Cannabis and Consciousness: Rediscovering What We’ve Been Taught to Forget
“Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds.” – Carl Sagan
In the quiet moments after consuming cannabis, many users report a familiar yet profound shift in perception—a lifting of veils that normally filter our experience. This phenomenon deserves more than casual observation. It invites deeper exploration into how cannabis might help us recover forms of awareness that modern life systematically trains us to abandon.
The Narrowing Path of Conventional Perception
From early childhood, our education system rewards particular forms of attention while discouraging others. We learn to prioritize linear thinking, verbal processing, and goal-oriented focus. These cognitive skills serve essential functions, but their dominance
comes at a cost.
What gets left behind? Our innate capacity for:
● Open awareness: The ability to perceive without immediate categorization
● Sensory richness: Full engagement with the textural complexity of experience
● Present-moment consciousness: Experiencing time as an expansion rather than a
scarcity
● Metaphorical thinking: Seeing meaningful patterns and connections across
disparate domains
These modes of perception don’t disappear entirely—they’re simply relegated to the
periphery, accessed primarily through dreams, artistic creation, or fleeting moments of wonder.
Cannabis as a Cognitive Tool
Cannabis isn’t simply recreational. Throughout history, various cultures have recognized its potential as a cognitive tool that temporarily adjusts the filters through which we process reality.
The endocannabinoid system, now understood to regulate numerous physiological
processes, appears to influence how we prioritize sensory input and access memory.
Cannabinoids like THC and CBD interact with this system in ways that can temporarily
modify habitual patterns of perception.
Research on cannabis and divergent thinking suggests that moderate doses may enhance creative problem-solving and pattern recognition precisely because they disrupt conventional associative pathways. One study from the University of London found that cannabis users demonstrated more flexible semantic processing—the ability to identify unusual connections between concepts.
12
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod
tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
