141–150 of 228 posts
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I'm sorry, I don't quite get what you're trying to say. Are you saying that using/taking drugs is a prerequisite for talking about drugs (and drug use in general)? If so: That's total nonsense and an unbelievably unscientific attitude.
Yeah, calling someone out on FUD is definitely unscientific. Thanks for that.
My friend and university classmate - a kind of wounderkind. He was accepted to university without exams, because he had great results on programming olympics. Turned out he was also good at chemistry. When he was around 8 his mother arranged him to take chemistry classes with elder schoolchildren. But he dropped the classes because he was borred - he already knew everything taught there. In university he tried drugs…
I know this is not the main point of your post, but the part that I feel I can comment on: > I also have evidence the "inspiration" whe[n] you [are] on drugs is false, and actually it's more like a delirium. What does that mean, "false"? The way some of us usually perceive reality might not be true either. Just ask someone suffering from serious depression. It's often a problem of perspective, but they can't simply c…
What I mean, changes in reasoning on drugs are largely glitches, reasoning mistakes due to wrong logical connections and associations between things, which are not really associate. It's like a delirium.
But because drugs also induce euphoria, people think their conclusions and insights are great breakthroughs, new vision, etc.
Actually, when they try to record these new ideas, and try to develop it further later, they find that the ideas are just shallow and based on some mistakes.
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This bit of fear, uncertainty, and doubt was brought to you by the Institute For Armchair Psychonauts Who Never Use Drugs.
I'd say the first point is kind of important, considering it's a synthetic drug and not a plant. I have no anecdotes for LSD, but a few people died in my city after only a normal dose of ecstasy (no alcohol).
This doesn't have anything to do with drug purity and has everything to do with the effects of the drug itself.
Reminds me of Richard Feyman taking LSD. He said he had an incredible breakthrough and a moment of pure clarity on a problem he had been working on mid-trip, only to come down and realize his breakthrough was really jibberish and not insightful at all.
If you think about making a breakthrough, it is a two stage process. First you have to think the thing, then you have to assess that thing and come to the conclusion that it is a breakthrough. And that in turn makes you feel a certain way.
Often when we dream, or a hallucinate a 'breakthrough' - we're not actually dreaming or hallucinating the thing itself, we're dreamng or hallucinating either of the following stages, we're imagining the experience of assessing something as a breakthrough, or just directly feeling the emotion that would result from a breakthrough.
Because of the way our brains are wired to see causality, we assume that it must be because we actually had the thing that caused the breakthrough. But, tantalisingly, we can't remember exactly what it was. It was awesome, perfect, we remember that, but what exactly, that's gone now, damnit.
I think LSD can definitely expand the mind in the sense of letting you experience the mind in a different way. But I'm very skeptical that 'insights' can be brought back from a trip. The excitement and emotion of that insight, certainly, but the actual insight itself seems never to be quite explicit.
So we have Lsd, amphetamine, mescaline, ritalin, provigil as mind drugs. Anyone tried Ritalin or provigil long term? The army uses amphetamine & provigil during long term flying missing during critical operations. So what is illegal for ordinary citizens is legal for the state. Side not Steve Jobs tried a lot of drugs in India probably a door opener for his mind as have a lot of brilliant rock artists danger being no…
Stimulants can essentially directly increase your intelligence for a time. You think faster, answers can just pop into your head faster, you can code faster. Laser focus, a sense of unlimited capability, too. A more realistic version of the movie "Limitless". They don't seem to help with creativity, and can do the opposite. It's easy to get concentrated on the wrong thing. I knew a PHP dev on pro vigil long term, and…
This is why I don't think any performance enhancing drugs work for the average human. Because if there was, thousands of chess players would already have used and abused the shit out of them.
An example of LSD's effect on art: [1] More details here [2] Then there's the visionary art[3] of Alex Gray.[4] There's a great book that documents studies done on LSD's effect on creativity.[5] On the subject of music, LSD famously influenced the Beatles,[6] and many other 60's bands... and which, in turn influenced many others. In fact, there's a very good chance that most if not all of the contemporary music you l…
The Beatles heavily used alcohol and tobacco too. But really, they were three of the century's most talented and most hardworking musicians with incredible managers and producers and almost unlimited resources. I can't prove it, but I don't believe there is a causative link between tripping on LSD and writing great music. I do believe there is a causative link between working hard and practicing a lot and writing gre…
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And every choice we make may change who we are relative to who we would be if we didn't make it. Basically that line of argument is fruitless imo
These chemicals will change your brain, and your brain is who you are. It's not philosophical. It's physical.
When you get old, there's a good chance brain disease will slowly erase your personality until nothing is left.
As you wander around the world, your blood pumps and exchanges ions, changing the physical substrate of your brain at every instant. Your sense of self is an illusion.
I think trying to hang onto who you are is like trying to hang onto a dream you're waking up from, but with the advantage that you can try to guide your future self into being a better person than you were.
I can clearly state that me 2015 is a distinctly different person than me mid-2013, some ways better some ways worse. My physical substrate has certainly changed. The fact that change is usually gradual and smooth hides the truth within a story we tell ourselves, mostly because our memories provide a sense of continuity.
That said, it's up to each person to weigh the risks of using a psychedelic drug. Would it help guide you into who you want to be in the future?
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And every choice we make may change who we are relative to who we would be if we didn't make it. Basically that line of argument is fruitless imo
These chemicals will change your brain, and your brain is who you are. It's not philosophical. It's physical.
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If someone purchases prescription medications from a non-regulated online pharmacy in a remote, third-world country is that simply a legal risk too? Unless you synthesized it yourself or have the ability to analyze it in a lab, you absolutely cannot be certain of quality or authenticity. This is what legally enforced regulatory standards are all about ensuring. The illegal nature of the drug trade not only lacks prov…
Risk of mis-prescription: "one in 12 visits to the doctor in the US results in the patient receiving dangerous medications" http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improv... Risk of prescription being mis-filled: "An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract Risk of manufacturing error in prescr…
The mis-prescriptions were for infirm elderly patients, who I suspect wouldn't do great on LSD either.
I actually tried LSD a couple of times because of this article, back when it was written. It was a pretty enjoyable experience, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in trying it, with a few caveats. First, you need to have an experienced sitter with you. You're in for the full 8-10 hours, and on the off chance you start having a bad trip (things getting really dark and scary), you need someone to ground y…
If you didn't think it was a super transformative experience, you probably only took a low dose, and perhaps didn't have the proper set or setting. Check out the Marsh Chapel Experiment,[1] "Varieties of Psychedelic Experience",[2] the "Psychedelics Encyclopedia",[3] and Erowid's trip reports[4] for examples of people who did have massively transformative experiences. That said, from what I've read, it's relatively r…
The worst part was when I realized that no matter how awesome or cool everything that I saw was, it was not real and I could never share it with anyone. I tripped with friends, and while we might look at the same object and all see something wonderful or mysterious or terrifying, we weren't seeing the same thing. It was a solitary experience which for me epitomized the term masturbatory.
I might do acid again if the circumstances were right, but I'd rather smoke pot than see weird things.
If you haven't tried acid, you aren't missing out on anything. If hallucinations are of interest to you for whatever reason, I'd recommend reading about and practicing lucid dreams.