[HN Gopher] For Brilliant Color: Packaging the First LSD Blotter
___________________________________________________________________
For Brilliant Color: Packaging the First LSD Blotter
Author : anarbadalov
Score : 153 points
Date : 2024-03-25 14:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
| grubbs wrote:
| Reminded me of this article:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/7b7kv4/mark-mccloud-collects...
|
| Mark McCloud has about 30,000 tabs of LSD. He collects them,
| frames them, and catalogues them in his San Francisco home, which
| is why Mark gets periodically arrested by the DEA.
| anarbadalov wrote:
| He's a fascinating character. Erik Davis (author of this piece)
| collaborated with McCloud's Institute of Illegal Images to
| produce his new book on Blotter tabs:
| https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048507/blotter/
|
| (full disclosure: i work for the MIT Press)
| gbjw wrote:
| > Should everyone take acid?
|
| > No, because you have to ask the right question to take it. Do
| you want a one-on-one with your maker?
| int_19h wrote:
| This right there is why pagans get a lot more fun out of it.
| ~
| aredox wrote:
| Funny to see so much admiration for psychedelics from
| universities such as MIT.
|
| Has there ever been any _objective_ -strong emphasis- of the
| efficiency of LSD to improve cognition, creativity or
| consciousness? Because I definitely never see LSD listed in the
| category of "doping" substances. The main advocates are users
| themselves who think they had a revelation - but how much of it
| is self-delusion? I'd hasard it's a lot - if not all there is to
| it.
|
| (I would be fun to imagine a plant of fungus whose evolutionary
| niche would be to seduce animals/humans they need it - leading to
| it being cultivated)
| piva00 wrote:
| Research around substances like LSD, psilocybin, mescaline,
| DMT, and so many others have been absolutely hampered by the
| War on Drugs the USA started. Hard to get _objective_ results
| from something that couldn 't be studied without putting
| researchers' careers to death.
| rabbits77 wrote:
| Ah, yes, the argument which ignores the fact that medical
| research also happens everywhere else in the world. If there
| was any medical value to any of this nonsense it'd already be
| well known in Europe, China, Russia, or India.
| piva00 wrote:
| The Single Convention on Narcotics [0] (heavily influenced
| by US's policies) and the later Convention on Psychotropic
| Substances [1] extended the same bullshit to all
| signatories, so no, no other countries could research
| either.
|
| I'd advise learning some history before berating me with
| bullshit.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narc
| otic_...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Psychotropi
| c_Sub...
|
| Edit: the repercussions of these conventions extend to this
| day even when countries attempt to legalise just cannabis,
| like Germany's case when moving forward with their
| legalisation which infringes on EU law against illicit drug
| trafficking [2], procedure 2001/0114/CNS is a direct side-
| effect of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit
| Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances [3]
| started... By US's policies against drugs in the 60s-70s.
| It's a direct link creating issues to this day by puritan
| American values.
|
| Decades of potential research worldwide blocked because a
| politician in the US needed to get a weapon against
| minorities, fun, huh?
|
| [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/en/ALL/?uri=celex%3A...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention
| _Agai...
| aredox wrote:
| Counterpoint: the Netherlands.
| piva00 wrote:
| The Netherlands has not legalised anything, cannabis is
| tolerated but under its laws it's illegal.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| This argument ignores the fact that medical research into
| the potential benefits of "this nonsense" has been under
| way in the US for over 20 years. Johns Hopkins has a
| dedicated research group in this area [1], and has
| published peer-reviewed research for various applications
| of these drugs.
|
| It's easy to become cynical about psychedelics, because
| there's a ton of bullshit in the space. (And it's probably
| fair to assess that the push of these substances into the
| black market helped create an environment where only
| "hippie-esque" bullshit could thrive). But the results seem
| pretty clear that there's real potential in these drugs to
| alleviate human suffering in many ways.
|
| Does that mean that these drugs unlock magical insights or
| enhance the intelligence of their users? Of course not, and
| no one serious is suggesting that they do. But there's been
| plenty of real research over the past two decades that
| makes dismissing the medical value of psychedelics as
| "nonsense" a fairly silly take.
|
| [1]: https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/
| piva00 wrote:
| > t's easy to become cynical about psychedelics, because
| there's a ton of bullshit in the space.
|
| And the bullshit stems exactly from it being a potential
| career death if someone attempted to research them in
| depth. Without factual and objective analysis the only
| knowledge left is a hodgepodge of anecdotes, except for
| the odd Alexander Shulgin or others more scientifically
| rigorous minded the reports came from users who are not a
| good cohort of people to objectively analyse their
| experiences.
|
| MAPS [0] is one of the few groups who against the odds
| continued to research it, lately they have been advancing
| research on using MDMA for PTSD, psylocibin, etc. If it
| wasn't a huge taboo for decades for serious researches to
| enter the field this type of research would be much more
| advanced today.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidisciplinary_Assoc
| iation_...
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I totally agree, in case that wasn't clear. I was just
| responding to the notion in the parent comment that the
| whole field is nonsense, and that if it weren't nonsense,
| research would have come out of other countries.
|
| (That notion seems suspect on its face, since those other
| countries have similarly strict drug laws, but that's not
| really my point - my point is that there's _plenty_ of
| research in the field as of 2024, and it 's not fair or
| accurate to dismiss it as nonsense).
| aredox wrote:
| Doping substances are also regulated. And yet amphetamine use
| is everywhere competitive pressure is.
|
| Also, I don't see any military adding LSD in the toolkit of
| military leaders. It has been tested as a disabling agent.
| But never found use as an enabling one, neither in the US nor
| in one of its enemies.
| piva00 wrote:
| LSD (and other psychedelics) foster empathy, no military
| needs that in their fighting force, it's counter-productive
| for their goals...
| aredox wrote:
| I do t see it in widespread use in (peace) negotiations
| either, nor by therapists themselves - or any line of
| work where heightened empathy would be beneficial, such
| as acting.
| pvg wrote:
| _objective -strong emphasis-_
|
| Where would this come from, other than self-reporting? Plus the
| claims are typically not about 'efficiency', just that ideas
| people have had under the influence of LSD have inspired, in
| some part, their real subsequent work - from all sorts of art
| to code. There are piles of examples of this.
|
| Don Hopkins a few years ago with a deep dive into Bill
| Atkinson, Hypercard, LSD and lots of other interesting stuff:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783040
| ben_w wrote:
| > Where would this come from, other than self-reporting?
|
| Presumably all the same labs that already test cognition and
| creativity?
|
| (I don't know which of the bajillion different meanings of
| "consciousness" is being used here, but my guess is that that
| it's one of the vaguer ones that nobody is testing).
| failrate wrote:
| Set and setting in a lab experiment is usually not ideal.
| aredox wrote:
| >Where would this come from, other than self-reporting?
|
| From competitive pressure in the creative industry? My work
| isn't good because I think it is. And if LSD did give access
| to a deeper, higher reality, you'd think LSD users would
| produce more impactful work.
| piva00 wrote:
| Not every human experience is supposed to be based on
| performance, the moment you get away with performance as
| the utmost objective you will find some freedom.
|
| LSD and other psychedelics give you insights, ways to see
| things without the noise of your ego always in front of it,
| and those experiences are valuable to oneself, not
| necessarily to be more productive, more creative, etc. Many
| artists used LSD, many other artists are teetotalers, each
| one has their own experiences to draw from to create their
| art, it's the sum of the self experience that creates
| impactful work.
|
| You are looking at this as if life is some sort of
| competitive sport and people are only trying to gain an
| edge by taking mind-altering substances, that's not how
| life works nor a good way to approach those substances. You
| can't min-max life, as much as you try, that's the illusion
| of control living in your mind speaking.
| pvg wrote:
| LSD users have produced all sorts of impactful work? In
| general, mind-altering-substance-to-aid/inspire-creativity
| doesn't feel like some controversial statement that
| requires citations - we've got everything from shamanism,
| through the cliche of the drunk writer to _Kubla Khan: or A
| Vision in a Dream_ , etc, etc. Why would it be different
| for LSD or be dependent on LSD providing "access to a
| deeper, higher reality"?
| rhplus wrote:
| _fun to imagine a plant of fungus whose evolutionary niche
| would be to seduce animals /humans they need it_
|
| There are numerous ongoing studies into the effects of
| psilocybin on terminally ill patients, the idea being that the
| psychedelic effects helps people face death calmly. Every time
| I think about that, I'm always tickled by the idea that perhaps
| these fungi have evolved a way to farm their own food.
|
| https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10106897/
|
| Edit: Michael Pollan's book has a Netflix adaptation that
| addresses palliative mushroom therapy, among other uses:
| https://www.netflix.com/title/80229847
| swayvil wrote:
| A friend of mine had a conversation with "Mr Mushroom" (while
| wandering a field one drizzly evening, tripping).
|
| Sir Mushroom offered that he's a wizard from a thousand
| universes away. He travels everywhere, guiding people by the
| hand, introducing them to the larger world.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _perhaps these fungi have evolved a way to farm their own
| food_
|
| Aren't _H sapiens_ just God 's way of taking billions of
| prokaryotes on a trip to the moon?
| ccppurcell wrote:
| There's good evidence that psychedelics can increase
| neuroplasticity, you can web search those keywords. It would be
| surprising if it didn't at least sometimes help with cognition.
| On the other hand, a colleague who works in the field said to
| me "who says plasticity is good?" I've yet to ask him to
| clarify this; it challenges my assumptions but he is way more
| knowledgeable than I. There are also studies into psychedelics
| and creativity (as in problem solving, rather than painting)
| which again you could look up. The one I'm thinking of in
| particular was before the war on drugs and rather flawed
| methodology. But there have been more recent studies.
| basil-rash wrote:
| There is no guarantee that when you break down and reform
| something, the end result is in any way "better". This is
| especially true for reality.
| highstep wrote:
| that's the thing about resetting to default settings...
| sometimes your custom preferences were useful and they'll
| some time to reconfigure
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the
| path of wisdom." -- Gandalf speaking to Saruman
| enonimal wrote:
| > "Who says plasticity is good"
|
| In Machine Learning, we might think of this idea as "setting
| your Learning Rate too high"
| basil-rash wrote:
| In ML, this will bump you into a nearby optima at random.
| That optima may or may not be better than your prior. And
| if it's worse, there's a good chance it'll be very
| difficult to get back to where you were without external
| checkpoints to revert to.
|
| The brain is the same, but no checkpoints.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I wouldn't say the brain has _no_ checkpoints. Certain
| events (like concussions or stroke) can knock out
| memories or habits and result in roughly what was some
| months or years ago. Also, certain things like
| Dissociative Identity Disorder can result in past
| /younger versions of yourself splitting off and halting
| development for years or more. Then they can come back up
| later.
|
| With that said, I don't think anyone really has control
| over this. I'm a DID system and I have some sort of
| limited control but my time skips are usually on the
| order of days or weeks, not years.
| aredox wrote:
| I am really interested in what your friend meant by "who says
| plasticity is good?". Plasticity seems to me to be seen as a
| quality in psychology, no ifs no buts.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| Some interesting points raised by other comments to this
| post. My best guess is that he meant that you could have a
| traumatic experience afterwards that leaves you worse than
| before. Maybe (just spitballing) whatever mental defences
| you have against trauma are enhanced by not being too
| plastic.
| drooby wrote:
| Curious, have you ever tried a psychedelic?
| aredox wrote:
| Nope. I was an avid reader of PK Dick - and the coda to _A
| Scanner Darkly_ was a clear warning that drugs weren't like
| doping, a trade where your lose your health but gain
| performance above normal, but a lose-lose proposition - a
| _miroir aux alouettes_.
|
| Another artist I am extremely fond of, Moebius (Jean Giraud),
| also had a very bad time after a failed psychedelic
| initiation (but my memory may be wrong, as I can't find it in
| writing on the web - was it in a biographical documentary or
| am I mixing him with someone else?).
|
| Like Jodorowsky, I never felt I needed drugs - even to enjoy
| his work, PKD's work or other usually associated with
| psychedelic use or culture (Aldiss, Lem, Herbert,Zelazny,
| Bester). When I listen to weird electrical like Aphex Twin or
| Bicep and people in the comments talk how they seem to need
| drugs to feel the music kick, I seriously wonder why - I felt
| there was little to gain for a great risk to take (either
| from impurities in the substance, or the substance itself -
| the risk of a bad trip).
|
| In short: I'm abnormal enough? I am clearly more creative
| than baseline (but less disciplined to really exploit it -
| and there isn't a drug with the right profile to make one
| more disciplined yet critical enough to stay on course).
|
| As a sci-fi reader, of course I am very interested in other
| dimensions, breakthroughs, alien thinking and superpowers.
| And LSD and others have that mystique - but seem very
| disappointing in reality, compared to those expectations.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| In short: You found some famous people you like that
| support your position, and overstated the risk of "drugs"
| Klonoar wrote:
| For what it's worth, your entire comment feels like
| something I would write - except I have taken these
| substances at decent levels.
|
| They're novel experiences but I never found myself able to
| really care about it, nor do I think they left a lasting
| impression. Always made me wonder if I was missing
| something that everyone else gets.
|
| (The war on drugs is dumb as hell and I think they should
| be legal in so far as individual freedom is concerned)
| LoganDark wrote:
| Yeah, supply issues like lethal substitutes could
| probably be heavily reduced by making it available at
| drug stores or whatever. If it's legal and regulated then
| you won't have to fear getting NBOMe or something in
| place of real LSD.
| CryptoNoNo wrote:
| LSD showed me that my logical worldview is breakable with just
| a little bit of chemistry.
|
| That revelation is real.
| aredox wrote:
| Have you read _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and
| Other Clinical Tales_? That was what made me realise how
| disconnected sensation can be from reality.
| chefandy wrote:
| Different aspects of cognition may be measurable to a useful
| extent, but the rest isn't that straightforward. Philosophers
| still argue about what consciousness even is at the most
| fundamental level, so quantifying that is not happening.
| Creativity is just as much about the volatile and fickle
| relationships among context, inspiration, stimuli, motivation,
| experience, emotional state at a very granular (likely
| imperceptible) level, etc. as it is about somewhat measurable
| things like abstract reasoning. You'd have to be able to look
| in two different dimensions- one where someone generated
| creative output having used a psychedelic and one generating
| the same creative output not having used it to see anything
| close to an accurate split, and even then, creativity is so
| subjective that it wouldn't prove much. Like many psychoactive
| substances, there are probably complex context-dependent trade-
| offs for the cognition, and when it comes to creative utility,
| they probably don't affect the process like someone would
| expect. Perception is relative; some senses may appear
| heightened (e.g. sense of taste with marijuana use,) when in
| reality, other competing stimuli are slightly muted. While that
| would be very consequential in quantitative cognitive
| measurements, the distinction is probably irrelevant in
| creative processes. If we didn't have an accurate way to
| measure sleep, someone would probably declare white noise
| machines bunk because noise interrupts sleep and they actually
| make your environment noisier.
|
| Of course, through engineering, generative AI will surely save
| us from this burden of terribly ambiguous and inconvenient
| humanity by amalgamating existing humanity and
| extrapolating/interpolating based on a handful of plain text,
| so that's... great?
| aredox wrote:
| Creativity is difficult to measure in the lab, but if taking
| LSD was a game changer, you'd see a majority of creative
| workers taking LSD the same way Adderall & co are massively
| used (there and elsewhere - anywhere where staying more time
| awake and alert allows you to pull ahead).
|
| Yet I don't see it: most LSD usage works the same way as
| absinthe or opium used to be used: as a crutch for creatives
| suffering a dry spell, with the user feeling improvement -
| but the public, critics, "consumers" of the creative product
| not really seeing it.
|
| (Usually the crutch becomes an addiction, or the
| toxicity/impurities in the product take their toll, and you
| end up with a coda like at the end of PK Dick's _A Scanner
| Darkly_)
|
| What I find most specific to LSD though is that it seems to
| have produced a long list of LSD advocates, whose work
| consists only of waxing poetics about how "LSD gives you
| mental superpowers", and... Not much else. No actual
| "general" poetry, no Great Text, no theoretical breakthrough
| in philosophy nor science...)
| chefandy wrote:
| > Creativity is difficult to measure in the lab, but if
| taking LSD was a game changer, you'd see a majority of
| creative workers taking LSD the same way Adderall & co are
| massively used (there and elsewhere - anywhere where
| staying more time awake and alert allows you to pull
| ahead).
|
| Firstly, showing up to work on acid is very different than
| showing up to work on Adderall. The impact on someone's
| ability to function normally is incomparable. Secondly,
| working faster to solve problems is not even close to doing
| things like honing someone's artistic perception in their
| medium, and having the mental material to manifest abstract
| concepts. Many of the benefits people reap from
| hallucinogens are experiential and could influence someone
| decades later, like travel or something they read.
|
| > Yet I don't see it: most LSD usage works the same way as
| absinthe or opium used to be used: as a crutch for
| creatives suffering a dry spell, with the user feeling
| improvement - but the public, critics, "consumers" of the
| creative product not really seeing it.
|
| I am a professional art-school trained artist who almost
| certainly knows many more successful artists than you do:
| you're either making things up to justify your existing
| opinion, or you don't know enough about the topic to
| realize you're making things up. The preponderance of
| dedicated professional artists I know have at least dabbled
| in hallucinogens. Personally, I have not. If you include
| marijuana, even though that's far more like Adderall in its
| usage patterns, that number is nearly 100%. Almost none of
| that drug usage, from what I've seen, is used in direct
| response to needing inspiration. Of course, none of this is
| universal, but to say it's not common or influential
| because you are not aware of many people that are working
| while tripping is utterly ridiculous.
|
| > (Usually the crutch becomes an addiction, or the
| toxicity/impurities in the product take their toll, and you
| end up with a coda like at the end of PK Dick's _A Scanner
| Darkly_)
|
| Ah-- that you're basing at least some of your conclusions
| on _fiction_ certainly fills in some holes.
|
| > What I find most specific to LSD though is that it seems
| to have produced a long list of LSD advocates, whose work
| consists only of waxing poetics about how "LSD gives you
| mental superpowers", and... Not much else. No actual
| "general" poetry, no Great Text, no theoretical
| breakthrough in philosophy nor science...)
|
| You can find bullshit artists peddling damned near anything
| for their own benefit, and hallucinogens are one of the
| worst offenders. That's not an argument against the
| efficacy of _anything._
| sjm wrote:
| LSD was recently granted "breakthrough-therapy status" by the
| FDA after clinical trials show a single dose provides
| "immediate and lasting relief" from generalized anxiety [0]. I
| know you're asking about a slightly different effect, but IMHO
| they are related. I myself have experienced personal
| revelations through psychedelics that have had lasting effects
| and positive consequences in my life.
|
| My gut feeling is that any revelations or breakthroughs people
| have from psychedelics could also eventually occur through
| other means (therapy, meditation, etc.), but not as quick. It's
| like a shortcut to the sort of deep introspection needed to
| unwind the stories we have ingrained into ourselves.
|
| [0]: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/health/lsd-anxiety-fda-
| breakt...
| LoganDark wrote:
| For me LSD is a recreational experience. I don't think it's
| improved my cognition, creativity or consciousness, and don't
| know if it's given me any revelations either. What I do know is
| that taking some every couple weeks makes me happy, and it's
| fun to talk to friends on it, because the way it makes me think
| feels satisfying. It just feels nice.
|
| I think the admiration for it is because it's only recently
| starting to be re-explored by scientists and researchers, and
| psychedelics are generally very interesting substances (at
| least in my opinion). On top of that, the culture and history
| behind them is also quite interesting. The fact that they're
| currently illegal in the US is quite unfortunate.
| heap_perms wrote:
| Microdosing LSD does wonders to my thoughts. I'm not sure if
| one can call it "improved cognition" (what does that even
| mean)
| aredox wrote:
| Great for you, but it is with the self-reporting that I
| have a problem. Is it true or has the drug just altered
| your evaluation of yourself?
|
| If you read Oliver Sacks' _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for
| a Hat and Other Clinical Tales_, you'd see that self-
| perception can be completely off the mark.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I've been wondering about microdosing myself, since for
| some reason LSD helps me do showers and other chores that I
| usually have problems with due to ADHD. I don't know why,
| though.
|
| What microdosing schedule do you use?
| jes5199 wrote:
| people have been trying to measure those effects since the
| 1950s - Oscar Janiger, James Fadiman, were/are some of the big
| name researchers trying to quantify it. but it's remarkably
| hard to measure "creativity".
| aredox wrote:
| I would at least have expected an observational data point -
| doping with LSD, the same way we see widespread doping in
| many professions (including creative ones) with
| amphetamines/Adderall. But no, I mostly see use by creatives
| "stuck in a rut", with a wide gap between what they perceive
| ("LSD helps me getting more creative", "I had a
| breakthrough", or the more extreme "it opened my mind to new
| realities") and objective reality (mediocre work). You don't
| see "the best works of this artist come from his LSD period".
|
| You see another type/style of work (... usually
| "psychedelic"). You dont see groundbreaking stuff in the
| general, universal term, despite all the stuff about "a
| _higher_ plane of existence ", "opening the mind", "being one
| with the universe".
| int_19h wrote:
| Have you considered that, when people reach for LSD while
| "stuck in a rut", their output should really be measured
| _against that baseline_? I mean, going from "I can't do
| anything" to "I can do mediocre work" is a fairly big
| improvement.
|
| That said, in general, I would agree that the long-term
| effects of LSD on one's abilities are not all that
| profound. What it does, mostly, is making you more aware of
| things (or rather connections between things), centered on
| yourself. Whether this actually leads to any improvement
| depends on what one does with this information, but,
| well... how many people drastically change their lifestyle
| after being told by a doctor that they should do so? Same
| applies here.
|
| As far as doing things _during_ a trip, this can go either
| way. LSD takes one 's "pattern matcher" up to 11,
| basically. This means that you can easily spot actual
| patterns that are there that would take you a lot of time
| in a normal state of mind, but it also means that you start
| seeing clear patterns in random noise. Since either
| manifest as intuition, the only reliable way to distinguish
| them is by rigorous methodical testing, which _can_ be
| done, but during the trip it 's basically swimming against
| the current, so generally, people don't. The quality of the
| output then depends on the input (i.e. on whether there was
| an actual pattern to find or not, and on how much random
| noise there was in the environment). It's no wonder, then,
| that this averages out to mediocre.
|
| But I do think that actual quantifiable improvements could
| be achieved with strict adherence to a "trip protocol"
| scientifically developed to optimize for that. Those
| wouldn't be fun trips, though! And, of course, you'd need
| to develop such a protocol first through study, which is
| difficult when it's such a tightly controlled substance.
| aredox wrote:
| Sorry, my writing isn't as good or clear as I wish: my
| beef is with the mystique around LSD opening "the gates
| of reality" - extraordinary,above normal claims. That's
| why getting from a rut to mediocre when you were once
| great is not what I had in mind.
|
| Let's be honest: if people have been talking so much
| about LSD for so long, it is not as an aid to get back to
| mediocre.
| int_19h wrote:
| I think you're overly focusing on one particular subset
| of people talking about LSD. I can assure you that
| "getting back to normal" is a very common motivation for
| many, and they do talk about it. It's just not the kind
| of talk that you see making sensational headlines.
|
| The "gates of reality" stuff is more complicated. Quite a
| few people interpret it in a very... religious sense.
| Like your mind literally "connects" to some other place
| or entities that actually physically exists and can grant
| one powers. I can totally see how people who are
| religious, or already into various esoteric spiritual
| practices, or even just raised in a culture where such
| themes are common, can have that takeaway from a trip -
| what they see is their own consciousness reflected, but
| if they are already primed to believe in such stuff
| literally, it can be very convincing. But, conversely,
| there are many people that are perfectly capable of
| understanding that the ultimate source of all experiences
| on a trip is one's own mind; "opening the gates" then can
| _metaphorically_ mean better awareness of oneself and one
| 's interactions with the world at large, but I can't
| think of any way you'd be able to quantify that
| externally.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I think the closest thing I know about is Harman and
| Fadiman's 1966 study where they gave mescaline to a diverse
| group of professionals to see if it could help them find
| creative solutions to problems they were stuck on at work.
| Apparently it worked! It was meant to be pilot project to
| launch further study, but instead the research was shut
| down due to tightening federal restrictions https://journal
| s.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1966.19.1.2...
| jes5199 wrote:
| I found a video of Fadiman discussing it (in the middle
| of a long rambly talk)
| https://youtu.be/KtL5fafpRKc?t=538&si=ZyxdmUwSWfubn2UE
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| I think the right way to think of it is as an _experience_. It
| doesn't make you smarter or more creative, any more than going
| on a backpacking trip or reading a good book -- it just gives
| you a new way of seeing the world and your place in it
| temporarily. What you do with that experience is going to be
| highly personal.
|
| I know that people can become out-right messianic after an LSD
| trip, but people can be similarly evangelical about travel or
| books or, obviously, religious experiences.
|
| later edit: I actually do think it's more to it than that, for
| two reasons -- one is that while you're on acid, your brain
| tends to make wild connections between things that you wouldn't
| ordinarily do, but I don't think that's good or bad,
| necessarily -- it's like running an LLM on a very high
| temperature, it can be funny and interesting, but it's very hit
| and miss. The second is that I think it triggers a lot of self-
| reflection (to say the least) and can help you recognize and
| break out of negative personal patterns -- but that also tends
| to be what people think of as "bad trips".
| int_19h wrote:
| I would add that it's not necessarily just _self_
| -reflection, but also reflection on other people around you,
| and on the world in general. This kind of stuff can also go
| places that, while more accurate than one's original
| perception, are not necessarily what one might like. And
| unlike negative personal patterns, this might not be
| something you can do anything about (the world stuff in
| particular). I still consider that valuable experience in its
| own right, but then I was never a proponent of "the less you
| know, the more soundly you sleep". Others may have a
| different subjective preference on that.
|
| As far as "messianic" stuff, I think it comes mostly from
| heightened empathy, which appears to be a fairly universal
| thing _during_ a trip (even if it doesn 't necessarily stick
| after).
| aredox wrote:
| Thanks. That sounds far more balanced than what one can
| find in psychedelic literature _a la_ Leary.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > it's like running an LLM on a very high temperature
|
| I can second this, specifically. For me, LSD often triggers
| thoughts that can't be put into words - upon trying, out come
| sentences like this:
|
| "can have a haves and take a three sixteenth quarters. can
| have a what's very much like. can have an um somethings or
| others .... mmm much of somethings or others.... can havings
| a taken umpteenth very good time ...."
|
| Those are real sentences I typed up while on LSD, knowing
| that they were complete gibberish, but it's what came out of
| my brain when I tried to put the thoughts into words. The
| thoughts had some sort of meaning, but not in words, just
| indescribable concepts. Whatever part of my brain translates
| thoughts and concepts into words had never been trained on
| those types of thoughts before, so it came out as gibberish.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > Because I definitely never see LSD listed in the category of
| "doping" substances.
|
| Are illegal substances usually listed there? I'd assume they'd
| only list otherwise legal substances.
| aredox wrote:
| Yes they are - under the blanket "non approved substances.
|
| In the other sections, you'll find morphin, heroin, Cannabis
| derivatives, etc.
|
| https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| He was also a psychedelic jazz musician - his Secret Sauce album
| from 1975 was rereleased recently:
|
| https://ericghost.bandcamp.com/album/secret-sauce
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| This is fantastic, one of my favorite jazz forms. Thanks for
| sharing it!
| cracoucax wrote:
| Wow that's very nice
| kingofthehill98 wrote:
| If you ever get the chance of taking LSD on a good set and
| setting (don't even try otherwise) and your family has no history
| of mental ilness, go ahead and take it. It's gonna be one of the
| most interesting experiences in your life, to say the least.
| There's nothing like a psychedelic experience, I can't even put
| it to words.
| hughw wrote:
| I would bet most people who have used it would wish its use
| were more universal, say by politicians or corporate executives
| -- anyone with power.
| jorvi wrote:
| I feel like LSD is way more visual (basically a fun
| rollercoaster ride) and the actual introspection happens on
| stuff like shrooms.
|
| Obviously when you start taking high doses and reality kind
| of breaks down the distinction becomes moot, but at regular
| doses it does matter.
| criddell wrote:
| The visual aspect makes me wonder if the LSD experience in
| people with aphantasia is substantially different?
|
| I'm 53 now and hope that before I die (which I hope isn't
| anytime soon) there's a safe and legal way for me to try
| LSD.
| basil-rash wrote:
| We phantage, but not to the extent as others.
|
| That said, I must highly recommend not using in attempt
| to "fix" one's aphantasia.
|
| Edit: I recommend to stick to shrooms if you can.
| acidwash wrote:
| > The visual aspect makes me wonder if the LSD experience
| in people with aphantasia is substantially different?
|
| I'd love to tell you, but I don't know how people without
| aphantasia experience LSD. What I do know is that my
| inner experience is only (mostly) blind; it has fully
| developed senses of hearing, touch, smell and taste. I
| get visual distortions, apparently within normal
| parameters. Thus far in the few experiences I've had with
| synesthesia, it's never involved my sense of sight.
| diggan wrote:
| > I feel like LSD is way more visual (basically a fun
| rollercoaster ride) and the actual introspection happens on
| stuff like shrooms.
|
| Funny, I usually have the opposite experience :) LSD for
| deep, not-so-much visual, inwards journeys and mushrooms
| for very visual, laugh-y and social experiences.
| bherms wrote:
| Same... I was wondering if I was the only one. And DMT if
| you really want to question reality.
| LoganDark wrote:
| This could depend on neurotype.
|
| When I'm on LSD, one of my favorite things to do is talk to
| friends over text. It results in me saying stuff that I
| could never say otherwise. Here is something Emily (a
| headmate of mine) once said:
|
| > ....there must always be sadness... because all that is
| good will always end.... and it will never stop being sad
| that it is this way~
|
| For me, thinking like that just does not happen without
| LSD, it was a complete accident but it's so pretty!
| stared wrote:
| I like saying that it is an S4 - set, setting, substance,
| and soul.
|
| And the substance (as long as it is a tryptamine) is less
| important, save for personal preferences. (I have heard a
| lot about LSD for fun and shrooms for insights - for me,
| there is no such distinction; if anything, LSD, even in
| lower doses, produces more profound associations, ones that
| words cannot capture. At higher doses, well, as you said,
| the distinction becomes mood.)
|
| At the same time, the soul (overall personality, mind,
| motivations, desires, approach, will, and goals) is
| crucial.
| int_19h wrote:
| If it's their first time, a regular dose is certainly quite
| sufficient to trigger introspection if people are so
| minded.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I honestly don't wish its use were more universal. I wish it
| were available to me over the counter, so I wouldn't have to
| get it from the dark net and possibly get scammed, but I
| don't think it's a universally good thing. Not everyone would
| benefit from using LSD.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Agreed. It's annoyingly hard to come across though for me, and
| for most people I'd imagine.
| FraterSKM wrote:
| Go to the nearest jam band show/festival near you, you'll
| find some in under 5 minutes
| Integrape wrote:
| Just hang around in the lot, it will find it's way to you.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| A friend of mine noticed his hair had reached a certain
| length when people stopped trying to sell to him and
| started trying to buy from him.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I think the specific type of mental illness to worry about is
| schizophrenia/psychosis. I have DID, but am autistic and have
| never been able to cause psychosis or anything like it, so LSD
| has turned out to be really safe for me so far. I have other
| friends who react much differently, so maybe it has something
| to do with neurotype.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Relative of mine got schizophrenia and bipolar disorder after
| taking psychedelics. No family history before then. Now he has
| to be continually drugged up and is a shell of his former self.
|
| Unless you are trying to treat some other illness it isn't
| worth the risk until we better understand the mechanisms behind
| why psychedelics can trigger mental disorders.
| LoganDark wrote:
| AFAIK psychedelics cause the brain to become more
| interconnected for the duration of their effect, which can
| activate parts that aren't normally active. What we don't
| know is exactly what parts can just be activated in this way
| to trigger schizophrenia (or other disorders), and how to
| detect how much at risk someone may be.
| cosmojg wrote:
| While there is evidence to support some of what you're
| saying, the physical mechanism backing the causal
| relationship between psychedelic use and psychological
| disorders is far more complicated and nowhere near as well
| understood as you seem to believe. Heck, the physical
| mechanism behind nearly all psychological disorders in
| isolation remains poorly understood, let alone their
| interaction with any particular psychedelic.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > the physical mechanism behind nearly all psychological
| disorders in isolation remains poorly understood, let
| alone their interaction with any particular psychedelic.
|
| That's what I'm saying, though. There's no way to know
| how susceptible one is to a particular disorder in
| general, let alone while on psychedelics.
|
| There is evidence of psychedelic use connecting parts of
| the brain that aren't normally connected, AFAIK the white
| matter becomes much more interconnected during a
| psychedelic trip.
| cosmojg wrote:
| > Unless you are trying to treat some other illness it isn't
| worth the risk until we better understand the mechanisms
| behind why psychedelics can trigger mental disorders.
|
| Speak for yourself. Risk tolerance is highly subjective.
|
| It's true that a small percentage of individuals who try
| psychedelics will develop otherwise unexplained mental
| illness. It's also true that a small percentage of
| individuals who try skydiving will break their legs and that
| a small percentage of individuals who try scuba diving will
| drown. However, ultimately, it's up to individuals to decide
| for themselves whether it's worth bearing such risks for the
| sake of experiencing something new and exciting.
|
| Personally, I'd recommend that healthy people try all three
| of those activities. Life's short, after all, and you're more
| likely to get hurt in a car accident on your way there than
| you are to suffer injury from any of those particular
| activities in and of themselves. In every endeavor, it's up
| to you to do your own research and make as rational and
| informed a decision as you can given the available evidence.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I wouldn't necessarily recommend psychedelics to everyone,
| regardless of health. I'd love for it to be made a legal
| option though, for those that do want to try it of their
| own volition.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Legalization also opens crucial gateways to clinical
| research and market regulation. These effects can be
| better communicated and consumers have legal advocacy if
| they are harmed.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Absolutely. One of the big dangers of obtaining LSD right
| now isn't just the effects of LSD itself, it's the risk
| of getting something else like NBOMe that could flat-out
| kill you. A regulated market would allow the purchase of
| real, clean LSD, without the risk of more dangerous
| substitutes.
|
| People have taken less than a few doses of NBOMe and
| died. Meanwhile there are no known deaths by LSD
| overdose, people have taken thousands of doses of LSD and
| lived.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| There is speculation that an elephant suffered a seizure
| and died in 1962 after it was given a "god" dose which is
| kinda fun. The wiki page also suggests they tried to help
| it and accidentally killed it that way. Definitely
| something to consider if your friend Jake goes catatonic
| while staring at Yugioh cards and the EMTs misdiagnose.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusko
| LoganDark wrote:
| I think giving LSD to an elephant (especially 300mg, holy
| crap) is a very very bad idea, animals can't really be
| informed of its effects. You can tell a person what to
| expect and not to panic, but you can't do that with an
| animal. I wonder if that would be animal abuse also.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Do you have statistics to back up the relative safety of
| those activities? Lots of people get in trouble with car
| accidents because lots of people drive cars. But I would
| think that if you both drive and skydive, the latter is far
| more likely to hurt you.
| ernst_klim wrote:
| There is no proven causality between psychedelics and mental
| illnesses. We have so far only hypothesis.
|
| But sure, you're doing something not well researched when you
| take psychedelics, and various people have very different
| experiences with them from getting a revelation to having the
| worst experiences of their lives.
|
| So yeah, there are unknown risks and unknown benefits, thread
| carefully and take that into account.
| zzzzzzzzzz10 wrote:
| 100% worth any risk.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I think most people with type-2 HPPD would disagree. (I had
| type-1 HPPD for a week or two and enjoyed it, but most
| people usually don't.)
| danieldk wrote:
| _It 's gonna be one of the most interesting experiences in your
| life, to say the least._
|
| I am always fascinated by this conundrum. A lot of people say
| it's a life-altering experience, yet it generally doesn't seem
| to make them a worse, better, or even different person (unless
| they have a mental illness ).
| s3krit wrote:
| >yet it generally doesn't seem to make them a worse, better,
| or even different person
|
| I think there's a vague consensus that one must 'integrate'
| the experiences you have on psychedelics in order to
| meaningfully impact your life, if that's your goal. Those
| profound experiences and feelings you can have on
| psychedelics are certainly incredible and moving in their own
| right, but in order to make that have an effect on who you
| are (increased empathy and better framing of life events are
| often mentioned), you the taker of those drugs has to put
| some work in to learn from it. It always bothers me when I'll
| see statements like 'this drug changed my life', _especially_
| when talking about psychedelics. The drug didn 't do it
| alone.
|
| This is also seen in the early work using MDMA by
| psychiatrists - the drug itself was just one part of the
| treatment.
| spoiler wrote:
| > It always bothers me when I'll see statements like 'this
| drug changed my life', especially when talking about
| psychedelics. The drug didn't do it alone.
|
| Yeah, I never liked that phrasing either. It makes
| psychedelics seem like some magical mental health panacea.
|
| Often people who seek out these drugs are already taking
| the first steps to change their life (this can mean many
| things, even if "only"[1] changing their outlook) before
| ever taking the drug. They changed their life on their own,
| the drug was just a means to an end.
|
| [1] I put only in quotes, because anyone who's struggled
| with any mental health issues knows this can be a
| gargantuan hurdle
| zer00eyz wrote:
| >> life-altering experience ... doesn't seem to make them a
| worse, better, or even different person
|
| The best insight you will get, without taking the trip
| yourself is going to come from reading Huxley's "Doors of
| Perception". A large enough dose will give you all sorts of
| interesting insights into your own thinking.
|
| The closest your going to come to this, is the first time you
| watch the film "The Game", assuming you pay close enough
| attention and are tuned into it as a film and the characters
| in it. However it pales in comparison to the real thing.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Reminder. Psychedelics can also lead to extremely traumatic
| experiences:
|
| https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=23788
|
| This doesn't get mentioned in the current "psychedelics as a
| cure-all" hype wave.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Aren't people always talking about set and setting, after-trip
| integration, not taking them if there is a history of mental
| illness, not being on SSRIs, etc? If anyone at any time is
| telling people that something doesn't come with some sort of
| risk, they're either lying or ignorant. Especially true when it
| comes with the mind.
|
| Also, reading this linked person's comment, they were on DMT
| and it sounds like they have some strong ideas about how the
| universe works (they mention having been to "heaven" before and
| keep mentioning hell and evil and devils as if they are real).
| Yes, people should be careful, especially when they have issues
| with mental health.
| LoganDark wrote:
| DMT is related to LSD (they're both tryptamines). I think DMT
| made them hallucinate those things which is why they talk "as
| if they are real" - that's something they felt like they
| genuinely experienced, which is what made it so traumatic.
|
| As for the heaven thing, I do not know if they were
| particularly susceptible to delusions before ever taking
| anything, but if they were, then it was probably not the
| right choice, yeah.
|
| It's hard to be self-aware about delusions if you don't know
| they're delusions. It's definitely possible though:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU8VmJsX6-s
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Oh for sure, I'm well aware of what DMT is like and I know
| it's very easy to get confused by things that come up
| during those trips since they are so vivid, which is why
| integration is important. He also took 60mg, which is on
| the high end of a strong dose afaik.
|
| I've wondered if it would be useful to approach
| psychedelics similar to the way that meditation is taught
| in vajrayana lineages, where you have to do preliminary
| mind trainings before you start advancing to other
| practices. If you encounter "hell" in a bad trip, like the
| person in the post, but have no way to understand it, it's
| easy to believe in it literally.
|
| I just watched a few minutes of that video you linked and
| I'll definitely watch it later, he seems very lucid about
| his delusions, thanks!
| striking wrote:
| That's not been my experience, warnings about set and setting
| and being in the right headspace are pretty typical. It might
| not be mentioned in popsci articles but they're not expecting
| you to go out and actually take any.
| randcomment449 wrote:
| The second time I took LSD, I had visions of rending flesh,
| falling endlessly into a vortex of gore. That was the mandala
| that time. This was mixed with dreamscape fantasies of conquest
| and rape on grandiose scale, a Roman emperor, slicing down
| hordes, restructuring time in a slash of blood, a ball of
| divine destruction held in potential, ready to be unleashed at
| any time. It was sexually arousing.
|
| Some might rationalize this, as getting a better grip on one's
| Jungian shadow. I sometimes view the experience that way, but
| sometimes I wonder if it slightly loosened some important
| retaining bolt. I'm pretty sure negative vibes can come out of
| the Pandora's psychedelic box, too. Also, this variability in
| effect hinders using it therapeutically. It's hard to "guide" a
| trip, and no one really trips in the same way twice.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Was that a heroic dose? I've had some strong visuals, but
| I've never been blasted into full blown hallucinations on
| LSD.
| spoiler wrote:
| Not op, but I've done heroic doses a few times (and lesser
| ones too).
|
| You don't need a heroic dose for ego death (but it probably
| helps). You could be listening to music in a dark room or
| with closed eyes, on a medium-high dose and you suddenly
| start disassociating.
|
| Also, you don't normally hallucinate in the same way media
| portrays it (there are drugs that make you hallucinate
| though) AFAIK (none of my friends or I hallucinated on
| psilocybin/LSD; I wouldn't call DMT hallucinations either).
| Ego death trips are more conceptual than purely visual, but
| there's a strong visual aspect to it too.
| robbiep wrote:
| I had had 15-20 'normal' trips and then one (probs around
| 250mcg, but during Covid when I was totally spent and my
| 'intention' was to let go and wash away the stresses)
| where I was just 'not there'. I had some pretty
| intense/scary visuals/thoughts, but what was terrifying
| to my partner and friend there was I was bumping into
| walls and just muttering. I had a new respect for why
| they call it chemically induced schizophrenia, I was just
| not home for 2 hours. Afterwards it wasn't the worst
| thing in the world, but I had a massive newfound respect
| and have been very cautious with tbe dose (and
| intention!) the few times subsequently
| LoganDark wrote:
| Are heroic doses supposed to do something special? LSD
| always feels the same to me, whether it's 100ug or 500ug.
| Higher doses just last longer, but aren't any more
| intense.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| If you're taking 500ug and it just seems longer, I would
| question if you're actually taking acid or the dosage.
| That's like 5ish+ hits my dude. Yes, it should be much
| more intense (and longer). However, you do need to take
| it all at once. If you wait a couple hours and re-dose,
| it does just make it last longer.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I'm certain it's LSD25 because if it were anything else
| (like NBOMe) I would have died by overdose by now. I'm
| aware the typical dose is 100mg. I've taken up to 600mg
| before (yes all at once), and it'll keep me wide awake
| for 24 hours straight but the actual trip itself won't be
| that much more intense.
|
| I'm autistic and have ADHD so it might affect me
| differently than the typical person. I don't necessarily
| like it that way (I would love one of the super-intense
| experiences that people tend to get really excited over)
| but so far I haven't been able to cause a particularly
| strong effect. Very curious why I'm either more resistant
| to it or more tolerant of it to the point of being
| underwhelmed.
|
| Don't get me wrong, it's still a very nice experience
| that I like to partake in every couple weeks. The first
| time I did LSD (100mg) I got HPPD for about a week,
| sometimes I wish it never went away. Being sober is so
| boring!
| temp0826 wrote:
| That's interesting (that you felt the disturbing images as
| arousing). I work at an ayahuasca center that works in a
| traditional lineage. One thing that often needs to be
| energetically cleaned from people is something we refer to as
| "lobo" ("wolf" in Spanish), or neino (Shipibo for river
| otter), both considered to be somewhat voracious animals.
| This is the spirit of unhealthy desires, often sexual in
| nature. It manifests in a variety of ways, often images of
| sea creatures. When it is most intense it appears as very
| bloody and gratuitous violence, bloody animal teeth etc.
| datadeft wrote:
| Like driving a car or taking a flight can lead to death. Sure,
| what are the chances?
| Nesco wrote:
| Could be very large, even close to 1, depending on how you
| react to it
| willy_k wrote:
| Sure? It could be bad for you if it's bad for you, but the
| factors and reactions are pretty varied. Taking
| psychedelics is kind of like driving up a mountain - if
| it's storming (anxiety etc.) and/or your lights are out
| (preconceptions, psychosis), you're more likely to end up
| in a bad state, but there's still the chance of making it
| to a scenic view, and the people who do get a pretty
| significant (learning) experience out of it.
| Nesco wrote:
| I cannot upvote this enough. Having a bad trip is plainly one
| of the most horrible experiences of my life
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| I agree with this but I found it to be an extremely valuable
| experience all the same.
| krylon wrote:
| Psychedelicatessen is an awesome name for a headshop. :-)
| ribs wrote:
| Agreed. Inspired by your comment, I did a Google map search,
| and there appear to be no places currently sporting that name,
| though there was a bagel shop in Troy NY with it, closed down
| in 2019.
|
| So, you know, there is a vacuum waiting to be filled. Could be
| filled by a head shop, could be by anything...
| pastrami_panda wrote:
| > could be by anything...
|
| A JS framework is probably nabbing it as we speak
| accrual wrote:
| "Just call the dropTab() function and watch as your webpage
| transforms into a brilliant galaxy of colors and sounds!"
| int_19h wrote:
| These days, cool kids are into LLMs.
|
| https://github.com/EGjoni/DRUGS
| forthisonepost wrote:
| And it was a fantastic bagel shop, at that! The community was
| very sad when it closed doors.
|
| You'd think there'd be many more with a great name like that.
| krylon wrote:
| It's funny to me that there are two cities in New York named
| Troy and Ithaca.
| smolder wrote:
| I have always enjoyed all the little towns named
| identically to other places. Maine, New York; London,
| Ontario; Mexico, Maine. There are a lot of others.
|
| "Where are you from?" "We came from London." "Oh, all the
| way from the UK? You don't seem to have an accent at all!"
| "No, it's about 30 miles from here."
| krylon wrote:
| In Germany, we have cities with identical names, too
| (Frankfurt, Halle, most likely others I am unaware of).
| But being a much smaller country, it doesn't lead to much
| confusion.
| scns wrote:
| Bagdad, Arizona;
| temp0826 wrote:
| There's an xkcd for that!
|
| https://xkcd.com/2480/
| zer00eyz wrote:
| >> could be by anything...
|
| Bongs and Bagels?
|
| I think I know what my YC pitch is.... A side line delivering
| weed AND snacks
| samstave wrote:
| It also maps beautifully with many available TLDs:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/pP1TjeI.png
|
| Not sure which I like best, .love, .info, .net, .pro or .me :-)
| gamepsys wrote:
| That's pretty neat packaging, but it is unclear if the text about
| LSD would be visible from the outside. I imagine it would have to
| be completely invisible to be considered any sort of stealth.
| It's neat that the 5x20 design implies that it was rectangular,
| probably designed to mirror the size and shape of film. Each
| package shipped with 1,000,000 micrograms.
|
| Finally, it's pretty incredible that something like this
| survived. Most people follow a "dispose of the evidence" protocol
| when it comes illicit drug packaging.
| billyt555 wrote:
| I think it was inside based on this excerpt: "Opening Ghost's
| package, purchasers would discover a handy information sheet
| that today gives us a sense of how some underground purveyors
| understood and promoted their wares."
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > Each package shipped with 1,000,000 micrograms
|
| Woah there buddy. 100 droplets at 1,000 mg each = 100,000 mg.
|
| I was a little surprised to learn that they didn't just dilute
| it a bit more and soak the entire sheet.
| klyrs wrote:
| > It has been cited as a specific cure for frigidity, impotence
| and homosexuality
|
| Startup concept: a conversion camp where you take religious
| peoples' money and host LSD retreats for queer kids
| diggan wrote:
| Might have the reverse effect, I'd consider psychedelics (LSD
| specifically) one of the reason I no longer suffer from
| homophobia.
| klyrs wrote:
| So you're saying that at the end of camp, we should require
| the parents to partake in a final session?
| spoiler wrote:
| You might be aware already, but your post reminds me of an
| old running gag on forums that "LSD turning homies into
| homos" because of a rumor LSD can make people gay.
|
| Aside: I'm sure psychedelics helped many people come to terms
| with their speciality, or the altered headspace helped them
| come out to friends
| spoiler wrote:
| I know you're only joking, but I wish a "haven" like that
| existed when I was a closeted, confused queer highschooler!
|
| If someone wants to make this a thing (and it's legally
| viable), where do I send my CV?!
| klyrs wrote:
| Well, let me stop you right there. What I described is
| outright fraud (and, yes, a joke). That's illegal
| approximately everywhere, not even considering the whole part
| where I suggested giving schedule 1 drugs to minors. If you
| want to pursue business in this sector, be sure that you
| don't associate your real name with this comment thread.
| spoiler wrote:
| I was also joking about the business endeavour. Sorry I
| didn't make it more obvious lol
| klyrs wrote:
| Poe's law strikes again!
| everythingbagel wrote:
| Wow, is this what the Paul Simon song called Kodachrome is
| actually about? (Please don't make fun of me if this was already
| a known thing.)
| pvg wrote:
| That's a great folkexplanation but the wikipedia page makes it
| sound unlikely:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome_(song)#Development
| pohl wrote:
| That song is the first thing that went through my mind, too.
| It's an interesting re-framing of the song, even if there's
| nothing to it.
|
| There's nothing in the Wikipedia entry that contradicts the
| possibility, though. Both could be true, with illicit details
| elided from the official telling.
|
| Still I'm choosing to believe in innocent origins.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Great article, makes me want to finally read the author's
| Techgnosis book which has been on my shelf forever.
| solomonb wrote:
| Erik Davis is awesome. I took a class taught by him in the
| early 2000s. It was inspiring.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| TechGnosis took three tries, but in the end it was worth it
| IMO.
| tivert wrote:
| > Opening Ghost's package, purchasers would discover a handy
| information sheet that today gives us a sense of how some
| underground purveyors understood and promoted their wares. Rather
| than hippie mysticism or revolutionary cant, Ghost's text
| presents LSD as a scientific product of a modern research lab run
| by a pharmaceutical corporation.
|
| Without more information, that conclusion seems to be going too
| far.
|
| The package is a parody of a commercial product, and it would be
| totally unsurprising to me that the _parody extended to the
| attitude of the text_. Kodak almost certainly presented its
| contemporary film as "a scientific product of a modern research
| lab" in a similar way.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Albert Hoffman _was_ working for Sandoz:
| https://houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/history/swiss-be...
| tivert wrote:
| Oh, I know. I'm just saying that fact doesn't have any
| particular bearing on "how some underground purveyors
| understood and promoted their wares," and you cannot really
| unpack the non-parody aspects of a parody with only access to
| the parody itself.
| swayvil wrote:
| LSD doesn't show up on piss test.
|
| It's somewhat unique in that.
|
| Something to keep in mind.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| More like it's just not tested for, I don't think a urine test
| exists for LSD.
| swayvil wrote:
| It is active in extremely tiny doses. Micrograms. That's why.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Right but that may not preclude testing via auxiliary
| indicators. It could prompt other changes that you could
| test for, but, you're right, I'm assuming that's just not
| possible.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| People with light iris colours may not wish to rely on that.
| swayvil wrote:
| Why?
| whatindaheck wrote:
| Dilates your pupils to the size of dimes. Much more than
| the eye drops at the optometrist do.
| LoganDark wrote:
| It shows up in blood tests for about 24 hours though, IIRC. But
| you'd have to be testing for LSD specifically.
| mannyv wrote:
| In general, LSD is something that I wouldn't recommend to just
| anyone because the outcome of a trip depends on your mental
| strength. You can definitely rewire your brain, which can be a
| good or bad thing depending.
|
| There are plenty of tips online, but two that have stuck with me
| are:
|
| * remember that it will end
|
| * have something with you that you've had for a long time,
| because it'll be an anchor.
|
| Neither of those thoughts/things may matter until they do.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The Reed College (IIRC) student handbook had some good advice,
| including something along the lines of:
|
| * remember that you will be extremely tempted to answer complex
| questions like What Is Love? and Who Is God?
|
| * when you are actually unable to answer simple questions like
| What Is Toothpaste? and Where Is My Left Foot?
| LoganDark wrote:
| Man, I wish I could find something that made me unable to
| answer those questions. That sounds fun. I dissociate a lot
| even without drugs, but have never quite gotten that far.
| tosser0001 wrote:
| If I never saw another psychedelic-related link on Hacker News
| again it would be too soon (just my opinion)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| It beats AI/Musk/Passive Income!/etc. (my opinion)
| willy_k wrote:
| To each their own, but it's a fascinating topic that has
| considerable implications for religion, culture, history, art,
| science, and health. Worth reading about IMO
| samstave wrote:
| Never forget the articles about the impact of LSD on early
| Cisco/Networking...
|
| See previous thread here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38970587
|
| (and the menlo park studies... LSD is intrinsically linked to the
| development of silicon valley)
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