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Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

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Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#111

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.

How would an instruction manual have helped improv32?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#112

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

Have you read Scott's recent article on what people report "enlightenment" feels like? If so, how did you relate to it?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Me too, and it's definitely a result of taking psychedelics. I quite like it. I suspect that I could have always made those CEVs appear, but I didn't "know how" until taking psychedelics. Me too and it's probably not a result of taking psychedelics; as I've never tried them recreationally. I did, however, have vivid hallucinations as a result of Nitrous oxide at the dentist office as a child. I don't think I see fl…

If you apply pressure to your eyes, you'll see phosphenes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene ). You can also see them during meditation, and as hypnagogic hallucinations while you're falling asleep (but you might not remember this).

Hang on... so people normally DON'T see these moving colors and shapes whenever their eyes are closed?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Me too, and it's definitely a result of taking psychedelics. I quite like it. I suspect that I could have always made those CEVs appear, but I didn't "know how" until taking psychedelics. Me too and it's probably not a result of taking psychedelics; as I've never tried them recreationally. I did, however, have vivid hallucinations as a result of Nitrous oxide at the dentist office as a child. I don't think I see fl…

Further searching the web seems to suggest that Nitrous oxide doesn't cause hallucinations, but I remember them pretty vividly. It's also pretty well documented that we can't rely on our memories. Makes me wonder. Mine are definitely not the same as the ones you get from rubbing your eyes. Mine happen only occasionally in a very dark room and look more like a red/orange on a black background in a kaleidoscope.

In Denmark back in the 90s it was pretty normal to give kids (and often adults) nitrous as a sedative at dentists. I had it a dozen of times as a kid, but only once did I hallucinate anything.

I was awake and fully aware every time, but the one time my dentist voice was very boomy and reverberating and everything was black except for some animals and shapes I saw in multiple rows scrolling left and right and I remember thinking that my dentist was a big frog.

I don't know why that one time was so weird out of all the other regular ones, but I know I was still awake and I was addressed and I could reply, but I was still tripping my balls off.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#115

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.

I think an argument could be made that the sense of self is a psychological disorder.

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#116

I took lsd for the first time two weeks ago and sometimes when I zone out, geometric patterns like carpet appears to morph. I'm not really good at understanding my own thought process, so I can't really tell if it affects me in other areas. From my extremely limited experience however, I would warn against casually taking any psychedelics. For me at least it was a needless experience, with needless aftereffects.

> when I zone out, geometric patterns like carpet appears to morph

I have had this happen to me ever since I was a child, is this not just normal?

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#117
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.

I think an argument could be made that the sense of self is a psychological disorder.

Not if it is the baseline we measure against (which it is).

Or if it has survival/performative utility (which it does).

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#118

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feel…

Alan Watts wrote: > “Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the…

>What message, if any, were you looking for during your psychedelic explorations?

I just wanted to get stoned out of my head, and see some weird colors and shit man.

>Did you receive it?

Oh, yeah.

(I'm a little snarky here about the whole coming into psychedelics looking for some "message", and seeing that you receive it too).

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you apply pressure to your eyes, you'll see phosphenes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene ). You can also see them during meditation, and as hypnagogic hallucinations while you're falling asleep (but you might not remember this).

Hang on... so people normally DON'T see these moving colors and shapes whenever their eyes are closed?

Not all moving colors and shapes you see with eyes closes are the ones the parent describes.

There are different kinds of them... (the ones described are pressure based "phosphenes"). You describe another.

And if you close your eyes in a lit place (outside in the sun, etc), you probably don't see phosphenes at all, just various shapes and colors caused by small leakage of light through the eyelid skin).

Re: Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely

#120
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.

I think an argument could be made that the sense of self is a psychological disorder.

Please make that argument! I'd say disorder would refer to something unusual, whereas sense of self is very common among humans across different cultures. Am I misinformed?
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