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Can psychedelics make you a better person?

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Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#81

Post by pmoriarty »

gnulinux wrote: post #79
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #55

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained thi…

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more I really, really, don't want to write this because I'm a very drug friendly person. I personally don't do drugs except alcohol (I know how horrible it is, but I have anxiety problems) but I am ok with all sorts of drugs as long as there is scientific evidence it improves your life. Having said that, your quote up there is…

"Was this person insane in the first place? No, I lived 4 years of my life with this guy and he was one of the smartest, most intelligent people I've ever met."

Intelligent people can have mental issues. They can be really good at hiding them too -- both from other people and sometimes even from themselves.

I've read over and over again of people living together for decades, and one day they find out that the other person is a serial killer or an abuser or some other sort of criminal, and they had no idea, even after living their whole lives with them. People are really good at deceiving each other, and often the people closest to them are just in denial, and either overlook or make excuses for behavior and signs that sometime look worrisome in retrospect or when seen by people who aren't so involved.

Psychedelics, especially at large doses, are certainly not without risks. Some people just aren't ready to face what they might reveal. Many people also don't treat them with much respect, viewing them merely as party drugs or sometimes even destructively. There are ways to use them constructively, and ways of maximizing the chances of having a productive experience and of integrating what one learned during that experience back in to one's ordinary life.

For specific recommendations on maximizing the positive potential of psychedelics I'd recommend reading "The Secret Chief Revealed" and "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide":

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff...

https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#82

Post by [deleted] »

srge wrote: post #21

Psychedelics (LSD, shrooms) made me a better person. I don’t know anyone who became less caring, less respectfull, more violent or more greedy after doing those drugs. I would argue that psychedelics make you more human, in the good sense of the word.

[deleted]

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#83

Post by loceng »

arca_vorago wrote: post #25

ctrl+f ego... no hits? I've never done a psychedelic other than a very spiritual moment with salvia divinorum, but I have read up on them extensively, (they are often touted to help with ptsd), and the one major common factor is their ego-busting nature. Ego is a good thing in many ways, but due to societal and cultural strangeness, it is sometimes warped into overdrive (arrogance, etc) and sometimes too puny (low se…

I have been to many Ayahuasca ceremonies. As you stated, it helps break down the ego mind's control. It is definitely important that there is a shaman, and the best is to hear through word of mouth of someone having a positive experience with a particular shaman. The shaman holds the space during the ceremony, much like how a yoga instructor holds the space for a yoga class - there is variation based on what that instructor brings experience wise, their own energy, etc.

Re: Ego - Ego is a tool, however it often gets stuck on acting as a coping mechanism. If ego's stuck on then it causes other problems of the body/brain/mind. It should act like subpersonalities, where there is a time to be a caretaker, a perfectionist, etc - however it becomes a problem if a subpersonality becomes dominant, like it becomes a problem if ego becomes dominant.

I have been going through a difficult journey, as was unknown to me beforehand, it turns out that my ego helped protect me and allow me to function by separating me from feeling/reacting to pain from a childhood injury. This disconnect from pain, improper perception of pain, allowed me to injure myself throughout the rest of my life - and then I was gradually exposed to it more and more, until a point where my ego no longer had enough control to allow me to cope through all of the pain.

I have had success healing some of the injuries with stem cell injections, however have run into incompetence that's built into our health-"care" system. I'll be posting about it longer at some point, soon I imagine. I struggle a lot daily.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#84

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #70
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #55

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained thi…

This is a very interesting take on opium. Are there sources on long-term use with regulated dosage you can point to? Doesn’t the tolerance increase with regular use? Or is this managed by takin brakes on a regular basis? In which case what about withdrawal?

Re: Sources: Opium and its derivatives certainly are the most demonized substances, in the most drug-ophobic time in history. There was a very extended study done by Britain in India. It was quite extensive, and their TLDR: No worse than alcohol

RE: Tolerance: The tolerance is very much dose-related. So if someone took large doses for just a week, they would suffer more withdrawal than someone who took small doses daily for a year. The breaks are something I found to be useful to 'feel' my current tolerance. Here's how it kind of goes; I'll have a 24-36 hour break, weekly, and if my tolerance isn't too high, the feeling will be a pleasant one. The feeling of my own body will be heightened, and I'll even have one good nap. I usually take this day to do hard physical activities, or do the menial tasks I dont like. It is also a good time to do psychedelics, like hash, since the body sensations are increased. If, on the other hand, my tolerance was too high, I'll have some mental/psychological discomfort and diareha. I won't try to avoid it, as I see this as a necessary part of life, and what I am doing,effectively, is condensing all my misery in a single day. In this case, I'll know that I need to brind my dose back down. The benefits are ability to sleep, as I suffered from chronic insomnia for my entire adult life prior to using it. This single benefit has an endless river of secondary benefits. The other great benefit happens at 'peak' effects - the mind becomes extremely clear and realist, so those are my most productive times. Combined with a good fermented Yunnanese tea, and the thinking capacities are just off the charts. It also took care of some social anger issues I have - being frustrated with most of the world commiting species-wide suicide; now I can think about my own ambitions instead.

That all being said, opium is extremely powerful, and it will harm anyone without enough self-control, or who is ignorant of its power- It happened to me at the beginning, and I suffered a very bad week of withdrawals when I ran out once. But the experience was also beneficial in a sense; it thaught me a very good lesson about the impossibility of achieving eternal pleasure, which cured me totally of the hope that one day I might find nirvana - it's a joke. Enjoy your misery; it is part of your lot. The end of your misery is the end of you.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#85

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

DanBC wrote: post #80
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #55

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained thi…

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, This is untrue, and dangerously so. > Iv met someone who cured acute autism with psilocybin. This is incoherent. Autism is never acute, it's always chronic. Part of the diagnosis is "has this lasted since childhood?"

Re: autism: Well, regardless, the person is now fuctionning quite 'normally' - nobody would know that this person in question was autistic. And it was psisocybin that did it.

Re: LSD: I'm not backing off my claim. Almost everyone living in this society is insane. So in that sense LSD is 'dangerous' to almost everyone today.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#86

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #75
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #55

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained thi…

What's the problem with coffee?

It is very bad for your health, and doesn't have much benefits. Opium is- again- a very good replacement. But the problem with opium as compared to coffee is that it doesnt have this 'uncomfortable dose' limit which basically stops people from taking extravagant doses of coffee. So a lot of people will just keep taking more and more, which ends up being harmful. Nothing is free in this world. But coffee is really bad for your health. If anything, switch to fermented black tea- much less harmful.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#87

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

gnulinux wrote: post #79
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #55

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained thi…

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more I really, really, don't want to write this because I'm a very drug friendly person. I personally don't do drugs except alcohol (I know how horrible it is, but I have anxiety problems) but I am ok with all sorts of drugs as long as there is scientific evidence it improves your life. Having said that, your quote up there is…

> "LSD can't make you crazy if you weren't in the first place"

It can't. There have been some very good research done which show that the society we currently live in is completely insane, which implies that almost anyone living in this society is mad. I really enjoyed 'Characer analysis' by Wilhelm Reich - very good stuff - in which he showed that the facist society we live in has turned us against ourselves. LSD and its brothers will break the 'emotional armor' that people have build up to supress their emotion to survive the facism of their family/classroom/workplace. Releasing too much emotion at once can very easily harm people. So I am not backing off my claim, but I'll admit that since mose people are insane, LSD is potentially dangerous for most people.

Did you friend have a very rich sexual life when the incident happend? I'm not asking you to answer here obviously, but I'm almost certain he did not.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#88

Post by gnulinux »

HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #87
gnulinux wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more I really, really, don't want to write this because I'm a very drug friendly person. I personally don't do drugs except alcohol (I know how horrible it is, but I have anxiety problems) but I am ok with all sorts of drugs as long as there is scientific evidence it improves your life. Having said that, your quote up there is…

> "LSD can't make you crazy if you weren't in the first place" It can't. There have been some very good research done which show that the society we currently live in is completely insane, which implies that almost anyone living in this society is mad. I really enjoyed 'Characer analysis' by Wilhelm Reich - very good stuff - in which he showed that the facist society we live in has turned us against ourselves. LSD an…

> Did you friend have a very rich sexual life when the incident happend? I'm not asking you to answer here obviously, but I'm almost certain he did not.

No I don't think he had sex before that incident. But how would that affect his trip. As I wrote above, his first trip (which was about 6 months before the second one) was really fun for him.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#89

Post by Nomentatus »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #73
entwife wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the author said that Demeter was the goddess of corn, I nearly stopped reading. Facts: Demeter was a goddess of grain and harvest. Ergot (Claviceps species), and specifically ergot growing on rye (Secale cereale) has psychoactive properties; this ergot is liekly the source of psychedelic experience in the Elusinean Mysteries. Corn (Zea mays) was not introduced to Europe until the Columbian exchange; the fungus t…

The author is from the UK, so they are probably using the British definition of corn[1] which can refer to many different kinds of grain. Using that definition of corn, the article doesn't seem to be inaccurate. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corn#Etymology_1

Right, remember that when Middle English was around, the New World hadn't been discovered, so the word definitely was not applied to maize originally. This British usage still remains in place as far as I know. Those darned Brits - you'd think they invented the language, the way they sling it around any way they want!

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#90

Post by goo »

tree_of_item wrote: post #77
vitro wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Research" because it cannot be done officially as LSD is illegal, so he relies on subjective reports of people who microdose, which cannot be precise and standardized, of course. Have you tried it? What I can recommend to you is to go and try it yourself, then tell me if it is homeopathy. Nothing can replace your own experience.

It doesn't matter if it's illegal. Psilocybin and MDMA are illegal but there's research being done there. Microdosing is homeopathy because of the emphasis on "sub-perceptual" doses. There's no such thing, when it comes to psychedelics. You either perceive it, or it didn't work. Fadiman could do blind testing to try to prove me wrong, but he won't. Why not? I'm sure there are lots of people who report "benefits" from…

Homeopathy and 3% of a standard dose of one of world's strongest drugs are very very different things.

Even setting aside the massive, proven, perceptual effect that placebos have -- which means that if you do believe in homeopathy, it could actually have a strong effect -- this is analogous to saying that a couple of sips of beer is going to do "jack shit". It won't do much -- but your liver will still process it, and it will provide some energy, and it will have a very mild affect on your nervous system. Is a couple of sips of beer an "active dose"? What's an active dose here?

In contrast with homeopathic solutions, which are diluted down to figures like 1 PPM (presumably a very very low % of what would be an "active dose" of its chemical), this is a 3% dose we're talking about! It's intellectually dishonest to assert that there would not be an effect on the nervous system at that level, and it is a strange position to assume that because the effect on the nervous system does not rise to obvious perception, that it has no effect on the experience of the subject.

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