The first time I took shrooms I had a very "thing in itself" moment where I realized that, because every time I thought something, all the sudden it became true, my perception must be affected by my cognition and that there were things outside the boundaries of my cognition that I could not necessarily perceive. Worst part was I still had to get up the next morning to teach, I started saying the weirdest shit in my practical anthropology course...
What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
111–120 of 275 posts
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#112Have no idea what variant of LSD I last consumed, but I remember some deep feelings of profound thoughts and self-reflection quite almost instantly when the stuff "hit" (maybe 30-45 minutes after ingestion), I was still cognizant enough to be able to write it all down. Some of what I wrote was indeed stuff I needed to work on in my own life and it was pretty helpful. I then spent the next like 12 hours on my couch re…
> entire concept of time “Entire” concept is stretching it, causality and entropy are not man made. If you want to look at ideas people made up that have way too much influence on our lives, you need look no further than your wallet.
I'd say causality and entropy are contingent on the (very compelling) assumption that time is real. We could be Boltzmann Brains, or something even weirder. Do I believe that the world is terribly different from what it appears to be? No, but ultimately our perceptions of the world are merely representation held in our minds.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#113Many factors. Quality and type of substance. Liquid, blotter, pill form, mushrooms,cactus,leaves. And very important one's belief system. Then how much you ate, did you trip the previous days. How old one is? Do you tell fibs to yourself and others. On and on.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#114Used to take quite high doses of LSD, and often had incredible visual hallucinations. Things like watching a large plant sprout flower buds all over it, which slowly expanded to full bloom and then retreated back to small buds; the whole experience went on like that for 20 minutes. Another time I hallucinated that a neighbor's house was on fire, until my friend said she was hallucinating the same thing. Fortunately,…
> Fortunately, the fire brigade showed up quickly to quench the very real flames, without us having to ring them. imagine calling them like "my friend and i are both on lsd and we are both seeing that house on fire so could you check it out please in case it's real" a trick i use sometimes is to check my phone camera to see if it also sees the same thing
> a trick i use sometimes is to check my phone camera to see if it also sees the same thing
You can't trust the pictures either.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that kinda scary? I mean when some parts of your brains don't work or not work properly?
It being scary is kind of the point. Or rather, if you’re going to do LSD, you need to be in the mindset that 1) this is temporary, and you’ll feel fine tomorrow, and 2) the experience you’re about to have will be extraordinarily novel and impossible to fully describe, even after having experienced it. It’s an intense hallucinogenic, and is the most potent mind altering substance that we know of. It’s also one of the…
Microdosing (or rather 1/4-1/10th a normal dose) works quite well. You get much of the mental flexibility without serious disorientation and serious physical reaction (jitteriness and nausea, which is also why I avoid shrooms—too physical).
It's also worth noting LSD is quite pleasant on the come down. You're just very comfortable and calm. Typically self-soothing through the angst of the first half of the trip is straightforward. Also a great reason to be in good mental health before hand.... if you're not prepared to face something you've been avoiding or deluding yourself through, LSD is a very, very bad choice.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#116When I was in my 20s I tried salvia (Salvia divinorum) several times as tincture and by smoking dried leaves, and I'd like to share my experiences:
The first time was with tincture. My entire left body half became intoxicated in the exact same way as when drunk on alcohol. The left half of my body had difficulties with balance, coordination and motor functions. The vision on my left eye was impaired by the eye refusing to stay on target. Most interestingly, the left half of my brain was also influenced, giving me problems with speaking fluently and thinking straight. My right body half was completely unaffected, instilling me with a sense that humans were composed of two distinct halves rather than one body.
The second time was also with tincture. Nothing happened. No sensations of any kind.
The third time was with tincture and by smoking. It was a profound experience. I dozed off and dreamt that I was a nut on the branch of a tree. The wind swept me away and threw me onto a meadow where I sprouted and began to grow. I experienced life as a sapling, growing for years and years until I was an old tree, and I had vivid and fresh memories of seeing countless springs, summers, autumns and winters coming and going. When I came out of it I had an exhausted feeling in my chest reminiscent of waking up from long and deep sleep, and in my mind I had the memory and feeling of having lived for a hundred years, and a strong sense of an incredible amount of time having gone by since I smoked the salvia.
The last time I used it was by smoking. I experienced merging with things I touched. I sat on the floor and leaned back against a sofa, and felt my back sinking into the sofa and becoming part of it. I laid down on the floor, and felt my back fusing with the floor. I drank water from a glass and felt as if the glass didn't want to "let go" of my hand.
Smoking salvia hit almost instantly. With tincture, which was to be kept in the mouth for 10+ minutes but not swallowed, it took close to 20 minutes before the sensations begun. All of the trips lasted no more than 15-20 minutes and I never had any kind of hangover or lingering effects other than the (positive) emotional and psychological phases of reflecting on the experiences.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on your attitude. I consider life and reality incredibly, painfully boring. That's why I LOVE alternate states of mind, even if they are scary. Nothing excites me more than the prospect of feeling thing and seeing things I have not experienced before.
> I consider life and reality incredibly, painfully boring. Interesting. The main benefit I've gotten from psychedelics (mostly mushrooms) is that all of life / reality is impossibly miraculous -- even, paradoxically, when it seems dreadfully boring. And also that I've somehow always known this, even when it feels like I've forgotten. It's always right there, just waiting ( begging ) to be noticed. It's the ultimate…
+1 Insightful
Also, your website (https://www.lifeismiraculous.org) is awesome. Echoes of Bertrand Tolle and Alan Watts. Thanks for publishing it and putting it in your profile!
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
a category of consciousness AI cant reach.
On what basis are you comparing?
what basis would you recommend? Given the rate that chatbots engaging in making stuff up you can't just ask them. At least as humans we can take the substance ourselves to verify there's something happening. I think there will always be an insurmountable barrier to deciding if computers can be conscious, at least in our lifetimes. We're not even sure other humans experience similar consciousness.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on your attitude. I consider life and reality incredibly, painfully boring. That's why I LOVE alternate states of mind, even if they are scary. Nothing excites me more than the prospect of feeling thing and seeing things I have not experienced before.
> I consider life and reality incredibly, painfully boring. Interesting. The main benefit I've gotten from psychedelics (mostly mushrooms) is that all of life / reality is impossibly miraculous -- even, paradoxically, when it seems dreadfully boring. And also that I've somehow always known this, even when it feels like I've forgotten. It's always right there, just waiting ( begging ) to be noticed. It's the ultimate…
This framing never made much sense to me. It's incredible to be alive at all of course, but miraculous compared to what? I've found it best in these situations to quietly appreciate rather than trying to reify some ontology for contemplation—which is, after all, a distraction from appreciation itself in the moment, something largely akin to meditation.
The easiest way to experience some of the feelings you get from tripping is, in fact, meditation. The LSD mostly just forces you to be more honest with yourself by smashing barriers you would normally dismantle through allowing your mind to rest.
Granted, I've never experienced anything like eg a blurring of the sense of self with meditation. Theoretically it's possible. Maybe I'm just too content with myself to pursue it.
Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha, thats sort of my experience too. Or often like looking through paper roll or grooved gun barrel which keeps twisting on subspace level. Or Van Gogh' Starry night pattern. Good thing is salvia is very short acting, maybe 5-10 mins for me and intensity is somewhere around mushrooms. But I talk about at least 10x extracts, raw one is just tons of very biting smoke and comparatively little effect. The kick is literal…
It's one of the few I've not tried. Personally I believe all the psychoactive plants are tools with distinct purposes (to be prescribed if you will) - salvia is the one that I'm not sure what it should be used for, I guess it's a good tool to show very literally that everything is everything, that seems to be what it basically does?
The more traditional way to use it is to chew on leaves, which is a far less intense and slower way to use it. Probably the approach you'd take if you wanted to get something useful out of the experience.