LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity • Hacker News Board

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#111

Post by babyshake » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #91

motohagiography wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important description, as when you think of a chemical creating impairment, it is essentially adding noise to signals in your brain, and a lot of the geometric and fractal artifacts we see resemble noise artifacts you would get from interfering with other analogue signals. Given your brain takes sensory signal input and coheres it, impairing that ability is going to create signals-based feedback that is de…

I'm very skeptical of this interpretation, if only because LSD doesn't just (or even mostly) cause "noise" hallucinations. It makes you actually notice the tiny details and patterns in everyday things. Not a different reality so much so as a deeper awareness and appreciation of the reality normally perceived.

People who don't have first-hand experience with psychedelics tend to have this misconception, thinking of the experience as some type of delirium. The wonder of being on psychedelics is understanding that everything in typical day to day to life is hilariously unimportant, and also understanding that the impaired perception of the world is the one we normally have.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#112

Post by int_19h » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #99

int_19h wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very skeptical of this interpretation, if only because LSD doesn't just (or even mostly) cause "noise" hallucinations. It makes you actually notice the tiny details and patterns in everyday things. Not a different reality so much so as a deeper awareness and appreciation of the reality normally perceived.

I don't think it is incompatible. To keep with the TV analogy, let's say you are watching a movie, enjoying the story, the setting, etc... Then, noised is added to the signal and you start seeing all sorts of glitches. For example, let's imagine that the boot of a character flickers a bit. That boot has its importance, the director wanted to give the movie a certain aesthetic and that boot is part of it, but it is no…

But that's not how it works, at all. There's nothing "flickering" to draw your attention to one particular bit etc; you still perceive the whole image at once.

The closest I can come to describing this is a higher resolution - like viewing the same photo, but you go from 640x480 to 4K, and from 256 to 32-bit color. Indeed, when consuming any sort of digital visual input, resolution differences (and compression artifacts etc) become much more noticeable, so perhaps this isn't merely an analogy. But the same also extends to sounds and even taste - it's not that things taste different, for example, but you can more readily identify and appreciate all the overtones that combine to create a particular taste, without subtracting from the experience of the whole.

This, by the way, is why watching fractal animations [1] can be so fascinating in that state - you still perceive the fractal as a whole, but you also simultaneously see the tiny details, and can observe that they faithfully correspond to the larger image, without having to individually focus on each.

[1] E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cgp2WNNKmQ (best viewed at 4K)

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#113

Post by dorkmind » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #104

okareaman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might get lucky and someone will bend your ear about Terence McKenna and Machine Elves

Terence McKenna would often say all sorts of crazy-sounding things but he never struck me as someone who took himself too seriously. Here's a short clip [0] which I believe perfectly captures his essence; at the end you can hear him laugh at himself and his story. Edit: I've enjoyed listening to many hours of Terence McKenna speaking, but I wouldn't recommend swallowing all of his pills. [0] https://www.youtube.com/w…

What is the Tao-drug connection? I feel like this is a case of Orientalism where Western drug culture is getting in the way of popular perception of Taoism, especially Chuang Tzu. Why aren't intellectual snobs trading in-jokes about Taoism and Zen and Mahayana Buddhism and the Diamond Sutra? It's like they ceded a huge swath of territory to the stoners, and for no good reason, I might add.

Why is there no popular Taoist movement? Why was it marginalized in the hippie movement? Why did intellectuals allow the hippies to control the perception of Taoism?

Chuang Tzu is just so fundamental. I can't see how you can go wrong adding it to a standard Western education.

    YOUR LIFE HAS A LIMIT but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain! If you do good, stay away from fame. If you do evil, stay away from punishments. Follow the middle; go by what is constant, and you can stay in one piece, keep yourself alive, look after your parents, and live out your years.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#114

Post by GuB-42 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

______- wrote: post #88

I never hallucinated after trying shrooms, even at high doses. I found this odd, since I have read about countless people saying they saw stuff that wasn't there or saw colorful fractal geometry. So my conclusion is that shrooms simply increased my perception and allowed in more information, and that all this fractal geometry is already there , just waiting to be discovered. It's just like tuning into a higher freque…

Maybe a stupid question but did you close your eyes?

I think you need a really high dose to see more than a bit of distortion when you have your eyes open. But with you eyes closed, your mind can run wild, making colorful visual much more likely in fact, you may not even need drugs for that.

Seeing things that aren't here, true hallucinations, don't happen often with psychedelics, and they are mostly caused by deliriants (ex: datura), or body reactions like fever. These are not fun and deliriants are not controlled substance for that reason, being classified as poisons instead. Psychedelics cause pseudohallucinations, it means they alter your perception but you are aware that what you are seeing is not real.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#115

Post by SamoyedFurFluff » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #52

motohagiography wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important description, as when you think of a chemical creating impairment, it is essentially adding noise to signals in your brain, and a lot of the geometric and fractal artifacts we see resemble noise artifacts you would get from interfering with other analogue signals. Given your brain takes sensory signal input and coheres it, impairing that ability is going to create signals-based feedback that is de…

For me the (rather strong) trips from mushrooms showed me how some part of the brain (not sure which one though) is very good at interpolating bits and pieces of reality when there is no longer strong coming in via our senses. Its a blurry picture of reality, but the blur isn't the loss of detail but rather its fractalization (which in the end is the opposite of it). The harder the trip the less real-world signal and…

The nature of brains is largely a prediciting machine. Most of our sight is actually predicted, not interpreted, especially anywhere we deem familiar.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#116

Post by dorkmind » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

booerino wrote: post #60

I like LSD quite a lot but have a hard time talking about it. I find it kind of highly embarrassing for some reason. Afraid of being judged a freak (I look and act pretty odd, but it's not because of LSD). I am baffled how open some people are. I guess this is the curse of having conservative family you'd not like to upset.

I like LSD too; I wish the government would legalize it.

Bill Atkinson waited until 2016 to talk about LSD as it related to his work; Steve Jobs has also gone public about LSD.

LSD makes you pretty tough. Many people have a hard time digesting that, so they choose to be afraid of LSD instead of recognizing it.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#117

Post by SamoyedFurFluff » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:29 AM UTC

sammalloy wrote: post #61

vkomega wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, thanks for the objective response. My inquiry was substantially downvoted. How can one determine if they are at risk of psychosis prior to consuming LSD? I've heard many stories of people who were "never the same" (in a bad life-outcome sense) after having bad LSD trips. It wasn't clear from family history or medical history that they were at-risk for such a reaction. At least based on these outcomes, it might…

> How can one determine if they are at risk of psychosis prior to consuming LSD? Family history of mental illness, particularly schizophrenia. > I've heard many stories of people who were "never the same" (in a bad life-outcome sense) after having bad LSD trips. I think those stories are overblown. People like to have something to blame for when a loved one goes down the wrong path.

Not just schizophrenia. Psychosis overall is the danger- this includes a significantly wider variety of conditions such as bipolar.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#118

Post by sammalloy » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

warent wrote: post #98

okareaman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might get lucky and someone will bend your ear about Terence McKenna and Machine Elves

Dismissing someone with a mind full of unique and creative ideas is generally a bad idea. It's okay to disagree but it's completely unnecessary for us to stand on an ivory tower staring down on people we don't understand

> Dismissing someone with a mind full of unique and creative ideas is generally a bad idea

As someone who smoked a joint with Terence, I can tell you why people dismiss him. He went totally over the edge with the "Timewave Zero" software nonsense. Aside from that, he was surprisingly pretty grounded.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#119

Post by randomopining » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #52

motohagiography wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important description, as when you think of a chemical creating impairment, it is essentially adding noise to signals in your brain, and a lot of the geometric and fractal artifacts we see resemble noise artifacts you would get from interfering with other analogue signals. Given your brain takes sensory signal input and coheres it, impairing that ability is going to create signals-based feedback that is de…

For me the (rather strong) trips from mushrooms showed me how some part of the brain (not sure which one though) is very good at interpolating bits and pieces of reality when there is no longer strong coming in via our senses. Its a blurry picture of reality, but the blur isn't the loss of detail but rather its fractalization (which in the end is the opposite of it). The harder the trip the less real-world signal and…

It def feels like a raw vs jpeg. The straight sensor data vs a compressed and corrected view.

Problem is, you can get caught on certain intricacies of the raw input instead of just taking it all in at once. Taking it all in at once you can see how it's different than what you preconceived, and that your preconception is just one of infinite perceptions of the single moment.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#120

Post by okareaman » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #104

okareaman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might get lucky and someone will bend your ear about Terence McKenna and Machine Elves

Terence McKenna would often say all sorts of crazy-sounding things but he never struck me as someone who took himself too seriously. Here's a short clip [0] which I believe perfectly captures his essence; at the end you can hear him laugh at himself and his story. Edit: I've enjoyed listening to many hours of Terence McKenna speaking, but I wouldn't recommend swallowing all of his pills. [0] https://www.youtube.com/w…

I really enjoy his address to the Jung Society because he is a little more formal without the amusing speculative half-serious statements. He really broke through to me in this one ("the dime dropped"), whereas I didn't take him as seriously before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBP2sm5kJM