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LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

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Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#11

Post by jbooth »

parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

In the case of this story, it's not what they drew while they were in a clinically insane state, but what doors that state opened for later sober pondering. Which may or may not have been productive.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#12

Post by Alex3917 »

bherms wrote: post #7
parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

There's a major difference in the way the mind of a scientist or engineer works versus the mind of an art student. Whenever I take mushrooms, I usually follow a "schedule" of things to do and try. Others I know will literally lay on a couch for 10 hrs.

"Others I know will literally lay on a couch for 10 hrs."

You can't tell how much the person is getting out of the experience just by looking at them. They could just lie on the couch for ten hours with their eyes closed and be having one of the most profound experiences of their life. In fact, someone who is using the drug for introspection is almost certainly getting more out of the experience than someone who is using the drug to explore the world. Most serious psychonauts recommend taking the drug laying down in the dark while blindfolded to get the most out of it.

I mean think about it, you're about to have one of the five most important experiences of your life, on par with death or the birth of a child.[1] Do you really want to have that experience while in a movie theater watching Harold & Kumar?

[1] source: http://csp.org/psilocybin/

"Even at the 14-month follow-up, 58% of 36 volunteers rated the experience on the psilocybin session as among the five most personally meaningful experiences of their lives and 67% rated it among the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives, with 11% and 17%, respectively, indicating that it was the single most meaningful experience, and the single most spiritually significant experience. Furthermore, 64% of the 36 volunteers indicated that the psilocybin session experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction either moderately or very much, and 61% rated that the experience was associated with moderate to extreme positive behaviour change."

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#14

Post by magoghm »

nandemo wrote: post #6
simonsarris wrote: post #2

Reminds me of Paul Erdős, who used amphetamines (think Adderall) for a similar purpose. After 1971 Erdős also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was f…

The difference is that amphetamines, though potentially addictive and dangerous, can actually help you do math or programming. I'm skeptical that people can code better (if at all) while on LSD.

You can manage to code while on LSD but it is very hard. After trying it a couple of times I decided it just takes out the fun from both LSD and coding.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#15

Post by tokenadult »

Around the world, there are many different patterns of regulation of drugs, and here in the United States, schedule I controlled substances like LSD can be used for legitimate medical research. Research on new drugs is a multibillion dollar industry in several different countries. But there is a dearth of well statistically controlled studies of the safety and effectiveness of LSD for any purpose. Indeed, medical research more often pursues the issue of how to help emergency room patients who appear for treatment of psychotic symptoms triggered by illicit use of LSD.

On the specific issue of programmer or scientist creativity and productivity, that too is a much researched field, but again there are not well controlled studies showing that anyone increases productivity or creativity in any occupation while using LSD. The checkered academic career of Timothy Leary is instructive in this regard. What research shows makes a huge difference in the productivity and work quality of programmers and scientists is steady deliberate practice building up problem-solving skills and growth mindset, along with accumulation of domain-specific knowledge.

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/course/6/6.055/readings/eric...

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#16

Post by brandall10 »

parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

I did shrooms a few dozen times throughout my college years. Most of the time it was in a group environment just for fun. Sometimes we would try things like the artists you mentioned, but as we were all bio/engineer types it was never serious.

That said, I did perform a handful of solitary experiments where I would lock myself in my room with a programming assignment working non-stop for some 5-7 hours. The output was remarkable. But the drug was rough on my system and would take me days to recover.. so no more than once a month. Eventually stopped doing it altogether after a bad experience.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#17

Post by leoc »

nandemo wrote: post #6
simonsarris wrote: post #2

Reminds me of Paul Erdős, who used amphetamines (think Adderall) for a similar purpose. After 1971 Erdős also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was f…

The difference is that amphetamines, though potentially addictive and dangerous, can actually help you do math or programming. I'm skeptical that people can code better (if at all) while on LSD.

> I'm skeptical that people can code better (if at all) while on LSD.

Here's another reported success: "Use of LSD-25 for Computer Programming" by Dennis R. Wier http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/v18n1-MAPS_24.pdf (Previously on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654168 )

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#18

Post by pavel_lishin »

bherms wrote: post #7
parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

There's a major difference in the way the mind of a scientist or engineer works versus the mind of an art student. Whenever I take mushrooms, I usually follow a "schedule" of things to do and try. Others I know will literally lay on a couch for 10 hrs.

What things have you tried?

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#20

Post by droz »

parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

I took a pottery class last winter and I observed the positive feedback loop in action. As someone who is not used to constantly bullshitting, it really threw off my chi to listen to an overly peppy woman tell me how amazing my work was even though we both knew it was garbage.
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