The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#51

Post by vivekmgeorge » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 8:27 PM UTC

thescribe wrote: post #36

hluska wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that anyone who has actually tried ayahuasca (or a similarly potent hallucinogen) both with a shaman and without would agree with you. Do you have any citations to back up this opinion? The danger of your opinion is that it precludes research into things like drumming and chanting. Humans have been using rhythm to build a sense of community for thousands of years. Could there be something here for science? Co…

Oh interesting, I hadn't thought of this from a therapy point of view. Any time you mix spirituality and treatment my mind goes immediately to scam, which is what I assumed this was.

The New Yorker wrote a good piece on the use mushrooms and hallucinogens (which are similar to ayahuasca) having the ability to improve mental illness, depression, addiction, etc. They are testing this is troopers who return from battle http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#52

Post by hnnewguy » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 8:44 PM UTC

thinkpad20 wrote: post #15

chisleu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is DMT + an MAOI which allows the DMT to not be destroyed when you drink it. The MAOI has a prolonging and intensifying effect, and has psychedelic effects of it's own. Smoking DMT isn't the same as eating pharmahuasca, which isn't the same as drinking ayahuaska. That said, it is very, very rare for anyone to have a reaction. The quality tours have trained medics in the village, and the villages are jammed deep in…

> The quality tours have trained medics in the village Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that. :\ I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am...

>"Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that."

If you live in a major urban area, and hang around in the right circles, it's very likely you can find a local party with which to partake, and thus get to take advantage of top-notch medical care in case of emergency (if that's your worry).

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#53

Post by alexashka » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 8:53 PM UTC

thescribe wrote: post #29

This article was rambling devoid of much substance. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the state of mind the product puts you in.

You simply missed the substance that is there. You're saying 'I didn't get it, therefore it is not good.' A little humility is good sometimes.

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#54

Post by davidtanner » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

I highly recommend the book _The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience_ for those interested in serious scholarly research about Ayahuasca and its subjective effects.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Exper...

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#55

Post by ZenoArrow » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

evincarofautumn wrote: post #46

apalmer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what context was that sentence spoken?

My friend and I were talking about cryopreservation. He chimed in insisting that my friend agree to give him his “eternal death”. When asked to stop, he made creepy comments to the effect that blocking him would not help.

Hmm, that's a shame.

Your friend has lost the plot as you suggest, or at least he didn't have the mental framework at the time in order to process what he was shown, there's still potential for that to change in the future.

If your friend acts up again, ask him what he learned from his ayahuasca experience. Give him time to tell you his answer. There is something he's almost bound to have either missed or misunderstood. I like the way Oliver Sacks puts it... “Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.” http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/246355-every-act-of-percepti...

Enlightenment is realising your own part in the world you know, that the two are inseparable. By seeking truth you create a falsehood. You cannot obtain enlightenment by looking for it. The truth we can experience is shaped by the observer, our knowledge is born from our senses. The purpose of introspection is not to pinpoint 'the one truth' but instead understand truth from a broader perspective.

Perhaps that'll help, perhaps not, it's up to your friend to be receptive, and it's not something to worry yourself about anyway, but even so, best of luck.

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#56

Post by mgmeyers » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

yason wrote: post #50

I haven't had ayahuasca but I suppose it's the same as with any mind-altering drug: don't take it for recreational purposes but for spiritual purposes. Take it if you're willing to suffer through mental work in order to gain an expanded view of yourself and how you fit into the universe. If you want it because you want to have fun, escape stress or trauma, or fix something, then don't.

While I mostly agree, ayahuasca is particularly good at helping you (sometimes forcing you) to work through stress and trauma, and helping you fix things. It allows you to observe your memories (in vivid detail) as a third party and guides you through them. There are many accounts of rape survivors, veterans, and other PTSD sufferers finally being able to let go after taking ayahuasca.

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#57

Post by hansjorg » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

Eleopteryx wrote: post #33

thescribe wrote: post #29

This article was rambling devoid of much substance. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the state of mind the product puts you in.

That's largely because the experiences are ineffable and simply can't be accurately related. It would be like trying to describe the color "red" to a blind person. At best you can try to make an analogy to something with which they are familiar. But they will never be able to imagine it in the way that they would consciously see it.

They should have sent a poet.

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#58

Post by cnp » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

dutchbrit wrote: post #39

vivekmgeorge wrote: post #16

I have taken Ayahuasca plenty of times and it has been an incredible experience for me thus far. Like everything in this universe there can bad sides to it, but with the correct people and when correctly brewed it can be extremely enlightening. What in life doesn't have a negative side to it? And when people say someone has been transformed for the worse after taking Ayahuasca what does that really mean? Worse for wh…

I have heard stories of seeing a mother kind of thing? What's that all about - have you experienced this?

I've taken it three times, and all I can say is these experiences were FAR MORE VAST than anything I could imagine. It exists in a category entirely of its own and hit me completely, all the way to the cellular level. And even in that unfathomably wide and galactic space, there's a strange humor to it that you have to experience to understand...

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#59

Post by cnp » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:46 PM UTC

hnnewguy wrote: post #52

thinkpad20 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The quality tours have trained medics in the village Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that. :\ I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am...

> "Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that. " If you live in a major urban area, and hang around in the right circles, it's very likely you can find a local party with which to partake, and thus get to take advantage of top-notch medical care in case of emergency (if that's your worry).

Agreed, you don't need to go to South America. Good luck

Re: The Hacker Who Drank Ayahuasca

#60

Post by cnp » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

mgmeyers wrote: post #56

yason wrote: post #50

I haven't had ayahuasca but I suppose it's the same as with any mind-altering drug: don't take it for recreational purposes but for spiritual purposes. Take it if you're willing to suffer through mental work in order to gain an expanded view of yourself and how you fit into the universe. If you want it because you want to have fun, escape stress or trauma, or fix something, then don't.

While I mostly agree, ayahuasca is particularly good at helping you (sometimes forcing you) to work through stress and trauma, and helping you fix things. It allows you to observe your memories (in vivid detail) as a third party and guides you through them. There are many accounts of rape survivors, veterans, and other PTSD sufferers finally being able to let go after taking ayahuasca.

The way it works on the memory is totally phenomenal. I liken it to clicking through folders on your computer; you jump in, explore in great detail a space that seems so familiar, then go deeper into other folders. When you're done you jump out and can't quite remember exactly what you saw, but the experience stays with you as though the work you needed to do had been done. In my minds eye I even had a crazy software-like environment playing out as I explored. Its so so wild.