When anti-drug propagandists and the misinformed people who believe them come out to start moralizing against psychonauts, medical users of unjustly prohibited mind altering substances, party goers, and other classes of drug users, they often judgmentally accuse these people of wanting to "escape reality." I have argued against this premise in the past and it becomes pretty silly when we really examine it. However, I never really explored the mindset that causes a person to view the act of "escape" as a negative thing. Most drug users know that the "escape narrative" is a lie but they do understand that their use is an exercise of their freedom and the authorities are the ones trying to keep our minds "imprisoned" but why do so many regular people come to accept the idea that we are better off confined within our unaltered perception of reality? Propaganda and misinformation about drugs play a big role in shaping these people's world view but there is more. I think that the true believers of the "escape narrative" have been influenced by forces in our societies that function to confuse the ideas of right and blindly accepting authority with each other. This entrenched cultural influence and the narratives pushed by the authorities themselves have taught people that freeing one's own mind is out of line with the normal standard of behavior which creates these willing prisoners of reality.
For the authorities who require our compliance in order to exert control over us, the motivation behind the "escape narrative" makes sense. They are our "jailers." They only want us to see reality from the approved "angle." Because many drugs (psychedelics are best at this) cause a shift in a user's point of view, they threaten the authority's power and credibility. Mushrooms might make the foreign "monsters" that we are expected to be terrified by seem absurd. They could allow us to see past then often meaningless rhetoric that is expected to incite anger or patriotism in the population. Because those chemically induced abilities are harmful to the authority, they are slandered and made to sound as though their use is "criminal." This is why liberation from normal perception has become "escaping reality" in the approved narrative.
There is a deeply entrenched cultural structure that functions to instill reverence for authority and this may be what leads people to so readily accept the "escape narrative." We can point to the decades of anti-drug propaganda as the source of people's belief in the escape myth but I think that there is more to it than that. From the time that we are very young children, we are told that there are authorities who know better than we do. When we are three or four and we might run out into traffic and be killed, this is true and we learn to accept that truth. However, as we get older, that truth is exploited and used by less well-meaning authorities to keep us submissive. Schools do it to keep the kids compliant and receptive to their state approved narratives, religious figures do it to keep themselves wealthy and influential, governmental authorities do it to keep themselves in power. "We are more educated, informed, law abiding, and righteous than all of you common people so shut up and fall in line," they proclaim. Of course, many of us come to reject these ideas. We say "that cop beats his wife, that teacher is an idiot, the war that politician sold was unnecessary, and that 'holy' man likes to touch little boys' holes." However there are many more who blind themselves to the short comings of the authorities and they are the ones who become the prisoners of reality.
I am reminded of the term "slave mentality" when I think about the regular people who have believed the "escape narrative." They never moved moved past the deeply instilled reverence for authority that was thrust upon them. When they were told that freeing one's mind is "escaping" (like a dangerous criminal might escape his or her captors), they accepted it is truth because it was handed down from the great and superior authority like a commandment from an incomprehensibly powerful god. In their minds, we belong within the confinement of our normal perception because the authority who is better, smarter, and more moral than us has said that this is the truth. I may be annoyed by the views that these people possess but I am still deeply saddened by the state that they exist in. They are the ultimate goal of oppression. They have become willing prisoners who think that it is wrong to be free and that feeling must be unimaginable dark.
Many drug users in general and psychonauts in particular rarely view their mental exploration as "escape" but they are aware that there is often some new freedom to be found in the act. Unavailing the inner mind is a rejection of the authority that tells us that we are only permitted to see reality from it's perspective and that rejection is a form of liberation. However, there is more, a psychonaut can bring knowledge back from that wild and strange inner ocean. When our perspective on the world changes, we can share it with others. This means that there is still hope for the prisoners of reality because the freedom of thought that is carried by the psychonauts can be transmitted to them. That is probably a way-too-fancy way of saying that those of us with psychedelic knowledge should tell people that there are other ways of viewing the world and try to break them away from their submissive mindset but I still think it might be helpful, nonetheless.
Peace.
All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.