History Main / HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs

If Higher Understanding Through Drugs is used as a defining character trait, the character is typically an EruditeStoner. JunkieProphet is a subtrope where the use of drugs specifically helps someone foresee the future. DrunkenMaster is a related trope, where alcohol temporarily enhances someone's physical skills. If a drug grants someone actual physical superpowers, we're dealing with a SuperSerum. Compare GeniusSerum, which effects a direct change on one's mental capacities, not just imparting higher truths to her.

If Higher Understanding Through Drugs is used as a defining character trait, the character is typically an EruditeStoner. JunkieProphet is a subtrope where the use of drugs specifically helps someone foresee the future. DrunkenMaster is a related trope, where alcohol temporarily enhances someone's physical skills. If a drug grants someone actual physical superpowers, we're dealing with a SuperSerum. Compare GeniusSerum, which effects a direct change on one's mental capacities, not just imparting higher truths to them.

If Higher Understanding Through Drugs is used as a defining character trait, the character is typically an EruditeStoner. JunkieProphet is a subtrope where the use of drugs specifically helps someone foresee the future. DrunkenMaster is a related trope, where alcohol temporarily enhances someone's physical skills. If a drug grants someone actual physical superpowers, we're dealing with a SuperSerum. Compare GeniusSerum, which effects a direct change on one's mental capacities, not just imparting "cosmic knowledge".

* In ''Series/TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance'', shamans from the Dousan Gelfling clan consume hallucinogenic red berries that grow in the Crystal Desert in order to peek into the future and talk to Thra. UrGoh the Wanderer and SkekGra the Heretic also consume these berries for the same reason and it was these berries that allowed them to figure out the Gelfling prophecy.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In one segment in "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", Dipper finds a recipe in the Journal for a concoction involving mushrooms that is supposed to make you smarter, which he prepares in order to solve a puzzle. Mabel's pig Waddles eats it and becomes a scientific genius. Unsurprisingly, this wasn't in [[Literature/GravityFallsJournal3 the printed Journal 3 that you can buy]], even though that was the only one Dipper had at the time...

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by Dr, James Dobson of [[MoralGuardians Focus on the Family]] in his [[http://brainerddispatch.com/lifestyle/3369872-eight-common-symptoms-can-indicate-teen-drug-abuse nationally syndicated column]] listing 8 symptoms of [[DescentIntoAddiction drug abuse]]:

** Music/TheBeatles "[[Music/{{Revolver}} Tomorrow never Knows]]" is about turning on to higher planes via drugs.

---> Moral values often crumble and are replaced with new, avant-garde ideas and values.

* Subverted and deconstructed in ''Film/BeyondTheBlackRainbow''. The Arboria Institute is a NewAge research compound that uses "benign pharmacology" and similar methods to try and bridge the gap between science and spirituality in order to foster happiness and enlightenment. Instead, RealityEnsues and their reckless, unethical methodology just causes endless horror and misery; the founding scientist, Mercurio Arboria, is wasting away from a devastating DescentIntoAddiction because of his experiments, which is exacerbating his onset senility, while Barry Nyles was driven mad by a nightmarishly bad trip on LSD and an experimental viscous fluid. Even the legitimately spiritual parts of the Institute are [[MagicIsEvil horrifying and mind-breaking instead of enlightening]]; Nyles has gradually become deformed and mutated by his experiments, Elena's PsychicPowers are inscrutable and destructive, both seem to be losing touch with their humanity, and if the characters are making contact with some sort of higher power by doing all this, [[EldritchAbomination it sure as hell is not a benevolent one]].

** Being that it was the mid-to-late 60s, this is [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar snuck past the radar]] as DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything in Patrick Troughton's era as much as the writers could get away with. For example, "The Krotons" ends with the Doctor teaching people brainwashed by education how to make (literal) acid so they can free themselves from their oppressive masters and understand the true meaning of the universe. The Doctor's first regeneration itself was related to an acid trip in the production documents, shot with plenty of strange psychedelic effects, and led to him developing a host of new personality traits and skills (like a [[WigDressAccent knack for disguises]], [[TheSocialExpert social acuity]], musicality and a more mellow and righteous attitude) at the cost of some permanent psychological scars from the traumatic experience.

* ''FanFic/JustAnUnorthodoxThief''. [[spoiler:Saber]] accidentally ingests and overdoses on Fräulein Eule, a FantasticDrug that causes her to hallucinate. By the time she awakens, she has become able to see the world around her in a new way, the way Assassin sees it.

[[folder:StandUpComedy]]
* Creator/BillHicks was a big proponent of this.
--> “Not only do I think marijuana should be legalized, I think it should be mandatory. I’m a hardliner. Think about it, man. You get in traffic behind somebody like: huuuh, huuuh. (making car horn noises) ‘Shut up and smoke that; it’s the law.’ ‘Oh sorry, I was taking life seriously. Oh, man! Who’s hungry?’”
--> “I think it’s interesting the two drugs that are legal, alcohol and cigarettes, two drugs that do absolutely ''nothing'' for you at all, are legal, and the drugs that might open your mind up to realize how badly you’re being ''fucked every day of your life?'' Those drugs are against the law. He-heh, coincidence? See, I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, ’cause I took ’em one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, ‘My God! I love everything.’ Yeah, Now, if that isn’t a hazard to our country... how are we gonna justify arms dealing if we know we’re all one?!”
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Entheogens are drugs that are used exactly for this purpose. Cultures around the world have used their own unique drugs for spiritual purposes for thousands of years.
* Timothy Leary and Terence [=McKenna=] were well-known proponents of the idea that humans can achieve spiritual insight via psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms .
** According to Terence [=McKenna=]'s Stoned Ape hypothesis, psilocybin mushrooms caused humans to become sentient.
[[/folder]]

* Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna were well-known proponents of the idea that humans can achieve spiritual insight via psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms .
** According to Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape hypothesis, psilocybin mushrooms caused humans to become sentient.

* ''Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space''. Buster Kincaid accidentally takes a consciousness-raising pill instead of his FoodPills and starts raving that he's in an artificial reality created by machines, e.g. [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall thousands of fanfic writers with personal computers]]. Captain Proton gives him a [[RedPillBluePill blue pill to snap him out of it]].

* ''TabletopGames/UnknownArmies'' has an entire Adept school called Narco-Alchemy, based on applying alchemical practices to drug cooking in order to open one's mind.

* Several Traditions in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' use various drugs as Foci.

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] throughout the [[EducationalShort educational film]] ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYAWCyP2YM LSD: You Decide]]'', which is hosted by pop singer Tommy Roe.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/AnimalMan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/animalmantrip_6696.jpg]]]]

* Referred to on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' when [[MagicalNativeAmerican Chakotay]] tells [[TheCaptain Janeway]] how his ancestors would use psychoactive herbs to induce a VisionQuest; nowadays, they use a handheld gizmo called an ''akoonah'' instead.

* Subverted in ''Film/BeyondTheBlackRainbow''. In the Arboria Institute video, Dr. Arboria lists "benign pharmacology" as one of the tools used by his organization to foster happiness and enlightenment. Subverted in the 1966 flashback scene, in which exposure to LSD and the black liquid shattered Barry's mind.

* ''FanFic/JustAnUnorthodoxThief''. [[spoiler:Saber]] accidentally ingests and overdoses on Fraulein Eule, a FantasticDrug that causes her to hallucinate. By the time she awakens, she has become able to see the world around her in a new way, the way Assassin sees it.

* Twisted a bit in ''Fanfic/{{Enlightenments}}''. Wander asks the god Dormin if they had him try mushrooms for this reason, since he did recgonise them as something that holy men used back in his original home. Dormin's answer is no, they just wanted him to have some new sensations to mull over. [[spoiler:On the other hand, it does reduce his inhibitions enough that he tells Dormin why the Queen banished him to their land, which draws the two of them a little closer together.]]

* ''Film/Robocop2'': Cain likes to say that the Nuke he's selling provides people with this, a complete control over their emotional lives, and he's a MessianicArchetype that just gets some bucks on the side (and even make "Made In America" mean something again while he's at it). The truth is that he's a wanna-be DarkMessiah with a cult of personality and Nuke is so addictive that people are willing to commit ''suicidal acts of terrorism'' for a dose.

** Music/JeffersonAirplane [[Music/SurrealisticPillow reinvented]] Lewis Carroll's ''Alice in Wonderland'' as "[[AliceAllusion White Rabbit]]", in which all the things Alice drinks, eats and secondary-smokes when she goes down the rabbithole bring on the mother of all mind-expanding trips.

-->–- '''Princess Irulan''', ''Film/{{Dune}}''

** Music/JeffersonAirplane reinvented Lewis Carrol's ''Alice in Wonderland'' as "[[AliceAllusion White Rabbit]]", in which all the things Alice drinks, eats and secondary-smokes when she goes down the rabbithole bring on the mother of all mind-expanding trips.