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LSD: Not Even Once

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Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#231

Post by cogitoergofutuo »

tptacek wrote: post #77
siva7 wrote: post #13

Both those trip reports are very unusual for psylocibin and LSD. It looks to me that the author might have other health complications that caused the bad trips. As a general advice one should be very careful when taking psychedelics with other prescribed medications or having a history of mental illness.

What is anybody supposed to do with this response? Is there a test you can take to rule out long-term negative side effects from psychedelics? If not, aren't you just rolling the dice one way or the other? Mightn't we not just act as if there's a particular mental health complication called "susceptibility to long-term negative side effects of LSD"?

> What is anybody supposed to do with this response?

I think GP’s post has actionable advice in it:

> As a general advice one should be very careful when taking psychedelics with other prescribed medications or having a history of mental illness.

One simple thing a person could do (in the spirit of being careful) is researching the interactions between different drugs. For example, you could Google “psychedelics + SSRIs” if you were on SSRIs, or “psychedelics + social anxiety disorder” if you had social anxiety disorder. It doesn’t seem too difficult if one is already googling “psychedelics + Steve Jobs”

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#232

Post by jtbayly »

ravi-delia wrote: post #55

Fairly interesting post, especially for those who weren't aware that hallucinogens sometimes cause minor hallucinations indefinitely, but arguments like the conclusions section are why we need to, as a society, beat "the plural of anecdote is not data" into every single person's head. Some people have a negative reaction to LSD. Some people don't. Some people have a positive reaction to LSD. Some don't. What's missin…

I grew up being warned that “it only takes one time” and you can fry your brain.

Then I read on HN that was BS. Flashbacks don’t happen, trips can be made safe, etc.

I’m actually glad to finally see this LSD etc promotion challenged. Seems like what I heard growing up was more true than what I’ve read on HN up until today.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#233

Post by shipscode »

wnolens wrote: post #162
Trasmatta wrote: post #79

I’ve noticed a troubling trend among psychonauts: any reports of terrible experiences or long lasting negative effects of psychedelics are waved away in two different ways: 1 - blaming of the person who had the experience, for not having the proper “set and setting”, or not respecting the drug. 2 - claiming that there’s no such thing as a “bad trip”, and only a challenging one that takes time to integrate. There migh…

Every time I talk about my negative LSD experience with someone in-person (even one who is very pro-psychedelic and enjoys positive or growth experiences from it), I receive great empathy and we discuss it, they are genuinely curious and perhaps even recalibrate their own compass. However, bringing it up online (reddit, HN) I either get others chiming in with their negative experiences or I get blamed as if I have ne…

People online are basically parrots, they're just repeating what they've read regardless of who stated it.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#234

Post by pineaux »

Trasmatta wrote: post #170
krater23 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That it’s absurd how much suffering the human mind is capable of experiencing. A few years later and I can no longer feel much of the trauma of the experience, but there were months were I would just lay there feeling the aftershocks of the seemingly unending emotional pain I had experienced. Sorry to say it, but that's the same what can happen when you're falling in love with someone. And if your love breaks, yes,…

This comparison doesn’t really work for me. The pain I felt was more like the worst heartbreak imaginable, but magnified 100 fold, then spread across infinite time and space, all while having the knowledge that this pain was my eternal state and would NEVER end. This isn’t to discount the immense pain people feel from heartbreak or losing a loved one. Just that the human mind seems to have an incredibly large capacit…

I agree with you on this. This can also be experienced from meditatieve practises and journeys into "spiritual enlightenment". Drugs and mind altering behaviors like meditation are a way of hacking the mind. If you hack stupidly or are really unlucky, you can brick your mind. Doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. Adventures are adventures.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#235

Post by Waterluvian »

m_fayer wrote: post #227
Trasmatta wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I know the feeling exactly. I had recurrent dreams like that as a kid, that somehow always involved a large yellow sphere / ball. For some unknown reason I HAD to move that sphere, but I also knew it was impossible. It evoked this odd and terrible sensation emerging from two opposing mental forces: there was something I HAD to do at all costs but I also knew it was entirely impossible at the same time. My “ba…

Fascinating. I experienced something very similar as a kid, with huge grey spheres in a black void. They felt implacable, indifferent, yet malicious. And I had a sense of futility and utter insufficiency. I also experienced these feelings later on psychedelics and in some other circumstances of adult duress. I really do wonder what to make of the similarities.

There’s a very reassuring feeling I’m having right now seeing so many people write about the same kinds of sensation.

Insufficiency. Futility. Infinitesimally unlikely. HAD to. Indifferent, malicious. Having to move things in a way that conflicted with the established physics of the situation.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#236

Post by diego_sandoval »

Trasmatta wrote: post #136
Waterluvian wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That it’s absurd how much suffering the human mind is capable of experiencing. When I was 8 or 9 I had a night terror that involved some sort of life-sized game of Tetris that was moving terribly fast. My brain wholly adopted the belief that if I were to lose, everyone I loved would die horribly. I was trapped in this night terror for what felt like forever. Afterwards I refused to sleep voluntarily for weeks. To t…

I think I know the feeling exactly. I had recurrent dreams like that as a kid, that somehow always involved a large yellow sphere / ball. For some unknown reason I HAD to move that sphere, but I also knew it was impossible. It evoked this odd and terrible sensation emerging from two opposing mental forces: there was something I HAD to do at all costs but I also knew it was entirely impossible at the same time. My “ba…

I remember lying in bed with fever, as a kid, and there was a big CRT TV in the room.

The TV looked huge to me, and for some reason, it looked as if it would never be able to fit through the door again. Thinking that the TV was stuck in this room forever gave me the deepest sense of dread. Something had gone really wrong with the world. What would my family do when they realized that the TV was stuck? Would they cry desperately? Would they run away and leave me there? I just felt like life would never be the same again.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#237

Post by ravi-delia »

jtbayly wrote: post #232
ravi-delia wrote: post #55

Fairly interesting post, especially for those who weren't aware that hallucinogens sometimes cause minor hallucinations indefinitely, but arguments like the conclusions section are why we need to, as a society, beat "the plural of anecdote is not data" into every single person's head. Some people have a negative reaction to LSD. Some people don't. Some people have a positive reaction to LSD. Some don't. What's missin…

I grew up being warned that “it only takes one time” and you can fry your brain. Then I read on HN that was BS. Flashbacks don’t happen, trips can be made safe, etc. I’m actually glad to finally see this LSD etc promotion challenged. Seems like what I heard growing up was more true than what I’ve read on HN up until today.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about! In no sense does this article "challenge" random people on HN, because there's nothing to challenge at all. Some people did say they liked LSD, which is as true as it ever was, and other people say they don't like LSD, which is also true. Anyone going from "well I heard it's ok" => "flashbacks don't happen" was wrong before this story was ever published, because the plural of anecdote is not data.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#238

Post by ksaj »

lazystar wrote: post #127
jerglingu wrote: post #22

Had a similar experience, but with the much more tame marijuana. It was a 6-hour long panic attack for me. Similar to the author of this, I read for years of how "the only way it could ever harm you is if you were crushed by 100 lbs of it" on sites like Reddit. It wasn't until after getting high that I heard about marijuana amplifying stress tendencies in a minority of people. I've always been high strung, and maybe…

When folks say that marijuana's a safe drug, it's purely in reference to the fact that it wont kill you. 100 shots of tequila in an hour will cause death; 100 tokes of marijuana will not. The problem this results in is an interesting one: marijuana growers are constantly increasing the per gram density of THC/cannabinoids in their plants. The consequence of this is that today's marijuana, compared to that of the '70s…

I guess because I live in a country where marijuana is fully legalized, I have never seen this as an issue. Our pot is labelled in the same way alcohol is, so you know pretty close to exactly what you are in for.

You can buy weed that has nearly no THC and a whole lot of CBD. But we also have infused pre-rolls that are nearly double the strength of natural weed with no CBD. These are polar opposite experiences.

Everything is labelled both in Percent, and in mg/g so there is no mistaking whether or not the weed is strong, weak, or somewhere in between.

Everything also gets described with terpene measures, as those volatile oils have a huge impact on the experience. It's pretty much the reason why if it smells super dank and thick, you're headed for couch lock, and if it smells lemony fresh and clean, you're in for a super clear head buzz instead.

Likewise, marijuana is nearly always sold with an educational fact sheet. One learns early on that CBD is both medically useful, but also takes "the edge" off of strong weed. Beginners should start slow, and don't smoke weed that has 0% CBD.

Also there's the well known strategy: If you're the personality that tends to have that dread feeling when the buzz comes on, then start with only a small amount until you pass that first stage. Then you can smoke like crazy without that dread feeling, since it is really only triggered in the initial phase. Once you're adjusted into it, you're all good for the night.

Just don't smoke so much that you end up greening out. That's a real thing, but nearly only ever happens if you eat too much THC edibles at one time. It's hard to green out from toking once you get past the initial phase because auto-titration kicks in big time. Most people don't even realize they are doing it, but it has everything to do with why one can toke 10x the amount over the course of an evening at a party than they ever could at home, and never have that dread feeling that one can experience if they use too much from the start.

People usually only learn that through experience, but it should be part of the education. Knowing the phases (initial coming on, the buzz, then fading back to normal) greatly enhances the experience.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#239

Post by ravi-delia »

medler wrote: post #223
ravi-delia wrote: post #55

Fairly interesting post, especially for those who weren't aware that hallucinogens sometimes cause minor hallucinations indefinitely, but arguments like the conclusions section are why we need to, as a society, beat "the plural of anecdote is not data" into every single person's head. Some people have a negative reaction to LSD. Some people don't. Some people have a positive reaction to LSD. Some don't. What's missin…

The tail risk is real though. I do hope someday we’ll have accurate estimates of those risks. In the meantime it seems pretty clear to me that the expected value of these drugs is negative. I think it was Charlie Munger who said “in the best case scenario you feel good for a few minutes. In the worst case scenario it ruins your life.”

I mean maybe? Depends on how willing you are to trade small risks for small benefit. But we have no real bounds on upsides or downsides, and no real probability of any of it. I don't know about you, but my prior in situations such as these is that if a strong effect in either direction were likely, we'd have better data.

Re: LSD: Not Even Once

#240

Post by maxbond »

lta wrote: post #212
maxbond wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an overreaction to fear mongering stories about psychedelics that are much less common now than a decade or two ago. But it would be crazy to dismiss the danger in taking psychedelics or to bill them as being suitable for everyone, I agree. An underground and recreational drug culture is prone to dismissing risk and ill equipped to create safe and supportive environments, or to respond to medical/psychol…

I'm the living counter example. I've experienced it multiple times in settings that would be very closed to ideal for psy-heads, hence one random day, something very similar to what's described in this article happened. Took me about a decade to recover. I was very close friends with lots of people in the psychedelic harm reduction associations and had a lot of theoritical and practical knowledge...

I'm really sorry that happened to you. I think it's clear that for some people it's just inappropriate, and that preparedness is necessary but not sufficient. I don't think it's clear when it is or isn't appropriate, which is obviously super dangerous and deserving of further study. I think it's important for stories like yours, the top level comment, and the article to be shared & taken seriously.

(To be clear, that's not what I meant about fear mongering stories. I mean fictitious boogy man stories, like https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/orange-juice-lsd/ . You can see the same thing with fentanyl today - fentanyl is deadly, but people still feel the need to exaggerate and attribute impossible characteristics to it, leading to panic attacks in cops that so much as touch it. In the same way, psychedelics are dangerous, but there was a time when people felt compelled to invent fictitious ways for them to be dangerous.)

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