Psychedelics as Non-Specific Amplifiers
What Plays Next on the Jukebox of Consciousness?
Psychedelics are known as “non-specific amplifiers.” What is a non-specific amplifier? Here’s the easiest way to think about it. Psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers because they play random songs from your life-curated, jukebox of consciousness, and amplify it by an order of magnitude.
Stan Grof Conceptualized Non-Specific Amplifiers
The legendary Stan Grof came upon the non-specific amplifier idea. Grof stated:
These substances function as unspecific amplifiers that increase the cathexis (energetic charge) associated with the deep unconscious contents of the psyche and make them available for conscious processing. This unique property of psychedelics makes it possible to study psychological undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviours to a depth that cannot be matched by any other method and tool available in modern mainstream psychiatry and psychology.
This idea has become a fundamental cornerstone of psychedelic science. Non-specific amplification has gained popularity in recent years. In this video Jason Silva discusses non-specific amplifiers. He compares our consciousness to an acoustic guitar. When we experience psychedelics, he says our consciousness is an electric guitar. He’s not all wrong and I think there’s room for improvement.
The Jukebox of Consciousness
Yes, an electric guitar amplifies the chords, the notes and whatnot. Heck, an electric guitar is plugged into an amp. Without a doubt, psychedelics amplify your preexisting psychic content. In a worst case scenario, as one smart commenter noted, some people shouldn’t even play guitar. Here’s what I think Silva misses.
What he fails to mention is that guitars can play an infinite range of music and songs. When you take psychedelics, you don’t know who the band is that night. The lead guitarist might be playing “I Can See Clearly Now” by Jimmy Cliff or “Fairies Wear Boots” by Black Sabbath.
One of psychedelics’ great unknowns is you never know what plays next on the jukebox of consciousness. A jukebox is unpredictable. Whether a year, a month, a week, a day, or just a few moments, each song represents an experience in your life, a moment, a feeling, a relationship, anything. The jukebox can find any experience.
The jukebox seems to have RAM- random access memory. This RAM chooses from your complete experience catalog to select what the medicine thinks you need to work on. Moreover, that RAM has a lot to leaf through.
What’s Playing Next?
I don’t know. Does anyone remember walking into a CD or record store? Remember seeing row after row of albums or CDs? Consciousness, or your experience catalog, is like an endless music collection. Thus you never know what song of your life you’ll listen to during your next psychedelic journey. There might be a song from your life for June 28, 2018 or for October 13, 2023 at 4:03 pm. That’s just the date and time too.
Imagine all the songs you know that elicit an emotional response. A song might prompt you to feel something about your childhood, an ex-lover, a deceased loved one, a time when you were terrified, or a time when you felt incapable of making it through life. Some songs make us laugh, some make us cry and some make us rage. The possibilities are infinite.
You might even hear a song you've never heard before. When was the last time you heard a favorite song for the first time? The only certainty of a jukebox is the uncertainty of what you’ll hear next, with a slight exception or two.
What's In Your Jukebox?
Your music collection is going to be influenced by your life experiences. Does a military veteran listen to the same music as a housewife? Maybe, sometimes. For the most part, you’re going to have a general idea about the genres and moods of your music collection.
In simple terms, everyone has a sense for the good, the bad and the ugly in their lives, and the proportions of each. Psychedelics will play this back at you at a high decibel level. Then sometimes the jukebox plays the iconic banger everyone in the bar starts singing- “Livin’ On a Prayer,” by Bon Jovi.
Certain songs, no matter how cringe, stick around forever. These iconic hits are akin to entities. Push back against non-specific amplification exists in the form of archetypes and/or entities. Why do people see quite similar archetypes and/or entities during psychedelic journeys? You know, our brethren- the machine elves, the praying mantis, or the cosmic shaman for example.
Gotcha non-specific amplification. But, like so many things in this tremendous era of change, maybe psychedelics are yes and. Yes, psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers and specific amplifiers? As with all things consciousness, this remains a mystery, as well as the next play on the jukebox.