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Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

nature.com

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Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#21

Post by ChristianBundy »

lsd_throwaway wrote: post #16
lossolo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD…

For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw the…

I'm sure that any medical professional you saw has already told you this, but the symptoms you experienced are normal, and referred to as "hallucinogen persisting perception disorder", and I had a very similar experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_percep...

The symptoms will go away, and you'll feel better. Promise. 150 mcg of LSD is, in my opinion, more than I'd recommend someone taking for their first time. Microdosing (around 10% of your dose) and slowly increasing the dose is a much safer way of going about it, and I'd recommend doing it gradually if you ever feel like trying psychedelics again in the future.

For now, the best thing you can do is to stay busy and try not to focus on it. LSD can give you a very raw view of reality without the candy-coating of normal consciousness, and it can be a very jarring experience.

If you ever need to talk, feel free to reach out to me personally, or join the IRC chat at tripsit.me:

https://chat.tripsit.me/

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#22

Post by cabbeer »

lsd_throwaway wrote: post #16
lossolo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD…

For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw the…

It sounds like you went through existential depression, Glad to hear you're doing better now.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#23

Post by sixQuarks »

nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

If you have the right sort of brain for it, ecstasy will give you the best feeling you will ever experience. It is so beyond what you would have imagined possible. For me, the come down is not hard at all, it's pretty enjoyable actually.

LSD can also give you small glimpses of ecstasy here and there, but overall it's way different. It basically allows you to experience a different consciousness. LSD is often life-changing, because it really shows you that reality is not what you thought it was. It kind of gives you a glimpse of a reality that is richer and more "real" than what you're used to. There's really no way to explain it, honestly.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#24

Post by sixQuarks »

nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

If you have the right sort of brain for it, ecstasy will give you the best feeling you will ever experience. It is so beyond what you would have imagined possible. For me, the come down is not hard at all, it's pretty enjoyable actually.

LSD can also give you small glimpses of ecstasy here and there, but overall it's way different. It basically allows you to experience a different consciousness. LSD is often life-changing, because it really shows you that reality is not what you thought it was. It kind of gives you a glimpse of a reality that is richer and more "real" than what you're used to. There's really no way to explain it, honestly.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#25

Post by nosuchthing »

lossolo wrote: post #9
nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD…

*Ecstasy is an undefined product.. it's easy to critique the black market, but even products on Amazon or ebay are known to be counterfeits.

It could be caffeine, meth, research chemicals, MDA, MDMA, bath salts... who knows? Who can verify these things?

One can only hope even a claim of 'pure' MDMA is what someone says it is. The same issue applies to LSD. How can you be certain it's not DOB or a research chemical?

http://pillreports.net/

http://www.ecstasydata.org/

https://dancesafe.org/drug-checking/

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#26

Post by rosser »

nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

> The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction?

I have over the past seven years taken ayahuasca more times than anyone who isn't studying to become a shaman probably reasonably should. (Still debating the apprenticeship, but leaning strongly towards yes.) Doing so — and, more specifically, the changes I have witnessed and implemented consequent to those experiences — has, without question or hesitation, improved pretty much every aspect of my life. I'm smarter, I'm happier, I'm calmer, and I have a better and more diverse community of friends; I've shed bad habits, delusions, maladaptive behaviors, and people who brought — and kept — me down.

Many regard it as form of "cheating" your way towards enlightenment — as if that's even a thing. I think that's a misinformed and prejudiced attitude; and, yet, if you look at it in a non-judgemental light, it's also a little bit true. Psychedelics, taken intentionally, can be powerfully positively transformative, and they can get you there in an eyeblink.

Literally, I've had years-, even decades-old behavior patterns that were limiting me that evaporated instantly, never to return, after ceremonial experiences that showed me what was behind those patterns, why I kept engaging in them, and how that was holding me back. Others have taken a bit more chipping away at, but the end result is the same: a way of engaging with the world that wasn't conducive to success or happiness or whatever is recognized, and changed, and the experience you have of life, particularly in places where those patterns would previously have been expressed, is forever changed, for the better.

There are risks, and they most definitely aren't for everyone, but for those for whom they are indicated, and who are willing to engage with the experience as a transformative one, and not merely one of, "Ooh, pretty colors!" the only things that limit how far you can go are yourself, and the laws of physics — and I'm starting, sometimes, to question the latter (or, rather, some of the assumptions behind them) a bit...

EDITs: there were many.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#27

Post by wutf »

nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

@nefitty, you posit that the diminishment of the self is a "permanent positive change." But you didn't provide any evidence. The reductio of your argument is that it's better to just be matter, since no self is involved. Few will agree with you.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#28

Post by superswordfish »

lossolo wrote: post #9
nefitty wrote: post #4

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I hear…

I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD…

> Everything was so obvious, answer for question "why?" was known, even if i couldn't say it out loud, i could feel that answer for this question was somewhere in my mind, but i just couldn't access it. Feeling that it's there made everything clear, i felt peace.

So, what was the answer?

> Everything that i did in life before and what i would in future seemed such trivial and not important. That connection with reality, understanding different forms of it, changed me. I feel like LSD can give you answers, answers for questions that you would not find without it.

Reality includes the past and the future though. This just sounds myopic.

I apologize for not immediately grasping your experience, I've not experimented with LSD.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#29

Post by superswordfish »

kough wrote: post #17
lsd_throwaway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw the…

Sorry to hear about that :( The first time I took LSD (not hallucinogens in general, but LSD) went sort of similarly for me. Of course a life provides many confounding factors, but I ended up depressed and anxious for about three or four months afterwards. Took me a while to work my way out of it. I still think it was a worthwhile experience, but my symptoms weren't as bad as yours sound. I hope you're making a good…

> I ended up depressed and anxious for about three or four months afterwards

Holy shit, that sounds awful.

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