Can a Human See a Single Photon? (1996)

LSD as well as psilocybin and a number of other natural psychedelics exhibit what's called a "classical psychedelic effect". I've tried a couple of them and consider LSD to be essentially the same

It's worth noting that psychedelic fungi and plants are absolutely GLOBAL in distribution. Psilocybe can be found basically everywhere and there are a few related genera of fungi that also contain psilocybe. South America has a ton of psychedelic plants, but even Native America has some psychedelic grasses used to make "prairie ayahuasca". There's a ton of psychedelic cacti species including a very famous cactus (which I shall not name) that very few people know is psychoactive because the Native American group that uses it wishes to protect it from being overharvested. Some very poisonous plants like nightshade are also psychoactive. The fact that indigenous people throughout the Americas have managed to develop techniques to safely utilize these plants suggests close study and attention. There's a famous "Jesus was a mushroom" take by an archeologist that the early cults from which Christianity emerged dreamed up Jesus through their use of psychedelic mushrooms. The take doesn't hold much water but what is agreed upon is that even those groups regularly consumed psychedelics. Christmas also comes from cultural usage of psychedelics. Amanita muscaria, perhaps the most famous mushroom, is that red mushroom with the white spots (kinda looks like Father Christmas, don't it). It's poisonous and very psychedelic. To consume the psychoactive, indigenous European groups would drink reindeer piss. The piss neutralizes the poison but leaves the psilocybin. And so these reindeer allow Amanita muscaria to fly around dropping gifts for us.

I could go on about sweatlodges, the tens of thousands of different psychedelic plant species known, and other ways psychedelic experiences shaped cultures around the world.

My point is is that psychedelics are likely a universal cultural norm. In fact I'd argue we're living in a very strange culture where their use is not very widespread.

I personally didn't try a psychedelic until after highschool. My first experience cured my debilitating social anxiety and I went from my heart racing any time anyone talked to me to organizing community events within the span of a year. I've had similar effects with my depression and other mental health struggles. I'm not trying to suggest they're for everyone, but I'd say the fact that there's "irreversible changes in how [you] think about things" is exactly what makes them such a useful medicine

Interesting study, though if you look at the results 'significantly above chance' looks to be 0.60 +/- .05, which is indeed better than 0.50 but not what anyone could call reliable detection.

I wonder if trained owls could detect single photons, or if their night vision is based on just having much larger lenses that collect more light?

It seems that all rods in retinas are activated by single-photon-absorption, it's just about how many have to be activated to generate a neural signal.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4629483/

"A chemical that causes irreversible random brain chemistry changes from a single use sounds like damage has happened"

From what I understand, LSD does not change your brain chemistry directly, but you make deep experiences, and those might change your deep thinking (and therefore the brain chemistry). Opening up your perception to other information channels. But sure, that doesn't mean it must be beneficial. And whether it is a damage I would say depends on the outcome.

I know people where LSD was beneficial (solving cluster headache or overcoming addiction) and people where it clearly wasn't (became spaced out weirdos). But everything you do or don't do, comes with a risk. If LSD does not appeal to you, then just don't do it.

I'd need to verify my sources, but I recall the way photon detection works is by cascade; one photon comes in, and causes a couple of more "things" (I can't remember what - electrons, probably) to be dislodged, each of which causes a couple more... and boooom whooooosh very quickly you have something which can be easily noticed by a sensor.

>> sounds that displace your eardrums on the order of an atomic diameter.

That isn't all that surprising really. This isn't one atom moving a tiny bit. It is billions and billions of atoms all shifting back and forth together.