Monthly Archives: June 2016

Mayhem @Berghain

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The Berghain started out as a gay club in Berlin in 2004. Today it’s incredibly famous for its subculture as well as techno music . Here is my take after a weekend adventure in Berlin.

Preparations, black pants and practicing a bored ennoyed look

Preparations, black pants and practicing a bored ennoyed look

The Berghain is not a club people come to have fun in, it is a place of worship with strict entry rules. The general idea is to maintain its unique environment by keeping mainstream tourists away. If you want to get in you have to look like someone who has already been there. Dressing in black and looking unhappy is a good start. I came with a friend, a regular known to the guards so there wasn’t any problems. We still came sunday morning to avoid the que. I got stamped and returned in the evening, when the ‘returners’ line was ‘just’ 20 min. She was there for over 22 hours straight. If you get through the door prepare to be searched and pat down, a sticker will be put on your cell phone camera. Put the money on the counter, do not attempt to hand it to the worker. Why? Don’t ask why, like any other religion this is about power, you are the low level worshiper they are the druids.
The club is situated in an industrial maze of a building spread over 3 floors. The top floor, called panorama is relatively mild if you take out the little cubicles were people sometimes have sex in. There actually isn’t that much sex going on, but it does happen.
The bottom most floor where you enter has some chill spaces including an out door space with a statue of a giant penis.
On the mid level, you will find the actual Berghain. The Berghain doesn’t play music, it plays techno war drums. People there do not dance, they put on their war face and go to battle, stomping and elbowing their fists beating the air. Hour after hour in a sweaty frenzy they will release their anger in a strange sublimation ceremony. Be it anger at patriarchy, frustration with social norms or just personal hardship, the clubbers will battle their way until monday morning. For those who last until the end I was told there is a type of catharsis, an addictive release. No matter how much I tried I couldn’t connect to this for more than a few minutes at a time. Due to my martial arts training I release anger in short sprouts against opponents or a punching bag. With out the feeling of impact my anger goes no where.

The Bathrooms
Like many other clubs the bathroom is also a type of kitchen were people go to consume. If your looking for nourishment I was told you should find the most Italian looking guy standing in or near the bathroom and ask.
For those of you that actually need to pee and can’t use the urinals there is a bathroom with out a door on the second floor that has almost no line. If you are shy bring a friend to stand in front of it or ask someone around otherwise you might have to wait for half an hour or longer.

German Efficiency
I lost the tiny wallet I brought with me that had 50 euros and this mettle numbered card to the gardiova, where my coat and cell phone were hanging. I was dreading trying to get them back but they had an amazing efficient procedure. Fill in forms, describe your stuff, be able to provide proof that it’s yours, for instance be able to unlock the phone. Then go through the lines of hanging coats one by one with a worker. Luckley my friend remembered the general vicinity the coat was taken to so after a few min of going through black leather jackets,(some one say needle in a hay stack?) I found it. Just as I did, someone returned my metal card saying they found it on the floor. The wallet with 50 euro wasn’t with it. This was still nice as it saved me paying 10 euro for the lost card.

Safety
Early on I took off my shirt and was dancing topless. This was a non issue even though only a small minority of women were doing the same. Despite the overwhelming crowded environment people stayed civil and there were no aggressive pushers or potential sexual predators to be weary of. The only harassment came from a friend of a friend, who decided it was ok to slap my butt while dancing. He was quickly corrected by me going berserk on him, although as a friend of a friend I didn’t break his nose. It ended with lots of apologises on his side and gifted ice cream. I hope he will never do that again. There was also a strange scene in the bar in Panorama. There was a ridiculously hot women who I literally gave my place in line to so I could start a conversation with. The female bartender brought over some ice and told this women she would like to put some ice in her cleavage. We all laughed, then the male bartender just stuck a straw in the womans cleavage which was totally inappropriate. She got comped free chasers but was still irritated. Maybe she went down to the Berghain to stump her rage out at idiot men who have 0 ability to take other people’s perspective and act on their first impulse.

Psychedelic Science

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I just came back from ICPR, The interdisciplinary conference on psychedelic research, where I presented my work, a theoretical model based on the predictive processing framework and current Neuroscience data that explains the psychedelic phenomenon. It was really well received and many people asked to have access to the slides and manuscript for the paper me and my supervisor are writing so here they are:

PowerPoint

Manuscript

I’m all for sharing data so use it as you wish but please give us credit for this work.

And here is an ameture vid taken of the lecture itself.

 

I’ll end with a few anthropological experiences and very interesting data I learned in other lectures so read on if you are interested:

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Lunch time

In the last conference I went to I was the only one that sat on the grass and ate lunch, getting stared at by all the other participants siting at the tables. This conference was a lot more laid back. Lots of us took our Lunch to sit on the edge of the canal. Many deep, personal and meaningful conversations were going on all around and I made some very interesting friendships I hope will last.

The biggest surprise to my was how much Ayahuasca research was going on and what a big part of the conference that was, most likely because in many countries it is still legal and used by many as a religious and healing ritual.

One of the most interesting finding it this research was that Harmine, a substance in Ayahuasca, seems to induce neurogenesis, creating more neurons in the brain. This can have massive implication for many degenerative diseases.

got gifted this beautiful coloring book by the artist!

got gifted this beautiful coloring book by the artist!

The down side of focusing on this research is the massive use of the word ‘spirituality’ which I am highly allergic to, due to my religious upbringing and very skeptical thought panels. The conference had two panels running at the same time, neuroscience vs spirituality. The spiritual panel got the bigger room and a much bigger audience. I seemed to be the only one concerned with this. When I asked about the scientists thought’s on this in the neuroscience panels I wasn’t taken seriously and got the answer “Well we are reductionists so we are ok with the small room”.

Partially to combat this ‘spiritual’ take over, and mostly because I found it amusing, I walked around with my rubber hand showing people how easy it is to trick their brain into thinking a rubber hand is a part of them. Explaining the brain is a predictive machine that just correlates sensory inputs and that these feeling of ‘oneness’ happen when you mess around with these predictive abilities and the brain stopes being able to differentiate between the self-organism and the environment. For me these explanations don’t reduce the ‘magic’ of psychedelics they increase them, but I always loved seeing behind the scenes of how magic tricks work.

This is not to say that we can’t learn from traditional rituals but we should sift through the data carefully. And just to show that I’m not totally closed minded here is a great story from the Ayahuasca tradition.  A person comes to a shaman asking for advice.
‘I have two wolves inside of me. One is kind and loving and the other is full of hate and anger. Which one will take control? ‘ He asked.
The  shaman think for a moment and answers, ‘The one that is fed more’.

I love this story because this really is the essence of what we are, feedback loops. And the best thing we can do is put our self in a loving and nourishing environment and practice the things we want to get better at.

Finally, in lectures regarding MDMA therapy I was pleased to hear that some of the methods I’ve been using to deal with my shit are being used in therapy. For instance, drawing brain maps and using objects and music to anchor good memories to, so they can be easily retrieved by looking, touching the object or listening to the music.