What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports • Hacker News Board

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#21

Post by Traubenfuchs » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

guardian5x wrote: post #14

westmeal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it just hits in such a way that you have no idea wtf is happening. One time I couldn't read because letters just didn't have meaning any more. It looked like alien unicode characters or some shit.

Isn't that kinda scary? I mean when some parts of your brains don't work or not work properly?

Depends on your attitude.

I consider life and reality incredibly, painfully boring.

That's why I LOVE alternate states of mind, even if they are scary.

Nothing excites me more than the prospect of feeling thing and seeing things I have not experienced before.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#22

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

Just remember: There are a lot of chemicals that produce LSD-like effects. The farther away you are from the chemist, the less likely you know the actual drug that you're getting. This is especially the case at concerts / festivals, where the "game of telephone" might mean that you don't really know what you're taking.

After reading many trip reports on Erowid for LSD, I suspect that the authors often unknowingly took something else. A classic case is STP/DOM, which often comes in paper / tabs and is visually indistinguishable from LSD. If you ever hear the familiar, "I took some crazy acid. At first it didn't work, so I took another, and then I finally came up after an hour and had an intense trip," it was probably STP/DOM instead of LSD.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#23

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

Once I took way way too much and disappeared into a swirling mass of organs and gibbering creatures a la Geiger. It should have been terrifying but it just... wasn't. I really enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, back in the fully conscious world, my roommates had conversations with me that I do not remember at all. I took a very long break from any experimenting after that.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#24

Post by throwaway183785 » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #12

I once took Ketamine, "fell through the bed" and spent half an hour in a different dimension, peacefully floating above and close to incredibly detailed, dull and dark colored patterns while unable to form language-based thoughts until I suddenly snapped out of it. The music I was listening to (HUSBANDS (Run Along, Son, etc.)) helped a lot and was just incredible, though I am still not sure if I could have had the sa…

I had a similar experience with ketamine listening to different music. It felt almost like I was engulfed in the music, in a very positive and beautiful way. Having experienced opiates, MDMA, 2C-E, 2C-B, LSD, shrooms, and DMT, ketamine is still the experience I am most fond of. I sometimes wonder what certain music would feel like to experience on ketamine.

I experienced severe depression in my teenage years. Towards the end of them, I had this ketamine experience (well, a few sessions, but this one stands out in particular.) My depression has never come back nearly as strong as before (it's been over 10 years.)

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#25

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #22

Just remember: There are a lot of chemicals that produce LSD-like effects. The farther away you are from the chemist, the less likely you know the actual drug that you're getting. This is especially the case at concerts / festivals, where the "game of telephone" might mean that you don't really know what you're taking. After reading many trip reports on Erowid for LSD, I suspect that the authors often unknowingly too…

At Bonnaroo, one of our party got STP instead of acid and we had to babysit all frickin weekend. Of course, I had already taken my mescaline so it was not fun at all.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#26

Post by qwertox » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

Hah, this now prompted me to ask ChatGPT to tell me about Erowid and the most remarkable things it read there, and we're chatting along over bad trips and it telling me how apparently heroin can't fix a bad trip, and it comes up with quotes from which I have to assume that they are just hallucinations, but "funny" ones if one thinks about them just having gotten made up by an AI:

> Every bad sensation was magnified a thousandfold because there was nothing to filter or rationalize it. Pain didn't feel like something I was experiencing—it felt like everything I was.

> I was convinced I had broken something inside my mind permanently, that I'd never be normal again. The terror of that idea became its own reality.

but also the nice things are interesting to chat about

  Users frequently say things like:
  “There was no past or future, only this moment.”
  “Who I was didn't matter anymore; I just existed.”

or "That's one of the most interesting paradoxes people report: thinking continues, but the thinker disappears."

generally a fun thing to chat about with it.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#27

Post by Traubenfuchs » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #22

Just remember: There are a lot of chemicals that produce LSD-like effects. The farther away you are from the chemist, the less likely you know the actual drug that you're getting. This is especially the case at concerts / festivals, where the "game of telephone" might mean that you don't really know what you're taking. After reading many trip reports on Erowid for LSD, I suspect that the authors often unknowingly too…

Same thing for ecstasy: Can be anything from filler scam, to an MDMA dosage that will probably send you to hospital, to drugs that work very similar to MDMA and can also be called ecstasy to weird ass hard drugs that are something completely different.

In Vienna we have an organization that checks pills or powder from the batch you bought and tells you what exactly it is.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#28

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

throwaway183785 wrote: post #24

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #12

I once took Ketamine, "fell through the bed" and spent half an hour in a different dimension, peacefully floating above and close to incredibly detailed, dull and dark colored patterns while unable to form language-based thoughts until I suddenly snapped out of it. The music I was listening to (HUSBANDS (Run Along, Son, etc.)) helped a lot and was just incredible, though I am still not sure if I could have had the sa…

I had a similar experience with ketamine listening to different music. It felt almost like I was engulfed in the music, in a very positive and beautiful way. Having experienced opiates, MDMA, 2C-E, 2C-B, LSD, shrooms, and DMT, ketamine is still the experience I am most fond of. I sometimes wonder what certain music would feel like to experience on ketamine. I experienced severe depression in my teenage years. Towards…

Love the shroom experience, hate all the yawning and sore jaw after.

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#29

Post by LoganDark » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #22

Just remember: There are a lot of chemicals that produce LSD-like effects. The farther away you are from the chemist, the less likely you know the actual drug that you're getting. This is especially the case at concerts / festivals, where the "game of telephone" might mean that you don't really know what you're taking. After reading many trip reports on Erowid for LSD, I suspect that the authors often unknowingly too…

even LSD doesn't usually work immediately. it usually takes something like 30 minutes to an hour to start having effects.

i think one of my records is something like 12 hours after dosage to start feeling the effects. which i think happened because i also ate a bunch of food before taking

i use LSD recreationally every 1-2 weeks or so

Re: What do people see when they're tripping? Analyzing Erowid's trip reports

#30

Post by Traubenfuchs » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 3:44 PM UTC

throwaway183785 wrote: post #24

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #12

I once took Ketamine, "fell through the bed" and spent half an hour in a different dimension, peacefully floating above and close to incredibly detailed, dull and dark colored patterns while unable to form language-based thoughts until I suddenly snapped out of it. The music I was listening to (HUSBANDS (Run Along, Son, etc.)) helped a lot and was just incredible, though I am still not sure if I could have had the sa…

I had a similar experience with ketamine listening to different music. It felt almost like I was engulfed in the music, in a very positive and beautiful way. Having experienced opiates, MDMA, 2C-E, 2C-B, LSD, shrooms, and DMT, ketamine is still the experience I am most fond of. I sometimes wonder what certain music would feel like to experience on ketamine. I experienced severe depression in my teenage years. Towards…

One time I snorted ketamine with a bunch of hairy middle eastern guys on a club toilet in Tel Aviv and the next day I was courageous enough to rent myself a car and drive to the dead sea, when I had given up navigating the shitty bus booking websites for dead sea transports the day before.

There might be something to it. Unfortunately, the last few times I tried to buy Ketamine I got scammed with Cocaine, which I abhor.