I've done psychedelics upwards of 50 times over the last 5 years and while I think they are dangerous, and that their real purpose and origin may be different than what we are taught, I still think they are valuable drugs. Invaluable even. I just can't conceive of a place in our culture where we could do them like for instance we do adderall or prozac. I know they do studies but to me it seems like an experience that comes to you and then goes away when you don't need it. Very difficult thing to explain unless you've "been there." I don't think you necessarily need drugs to get there but it vastly vastly makes it easier. Just like I don't think you need a train, car, or plane to travel across Eurasia but walking there sure takes a whole lot of something else.
LSD: Not Even Once
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Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#32I went up into the Catskills with a big bag of mushrooms and a trunk full of rice and beans and didn't come down for a year.
I learned what it means to be grounded. I'm fucking unshakable now. "Everyone's different" is the real lesson here.
That being said, the way Silicon Valley uses this shit makes me want to rage. Treat it like it's sacred, and it'll treat you like you are.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#33Both 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.
Or they took something that was presented as LSD but was actually something else. This sounds like the kind of nerve damage people get from taking dangerous doses of MDMA. Not saying it's MDMA specifically but it could have been something neurotoxic.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#34I’ve had visual snow since I can remember. I went to the eye doctor as a kid and they ran a bunch of tests which resulted in “it’s nothing”.
Dabbled in psychedelics pretty heavily in college. Think it was one bad trip that ended it for me. Dealt with some major anxiety for a couple years afterwards but eventually I went back to ‘normal’.
Visual snow never got worse, I did get “seeing stars” though which I never had prior to doing psychedelics.
Overall the conclusion I came to is that psychedelics are an absolute luxury in the US. If you can afford to break your brain and you think the risk is worth it go for it I guess?
Fortunately I was in college, had a job that was easy, and programming was an in depth enough experience that it made my anxiety go away while doing it.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#35This is one of two reasons why I decided to not try anything, ever. 1. What if it’s the most amazing thing ever, like ADHD medication, what if you get insanely productive, and you then have to go back to being mediocre? 2. What if it triggers something bad. If I get 10% worse at focusing on a solving a problem? Nope
> 1. What if it’s the most amazing thing ever, like ADHD medication, what if you get insanely productive, and you then have to go back to being mediocre?
Probably a good time to remind everyone that ADHD medication will not actually make you insanely productive forever. Good for treating genuine ADHD, but trying to use it like a limitless pill just leads to tolerance, dependence, and burnout.
The more involved doctors will actually start people on low doses and titrate up so patients don’t get the wrong idea about what the medicine is supposed to be doing for them. It’s usually the people who took too high of a dose they borrowed from a friend in college or something who have an idea that stimulants are a magic limitless pill without consequences.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#36I thought everyone experiences what he describes as “visual snow”. I just figured it was noise created in the retina and optic nerve, from stray photons and quantum effects and whatnot.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#37[deleted]
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#38People who have a history of mental illness in their family or suspect they may have latent mental illness should be wary of some drugs. Nitrous oxide is dissociative as is kratom. This person's first bad experience with psilocybin should have warned them off LSD, as there are many anecdotal stories of people losing their minds because they were mentally ill to begin with (Syd Barret of Pink Floyd). Millions of peopl…
I've never heard of kratom being dissociative. It feels like hydrocodone to me
I had a very bad experience where I lost myself and came to riding my bike down the road at 2 am in my underwear. It was the Red Maeng Da variety which is more potent.
Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#39Both 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.
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Re: LSD: Not Even Once
#40This is one of two reasons why I decided to not try anything, ever. 1. What if it’s the most amazing thing ever, like ADHD medication, what if you get insanely productive, and you then have to go back to being mediocre? 2. What if it triggers something bad. If I get 10% worse at focusing on a solving a problem? Nope
I can speak to #1. If you take a normal amount, you will not be productive at all in terms what we all feel society demands of us. All ideas of productivity fall away when you trip. Social pressures fall away, you become a kid again in a way. Fascinated by looking at grass breathing in a meadow. You still think familiar thoughts, but in a vastly different way.
Now, if you microdose that’s a different story. I tried microdosing for a month years back at a remote job. I found it made me more able to connect with others. Like I didn’t want to hop off a meeting right away. It gave me some extra creativity when coding, but didn’t increase the output of my code.
I completely respect anyone who doesn’t want to try though, there are even some psychedelics that scare me and I’ve done quite a bit!