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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

#161

Post by wutf »

rosser wrote: post #50
wutf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reductio does not suggest that an argument is false. It is instead a tool that is useful for contrast enhancement. The real meat of the point I made is that there cannot be evidence for the OP's claim. It's just an opinion founded in OP's spiritual preference, which is apparently to not exist as such.

> which is apparently to not exist as such. You're once again mischaracterizing the actual claim, and in a way that suggests you not only disagree with it, but feel a need to mock it. Please don't do that.

Just because you don't like the point doesn't mean I am mocking anyone - it's a legitimate point. What do you think the dissolvement of the self entails? No Self! You literally cease to feel like you exist independently of the rest of reality. You may be new to this kind of thinking, but some of us have explored this thought space fairly exhaustively. And it's not your role to come onto HackerNews, declare people as mocking others, and to ask them in a parental tone to not do that. If anyone does that, it's dang (which I still don't appreciate, but hey, it's his job, at least. It's not your job).

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#162

Post by wutf »

nefitty wrote: post #76
wutf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@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.

Well, problems with the default mode network seem to be linked to depression, Alzheimer's, attentional disorders, anxiety, and on and on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network#Pathophys... My comment was meant about the positive effect that meditation has on DMN function through structural changes. My contention is that these changes are likely more permanent and longer lasting than the behavioral change…

I agree and I suspect that by breaking up the default network psychedelics give us the opportunity to settle into a new, healthier attractor / mindset. They are also pretty dangerous - not everyone comes back and they lose themselves.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#163

Post by billmalarky »

AstralStorm wrote: post #92
billmalarky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

They are inside objective reality (in that they can be studied scientifically) but are most likely internally generated. This makes them true in the sense that e.g. dreams are true experiences.

I guess what I was getting at is that maybe dreams or trips can be defined as truthy experiences so far as the fact that our brains are experiencing them, even if they aren't objectively "true" in what we define as the "real world." Experiencing "meaning" from music for example isn't necessarily objective, but it still feels a bit like "knowledge" to me.

For what it's worth I've never used hard psychedelics, and I haven't studied classic epistemology since college so my viewpoint comes a bit from a point of ignorance but I wanted to provide a different perspective for discussion.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#164

Post by johnthedebs »

Mahn wrote: post #147

I spent an hour reading this thread and I still have no idea whether I should try it or not. I always leave confused when I read about LSD, as if it's both amazing and horrible.

As someone that's done it (a dozen or so times), I always read these threads and feel confused about whether I should recommend it to other people. I usually do recommend it, though, with plenty of caveats.

It can be an incredible experience if only for the shift in perception that it causes. It makes you see that the way your mind operates day-to-day (through highs, lows, and in-betweens) does not even come close to the range of experience that's possible.

It can be euphoric, and it can be scary, and depending on your predispositions it can probably improve your life significantly (given that you integrate insights from your experience into "normal" life), or really mess with your head (esp. if you have latent schizophrenia or similar - I'm admittedly pretty ignorant about this so obviously do your own research).

Anyway, my recommendation to people using it for the first time is to start with a low dose (you often won't even realize it's having any effect until after the trip is over – I didn't believe it my first time), make sure you are in a safe place where you can be left alone to relax if you need to, and ideally make sure to have someone with experience & that you trust to spend time with you and guide the trip.

Also, here's some recommended listening: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/03/21/james-fadiman/

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#165

Post by tremon »

martin1975 wrote: post #70
lsd_throwaway wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fairly introspective person and I wouldn't say that it shook my world view - in the sense that I went in with a scientific world view and came out with one. I do have a better empathetic appreciation for mental illness and psychosis though (read And Then I Thought I was a Fish if you want to scare yourself). A trip makes you realize how incredible differently someone else's mind can perceive the world. The chal…

Religion is what the unconverted soul does in order to do right by God. To "make it to heaven", so to speak, by doing good things and avoiding doing bad or downright ugly things. All attempts at pleasing God - i.e. religion - are doomed because you inevitably will fail to meet the standard, because it is an impossible one - i.e. don't lust for women in your heart. Just as I wrote that...probably a thought or an image…

don't lust for women in your heart. Just as I wrote that...probably a thought or an image flew. Too late, you just sinned.

Nope. A fleeting image or thought is lust in your mind, not in your heart.

Incidentally....

Religion is what the unconverted soul does in order to do right by God

Enlightenment is achieved by realizing one does not need God to do right.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#166

Post by collyw »

AstralStorm wrote: post #92
billmalarky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

They are inside objective reality (in that they can be studied scientifically) but are most likely internally generated. This makes them true in the sense that e.g. dreams are true experiences.

There isn't as far as I am aware any evidence that indicates that experiences are internally generated or "likely internally generated".

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#167

Post by throwaway102942 »

ethanbond wrote: post #112
throwaway102942 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried marijuana and my experience with it was a lot more like what my friends and you describe LSD or similar drugs to be like. Before marijuana I already had mild hallucinations and I was diagnosed with schizophrenia from a mild psychosis. It's definitely made my existing hallucinations much stronger even years after smoking. For me the general feel of the trip was as if some sort of filter had been removed so you…

I'm immediately skeptical of people who claim to have felt "similar" effects to LSD without LSD, but that's a pretty interesting scenario involving weed (how much?!) and schizophrenia. No clue how close you could get to emulating it, but it sounds like at least a few of the common effects of an acid trip.

Just one big drag with some tobacco. (i don't smoke so maybe nicotine also has a say) although I've had plain as well and I remember it being somewhat the same.

I have never taken LSD so I can't really say for sure but it just sounds more relatable. Maybe something in between?

Some of the things I vaguely remember: There are fractals, although not as strong as people suggest on lsd. If i close my eyes it's like I'm going through different scenes (kinda like a dream I guess). Sound and touch feeling kind of echos Events are somewhat quantized or it's like you can see them before they happen/react to them Mild synthesisa (it doesn't seem as strong as people who say they have it is) Some mild out of body experiences (I've had stronger out of body experiences without) Sound volume becomes meaningless so I can't tell if a sound is close or distant Very vivid side vision hallucinations like I can see my friends gaming or whatever in my side vision but when i look I realize they went out to the grocery store Almost human like facial expression in cats

Without drugs I've had: Out of body experiences Different household ish sounds, usually slamming sounds People talking (although mostly gibberish) as if i'm at a party Explosions and sometimes screams (sometimes my name) Seeing bodies and faces in for instance piles of clothes or similar randomness lots of programming related experiences where I think I can program in real life (I thought stack overflows would cause my consciousness to pop and reset) sudden "messages" such as i see an image of my fridge being on fire so I have to run and check. I've had ghost-like people (I don't believe in ghosts) pull my skin, feet, etc Sudden bizarre realizations with strong visuals and sometimes out of body experiences that show how to solve them (for instance I thought a programming problem I couldn't solve was caused by my kitchen chairs not being aligned properly to the table) I thought I was talking to people telepathically (mostly people I know online)

Fortunately I don't have much of this anymore but when I do it's a lot easier to handle than before. I dropped out of college because of this and I wasn't particularly good with school in general so it really really helps reading and understanding how the brain and technology works.

This is something I've always wanted to talk about. I keep most of this kind of secret as I don't really like talking about some of the experiences I had and I don't like feeling as if I'm bragging about it so a throwaway account turns out to be a nice idea.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#168

Post by rosser »

wutf wrote: post #161
rosser wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is apparently to not exist as such. You're once again mischaracterizing the actual claim, and in a way that suggests you not only disagree with it, but feel a need to mock it. Please don't do that.

Just because you don't like the point doesn't mean I am mocking anyone - it's a legitimate point. What do you think the dissolvement of the self entails? No Self! You literally cease to feel like you exist independently of the rest of reality. You may be new to this kind of thinking, but some of us have explored this thought space fairly exhaustively. And it's not your role to come onto HackerNews, declare people as…

There is a categorical difference between "diminishment" and "dissolvement" [sic]. You keep asserting that the ur-comment's point is the removal of a "self". We're suggesting, instead, that there's value in a lessening of it (a notion which is actually rather well supported, if you take "self" to mean some of the egoic structures that people carry around, but which end up being more of a hindrance to a richer, more connected and fulfilling experience of life, as I do), to which you respond with, "Yeah, but why would you want to be a rock?" or, "You don't even want to exist!" You're missing the point, and your tone reads as disdainful and dismissive.

Even in this very comment: "You may be new to this kind of thinking, but some of us have explored this thought space fairly exhaustively." I studied philosophy of mind in university, which subsumed cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and more. I've also explored this question from the spiritual side, having spent time in Buddhist temples in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Tibet, as well as here in the US — and with shamans in the Amazon, where I've taken a profound amount of psychedelics. I'd ask you kindly to refrain from making assertions about what other people know or understand on the basis of a few sentences exchanged on a textual forum. It's rude, and it's often factually wrong.

On that point: no, I'm not 'dang. But I do hang out here rather a bit, and I do want this to be a place where discourse is civil and substantive. 'dang has a sometimes terribly thankless job, and he gets a lot of flak for it — including, as above, from you. Given all of that, I think the community could do a better job of self-policing.

He's free — encouraged, even — to come along and ask me to stop, or tell me I'm out of line, in general, or in specific, and I'll defer. Until then, this is my community too, and as a member in what appears to be good standing, I have a say in the tone of the place, and I'm going to use it.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#169

Post by duaneb »

adrice727 wrote: post #67
duaneb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, indee…

> Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. There's a reason why MDMA has had such a long history of use in psychotherapy, and it's not just because other psychedelics were taken off the table in 1971. When used in the right context, it can be a very useful tool for introspection and processing difficult emotions. http://www.maps.org/re…

I agree; however, it doesn't naturally lend itself to introspection without focus. I'm emphatically for its use in traumatic therapy.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#170

Post by duaneb »

tabooacct1 wrote: post #87
duaneb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, indee…

Let me firmly disagree. LSD is exciting, fascinating, marvellous, yes indeed! It makes that whole armor of everyday consciousness drop away. Maybe it's like becoming a child, a very aware and sensitive child, in an adult's mind? Everything is fresh like it's the first day of the world, yet everything around you is ancient and significant, too... It's also unsettling. The LSD mindset for me is like being an alien visi…

Sorry, I should have spoken better to begin with. I think it has a place in e.g. traumatic therapy, but I don't think the average use of MDMA is going to naturally lead to much introspection or a better understanding of the world without focus and guiding the experience—again, you might have a nice night, a night you need, but it's not comparable to psychedelics or meditation. This last point is what I mean by "stupid".
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