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What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

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Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had a friend who told me that on high enough doses every picture becomes like a movie, you can just stare into it and imagine that whole world

You don’t need acid for that. Just imagination. That was my first entertainment as a child. But LSD and related psychedelics are uniquely able to help one reconnect with that part of themselves.

> You don’t need acid for that. Just imagination. That was my first entertainment as a child.

While I'm on LSD it looks like any picture/art/etc is literally alive. I don't really know how to explain it.

> But LSD and related psychedelics are uniquely able to help one reconnect with that part of themselves.

LSD absolutely helps me reconnect with many parts of myself. I have dissociative identity disorder and certain memories or even certain perspectives of memories can only be recalled when I'm on LSD.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#252
post #22

Just remember: There are a lot of chemicals that produce LSD-like effects. The farther away you are from the chemist, the less likely you know the actual drug that you're getting. This is especially the case at concerts / festivals, where the "game of telephone" might mean that you don't really know what you're taking. After reading many trip reports on Erowid for LSD, I suspect that the authors often unknowingly too…

Yep. Pretty sure I got DOx in 1990 as a teenager. 24 hour trip that left me with panic attacks and HPPD for years(well, I still have HPPD decades later). It was tie-dye blotter my friend got at a dead show. 2 hits. My friend took 5 and started throwing up within an hour which is not something I've ever heard of LSD causing.

I willingly took DOI once.

Also had a pretty awful experience.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#253
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Take my word for it, Datura and Dramamine aren't worth fucking with. If you are determined not to take my word for it, Dramamine is pretty similar and a lot safer. Dramamine the over-the-counter medicine to treat nausea and motion sickness?

That's the one. You can get all kinds of (very questionable) highs from tons of OTC drugs: diphenhydramine (benadryl/zzzquil), dextromethorphan (Robitussin), doxylamine (NyQuil)...

Diphenhydramine/Benadryl is extremely effective if you're looking to be permanently thirsty with a side of terrifying thoughts.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#254
post #177

I've read most of the comments on this post and I can honestly say none of them make me want to try hallucinogenics. It just seems like playing with fire and asking for trouble, especially for those of us with severe anxiety issues.

Sure sounds like an anxiety/fear response :)

Perhaps, but I can normally force myself in overcome fear/anxiety if there's a real benefit to me. When it comes to these drugs? I can only see neutral or negative outcomes.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#255
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain can mimic the _feeling_ of having had an incredible idea when in reality nothing actually incredible or mind opening has been understood. But some people do indeed have deep realizations, while others just deeply feel the feeling of having had a deep realizations, if that makes sense.

This is very true. Hallucinogens trigger all sorts of pathways in ways they aren’t triggered in sober life. I think it’s pretty common to have a mind blowing realization during a trip then once sober realize it wasn’t that mind blowing.

Yeah, that's common. Only slightly more common than having actual mind blowing realizations that help people see how others see them, give them empathy they never knew, and give the motivation to fix their lives before they die unhappy.

The big problem is that there's only so many actual realizations you can have, but it feels big every time you take it. So the people that take acid every month inevitably end up with a mind full of so much "incredible importance" that it turns into mysticism and the realizations are at best buried, at worst completely lost. If you take shrooms one every 3 years i bet your gonna have actual realizations every single time, and they're gonna help you reevaluate and plan your future. If you take it every week you're gonna go insane.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also other problems: while on acid once I came to a realisation that really changed how I experienced things later on. My realisation was that most of my perceptions of things were really "coloured" by a layer of society. For example, during that trip I found some husks of dead lobsters, that were sundried and quite rotten and gory. But during the trip they were this amazing structure of iridescent crazines…

Did you at any point in the story stared at the lamp, and someone called to you…. And you had a wife and child?

I did know a guy who claimed to have lived years of family life with a wife and kids once on DMT. I doubt it was actually years but it probably felt like it and it did fuck him up a bit. He had to mourn the loss of the perfect family life he'd gotten used to. He knew all of their names and favorite foods and sports and colors and what happened at school and first kiss and pregnancy announcement and wedding and stuff. Honestly kinda scared me. He just started reciting a whole life, and then he refused to talk about it again

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#257

Oh, by the way... Just mentioning that you used LSD in your past, may be enough to cause problems today[0] (especially in today's climate). Myself, I don't care. I use my experience to help others, so I'm fairly open about it. [0] https://www.wired.com/2007/04/canadian-psycho/

The slug is misleading: not all psychologists are psychos.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#258
post #235
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deep feelings of profound thoughts. I remember dreaming about profound answers and equations about everything and being extatic in my dreams in uni. Then I woke up and wrote down what I dreamt and realize it was just garbage :). The same this one time I was traveling with friends and bought some very dubious hashish and smoked it and I got incredible visuals where I could see, open-eye a matrix of videos starting f…

> wrote down what I dreamt and realize it was just garbage :) There's this (possibly apocryphal) story about George Orwell in Burma, where he served in the civil service. He had a friend that took Opium occasionally and felt like he deeply understood the universe and all its secrets when he was high, but could never remember it. Orwell asked him to try and write it down. What he wrote down was "The banana is big, but…

>"The banana is big, but the skin is bigger."...

Most profound insights in religion are of a similar league. Example John 8:32: 'Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'

Got to admit that the banana one is more profound that any one in religion that I encountered.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#259
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain can mimic the _feeling_ of having had an incredible idea when in reality nothing actually incredible or mind opening has been understood. But some people do indeed have deep realizations, while others just deeply feel the feeling of having had a deep realizations, if that makes sense.

This is very true. Hallucinogens trigger all sorts of pathways in ways they aren’t triggered in sober life. I think it’s pretty common to have a mind blowing realization during a trip then once sober realize it wasn’t that mind blowing.

What you remember (that wasn't mind-blowing) was what you thought, would be a reminder to the first sign post along a trail of thoughts that led to the much bigger idea, which was the thing that was mind-blowing. But of course, it's too big of a thought to communicate via words, so all you're left with is a feeling of reminiscent awe and a trudge of disappointment.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#260
Psilocybin:

Form constants, lattices. Colors are indeed vivid, but few hallucinations

Some things almost take on a new form, for example stars tend to dance and moss on a tree can swirl its texture like a moving river, and appear mesmerizing.

I’ve noticed mushroom trips for me are less visual, more introspective.

DMT:

I’ve never taken enough to truly break through, but in lower or medium quantities, things tend to move around and form clear patterns and sometimes a new appearance altogether!

Some objects can even take on a new form as an entity; I recall a very dynamic tree that put on a show for me my first trip.

The last time I used it, I closed my eyes for the duration. The visuals appeared much stronger, and I was even pulled me out of my own head and into a brief “slideshow” I felt the gods put on for me. I recall some beautiful, ancient looking visuals which reminded me of old Egypt or Sumer. Very surreal, and minutes later I was back in true reality like nothing happened.

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