Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 97 posts

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#51

Post by DrSiemer »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #24
462436347 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that these Elves never seem to provide any useful, actionable information, especially information that their human interlocutor would have had no way of knowing. Instead it's just vague, mystical fluff.

One take on psychedelics I find intriguing is that instead of providing actual deep insights, they simulate it. While you are high, everything just seems profound and mystical, but there is really nothing there, it is an artifact of the distorted brain chemistry. I find this makes sense because in my experience, people that regularly take psychedelics do not seem wiser or more insightful to me than people who don't.…

The people I personally know who got over depressions and processed traumatic experiences from their childhood would disagree.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#53

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #43
jacquesm wrote: post #37

I've seen two people go down the Ayahuasca path in the past years and both of them have undergone such profound personality changes that I've had to stop seeing them. They've gone off the deep end in ways that are hard to describe. What also bothers me is that they've become incessant advocates for others to join them in their misery.

This is just turning out to be the acid craze of our generation. We need a PSA. If you take a heroic dose of a powerful hallucinogen with little prior experience or preparation you stand a chance of breaking your brain. Doing ayahuasca with some unknown "shaman" in a jungle "wellness retreat" is not the same as going to a spa and getting acupuncture. It's more like going skydiving with an "instructor" that just hands…

Just take this 5-strip of acid at a 3 day music festival surrounded by 20,000 people for your first time bro!

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#54

Post by leroy-is-here »

462436347 wrote: post #22
jossclimb wrote: post #2

I am fascinated by this stuff and DMT and part of me would love to try it. It appears most people experience the same entities such as the self-transforming elf machines. I read another transcript where somebody met their intergalactic girlfriend and the absolute bliss of their reunion and how it felt like they have known each other for hundreds of years. A nice short of Terence McKenna discussing the DMT Elves https…

It's interesting that these Elves never seem to provide any useful, actionable information, especially information that their human interlocutor would have had no way of knowing. Instead it's just vague, mystical fluff.

It may just be the ineffable.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#56

Post by tgv »

DrSiemer wrote: post #51
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One take on psychedelics I find intriguing is that instead of providing actual deep insights, they simulate it. While you are high, everything just seems profound and mystical, but there is really nothing there, it is an artifact of the distorted brain chemistry. I find this makes sense because in my experience, people that regularly take psychedelics do not seem wiser or more insightful to me than people who don't.…

The people I personally know who got over depressions and processed traumatic experiences from their childhood would disagree.

It's by no means said that it's a form of insight that helped them. First, that's a self-reported quality, and self-reporting is very unreliable. Second, it's not the only effect that psychedelics have.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#57

Post by LoganDark »

ycombinete wrote: post #17
neom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love reading the trip reports on Erowid: https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_DMT.shtml

Same here. I've read a lot of them. And I haven't read a single one that made me want to try it. My psyche treats any state as permanent, and I think most of these trips would probably drive me insane. Inb4 I need a psychedelic trip to break out of that psychic mold.

> Inb4 I need a psychedelic trip to break out of that psychic mold.

I literally feel like this could be the case for me. I'm unable to lucid dream because even if I go into it knowing it's going to be a dream, hell even if I go into a daydream, my brain will instantly realize it's seeing or experiencing something and assert that it's reality and there's no need to question it because it is certainly real.

It's so annoying because it affects more than just dreaming, it also makes it impossible for other people to convince me that any of my memories are even slightly embellished.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#58

Post by m4jor »

dagorenouf wrote: post #9

I had never done any kind of drugs in my life or psychedelics, but took Ayahuasca once with friends who were in the personal wellness space circa 2010. My experience: - tastes like mud - it’s recommended to vomit after taking it, but I felt too self-conscious because we were all together in the same room - the first part of the trip was wonderful as I spent 2hours in bliss seeing colored lights, I still remember this…

You could consider doing more drugs.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#60

Post by 0_____0 »

jossclimb wrote: post #2

I am fascinated by this stuff and DMT and part of me would love to try it. It appears most people experience the same entities such as the self-transforming elf machines. I read another transcript where somebody met their intergalactic girlfriend and the absolute bliss of their reunion and how it felt like they have known each other for hundreds of years. A nice short of Terence McKenna discussing the DMT Elves https…

The Machine Elves thing is fascinating. I would chalk it up to a sort of culturally shared hallucination, where people have heard of them and are primed to expect them, except for that I had an experience on DMT long before I had heard of this phenomenon where I saw such things... I called them "engineer aliens," I shit you not
Post reply on HN