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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

#51

Post by duaneb »

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 suspect LSD and meditation might approach the same thing from different angles. LSD itself can force you to deal with thoughts in your brain you can normally filter or suppress—potentially similar to how meditation can reveal unconscious biases, fears, desires, etc.

I don't think that meditation is CONTRARY to drugs.

Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. LSD is far more substantial: if you're laughing, you're laughing for a reason. If you're happy, something is making you happy. If you're scared, it's because of something already in your brain (or I guess some immediate danger like normal).

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#52

Post by fernly »

throwaway163 wrote: post #32
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…

I had a similar experience. Except it was caused by marijuana. It sounds like a classic case of Depersonalization disorder, which is a subset/interconnected with anxiety. Google it. The consensus is that it can be triggered by substances in approx 3% of the population. Weed, mushrooms, ectstacy and LSD are the most common culprits. It's extremely common, though it has very little mindshare among mental health profess…

Nasty sounding condition. Here's a link[1] and a summary,

> ...a mental disorder in which the people have persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization and/or derealization... Depersonalization is described as feeling disconnected or estranged from one's body, thoughts, or emotions. Individuals experiencing depersonalization may report feeling as if they are in a dream or are watching themselves in a movie... derealization is described as detachment from one's surroundings. Individuals experiencing derealization may report perceiving the world around them as foggy, dreamlike/surreal, or visually distorted... the inner turmoil created by the disorder can result in depression, self-harm, low self-esteem, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, phobias, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#53

Post by duaneb »

nosuchthing wrote: post #25
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…

*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? h…

While ecstasy might often label other drugs, people refer to MDMA when they look for it.

Also, Dance Safe (which you linked to) can assure you of drug quality. There are also other signs, e.g. ensuring it tastes very, very bitter and smells like licorice.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#54

Post by superswordfish »

colordrops wrote: post #33
superswordfish wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 reali…

> So, what was the answer? The poster you replied to specifically said he had no way of finding words to explain his experience. This is common with LSD trips and other such experiences. The very first line in the Tao Te Ching is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Some things are ineffable. For instance, it's not possible to explain the experience of the color red to a blind person. You can explain…

> This is common with LSD trips and other such experiences.

What other experiences?

> The very first line in the Tao Te Ching is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Some things are ineffable.

So you're saying the parent commenter was made aware of the Tao? Or that it was a religious experience? I don't follow.

> For instance, it's not possible to explain the experience of the color red to a blind person.

That's bogus. You're likening abstinence from LSD to a disability.

> Unless your brain has time travel capabilities, your experience of the past is just replaying memories and the future is just simulations of potential paths.

I didn't say anything about time travel. My point was it's a bit concerning that somebody would refer to their past and future as "trivial and not important." You mentioned using knowledge of the past to plan the future. That suggests you agree that the past and future are connected and important.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#55

Post by rosser »

superswordfish wrote: post #54
colordrops wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, what was the answer? The poster you replied to specifically said he had no way of finding words to explain his experience. This is common with LSD trips and other such experiences. The very first line in the Tao Te Ching is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Some things are ineffable. For instance, it's not possible to explain the experience of the color red to a blind person. You can explain…

> This is common with LSD trips and other such experiences. What other experiences? > The very first line in the Tao Te Ching is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Some things are ineffable. So you're saying the parent commenter was made aware of the Tao? Or that it was a religious experience? I don't follow. > For instance, it's not possible to explain the experience of the color red to a blind per…

> So you're saying the parent commenter was made aware of the Tao?

No, he's saying, "Some things are ineffable." — in exactly so many words.

There are experiences we can have that simply can not be articulated in something as clumsy and imprecise as language. The same word can mean subtly different things to the parties of a single conversation, and this kind of thing is pretty much all subtlety.

The experiences you can have working with psychedelics are among the most, "You really had to be there," things possible, for values of "there" that generally taken to mean, "inside the same skull".

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#56

Post by dzhiurgis »

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…

> I saw snail on the road, everything was blurry around him, but he was visible, so sharp, i could feel him as part of me, connected, in this journey called life.

This happened to me on psilocybin. I could just see snails everywhere in the grass. While nature usually feels somewhat alive, didn't feel any special connection with snails though. Just seemed odd that I could notice them so easily, from fairly far distance. Must be the vortex shape of their shell.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#57

Post by superswordfish »

rosser wrote: post #55
superswordfish wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is common with LSD trips and other such experiences. What other experiences? > The very first line in the Tao Te Ching is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Some things are ineffable. So you're saying the parent commenter was made aware of the Tao? Or that it was a religious experience? I don't follow. > For instance, it's not possible to explain the experience of the color red to a blind per…

> So you're saying the parent commenter was made aware of the Tao? No, he's saying, "Some things are ineffable." — in exactly so many words. There are experiences we can have that simply can not be articulated in something as clumsy and imprecise as language. The same word can mean subtly different things to the parties of a single conversation, and this kind of thing is pretty much all subtlety. The experiences you…

But we're humans and our foremost means of communication is language. Who cares if it's clumsy and imprecise? Try us, it's the best we've got. Saying it's ineffable is lazy. Unless you're talking about the centerpiece of your religion, I suppose, so I thought parent was suggesting that this person had stumbled upon the Tao.

Edit: My comments are getting hammered into oblivion, forbid somebody should try to hold something up to the light and expect an answer other than "you have to use psychedelics to get it." Maybe it's bad to care about objectivity when in the company of psychonauts? Sorry, but I have a hard time distinguishing what I read here from a host of other woo, and I'm left with questions, not answers. My questions are not meant to be dismissive in any way, but they are deliberately prying.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#58

Post by sonoffett »

rosser wrote: post #26
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 witne…

Beautiful, thank you for sharing your experience.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#59

Post by billmalarky »

deciplex wrote: post #34
superswordfish wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 reali…

> So, what was the answer? There isn't one, of course. Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. For many, that's enough to (begin to) resolve depression and anxiety, but obviously no drug is going to reveal the "true" nature of reality to you or something ridiculous like that.

>Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have.

I'm not sure altered perception is by definition "false" or "untrue." It's hard to be objective about experiences that by their nature are outside our objective reality.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#60

Post by omarchowdhury »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #41
atom-morgan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I never thought of doing that.

It's my favorite thing to do. Also helps that in a museum no one will judge you for staring at the wall for an eternity.

The non trippers don't see those moments as eternity.
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