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Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

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Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#221

Post by LastTrain »

hutzlibu wrote: post #194
LastTrain wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m talking about this one’s person’s experience. They are putting out their notion of cause and effect on a public forum and I am questioning it. That is OK, right?

"That is OK, right?" The way you are doing it, could maybe be improved. "The problem is, of course, you have no idea if that dose is what caused the change" You clearly judged here based on little information. How do you know, that he cannot know? (Unless you argue about philosophical limits of "knowing") When till time X there was behavior Y and at time X there was a strong trip - and afterwards differences,then it…

Hey thanks, I'll work on that. You try and work on staying on topic and not making meta comments.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#222

Post by LastTrain »

unethical_ban wrote: post #204
LastTrain wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m talking about this one’s person’s experience. They are putting out their notion of cause and effect on a public forum and I am questioning it. That is OK, right?

Maybe it isn't. What I mean is, it doesn't seem to be a problem for them. A peer reviewed study of their own life experience isn't necessary for them to be a lot happier post-trip than pre-trip. Correlated with many other peoples' experiences, there is at least strong correlation evidence between certain drug use and epiphanies. Sure, "person ready to take drugs to have epiphany" might mean they were on the cusp of o…

Well I guess I was not very clear with my words then. I didn't say it was a problem for them, and they seem to be perfectly happy at the idea of their big epiphany coming from LSD. But I wasn't taking issue with that, I believe they believe that. I simply meant the "problem" with ascribing the epiphany to LSD is there is no way to know in an individual case if LSD had anything to do at all with it, because we know very little on that subject at the current time.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#223

Post by LoganDark »

causi wrote: post #142
LoganDark wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The experience you described is no indicator of whether "volume of thought is still much higher than normal" though? You'd have the exact same experience if the actual mechanism is that "had the label on [your] memories altered". It's not the only evidence I have, but one of the main problems with trying to describe psychedelics is that the experience is... well, indescribable. As in, when I'm not on LSD, I can't e…

I know that while in voice chat with people, I would have moments where I would have a bunch of thoughts, completely forget what just happened, and only a couple seconds of real-world time had passed. Sounds identical to me on a bad ADHD day.

My thoughts would expand like a fractal and it would take active effort to make it all the way back out. I probably can't really communicate it to someone who hasn't experienced psychedelics before, but it makes me feel like I am conscious of every bit of mental effort I am spending. Pulling myself out of deep thought feels like a long, manual process, even if it's actually instant. An analogy I liked to use is having to arrange all the neurons manually or something.

After every instance of that, it felt like I had spent so much time in that fractal that it was difficult to recall what had happened previously. It's not like ADHD where I get distracted and lose something from my short-term memory—it's that I had so many other thoughts that it was difficult to backtrack past them all.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#224

Post by jackmott42 »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #164
dandanua wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, psychedelics can give you a longer exposure vision. It might be useful for looking at stars and galaxies. Not so much for everything else.

It's not just vision! Psychedelics give all perceptions including mental concepts "long exposure" as well, causing them to overlap in ways which rarely happen sober. This allows for forming wholly new connections and insights otherwise out of reach for the sober mind.

Citation? I have done a few and didn't really experience anything like that. Most things to me seemed somewhat shallow just like this visual trick.

It was fun though!

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#225

Post by LoganDark »

swayvil wrote: post #160
jabbany wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience you described is no indicator of whether "volume of thought is still much higher than normal" though? You'd have the exact same experience if the actual mechanism is that "had the label on [your] memories altered". To scientifically test this, you'd need some normalized "benchmark task" of thought, and then compare the difference in progress on such a thought task between the control and psychedelic ca…

>To scientifically test this... I swear, you people turn science into a religious ritual. First-hand observation (which we have here) is the gold standard for knowledge-derivation. Science is just a method for ensuring that our models hew close to that. What you assert here is mere convention.

To be fair, I understand why they're skeptical. A brain's perception of itself is imperfect, and sometimes completely made-up. (Actually, one could make the argument that all perception is completely made-up, but I digress.)

Since we're talking about things that happened inside my own head, how can I know whether I actually experienced a certain period of time, or only created a memory of having experienced that time? My own recollection of it may be flawed, so it logically follows that in order to know for sure, I have to find some way to objectively quantify it. I don't know how I'd objectively quantify the number of thoughts I'm having, though, lol.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#226

Post by carlosjobim »

dandanua wrote: post #149
redox99 wrote: post #31

You can see the messages if you take a long exposure shot (2s) from your phone Here are the photos from my phone https://imgur.com/a/WOqbQVo

So, psychedelics can give you a longer exposure vision. It might be useful for looking at stars and galaxies. Not so much for everything else.

You have to try it to have any idea. The effects are beyond any words or concepts that can be expressed vocally or through internet text.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#227

Post by LoganDark »

mahathu wrote: post #183
LoganDark wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people did not go through an eternity of perception, processing, and thought; they had the label on their memories altered. No, psychedelics really can speed up thought. It's not uncommon to experience a lot more in a much shorter amount of time than normal. For example, I've experienced this first-hand where I could not even finish a single sentence before I was so far ahead in thought that I completely forg…

Sounds like your short term memory was impacted by the drug.

Almost definitely. Though in all cases where I noticed that I forgot something, it was because I had some other train of thought that happened so quickly that it created a bunch of distance from the thing I forgot, even if very little real-time passed.

Sometimes I could recall the thing after spending a lot of time backtracking, but sometimes not.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#228

Post by LoganDark »

lrvick wrote: post #88
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not suffer from how painfully boring reality and the default mode of consciousness are? How can one stand decades of stagnation without the desire to escape?

To stimulate my brain I just learn new skills and solve puzzles constantly. I am pretty happy so there is no need to escape. I admit I am -curious- to try psychedelics but in no hurry. Plenty of things to entertain me in this life.

> I admit I am -curious- to try psychedelics but in no hurry. Plenty of things to entertain me in this life.

If you ever do decide to try them, it should still be an interesting experience. Personally, I loved to watch what happened to my computer screen during my first LSD trip, and I spent a lot of time obsessing over how pretty it was. It's definitely a different type of experience than learning a skill or solving a puzzle.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#229

Post by p_j_w »

MayeulC wrote: post #202
rvcdbn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you seem to be after is scientific evidence. The problem is that these substances by nature cannot be double-blind trialed because blinding is impossible. So as individuals we all need to make a decision whether we would like to try them or not for ourselves and the best evidence we can ever hope to get is subjective and anecdotal. If you want to deny yourself the potential of these life changing experiences wit…

> these substances by nature cannot be double-blind trialed because blinding is impossible That's a bold claim. You can try multiple different substances, the test subjects know they ingest a psychedelic, but don't know which, which allows you to have a control group. Clinical trials would face other issues, but not this one.

You run into another problem here: those other psychedelics may also cause the same changes.

Re: Messages that can only be understood under the influence of psychedelics

#230

Post by LoganDark »

alecbz wrote: post #201
ilyt wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, my current motivation to work is basically to afford a place where I can indulge in more of my hobbies and skills. I can't imagine "running out of things to do" (aside from "I am so tired after work I can't be arsed" I guess) anytime soon

Kinda crazy to realize/appreciate how not-depressed some people are.

It depends on your definition of depression. For example I could be either depressed (there are some facts about my life that I've always been unhappy with, even if they don't necessarily distress me every day) or not depressed (I'm pretty happy and can't remember any real recent gripes) depending on how you define depression.

By the clinical definition, I don't have depression, because it doesn't impact my enjoyment of or participation in hobbies, and I also don't seem to have any persistent or recurring mood problems.

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