Why do you think that is?
consiousness(sp).
concienceness(sp?) Oh fuck it, you know what I mean.
I don’t know, but it starts young. My two year old already loves to spin and spin and spin until she gets dizzy and giggly and falls down.* She loves to hang backwards over the end of the couch until her little face is bright red, then she sits up really fast and wobbles around as all the blood rushes out of her head. I’m serious - she loves the feeling of being dizzy and off-balance. Having participated in a few licit and illicit mind-altering substances myself, I know that those are two of the more prominent physical sensations of mind-altering, and it’s a little freaky to see just how hard-wired it is, in at least some of us.
It’s also not exclusive to humans, from what I understand. Lots of animals enjoy eating or drinking naturally or human fermented fruits and grains.
consciousness, BTW.
*Wasn’t there a quote by someone far more witty than I to the effect of: If they manage to eradicate every mind-altering substance known to man, people will go out into their front lawns and spin around until they fall down and throw up?
Do you worry that your daughter will try to attain this feeling in later life?
Reality, when it’s not boring, is often pretty scary and uncomfortable.
This one hasn’t risen to the state of a “Great Debate” as yet. So, let’s try MPSIMS. MOved from General Questions.
samclem GQ moderator
Since the dawn of time man has tried to change his state of consciencess
That, and yearned to destroy the sun…
Dude…man wasn’t around yet at the dawn of time.
Pass it.
There is a theory among Paleontolgists that human kind made the shift from hunter gatherer to farming not because of food, but to grow enough plants for fermentation…
which reminds me of a joke that red Skelton used to tell
The invention of Alcohol…
Thogra had had a great harvest of berries, plus it had been a great year. He had dried meat, many roots, and supplies that would last him and his family all winter long!
He put the berries in a leather sack, and tucked them into a nook in the back of his cave, to save them for a special occaision.
The winter passed, and thogra forgot completely about the sack of berries in the back of his cave.
One day he found them, and found that they had reduced to a strange juice.
He tasted this juice, and felt strange new indescribably feelings!
He got so excited that he ran around the corner and boutght a fifth of scotch!
Smoooo-oooo-oooo-oooth!
From a 1949 Radio broadcast
Regards
FML
Fixed title.
Depends on your interpretation of quantum mechanics 
Well, duh! Thanks for that. Sometimes my ignorance is staggering. :smack:
I think there is a big amount of truthiness in this observation.
Yes, especially in an altered state of consciousness. 
Dr. Andrew Weil, in The Natural Mind, made the same observation you did in the OP. Every society, with one or two exceptions maybe, has had a way to an altered state of mind. For most of them, it was alcohol. Some have other drugs, such as natural hallucinogens, opium, and marijuana. In bygone days, the Inuit people fermented the meat of the auk, and perhaps that was mind-altering. Today, the Inuit have access to alcohol and probably marijuana.
Some societies achieved another plane by meditating or the prayerful spinning of the Dervishes. Even the silent contemplation of some Christian orders brings a kind of disconnect. Andrew Weil said the need to reach another level is a basic human process. Instead of fighting it, he said, we should embrace it. He recommended meditation over other methods, though.