[HN Gopher] Psychedelics: A Personal Take (2021)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Psychedelics: A Personal Take (2021)
        
       Author : yamrzou
       Score  : 104 points
       Date   : 2022-11-02 13:11 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ava.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ava.substack.com)
        
       | cglan wrote:
       | I'll play devils advocate and say mushrooms have not really
       | helped me at all, and in many situations where I've been ~ stable
       | ~ or mostly okay, they've dredged up a lot of feelings and
       | emotions and traumas that I managed to tuck away very nicely,
       | brought it all up to the surface and then proceeded to make me
       | erratic and depressed and overly moody for months on end.
       | 
       | I find that often times the extraordinary ability to be
       | introspective on mushrooms is a detriment. I have the same issue
       | with a lot of the push to be introspective lately. It keeps me in
       | my head and away from properly enjoying things.
       | 
       | I think mushrooms can be a good tool, and at worst a fun drug but
       | they're not a cure all and they don't work for everyone.
        
         | kinakomochidayo wrote:
         | Huh interesting. If I was in the same position, I would've
         | started talking to a therapist and start processing the past
         | just so I won't have to deal with it later in the future.
        
           | cglan wrote:
           | sometimes I'd agree, but like I replied a bit lower, these
           | memories only bother me with the extremely heightened
           | emotions that mushrooms give me, not normally so it really
           | doesn't feel like something I'm repressing. It already feels
           | dealt with and in the past, it just doesn't need to be
           | brought up. Sometimes things are in the past and they are
           | perfectly good staying there
        
         | hlk wrote:
         | Being mindful and being introspective are two different things.
         | Most people experience anxiety (including me) from being
         | introspective since they fail to let go feelings after
         | experiencing them. This is a skill that requires exercise and
         | IMO psychedelics are helpful to change the game and let people
         | exercise this.
        
         | roflyear wrote:
         | My goal for 2023 is to be less self aware, really! Too much
         | self awareness...
        
           | BurningFrog wrote:
           | If it helps, I'm not aware of you at all!
        
           | 09bjb wrote:
           | Do you want to be less aware in general? Or spend less time
           | ruminating about aspects of your own personality?
           | 
           | I found the book "Self Awareness" by Red Hawk pretty helpful
           | in disentangling and disambiguating some of this stuff.
        
             | roflyear wrote:
             | It would be good to think about stuff a little less. Do you
             | mean "Self Observation" ?
        
           | cglan wrote:
           | It's funny but this is my goal too. I couldn't agree more
        
             | roflyear wrote:
             | Much love, buddy!
        
         | gdss wrote:
         | Had you practiced meditation for a reasonable period of time
         | before having done the shrooms?
         | 
         | Preparing the mind is crucial to using psychedelics responsibly
         | and avoiding that the negative emotions that come up take over
         | you
        
           | slibhb wrote:
           | I find comments like this irritating.
           | 
           | If someone wants to say "I dropped acid and it helped me,"
           | fine. People are allowed to share personal experiences,
           | though it's a mistake to universalize them.
           | 
           | But this "oh you didn't meditate enough" or whatever is such
           | nonsense. It's a claim about these drugs and how they work
           | that you have no grounds to make.
        
             | joombaga wrote:
             | It also ignores the potential negative side effects of
             | meditation. It's not without its own risks.
        
         | deurruti wrote:
         | Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
        
           | GameOfFrowns wrote:
           | While your advice sounds totally reasonable, it's at the same
           | time incredibly dismissive. In my opinion, it's not much
           | different from "Have you tried being confident/not being
           | depressive, bro?"
           | 
           | If you need courage to face your demons but only facing those
           | demons will give you the courage to do the thing in the first
           | place, then how to solve that circular dependency?
        
         | y-c-o-m-b wrote:
         | I've only taken shrooms once and didn't change anything for me
         | either psychologically. I feel like Salvia helped a little bit
         | with enlightenment, but I had to take it semi-regularly. What
         | did change was the onset of HPPD:
         | https://eyewiki.aao.org/Hallucinogen_Persisting_Perception_D...
         | 
         | I haven't taken any hallucinogens in over a decade, but my HPPD
         | symptoms still persist to this day. I have visual snow
         | syndrome, warping, palinopsia/tracers, and phosphenes. They're
         | not debilitating, but extremely annoying and for a lot of
         | people it sends them into suicidal ideation or panic.
         | 
         | As with everything else, YMMV. You might be perfectly fine or
         | you might be one of the rare ones like me that acquire
         | unexpected side effects despite the fact that many people tout
         | these drugs as having mild or temporary effects. Choose wisely.
        
           | brnaftr361 wrote:
           | I had HPPD for a minute when I was 19. I haven't replicated,
           | but I went really hard into DHA enriched soy milk for a
           | while. I don't know if there's anything there to really
           | connect it, but my symptoms resolved. Phytoestrogens may have
           | done something, and the DHA may have done something, perhaps
           | a combination, or maybe the AA profile of the milk... Or
           | maybe it was just rebound capacity thanks to my young age
           | (admittedly the most probable explanation). This is despite
           | continuing drug use.
           | 
           | I also did a lot of meditation, and pretty extensive sessions
           | (40-60m) of it for a few months.
           | 
           | Some things to consider if you're interested.
        
             | y-c-o-m-b wrote:
             | I've taken DHA enriched soy milk, so unfortunately that
             | didn't help. Based on the link I posted, there's two types
             | of HPPD. Type 1 is temporary and recovers, type 2 is
             | chronic. I have type 2. I haven't tried any of the
             | prescription meds though as most doctors are unfamiliar
             | with this condition and the one neuro-ophthalmologist (who
             | was hands down the best doc ever) I saw is no longer in
             | practice sadly.
        
           | PragmaticPulp wrote:
           | I think HPPD is going to get a lot more attention as
           | psychedelics continue to grow in mainstream popularity. The
           | significance of HPPD as a potential long-lasting side effect
           | of psychedelic use has been downplayed a lot in the past, but
           | I've been seeing more uptake of the topic in mainstream
           | discussions.
           | 
           | Andrew Callaghan of "ALL GAS NO BRAKES" suffers from HPPD and
           | has started to discuss it openly:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUbod5t_2oM&t=1247s
           | 
           | I think hearing HPPD stories from popular media figures like
           | Callaghan can help seed healthy discussions about the risks
           | of psychedelic use. In the past few years, the media has been
           | way too optimistic about the potential positives of
           | psychedelics while almost ignoring the risks and downsides.
        
           | p0nce wrote:
           | Have taken shrooms thrice, 16 years ago, and got HPPD right
           | from the first time. Still have the visual snow, increased
           | palinopsia, and "coloured dots" that last about 1 second,
           | from time to time (those have decreased exponentially over
           | the years). It's not really annoying at all in the end but
           | obviously the visual system didn't recover. At the time the
           | sun was thrice the size for me. Would have been great to have
           | only those symptoms...
        
         | FactoryReboot wrote:
         | " I managed to tuck away very nicely" There is a fine line
         | between compartmentalization and repression.
        
           | cglan wrote:
           | for sure, but these memories only bother me with the
           | extremely heightened emotions that mushrooms give me, not
           | normally so it really doesn't feel like something I'm
           | repressing. It already feels dealt with and in the past, it
           | just doesn't need to be brought up
        
             | soulofmischief wrote:
             | If the trauma surfaces and you have a negative reaction,
             | it's likely the trauma could still be affecting your
             | behavior and thus your life in some way.
             | 
             | It's your decision if the pros outweigh the cons in your
             | situation, but in my experience tackling trauma head-on in
             | a safe environment has measurably improved my overall
             | health.
        
         | papascrubs wrote:
         | TBH I prefer a macrodose. It's great as a tool if you want to
         | be introspective and change. But I agree that microdosing, at
         | least for me would drive me to be too introspective at times.
         | Balance is good. I've found psychedelics more useful as a point
         | in time tool than as a constant. Macro w/ a goal works better
         | for me than a micro dose.
        
         | riskneutral wrote:
         | So it didn't do much for you. I know many people who report
         | similar experiences.
         | 
         | Like OP, for me personally it has profound effects on me and
         | helps me improve and maintain my mental health.
         | 
         | Everyone is different.
        
       | aszantu wrote:
       | took psychedelics a few times and learned something every time.
       | 
       | Guided meditation can be bliss - when u want to sleep and the
       | patterns don't go away, the meditation will carry you into the
       | underbelly of your consciousness. The voice becomes light that
       | sometimes shines like rays into the underwater forests or cave
       | systems of the subconscious.
       | 
       | I once did some hypnosis where you meet your inner guardian and
       | explore the inside of your subconscious. You're allowed to ask 3
       | questions, I wasn't prepared. Having experienced violence in my
       | past I asked the wrong questions and the guardian threw me out.
       | The trip ended there at the same moment and I felt miserable. I
       | learned that you can't force answers.
       | 
       | Whenever I took something I got headaches, these became more
       | weird over time. My teeth were screaming for help, I asked them
       | what they wanted and they told me they didn't want to be alone.
       | Turns out that I got nerd neck and that's cutting off the oxygen
       | to my face. Now I can feel it, my nose goes cold, headache
       | starts, eyes feel weird, the inside of my mouth is cold. Haven't
       | found the right diagnosis yet, but it likes me to drink warm
       | beverages, sports, yoga, breathing exercises and cold water
       | showers - can't do those when sober.
       | 
       | I learned that my place is no fun or cozy, it's a wasteland when
       | sober. Trying to make it better. No idea, I'd like to have some
       | low budget low energy automated system that generates music,
       | something to decorate time with.
       | 
       | McDonald's Toilet can be the most calming and peaceful place on
       | earth.
       | 
       | Don't talk to conspiracy theorists or esoteric ppl when high.
       | 
       | Have your dog around, they're wonderful guides.
       | 
       | The hardware is boss, stop micro-managing.
       | 
       | The list goes on and on... I do some art, but I don't know how to
       | catch all this
        
         | TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
         | We are compound beings, made of many cells. It is nice to be
         | able to talk to your teeth, I hope they are feeling better.
        
       | lonetripper wrote:
       | After being severely depressed for over a decade and wanting to
       | die, seeing that the healthcare system had failed me and feeling
       | utterly disconnected, rejected, unloved and anhedonic, I went to
       | Amsterdam. After reading a lot about psychedelic experiences, it
       | was the only thing left that I thought could give me a way out of
       | my misery other than actual death.
       | 
       | I bought shrooms, ate them alone in a room and soon felt the
       | effects. First, some dizzyness and nausea, then, slowly, an
       | increased brilliant feeling radiating from my stomach and soon
       | encompassing my entire body. With it, a mental focus on small
       | patterns, light projected through leaves of a tree outside into
       | the room. For the first time that I could remember, actually
       | feeling well inside my body, and feeling energetic, comfortable,
       | not nervous. I looked at the wallpaper but my negative feelings
       | about it were amplified a lot, I knew set and setting were
       | important, so I dared to go outside into a park. For the first
       | time that I could remember, I could smile. And someone smiled
       | back. I sat down, and watched, and thought. For the first time
       | that I could remember I felt connected to the world, in a way I
       | died. I could see patterns if I wanted. Dare I say, I felt a bit
       | human.
       | 
       | It even seemed like people were there for me. This made me sad
       | and contemplative, being aware of my past and present, but I
       | could think about these things without extremely negative
       | emotions disturbing my thoughts. I saw people in groups and for
       | the first time _believed_ I could be part of it if I wanted.
       | 
       | Unfortunately these feelings faded soon after the trip, my life
       | riddled with even more rejection and pain. I took shrooms again,
       | but the second time I knew what to expect, and it didn't feel
       | very special. The saying "if you get the message, hang up the
       | phone" made some sense, since I felt I already got it the first
       | time.
       | 
       | The third time, I took a bit of DMT with someone who was there
       | for me in the right moment. It was the first time in my life I
       | dared to be close with someone. Yet again, I was rejected, but it
       | didn't matter.
       | 
       | A few weeks ago I took LSD. I enjoyed some music and patterns.
       | Enjoyment, but exhausting enjoyment. Maybe I haven't gotten the
       | full message after all. Ultimately, I think these substances can
       | show someone that life can be worth living, that happiness is
       | possible again, and help in reconsidering ones relationship to
       | ones own body, other people and the world. For me, they did not
       | have significant permanent effects however. I do not recommend
       | taking these substances alone, especially if you are in a
       | mentally extreme condition.
        
         | filoleg wrote:
         | Not as dramatic, but shrooms helped me realize how fun dancing
         | can be (like at clubs and concerts and such). And that
         | realization stayed with me forever, even though I haven't done
         | shrooms even once since then.
         | 
         | Until that point, dancing for me was something that just you do
         | socially because that's what people do, and (in my head) most
         | people did it drunk because that was the only way it felt
         | bearable to do.
         | 
         | I know it wasn't some lifechanging discovery, but it definitely
         | was one of those realizations that I thought i would never
         | reach in my life (or that it was possible at all, i assumed it
         | was something you either like or you don't, without much wiggle
         | room for a change).
        
       | say_it_as_it_is wrote:
       | What isn't mentioned is the state of mind that Ava was in before
       | tripping and whether any integration work was done after. You
       | can't just take a heroic dose of shrooms and expect
       | transformation. You need to psychologically prime yourself for
       | the experience.
        
       | willsmith72 wrote:
       | I'm curious about the background. Is psilocybin legal? Prescribed
       | by someone? In what country? Where would someone start?
        
         | yboris wrote:
         | It's easy to grow your own (see the "Uncle Ben's Tek" on
         | Reddit, see link below).
         | 
         | It is legal to purchase the spores and have them shipped across
         | state lines in the US because the spores do not contain
         | psilocybin. Somewhat fool-proof, takes very little space, can
         | be done in under 2 months.
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1da3/part_1_ho...
        
         | lake_vincent wrote:
         | It is legal in the US state of Oregon, and I think maybe one or
         | two others I can't recall. You start by finding a doctor who
         | specializes in the therapeutic use of psychedelics, and giving
         | them a call! Watch How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan.
         | 
         | Be safe, be smart, and consult a professional. I don't
         | recommend doing it "street-style" where you buy it off the
         | black market and take it at a rave :)
        
         | dengxiaopeng wrote:
         | Many other commenters have provided high-level background
         | answering your question, but if you want to see how
         | legalization/decriminalization is unfolding across the US, this
         | is a detailed map:
         | https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws
        
         | hunter2_ wrote:
         | Legality varies. For the US, see
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization...
         | 
         | But also, spores (which lack that chemical) are often legal, so
         | if you want to avoid an illegal purchase, you could just get
         | spores and grow your own.
        
         | humbleguy wrote:
         | It's legal-ish is San Francisco and Oakland.
        
       | kaushikc wrote:
       | My personal experience:
       | 
       | Apologies in advance because it is really impossible to put it in
       | words. When I consumed golden teachers the first time, I was
       | physically in my room but the mental layer was lifted up and it
       | flew up into the outer space, and as I had passed many far away
       | galaxies I was there and eventually into a void. I saw some
       | seriously scary creatures in the darkness of the void and there
       | were millions around me, somehow from the deepest parts of my
       | mind, what I perceived to be the scariest(I never told exactly
       | what to anyone) had materialised in millions right in front of
       | me. I was facing my worst fears a million trillion times
       | amplified. Suddenly everything including me burst into smallest
       | of particles so miniscule and it was just patterns and then I
       | found my mental state inside my own blood stream feeling all the
       | movement and rapid flows. Came out of there and I felt the
       | suffering of death of this planet and fear of every person and
       | every living creature that lived in the past until now combined
       | on this planet at once right then. Sounds like my worst nightmare
       | but throughout the journey there was a back voice guiding me to
       | manage me and suggest me and everything I went through was almost
       | consensual, like the depth was only offered to me when I
       | consented to it and as if there was a friend to help me. There
       | was a point I was getting auditory feedback and I was turning
       | away from that depth and I did not consent to and so I didn't go
       | into that part. When I was facing my fears the voice suggested to
       | observe that they were actually harmless and they were just
       | existing and simply doing their own thing. Something really deep
       | inside of me was fixed. There is a lot more to the experience
       | that I actually cannot put in words.
        
         | brokenmachine wrote:
         | This body holding me
         | 
         | Reminds me of my own mortality
         | 
         | Embrace this moment, remember
         | 
         | We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion
        
           | lee wrote:
           | I LOVE listening to Tool while on psilocybin.
           | 
           | This song especially gives me frisson even when I'm sober.
           | 
           | There's something so beautiful about listening to the right
           | music on psychedelics.
        
       | par wrote:
       | "I took psilocybin for the first time around 1.5 years ago. After
       | that my life changed."
       | 
       | Stopped reading right there. These over exaggerations and
       | platitudes are really eye roll inducing.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | martin1975 wrote:
       | erowid.org... for many many more experiences with psychedelics
       | and all other types of drugs. Make sure you read both the
       | negative and positive experiences and try not to self-diagnose.
        
       | AmpsterMan wrote:
       | Just a small thing on my part, but LSD has helped me enjoy music
       | much more in my daily life. Basically, listening to it while high
       | helped me notice the patterns, rythms, lyrics, etc. much easier
       | and I've been able to transfer that to my daily life.
        
       | agnos wrote:
       | I feel like all these articles about magical self-transformation
       | through psychedelics are misleading and somewhat inaccurate. I
       | would have liked to see more about the actual psychedelic
       | experience itself rather than the aftermath. As an occasional
       | "field researcher" of psychedelics, I'm skeptical of these
       | magical claims like "curing" depression with mushrooms or
       | discovering love after taking LSD without saying much about what
       | actually changed in their thought processes or how that happened.
       | Maybe I've yet to have that trip that will make me understand the
       | magic, but I haven't read many accounts of the actual psychedelic
       | experience that have been particularly compelling.
       | 
       | Psychedelics do seem to break down lifelong mental models and
       | thus increase your level of self-awareness but I've personally
       | never been able to integrate these trip experiences to anything
       | meaningful in my daily life. The insights I've gained from
       | psychedelics have had little to no impact on my overall mental
       | health, emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, etc.
       | There seems to be a large gap between the psychedelic state of
       | mind and the "ego" mind that we must embrace in daily life. Sure,
       | I've had interesting trips that made me question the nature of
       | consciousness and reality. I've alos had trips where I broke down
       | all my mental models and experienced pure randomness/chaos, which
       | I believe is just somewhat incompatible with my Earthly
       | existence, which makes integration difficult.
       | 
       | This "self-awareness" is a common theme I've experienced in trips
       | is just the pure randomness of reality/existence. There is no
       | "reason" why anything happens. There's no reason you are you, and
       | there's no reason to be anything different. I think if you truly
       | explore self-awareness, you will reach this point. You are a
       | configuration that has no inherent "reason" to be that particular
       | configuration. You can hope to transform into a different
       | configuration, but there's no compelling reason to be anything
       | else because at the core, everything is arbitrary. The best you
       | come out with is a sense of disillusionment or depersonalization.
       | Maybe you can overcome this point in the journey and reach
       | "enlightenment". I've yet to experience what's past this, but
       | maybe someone else can shed some light on that.
       | 
       | Actually, I wonder if more self-awareness can be a bad thing for
       | some people, and if that's what it comes down to. Often times
       | when I feel the most self aware, I'm the most lost in my own head
       | and disconnected from reality and other people. This isn't
       | objectively a bad thing, but I don't see how it leads to
       | realizations about love and connectedness, which I think are the
       | real antidotes to things like depression and emptiness.
        
         | brotchie wrote:
         | I'm in the same boat as you: how exactly did the psychedelic
         | experience affect a long lasting change. Here's my story of how
         | psilocybin cured my existential depression. I had other
         | insights during the trip, but this is my after-the-fact
         | reasoning about why the trip was effective at alleviating
         | depression.
         | 
         | I've often struggled with existential depression: Along the
         | lines of "The sun is going to explode in a few billion years,
         | what's the point in doing anything today?" This didn't really
         | affect my day-to-day life that much, but I often struggled to
         | be motivated because of this overhanging existential "what's
         | the point?"
         | 
         | Dosage: 5g dried golden teachers, ground with burr grinder,
         | soaked in lemon juice, and then consumed in one go.
         | 
         | Felt like nothing was happening all that much for an hour, but
         | then a gradual come-up of an altered state, euphoria. My senses
         | started merging: words had taste, sounds had color, etc. then I
         | felt I was losing touch with reality (later realized this was
         | my ego fighting to hold on).
         | 
         | Things that I thought were intrinsic to the human conscious
         | experience started to break down: I lost an understanding of
         | the concept of time (looking at my bedside clock was
         | nonsensical), as the trip became more aggressive, I actually
         | started losing the concept of 4D space-time. There was no
         | differentiation between having my eyes open or closed. I felt
         | like I had been blasted into a high dimensional space of many
         | possible realities.
         | 
         | My brain couldn't make sense of this new experience. This was
         | actually REALLY scary, not in a bad trip sense, but in a "holy
         | shit, I'm kind of lost in this incomprehensible set of
         | realities and have no way of navigating back home." I
         | distinctly had the feeling like I was a god-like being that was
         | literally constructing reality with my thoughts.
         | 
         | Ultimately I remember just completely relaxing into it and
         | finding a crazy inner peace: white light, no sense of personal
         | identity, no sense of time.
         | 
         | As I was coming out of the trip, I started to "rediscover"
         | things: Oh! Time is just the relative ordering of events. Oh,
         | THIS particular reality I'm in has 3 spatial dimensions.
         | 
         | Out of all the infinite, confusing, scary possibilities of
         | existence, I returned to my life here on earth in this body.
         | This made me feel so so grateful for THIS existence, in THIS
         | body, in THIS reality. Almost felt like I'd again found the
         | oasis of our reality in the desert of all possible realities.
         | The gratefulness I felt after being on some metaphysical trip
         | that had felt like a lifetime and being able to return to the
         | familiar made me appreciate how wonderful existence is and how
         | great it is to inhabit this reality.
         | 
         | tl;dr; Being blasted out into a scary confusing set of all
         | possible realities and somehow finding a path back to this
         | familiar reality made me really appreciate what I'd previously
         | taken for granted.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mistermann wrote:
         | There ability to achieve a mental state of unknown can be
         | useful for contemplating such questions in my experience.
         | 
         | These have been helpful to me:
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineffability
         | 
         | https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psycholo...
        
       | RomanPushkin wrote:
       | One guy was supposed to write a comment here, but he had a really
       | bad trip that flipped up his mind, so we'll never know about his
       | opinion. Everyone else had a more or less positive "experience".
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | joegaebel wrote:
       | I'm surprised to see the lack of support in the comments. In my
       | take, this article was very well written and goes a long way to
       | describe the refreshing and enlivening aftermath of a peak
       | experience with Psilocybin. It also mirrors the experience of the
       | research subjects at Johns Hopkins.
       | 
       | One study, conducted on terminally ill cancer patients, found
       | that most of them rated it as one of the most important
       | experiences of their lives [1], rating it alongside the birth of
       | their children, their wedding day, etc. Additionally, the
       | depression easing effects were shown to persist up to a year by
       | this study.
       | 
       | I wouldn't be surprised if experiencing one of the most
       | important, enliving, and connective experiences of your life
       | wouldn't go on to reduce depression and anxiety for the rest of
       | your life.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucin...
        
       | rileyphone wrote:
       | This mirrors my experience with shrooms and depression,
       | specifically the quote:
       | 
       | > I felt like I was exhaling after a life spent holding my
       | breath.
       | 
       | Splendid stuff you can grow yourself for <$100, but it's also
       | exciting to watch it become more legal in places and easier to
       | access. Seems that we're finally recovering from the exuberance
       | of the 60s.
        
       | roody15 wrote:
       | Disclaimer just my take:
       | 
       | I wonder if the human mind is like a antenna or receiver of
       | sorts. Outside of our physical world or perhaps at a distance so
       | great may exists some greater entities.
       | 
       | Gods if you will, or perhaps spiritual entities.
       | 
       | I wonder if in certain states of dreaming or on certain
       | substances our brain/receiver is more receptive to these
       | "signals".
       | 
       | Perhaps bad trips ... occur since you are in a receptive state
       | "drugged lsd, etc" and a negative spiritual entity is able to
       | access in this state.
       | 
       | Perhaps in a good trip ... you are able to increase your signal
       | reception to a greater will, a more benevolent, a spiritual
       | entity that is more positive, creative, loving, forgiving, etc.
       | 
       | When you are cut off from these forces or the signal is
       | diminished perhaps ... depression sets in... no sense of
       | purpose.. etc.
        
         | potsandpans wrote:
         | Would not expect to find a post like this on here. My totally
         | unqualified intuition puts me somewhat in the panpsychist camp,
         | that I'd crudely outline as "the brain does not produce
         | consciousness but is more of an antenna that receives it."
         | 
         | While I dont ascribe any spirituality to these "entities" as
         | you describe, I do wonder if they exist in some physical form.
         | If they do we'll no doubt find and classify them eventually.
        
         | FactoryReboot wrote:
         | Reminds me a bit of the old modest mouse song stars are
         | projectors. That song had a related idea that our consciousness
         | is in the cosmos and beamed down to us. Drugs could be
         | interrupting that beam or something like you said. It's an
         | interesting thought.
        
         | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | humbleguy wrote:
       | I have been microdosing LSD for about 4 months now regularly with
       | great success and it's now my go-to for focus and mood
       | improvement.
        
         | GameOfFrowns wrote:
         | What's your regimen and how do you measure the effectiveness in
         | an objective manner? I tried microdosing LSD for a few weeks
         | and even at the smallest dose 10ug I felt like every dosing day
         | was a lost day productivity-wise as I became even more
         | unfocused than usual.
        
           | humbleguy wrote:
           | I drop a stamp into 10ml of vodka and take 1ml every 3rd day.
           | I don't have an objective way of measuring an effectiveness
           | of it, of course. However, I do feel that when I need to
           | focus I can focus much easier. I don't feel jitters and the
           | next day I also feel elevated mood and overall just more
           | positive.
        
             | fieryskiff11 wrote:
        
       | ogsalmanxxx wrote:
       | xD
        
         | par wrote:
         | > so... i've been on acid for about 100 days now
         | 
         | uhhh.... tth_tth
        
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