had an interesting dream last night that got me thinking about a particular philosophical issue. i have been thinking about when i used to drink + smoke all the time, probably because i used to enjoy doing that a lot, probably because im reading certain things, for a few reasons
well i had this dream where, it was halloween in the city, and i was with a large group of people. random characters but in the dream we were friends. it was night and a few guys went out to go get some weed. the rest of us were kind of just waiting and wandering around.
at one point in the dream i was like, combing the streets of new york city looking for weed (as one would look for lost coins, literally on the street) and actually found some just sitting on this stoop. eventually, we ended up at this weird dark club / restaurant type place.
the strange thing was that, ive been to this place before in my dream. it doesnt actually exist but ive been there before in other dreams. this never happens to me, i actually cant think of another place like this from my “dream universe” that has repeated itself, even once.
this place was where we might be able to get weed or psychedelics, like maybe someone would have some there, maybe not, kind of a sketchy “hang around and see what happens” type place. its a weird restaurant upstairs and the downstairs is a dark “hanging out” spot.
anyway to make a long story short, we found the guys downstairs who had been looking for weed and they were mad, they had given up and resigned themselves to not finding any. in my opinion the language of dreams is emotional and how you or others feel in the dream.
so these two guys represented “we are mad, the night is ruined, we arent going to find any and now we are just being mad about it”. they kind of talked about choosing to be mad, in a way, and me and the other characters in the dream also talked about them in this way. that was it
it got me thinking a lot because, i had completely and totally forgotten about that feeling, which isnt just related to weed but using any substance as the “fun thing” you want to be doing, which is the disappointment and anger at not having it, that anger “ruining” something.
a long time ago i went to this big electronic music event with some friends. wasnt really my thing but all my friends at the time were extremely into that kind of thing so, i could hang around and enjoy it as a purely novel curiosity, which i did, quite often.
one of my good friends had planned on taking ecstasy there and, long story short, it was fake or didnt work or something. i had not planned on doing this because ive always been sketched out by pill drugs / MDMA and frankly had no interest in it.
so his ecstasy didnt work, and he was mad. was having an absolutely terrible time (sober). at the time i noticed this + thought it was philosophically interesting. here we are, doing something you love (electronic music concert), but now ur actively having a really bad time. why?
because now ur conception of what the event should have been like (on drugs) is now not matching up with the reality (not on drugs). its like you place the power of enjoying yourself or not in these external hands that you ultimately have no control over.
i think everyone can relate to this to some extent. even if its just drinking. if you went out into the woods or something with a friend to drink after a day of hiking but then dropped the bottle of whiskey, theres that feeling of suddenly being “locked out” of the fun u planned
people that have used drugs you need to pick up from an illegal source are probably more familiar with this, theres that feeling of just waiting for a dealer and then if he cancels youre, again, locked out of the “fun” that you were looking forward to.
this concept is so interesting to me philosophically because, lets say for the sake of a thought experiment we forget all negative health effects from substances: sometimes those things are fun. but, when you recognize this “other side” of it you have to ask, is it worth it?
its like you get these platforms to stand on and its cool to stand on them and you like it but, the platforms can be removed at any time and then you have this “negative” where there would have been “no negative” before if you just avoided the platforms.
this is especially relevant to me as i used to feel extremely under the tyranny of this “bonus negative” aspect of substances. if i planned on drinking or smoking with people and then we couldnt do that i would feel that “negative”, locked out, disappointed, so hard.
but now, that aspect of my life has been removed completely and its never there. so im able to ask myself, well, do the “pluses” of using the platforms really outweigh the “negative” of being chained to them, chained to something external to you that u cant depend on?
i do have this “bonus negative” effect with some things, like fishing. gf surprised me the other day with a spontaneous trip to the lake which was cool but, i could see fish jumping and really wanted to fish and she was just sitting there reading and i was in absolute agony
i really wanted to fish and was unable to enjoy the lovely experience of the lake because of this “bonus negative” effect. but it feels a lot less weird or sketchy when its a tool like a fishing rod that youre missing as opposed to a substance that alters your mind, to me.
theres probably a lot of reasons for this. mostly i think it confirms that relying on psychoactive substances is outside the domain of what god has ordained for humans. just something interesting ive been thinking about for a while that was strangely illustrated by my dream 🤔
“internal freedom” is a really good way to put it. i would say i feel very untethered and outside the dominion of these things and, the idea of going back under the sway of them is finally starting to outweigh their allure + the things id “get out of it”
theres a mahasiddha (buddhist high figure) who says “the problem isnt pleasure, its your attachment to the pleasure”. idk though man kind of seems like the pleasure from these things inherently entails attachment because, theyre pleasurable. we are simple creatures, in some ways
couldnt remember this dudes name but just remembered its tilopa. usually depicted holding a fish, which, in my more tibetan buddhist inclined days, i remembered because his name sounds like “tilapia” (a type of fish) 
