Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change • Hacker News Board

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#171

Post by kd1221 » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 7:37 AM UTC

mparr4 wrote: post #99

michaelochurch wrote: post #96

A few things I'm going to say. First, these drugs aren't "hallucinogens". They're psychedelics (mind-revealing). A hallucination is a false perception which the person believes to be real; visuals are perceptions that the person knows are not real, such as "light shows". Except at very high doses, these drugs don't produce hallucinations per se . Other drugs can, but LSD and psilocybin generally do not. Ok, that may…

Wasn't enough to just upvote this post. This is a very thoughtful and concise (yes, really) introduction to those considering embarking on a psychedelic journey. In my experience, contemplative and analytical people (such as the typical hacker) can truly reach the extremes of the psychedelic experience. If too anxious or unwilling to cede control, you're likely to find yourself on a slippery slope. If however, you ha…

I've taken psilocybin mushrooms twice. I've also read plenty of literature about psychedelics and the nature of reality. My experience is difficult to describe, because it was mostly "feeling." Language is a very crude way to express feeling, but the pithiest description I can give: it was extremely balanced.

In fact, on my first trip I listened to "Handlebars" by Flobots and the music (without the lyrics) accurately conveys what I experienced.

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#172

Post by Jach » Sun, Oct 02, 2011, 7:56 AM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #167

Jach wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be better, too, and I'm continually working at becoming such. But I'm not convinced that tripping is a guaranteed way to betterness, nor how much better any accidental betterness would really be.

Nothing is a guarantee in life.

And not all probabilities are equal. I haven't implied there exists something which is a guarantee, I have stated that I don't think taking drugs is a guarantee to becoming better. Being more technical, taking drugs as an action for becoming better is heavily outweighed by other options in my expected utility function, both probabilistically and in amount of utility. (Of course this could change.)

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#173

Post by sophacles » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #156

sophacles wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but doesn't Grapefruit Juice contain a high vitamin C content also?

Yeah. Actually, it looks like there is mention in the literature (Simon Wills Drugs of abuse , 2nd Ed, 2005)[1] of vitamin C in fruit juice, or Ammonium Chloride to acidify urine to promote sequestration and removal of amphetamine metabolites. I'm not sure if/how that translates to other drugs like Psilocybin, but it does raise some interesting questions. Do you by any chance have a source regarding the original "enh…

No real source, but googling "vitamin c mushrooms ehance" brings up lots of forum posts etc. In my case, this knowledge is just the sort of folk-wisdom picked up from a misspent youth :). I have heard lots of stuff to explain it, but all of that falls squarely in the "probably pseudoscience" and [citation needed] categories.

HTH