[bheadmaster]

> That's an open question in the scientific study of these substances and experiences.

I sincerely doubt that there are scientists questioning whether clockwork elves are real or not.

Hallucinations are considered hallucinations because they are seen only by the person who ingested the hallucinogens, and none of the other people who might be present but didn't ingest the hallucinogens. Consistence is crucial to the very definition of reality - hallucinations are not consistent, therefore they aren't real.

Or that's just the way I see it.

[soco]

By that definition a recurring dream would be reality - consistence it has, no hallucinogens involved.

[bheadmaster]

> By that definition a recurring dream would be reality

And indeed, if I had a dream recurring with 100% regularity and consistency, I'd be very freaked out and question which reality is reality :)

[ilyt]

Well, no, as you fail the other condition - nobody else observing it.

[bheadmaster]

To play the devil's advocate, what if you met people in your recurring dreams that could communicate to you that they're observing the dreamworld the same as you, how would you know the difference between dreams and reality?

[pyinstallwoes]

There is a consistency in people’s experiences with these rituals and places they go to.

[bheadmaster]

Sure, there's some consistency. But compared to the consistency of experience of the real world, it is lacking and full of holes. Not enough to be called "real", in my opinion.

[moe091]

If you define real as "things that can be seen and confirmed by others" then I agree, I think the only useful argument is whether these hallucinations are any more or less "real" than what we perceive during sober states. When we're sober sobriety feels more real, when we're tripping the trip feels more real, there's no reason to believe either one over the other except that it's easy to justify the realness of sobriety by getting confirmation from other people, but with our utter lack of ability to comprehend the true nature of reality there's no reason to believe that this shared sober reality is completely "real" or that it's the only "real" reality. I think any skeptic should be skeptical in both directions

[bheadmaster]

> I think any skeptic should be skeptical in both directions

I agree.

However, I think skepticism should not stop at "we can't know nothing". Once we've established that, the purpose of skepticism is to figure out which reality has a higher probability to be true. In which case, the sober reality has the advantage of being the first (we are born sober and intoxicate ourselves later) and always being there at the end of every trip. Trips are relatively short compared to our sober state.

Of course, an individual might be intoxicated more than he is sober, in which case, from his perspective, sober life wouldn't be "real". But that might also be the case for alien lifeforms that perceive the world with something other than 5 human senses.

Our world only exists in our minds, but our ability to communicate with others allows us to describe the world to them and hear their descriptions, which gives us a lot of confirmation about reality - which we define to be same for everyone.