomena which does not seem
to meet the minimal level model noted earlier; these phenomena
generally seem to disappear once the user gets more strongly intoxicated
rather than staying potentially available at all levels above
the minimal one.
Going somewhat higher, the user may experience a variety of effects
that we might call relaxing, quieting, or opening.
These involve a general calming down and being receptive to things.
Sensory enhancement in the various senses may begin at
this level, as well as feelings of greater sensitivity to others
and subtlety in interpersonal relationships. At these Low-to-Moderate
levels, we may also have the beginnings of feelings of
efficiency, being able to focus well on things, being centered
in oneself, and being able to work well. This last category is
the one other type of effect that also does not seem to meet the
minimal level model, but rather to exist only at these Moderate
levels and to be later replaced by feelings of inefficiency. Insights
into oneself, realization of changes in cognitive
processes, and aftereffects, such as finding it somewhat
hard to get organized the next day, may begin at this Moderate
to Strong intoxication level.
As the user smokes enough to get up to the Strong levels of intoxication,
alterations in his perception of the space/time matrix
of existence may begin to occur. Imagery in all sensory
modalities may be greatly intensified, fantasy may become extremely
real, and it may be possible to experience fantasies so real as
to almost be hallucinations. At the Strong level and above we
may also begin to get feelings of drifting, losing control
of the situation, and, if problem-solving activity is pressed
upon a user, feelings that the mind works inefficiently. Greatly
enhanced awareness of internal body processes that
normally cannot be sensed may start to come in at this level also.
As the user becomes even more intoxicated, he may begin to experience
alterations in memory functions, such as forgetting what
he started to talk about, remembering things other than what he
is trying to recall, or state-specific memory. Loss of contact
with the environment becomes possible, and the user may become
absorbed in internal experiences. Identity may change
in the ways discussed above, and the infrequent mystical and
paranormal experiences may occur at this level.
Jumping up to the Maximal level, nausea may occur, albeit
very rarely. Note again that practically all lower-level phenomena
are potentially available at higher levels as well.
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
What are some major questions for future research?
First, how can we get an even better understanding of the nature
of marijuana intoxication? Replication and extension of the present
study is called for. With such a design, we could devise better
questions to ask, better in terms of having more specific meaning
to both users and investigators and better in terms of psychometric
properties that would allow more sophisticated statistical analyses.
Similar studies could be carried out with different populations
and tell us valuable things about how cultural factors shape experience;
I doubt that the young black in the ghetto has the same spectrum
of effects with marijuana as the white college student or professional.
Still within the systematic questioning format, we could investigate
the interrelationships of intoxication phenomena within a single
individual, trying to do justice to the uniqueness of individual
experience. From such case studies one could then compare individuals
and possibly find similar types of users, i.e., there might be
very little overlap between the experiences of some users, even
though all their experiences fall within the total spectrum of
potential effects of marijuana intoxication. The reasons for these
individual differences could tell us a good deal about the functioning
of the mind.
The results of the present study and replications of it can also
be used to guide laboratory research and perhaps avoid many of
the pitfalls that have plagued previous laboratory studies. Many
questions can be studied in the laboratory that are not very suitable
for the field study approach. For example, how well do users'
ratings of their level of intoxication correlate with actual amount
of marijuana or THC consumed? Which is more useful for predicting
other aspects of intoxication, experience or behavior, self-report
of level or knowledge of amount of chemical consumed? Undoubtedly,
some users will not be able to rate the amount of THC well, whereas
others will do so very well. What makes for good raters and poor
raters? Does the ability to "come down at will" or have
a "contact high" make knowledge of THC levels meaningless?
How does a new user "learn" to become intoxicated? How
do experienced users "learn" new effects? Could completely
new effects be produced under the special conditions possible
in a laboratory setting? Could a "disciplined" use of
drugs be taught, say in conjunction with bio-feedback techniques,
making entirely new intoxication effects available?
A second important direction for future research is understanding
other states of consciousness in general and eventually, consciousness
itself. The type of overall look presented in this book for the
phenomenology of marijuana intoxication has not been carried out
for the other states of consciousness, yet many people make facile
assertions such as, "Meditation is just a form of self-hypnosis,"
based only on surface knowledge of different states of consciousness.
This lack of data on other states of consciousness makes it impossible
to answer some important questions about marijuana intoxication,
e.g., what effects of marijuana intoxication can be identically
experienced in other states of consciousness? Might we learn to
experience some of the desirable effects of being stoned in our
ordinary state?
A third important direction for future research is on the practical
uses and benefits of marijuana intoxication. Obviously, pleasure
is the main benefit of marijuana for most users most of the time.
But does it really aid creative thinking? Might it have specific
applications in personal growth or psychotherapy through its many
effects on thought, emotions, memory, identity? Might there be
useful medical applications in selected cases, such as a tranquilizer
or sedative in low doses?
Finally, a good deal of research is needed on what the real
costs or dangers of occasional or chronic marijuana use might
be. So much propaganda has been put out, officially and unofficially,
on this question that the waters are very muddied. I think it
unlikely that we ever get something for nothing, but let's find
out the actual physiological or psychological costs of marijuana
use so we can weigh them against the benefits and make an intelligent
decision about whether the benefits are worth the cost.