i think you enter different relms of conciousness. if you look at a brain not on drugs and take a look at its current chemical state, you could say that is state A, and when you are on drugs, there are obviously new chemicals in your brian that are changing your brains chemical state. i think we can agree the two are correlated, and since i believe that conciousness is a chemical process, i think ya could say that it is a different concious state.
It would depend on the drug. Drug A might enhance a sensation; drug B might enhance awareness of spacial reality; drug C might enhance the mental process’s coherent in dreams (or subconscious.) All would somehow change the normal state of biochemical phenomenon in someway But must still be coming from the same psyche, just on particular drugs the sense of yourself (or “i”,) disappears like when unconscious, as you slip in and out of different conscious extremes.
(its magic mushroom season soon 
i cant wait for some mind warping experiences to be posted - perhaps 
)
— I like the comment about drugs releasing subconscious thoughts. I personally rarely do drugs, believing that stoical moderation is a good thing. They do induce altered states, but heavy use can damage your cognitive equipment.
— theoryofexist, hi long time no see, is that Marshall Mcluhan?, the dude who wrote the Gutenberg Galaxy?
Considering each brain is unique and that the blend and ratio of chemicals in each brain is unique then each person’s ‘realm of conciousness’ is unique.
Maybe the state one individual reaches when taking mushrooms is anothers ‘normal’ waking state. (extreme example)
I believe this is why Canabis can be fairly harmless to one individual, but to another who has a tendancy for ‘mental Illness’, it can push them over the edge, becuase they were that much closer to it in the first place.
Im not really sure what you mean by other realms of consciousness. But I often somke weed and it does make me feel different. But I dont think that it brings on a different realmof consciousness. I know that it is just chemicals reacting in my brain that make me feel different. I think it brings on another state of consciousness. But this state is pruley physical.
— Welcome to the forum Zak! Sounds like dialectical materialism. It may be physical, but it also results in an emotional state as well, something like two aspects of the same thing.
Zak- realms and states id place them both in the same league. Levels of consciousness in terms of alertness and responsiveness are related with chemicals and electrical activity of the brain waves. This can be done with equipment and other empirical advices that may monitor through waves and volts and there variation, but this doesnt explain consciousness it just maps it out, the map isnt the land its showing–it is the Self is necessary in order for there to be a unified empirical self-consciousness. Consciousness “the perception of what passes in man’s own mind”-- Locke
I smoke pot from time-2-time and ive find im watching myself, almost some introspection. Sometimes i can be logically adding up about 6 things at once ie. theres one big idea or two and many other ideas making causal relations between them. Im having magics on friday so… 
i spent a good part of my youth in the fifth dimension
that was my mental state and personal perspective
though i learned alot in all those experiences
and tried to push myself toward spiritual growth
i dont believe that i was in another concious state
i do think my conciousness was exagerated
its hard to explain unless you have been there
I didn’t start doing drugs til 19. I think some kids start too early and it arrests their mental development.
I think we are naturally designed to work in a way that lets us have spiritual experiences / mind trips when all aspects of our being are in harmony, ie, in a state of relaxed meditation or at certain points in a life. I believe drugs “opens the gateway” but kinds of skips the bodies natural saftey messures and thus possibly gives taker things to think about that naturally they are not ready to think about, risking creating a kind of un balance in that person.
That’s just what I think. I have tried drugs but have no place for them as I’ve kind of mastered “opening the gateway” at will. Experience with no side effects. That’s got to be more healthy hasn’t it?
Cheers
DALE
The east has definitely mastered this mind over body thing more than we have. When Indian Fakirs can slow their heart rate to 1 beat per minute, that’s quite an accomplishment. It’s good that you have ways to find your spiritual center.
I’ve been in that “different realm” I though of it as a higher level of life.
And yes, I was on mushrooms…but it was like…I knew all. I could make sense of everything. I understood the concept of the difference between wet and dry so well it was unbelievable. Then everyone could read my mind and i could read thiers. We had a 2 hour conversation just by reading our thoughts. I want to know how to get there without drugs. It has to be real…not just a “trip” because it wasn’t just one person experiencing it. It was all real.
I’ve done an in-depth look at this on another site. The link can be found by clicking → madphilosophers.com/cgi-bin/ … 1078156980
Also, this one is cool too → deoxy.org/8circuit.htm
The second is written very seriously, though you won’t expect what it’s about to claim. Quite interesting …
raises hand 
Naw, I’m holding up allright.
Has anyone perused Carlos Castenada? He wrote about his “high” experiences.
Teachings of Don Juan…picked it out of my father’s library at age 12… never been the same since.
Started quite a snowball for me.
Same thing happened to me. I started reading Science of Mind by Earnest Holmes when I was 19, have not been the same ever since.
I am not one to experiment with drugs that I think are harmful. The only illegal drug I have done is marijuana. Which like many of you have said is more of a physical “thing”. Then one time my friends and I were bored (famous last words) and one suggested we “Robo-trip” Which is, if you don’t already know, an overdose of Robotussin or more specifically the chemical DXM. Like I said I have not done mushrooms, acid, or LSD or anything of that sort. But this trip was intense. It was a spiritual trip. It felt like I was connected with everything in the world. At times it felt like the hand of God was reaching through the trees and picking me up when I was outside. My friend who has done acid before said that this was definitely a different trip. So if you are bored and have about 8-12 hours to kill. Give it a shot. We took a whole bottle of the gel-tabs and two shots of the liquid stuff each. And it was definitiely a different state of mind.
LSD definitely shows you other worlds just as real as this one. In fact, things seem more real under the influence.
If you want to see things sacred and things profane…
If you want to expand your mind…
But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
I suppose it depends on what you’ve got in your head to begin with as to what sort of, ‘trip,’ you have. And when I took the stuff a, ‘trip,’ could last for as long as twelve hours. And some poor sods got, ‘flashbacks!’
And the tabs were never pure, there were always minute amounts of strychnine, and you got a fucking bad guts-ache.
But if you want visions of unimaginable beauty; if you want to, ‘see,’ the abyss; if you want to see the most depraved, most gross, most hideously ugly and deformed creatures, then acid will serve you well.
And there’s always the chance you’ll never return from your, ‘trip!!’
So why do they put strychnine in acid? Seems a bit odd to me, seeing as you only need a few µg of acid to go completely mental, and LSD must be cheaper than strychnine, surely?
Have tried a few mind-benders myself and I can certainly say that my perception of the world is not the same now. Not always in a good way, either. Have got permanent auras around most things, (maybe I can pick up some kind of energy field ) but I can put that down to the electrical impulses in the synapses just going down the wrong path. Not wrong maybe, just not the one that was designed. My brain has been ‘rewired’ . The ‘tracing’ effect is also still apparant when I’m tired. I would not say that I am insane. not really. But visual perception has definitely been altered. Even after several years of abstention.
Drugs are good in moderation, but where do you draw that line? I would say that everyone should take one trip just to open their minds to that whole new world that exists in our psyche, but then what one sees is so wonderful it’s hard not to want to go back. Again and again, until the acid world becomes the real world as far as the individual is concerned.
I also think that people should educate themselves about the effect of drugs before they think about taking them. not just the sparkly effects, but the long-term health problems that can arise due to over-usage, and not really knowing what’s in them anyway. Pills sold these days have god-knows-what in them, certainly unlikely to be MDMA, and probably something far worse for your heart and liver. I’ve heard that some people take handfuls at a time. Every weekend. How clever is that?