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The life-changing effects of hallucinations

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Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#61

Post by cetahfh14615 »

Of the people I've known who did hallucinogens, I knew them all before and after.

NONE of them were better off afterward

You can read all the "life changing experiences" that people have online, but when you take these you roll a dice. Keep this in mind. There's a lot of people who shill them super hard, and they might've had a positive experience, but consider the risk vs the reward and tread lightly

edit: And even the people who had "life changing experiences", they weren't better off. They never came out of it "enlightened" or any better than where they were before (based off of their behavior and the lifestyle choices they made)

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#62

Post by cetahfh14615 »

nope96 wrote: post #54

I've never taken hallucinogens, but I had many friends that did: Best friend and his girlfriend did LSD, the girlfriend had an immediate mental breakdown and was hospitalized. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in the following months, has been a life long schizophrenic ever since. The best friend developed "schizoid personality disorder" over the next year and was never the same. Both were normal, happy go lucky teens tha…

Could you elaborate on the girlfriend, best friend, and other friend? How did their experiences play out? What about it changed them?

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#63

Post by throwaway284234 »

mistermann wrote: post #46
throwaway284234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've never understood why people say that hallucinations are real, and even "more real" and the "actual reality". The very definition of a hallucination is that it's not real, it's false. What am I missing here?

You may be assuming that your ("the") normal conscious experience is base reality, as opposed to simply a much more common hallucination, which is what it can be revealed to be with a relatively small amount of investigation. Also, there is a distinction between the words that we use to conceptualize and communicate about reality, but consciousness (presumably due to evolution) tends to filter such things out.

Yeah normal consciousness is normal, of course. That's not an assumption that I make, that just a basic fact.

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#64

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

throwaway284234 wrote: post #41
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #36

I can't speak for myself, but I can offer a piece of anecdata. I had this buddy, who, at the time we became friends, was writing stuff in assembler that I had trouble putting in pascal. To my kid mind, he was an absolute genius. Eventually, he told was he was talking acid and disclosed how he could tell his mind was not as sharp as it used to be as a result. I have no knowledge if it was laced with anything or he sim…

Pretty obvious that it's not good for your brain to make it malfunction.

I think the less obvious point is that you don't really know what the effect will be. Thanks to crazy drug policies gone amok, we still have very rudimentary understanding of their impact until recently passed mostly on a word of mouth basis.

There are stories of actual mind blowing experiences that truly do expand your mind. I did not share my personal experience, because a feeling of absolute peace while being engulfed by light is not that uncommon and hardly life changing unless you are easily swayed anyway.

There is a chance your mind will expand. There is a chance something bad will happen. It is a gamble, but I personally think we are still in dark ages of drugs. Maybe one day we will know how exact dosage affects specific mental profile.

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#65

Post by wwarner »

giantg2 wrote: post #52
sys32768 wrote: post #30

How come these articles never mention the profound effects and aftereffects of bad trips?

It's the inverse affect of TV news. New products have hype or buzz (even if they're previously recycled). The news only shows the bad stuff. I guess it's just how our brains work. Perhaps from a study perspective they're mostly focusing on the "normal" responses and ignoring outliers. Although I have seen some safety studies on various things that do look at the negatives. Those don't really get shared here (or anywh…

an induced hallucination of another kind

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#66

Post by mtizim »

TinyRick wrote: post #38
meroes wrote: post #31

I’ve had two hallucinagenic experiences (acid and 2c-I) and I never got any life changing experiences. Is it like hypnosis where you have to believe in it to have it work? I know someone cured of an addiction from her hypnosis so I know these things happen. I would say I absolutely had hallucinations and the experiences were powerful and long lasting, but I’m still aware it’s a trip.

Dosage matters a lot. 100-200μg of LSD doesn't do much for me, but 400-500μg is just right for a profound experience. YMMV.

This is some absolutely wrong dosage, please don't ever take actual 400ug doses unless you really know what you're doing. Most tabs sold as 200ug are in the 30-80ug range, so people tend to severely overestimate the dosage.

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#67

Post by SlySherZ »

throwaway284234 wrote: post #37
meroes wrote: post #31

I’ve had two hallucinagenic experiences (acid and 2c-I) and I never got any life changing experiences. Is it like hypnosis where you have to believe in it to have it work? I know someone cured of an addiction from her hypnosis so I know these things happen. I would say I absolutely had hallucinations and the experiences were powerful and long lasting, but I’m still aware it’s a trip.

Yeah I've never understood why people say that hallucinations are real, and even "more real" and the "actual reality". The very definition of a hallucination is that it's not real, it's false. What am I missing here?

There's a common way people from scientific communities (such as HN) look at the world - there's a "real world" out there, and in order to improve our understanding of things we should approximate (discover the rules that govern) this real world and try to minimize our subjective experiences as much as possible. I fully subscribe to this view, the real world has to be same for everyone, right?

But there's another way to look at things which is prevalent in other circles, and if someday you decide to learn to meditate, I'm confident you'll get it.

How do you know the "real world" exists? Maybe you're a brain inside a jar "in the machine", and all the things you experience are being generated by the machine. In that case, how is an hallucination any different from any other experience you have? It isn't, it's exactly the same, it's just another experience. How you interpret it may be different, if you realize it's an hallucination, but the process itself is the same.

When you look at a tree, you can't just see the tree, you can only see the model that your mind creates of that tree, from the light that reaches your eyes, the sound, maybe touch etc - this is true for everything you experience.

Obviously the first perspective is very useful, it's science. But the second perspective is also very very useful, if you want to know why I can elaborate : )

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#68

Post by fritztastic »

If you do decide to partake, make sure you have someone with you, not only in case things go awry but just to help guide you along. It can be very disorienting and scary, when you start realizing the shop has sailed, so to speak. Hard to put it to words, and I'm sure people experience it differently, but if you start to panic things can take a turn. I had a friend once call me, terrified and barely coherent, when I showed up they were not even sure how much time had passed or what they'd done. Luckily I was able to calm them down, and things went smoothly from there.

Most importantly do research and be very very careful with doses or combinations, as (depending on what you have and where you got it) it's possible to overdo it when you think you didn't take enough. Better to err on the side of caution than to be overwhelmed, and because people react differently don't just think because someone else's dose worked for them that it will work for you.

Re: The life-changing effects of hallucinations

#69

Post by LeonTheremin »

nope96 wrote: post #54

I've never taken hallucinogens, but I had many friends that did: Best friend and his girlfriend did LSD, the girlfriend had an immediate mental breakdown and was hospitalized. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in the following months, has been a life long schizophrenic ever since. The best friend developed "schizoid personality disorder" over the next year and was never the same. Both were normal, happy go lucky teens tha…

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