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LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

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Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#121

Post by nikatwork »

[deleted] wrote: post #114
kshahkshah wrote: post #11

There is a lot going on in this article and I won't comment on all of it. I'll just address people who are perhaps curious about psychedelics. May I highly suggest that those wishing to experiment with psychedelics do it only in a place where you feel absolutely safe. That is, no risk of police, parents (if that is an issue), or neighbours to bother you. Additionally and I do think this is very important: in nature .…

[deleted]

This is fine if you are feeling young, edgy and indestructible but I would not recommend it to most newbies. Warm dark room with lots of pillows and a good friend is safest.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#123

Post by gerbilly »

hackercomplex wrote: post #83
mempko wrote: post #22

I'm a bit unusual here. I have never taken any drugs. I don't drink alcohol. I am also not judgmental. There is the concept of the waking dream. That we are always in a dream which keeps being guided by our senses. Where the mind corrects the dream based on what we feel, see, and hear. Psychedelics seem to break this process. When people say they have "Profound" experiences, do they mean they finally understand this?…

I believe that you can definitely wonder into the same territory through meditation. Some people even get there through athletics by pushing themselves really intestly. The experiences that people describe as "bad trip" can be found in the literature around buddhism, or even in the christian tradition if you examine "the dark night of the soul". There are also parallels to the more positive experiences.

> the dark night of the soul

I always understood this as an emptiness rather than as a "bad trip."

"The dark night of the soul" usually occurs after you feel like you have made spiritual progress, in whatever tradition you practice, and then to have it suddenly disappear.

The dark night of the soul is a period of disconnection, of feeling as if you have been abandoned by God, of not knowing how to get back on track.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#124

Post by adrusi »

fuzzywalrus wrote: post #84
askafriend wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it affect these things? I have a hard time imagining how it could all of a sudden fix ADHD symptoms like that.

Never underestimate the placebo effect.

I think it's important not to understate the importance of placebo in the effects, but psychedelics can lead you to confront the problems in your life in a way that you simply can't otherwise. These confrontations can be so profound and emotional that they leave a permanent impact on you. If you wrestle with the problems in your life, identify them as caused by ADHD symptoms, and commit to solve them while on LSD, you'll end up being very motivated to solve them.

This experience can be as impactful as when people "find god" while struggling through something and then finally find the willpower to overcome it. Actually it can be more impactful; consider that a psychedelic user perceives that they are meeting with God and God is directly telling them what they need to change and how they need to do it, while the born-again Christian has only thoroughly convinced himself that his own will is actually God's will instilled within him, via faith. The psychedelic experience is much more powerful and much less fragile than the religious experiences that we are used to hearing about helping people through hardships.

And ADHD is a condition whose effects can be entirely overcome through willpower.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#125

Post by gerbilly »

coldtea wrote: post #87
artur_makly wrote: post #80

and for those who seek the most purist trip and healing that blows away lsd or any other kind of artificially lab created chemical.. try ayahuasca. its the ulimate nuetropic and journey you can take. 2 nights ago i had My First #Ayahuasca Experience. The Quick Post Mortem - 10yrs of therapy.. in 1 night. - 2x more energy. - full chacras alignment - 3x more focus - 3x less stress - a more positive attitude - 100x more…

> full chacras alignment You know that that is mumbo jumbo BS, right?

Chackras seem to make perfect sense to me as a system to classify what i'd call "somatic cognition."

It's not just your brain that thinks, you know. Your body has a way of knowing, processing and remembering experiences.

Sure, it's a pre-scientific system, but there are insights to be gained from it.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#126

Post by hackercomplex »

gerbilly wrote: post #123
hackercomplex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that you can definitely wonder into the same territory through meditation. Some people even get there through athletics by pushing themselves really intestly. The experiences that people describe as "bad trip" can be found in the literature around buddhism, or even in the christian tradition if you examine "the dark night of the soul". There are also parallels to the more positive experiences.

> the dark night of the soul I always understood this as an emptiness rather than as a "bad trip." "The dark night of the soul" usually occurs after you feel like you have made spiritual progress, in whatever tradition you practice, and then to have it suddenly disappear. The dark night of the soul is a period of disconnection, of feeling as if you have been abandoned by God, of not knowing how to get back on track.

"a period of disconnection, of feeling as if you have been abandoned by God, of not knowing how to get back on track."

^ that sounds to me a lot like a common "bad trip" on LSD.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#127

Post by gerbilly »

bonoboTP wrote: post #81
danharaj wrote: post #4

It's a tired cliche to share one's fundamentally incommunicable drug experiences in the comments when the topic comes up, is it not? Let's have a go at it. The author paints an image of conflict between himself on lsd, and himself off lsd. Himself the perceiver, and himself the analyzer. I don't think these are integral to the experience. He mentions perceptions like '...the notion of “teetering” was meaningless too—…

"Have you ever tried to relax? It is a paradox!" No, it's not. Anger management is possible. (Often other emotions as well).

My take: you are both right.

1) "It is a paradox": Relaxation is not the absence of anger, relaxation is the abandonment of stress.

Stress is the clinging resistance to things as they are.

You can't "try to relax" because trying implies dissatisfaction with your un-relaxed state, and dissatisfaction is stress.

You can only relax fully by not worrying about whether you are relaxed or not.

2) "Anger mgt is possible" : strong emotions, even positive ones, also cause disturbance.

Disturbance is a form of stress. So to relax, one has to first learn to deal with emotions. Not to say you have to try to get rid of emotions, which would make them stronger, but to find a way to experience them without struggle.

Once that is achieved then you can relax.

But more subtly in order to relax, one does have to begin by first being dissatisfied with stress, which is itself stressful, but if this dissatisfaction is used skillfully it can help lead to relaxation. :-)

So, in order to fully relax, one has to engineer disturbances that are less stressful than the stress you are trying to eliminate, and to modify your approach as you go.

It also gets complicated because there are feedback loops in the system. Manipulating one thing, brings up another thing to deal with etc...

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#128

Post by s_q_b »

robotresearcher wrote: post #73
s_q_b wrote: post #46

Steve Jobs famously commented on Gates, "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." Psychedelics aren't for me, personally, due to anxiety, but they are fascinating. Jobs also rated LSD as "one of the two or three most important experiences of my life." His experimentation with drugs…

> Psychedelics aren't for me, personally, due to anxiety That's a tricky one. They can be very helpful for anxiety and obsessive disorders. Getting a whack with the chemistry stick can help you settle into a better place. But it's not ideal to go in afraid, no doubt. The cultural terror of drugs comes and goes over time and at some moments we can actually have real discussions and research. I hope we're swinging arou…

Thank you, that is very kind of you to say.

Personally, psychedelics are just too high risk with my default internal attitude, even if they could help.

I have some odd form of somatic anxiety. It's basically chronic pain that varies with situational anxiety. I've had seizures, so it's probably some neurological disorder we don't really understand yet.

Mindfulness meditation, sensory deprivation therapy, CBT, journaling, and (by far most importantly) extremely intense exercise all help. All the first and second line treatments have failed (Benzodiazepines, SSRIs, pregabalin, MAOIs, etc.)

Basically, learning to live with the pain was a long and difficult process. It initially eroded my intelligence by about thirty IQ points, which was terrifying. My LSAT score, for example went from very high 170s (near perfect) to around 150 (dead average), before going back up.

I think most people around here could relate to how scary that can be, especially when intelligence is a key aspect of how you self-identify.

But eventually I learned to manage it, and my normal functioning has mostly returned.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#129

Post by s_q_b »

cjslep wrote: post #58
s_q_b wrote: post #46

Steve Jobs famously commented on Gates, "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." Psychedelics aren't for me, personally, due to anxiety, but they are fascinating. Jobs also rated LSD as "one of the two or three most important experiences of my life." His experimentation with drugs…

Lots of people's drug histories are in the SF-86 and got clearances. The Fed would rather you be truthful on the form and say "never again" than lie. Lying on that form is the best way to not get a clearance, let alone a host of other consequences.

Oh, I know. Ironically enough, Bill Gates actually did take LSD as well and obtained a TS.

But the story of Jobs' clearance is especially funny.

Remember, this is the same Steve Jobs that only ate fruit for years, didn't often wear shoes, put his feet up on other people's desks, refused to put a license plate on his car, parked in handicapped spaces, and was generally an anti-authority hippie his entire life. It's fun to imagine him being grilled by the CSS.

That said, don't falsify a clearance document. It's a Federal crime, for starters. But the most severe typical consequence you'll face is having it committed to your clearance record forever. So if you lie on say a Secret clearance application form, there's no way in hell you're getting a TS/SCI.

You can absolutely get a clearance with past history of criminal behavior and drug use, provided sufficient time has elapsed and you've demonstrated reform.

Just don't lie.

Re: LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

#130

Post by easygenes »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #96
andy_ppp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best advice I was ever given is that if the trip is going badly you should move your body to a different setting. It provides a nice reset should you have placed your mind somewhere that "you" do not feel comfortable with. I can't say I think that people should be recommending psychedelics because the experience is so extreme and so personal, it can be life altering. As with anything this "far out", the outcome could…

A methylated B-complex vitamin would be prudent in most individuals as well to complement magnesium. Up to 50% of the population has a partially broken methylation cycle (in a form of C677T mutation). I had back pain sleeping for a long time, fatigue, and tons of muscle twitching (even in supplementing magnesium and vitamin d), and a methylated b-complex effectively eliminated my symptoms. The test to check for an MT…

It's not expensive if you do 23andMe then import your data into geneticgenie.org
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