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A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

bbc.co.uk

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Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#121

Post by mirimir »

browsercoin wrote: post #107
sparkie wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houby hunting, then PF Tek. Obviously, do lots of research. There aren't many deadly varieties by some of them look very similar to edible ones.

I wonder how many trial and error and generations of humans it took to realize which mushrooms were safe to eat. It's fascinating stuff.

Look for ones that turn blue when bruised.

Also, the fundamental methodology is to start with an extremely small amount. If there are no observable effects after some hours, eat double the amount. And repeat until there are clear effects, and decide if it's something useful. For food, for fun, or to use for poisoning enemies.

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#122

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

tr8 wrote: post #96
browsercoin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes I should clarify that after the experience, it felt like I had been in a sauna for the psyche. Basically, I had lingering sense of peace and wellness. The scariest shit I've seen while tripping was seeing the Eye of Providence. What's more creepy is that this is a common symbol people experienced. For example, I didn't know what the hell was a third eye until I saw it. It was unbelievable. It changed my life. It…

That's so weird. I experienced the same thing the first time I took mushrooms as a teenager. I had no idea what a trip was. There were a few notable things in the trip but one thing that stood out was the eye of providence. I can't for the life of me think why that appeared since it's not something I can really associate with anything in my life up to that point. I'm not a religious person and not very spiritual but…

Can you describe more what you meant by seeing eye of providence? What was the context around it? What exactly did you see, where, and what was happening? I’m just curious... did you search for the meaning after the fact? I take it you didn’t know it was called the eye of providence prior to that?

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#123

Post by tom_ »

drmpeg wrote: post #40
tom_ wrote: post #5

If it's near death experiences you want, no need to push the boat out - just skip dinner, go to the pub, drink 7 pints of beer, have a kebab (you'll probably be hungry by then), go home, drink the 2 bottles of beer you found in the fridge, that and eat the pork pie, then sleep for 6 hours, then wake up.

I'm not sure what British pork pie is like, but one of my ex girlfriends used to make pork pies. They were delicious, but as dense as neutronium and difficult to digest even under ideal conditions.

Yes, quite so, and British pork pies are exactly the same. Very nice - tasty pig meat, tasty jelly, and a tasty lard casing :D - but extremely dense. Normally you'd have a small slice, appreciate it for what it is, then put it back in the fridge and ignore it until at least the next day.

Normal rules do not apply when shitfaced, however, and it turns out you'll just quite happily pop half a kilo of this stuff into your piehole without even thinking. Fast forward 8-12 hours, and... well, you can guess the rest. It is the devil's own food, and it probably ought to be banned. How are folk supposed to manage, if after drinking a mere 7-10 pints of beer it proves so irresistible?

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#124

Post by mirimir »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #122
tr8 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so weird. I experienced the same thing the first time I took mushrooms as a teenager. I had no idea what a trip was. There were a few notable things in the trip but one thing that stood out was the eye of providence. I can't for the life of me think why that appeared since it's not something I can really associate with anything in my life up to that point. I'm not a religious person and not very spiritual but…

Can you describe more what you meant by seeing eye of providence? What was the context around it? What exactly did you see, where, and what was happening? I’m just curious... did you search for the meaning after the fact? I take it you didn’t know it was called the eye of providence prior to that?

It's the eye of God, in a triangle. The one on $1 bills. That is, God is provident aka watching us, watching out for us, and providing guidance and stuff.

I don't recall ever seeing that. I did experience Hell, for a while during one LSD peak. But it wasn't painful, just freaky. I was into Hieronymus Bosch at the time, and had just watched "Spawn" ;)

My favorite hallucinations were tangled chains of 3D characters, in constant writhing motion, and rotating on their axes. And not just rotating, but apparently rotating through higher dimensions.[0]

As I recall, the characters looked like letters or numbers. Or like Hofstadter's GEB block. But as long as I was high enough to see them, I was too high to understand them. Or to remember, anyway.

I also had the sense that their activity correlated with what was happening in meatspace, what I was seeing and hearing, and also what I was thinking. And it's my guess that LSD, among other things, breaks down barriers between hierarchical levels in brain activity.

0) https://goo.gl/images/TbuUcj

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#125

Post by funkjunky »

browsercoin wrote: post #21
jdc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People experience death (and psychoactives) in a variety of ways, and its metaphorical usage reflects that. The meat-grinder sense maps better to stimulants (ie., caffeine, amphetamine, etc) whereas the exhausting, perhaps harrowing and enlightening sense of death is what we tend to experience with the psychedelics.

back in the day I experimented with psilocybin mushrooms and experienced what is called 'ego death'. basically, you lose a sense of self and identity. You are literally a blank slate. It was a surreal experience and I felt panicky like 'oh shit i think im dead but im still concious'. Before I reached this state I was seeing math formulas everywhere. Basically when my internal thoughts stopped, that is I was experienc…

This mirrors dozens of my own ego death experiences as well. Like, exactly. It's so hard to grapple with and explain to people who have never experienced it. This was a good description

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#126

Post by tr8 »

browsercoin wrote: post #106
tr8 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so weird. I experienced the same thing the first time I took mushrooms as a teenager. I had no idea what a trip was. There were a few notable things in the trip but one thing that stood out was the eye of providence. I can't for the life of me think why that appeared since it's not something I can really associate with anything in my life up to that point. I'm not a religious person and not very spiritual but…

that's whats fucked up about it. I am not religious at all. Yet, what I experienced was on a spiritual level with real changes. it's crazy how common the themes are. did you hear extra-terrestrials? Like I literally heard a thought broadcasted from somewhere not on earth with the message "we aren't from earth but we are gonna help you out. clean your fucking room. move your computer to living room. get your shit toge…

Nope, I didn't hear voices. I had some auditory hallucinations though. It was mostly overwhelmingly positive and very spiritual to the point of making me cry.

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#127

Post by funkjunky »

ggm wrote: post #23

Can anyone give a reason in darwinian terms, for why brains would evolve a feeling of detachment and contentment near death? I can't project a selfish-gene reason. Maybe, if you hypothesise its in the 'I die, so others live' space, its like altruistic behaviour and favours the group genome, not the individual

Because life is a prison of constant struggle and suffering, the experience of ego death is that of shedding one's attachments that one struggles for, and the last chains keeping them from freedom are that of their identity, consciousness, and ultimately of life itself. The less the past, present, future, and you there is to care about, the more blissfully free whatever remains of you becomes.

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#128

Post by madstap »

torgian wrote: post #67
browsercoin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes I should clarify that after the experience, it felt like I had been in a sauna for the psyche. Basically, I had lingering sense of peace and wellness. The scariest shit I've seen while tripping was seeing the Eye of Providence. What's more creepy is that this is a common symbol people experienced. For example, I didn't know what the hell was a third eye until I saw it. It was unbelievable. It changed my life. It…

I'm really interested in trying it out, but I live in mainland China right now. Have no idea who I could even contact about getting some, even in places like Taiwan or Thailand.

In Indonesia they're legal, you can buy mushroom shakes at the beach. In general there are endemic psilocybin mushrooms most everywhere, though it might be illegal just to pick them, like in my home country Norway.

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#129

Post by tr8 »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #122
tr8 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so weird. I experienced the same thing the first time I took mushrooms as a teenager. I had no idea what a trip was. There were a few notable things in the trip but one thing that stood out was the eye of providence. I can't for the life of me think why that appeared since it's not something I can really associate with anything in my life up to that point. I'm not a religious person and not very spiritual but…

Can you describe more what you meant by seeing eye of providence? What was the context around it? What exactly did you see, where, and what was happening? I’m just curious... did you search for the meaning after the fact? I take it you didn’t know it was called the eye of providence prior to that?

I had my eyes closed and was just watching stuff like silvery reflections and fractal like patterns and waves. At some point it just appeared as a triangle with an eye in it. It was a bit mysterious and may have had a slight glow to it. It wasn't a negative thing for me. I can't remember exactly but I think it probably was at the top of a pyramid.

I didn't search for it until maybe 10 or so years later and started getting a bit buzzed out about it all. I didn't know what it was until then, at which point I realised it was on the dollar bill. Even if I had (likely) seen it before the trip it wasn't something that was part of my everyday life or consciousness, which makes it very weird.

Re: A DMT trip 'feels like dying' – and scientists now agree

#130

Post by rando444 »

mort96 wrote: post #80
obituary_latte wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I don’t get why hn mobile version doesn’t take this into account. Should be just a single simple css rule...

It's because people often quote things by putting a number of spaces between the text on each line, but hacker news interprets that as a code block, not as a quote. It's reasonable to not wrap code blocks; the real problem is that HN doesn't have formatting options for quotes.

> "the real problem is that HN doesn't have formatting options for quotes."

I always format my quotes the same way Stratoscope just did and think it's reasonably obvious to tell that it's a quote.

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