How sad. LSD is a fantastic drug, used wisely. MDMA really is a piece of shit psychedelic, and far more likely to have bad outcomes even when the user is careful.
I'm surprised the article didn't even mention shrooms. Have they become more popular as LSD has waned? Because that would make a lot of sense. There's no reason to take LSD when shrooms are available.
The comments are all about shrooms as a substitute, with a number of people saying that they're not much of one. (With very limited experience of both, I'd say the same, that they're a quite different experience. But that's really limited -- acid literally once, and shrooms only two or three times.)
I personally can't tell the difference between the two, except for the length of the trip. But everyone else says they can.
I'm having a flashback to a Slate article I read on this around 8 years ago.
LSD would be much more fantastic if it just didn't last so fucking long.
Yeah, 8 hours is $120 worth of babysitters. That's pricey.
This Erowid article on Nick Sand says he was busted with 43 grams in 1996
I did most of my trippin in the early 1970s very very likely off the Sand-Scully Windsor batch. 250-300 mcg tabs, $3 apiece. Did some more in the early eighties, blotter, likely 50-100 mcg, really didn't trust it but it seemed ok, but even in multiple tabs seemed less intense.
Did shrooms once, sort of, well, an oz of fresh over a week. It was ok, but not acid. Hard put to explain the difference quickly.
It never was a real popular drug (4-8 hours couchlock, paranoia in public places), and I suspect it takes a missionary like Owsley or Pickard to create a social effect. Need to kinda drown the streets in it, so "Why not?" becomes the trend.
6: Now the decadent coastal elite parents will be sad for the rest of the thread because that's, like, 2 hours of babysitting there. (When I talked about heroin in the other thread I didn't quote the woman who was saying it's great because you can shoot up so fast you don't need a babysitter, can just go to the bathroom and be back with the kids a minute later.)
The shroom experience is a story.
Scored some black beauties ( meth + dex amphetamine). Took three, washed down with two valium 20s. Drove 50 miles (tall roommate drove), copped the oz of psylocibin, ate a quarter. Another BB. Went to a bar, was in some kind of mood, but walked up laid out a twenty and asked the keep to fill an oldfashioned glass with Cuervo Gold.
Blackout for twelve hours, whatever I did is gone forever, but I was apparently walking and talking. Alcohol is evil.
After I sobered up I just nibbled the remaining shrooms for a week, while managing to work. Comfortable. Guy downstairs wanted to trade, but he pissed me off about his adorable loli girlfriend.
Oh man, did I spend a lot of time and effort on psychedelic drugs back when I was younger. Contra chris, I never had even a single slightly unpleasant experience on MDMA, which I always considered the gentlest and least weird of the big drugs. Mushrooms were fun but unpredictable, and line between being super-high and being higher than I wanted to be was a tricky one to toe. LSD never made me feel out of control, but by the 7th hour or so, I was always very ready to sleep but couldn't even approach it without a Valium or something.
[Heavy sigh] I miss being 20.
Need to kinda drown the streets in it, so "Why not?" becomes the trend.
I do think a National Acid Trip would do the country some good. But the people who need to take it, wont.
Preferred shrooms to LSD, but only because of my instinctive bias toward things that grow in the ground. Loved both. I think they're very close to exact substitutes, with most of the difference being psychosomatic.
Yeah, shrooms have the unpredictable factor. Also the pukey factor. (Yuck.)
I'll venture a guess that people who think shrooms are more unpredictable tried them either first, or first tried them with others who were trying them for the first time (-> unsure about dosage).
Favorite shrooms memory: going to the Art Institute and being inspired to buy paint at the Blick's downtown and smear it on my feet, then walking barefoot across Monroe leaving neon green footprints. Then washing it off in the Millenium Park fountain amidst happy families/laughing children.
11 seems right on balance although some people wouldn't enjoy it. I hope my girlfriend from a couple months ago eventually tries psychedelics. We wanted to do them together but couldn't find any. Too bad; I think there's a decent chance they'd make her less judgmental of herself and happier long-term.
but by the 7th hour or so, I was always very ready to sleep but couldn't even approach it without a Valium or something.
So take a Valium already. I agree in principle, but I usually found that by that stage a couple of beers would put me to sleep.
We all miss being 20 in some ways. In others, not so much.
11.last: Sorry! Altered realities freak me out too much and leave me unpleasantly unsettled, though maybe that's because they've never been recreational.
I think like Thorn does about altered realities. On the whole, I would prefer not to hallucinate, thank you.
If drugs get legalized, there will be a shroom brand called "I can't believe it's not acid!"
On the whole, I would prefer not to hallucinate, thank you.
IME "hallucinogens" don't induce hallucinations in the sense that people who haven't experienced them would expect. It's more like turning up the resolution and colour depth on your screen, for all five senses.
Similarly, carcinogens don't enhance your car.
Nitrogen probably makes watching American Gladiators more enjoyable.
14 - I definitely found shrooms to be more unpredictable and generally less great than acid, and (unlike acid) neither of those two conditions are met. Of all the psychedelics I've tried acid was by far the most fun and the most useful for me. I only had shrooms do anything visually interesting once (aside from general colors-are-brighter-things-look-really-cool stuff that all of them do), and that time I ended up taking a nap in the middle of the trip which was the most disconcerting thing imaginable. It turns out that the "waking up drunk is confusing" thing where you just psychologically feel normal and have to figure out from evidence that, no, you're drunk also applies to shrooms (bizarrely). I had a very strange "what the hell is going on with that ceiling"moment.
It's actually pretty rare for them to cause hallucinations* proper. Visual distortions, seeing things that aren't technically "there", and so on, yes. Actual hallucinations? No. It's very rare to not realize that what you're seeing isn't real. Mostly it's a kind of advanced pareidolia where a more normal "hey that wood grain looks faintly like a cat's face" reaction leads to it really, really looking like one, and then the entire table surface seems filled with little adorable kitten faces emerging out of the wood like flowers opening and then shrinking back into the wood in a sort of pulsing rhythm while you stand there kind of transfixed by how cool that looks. (You may not immediately think that would look really, really cool. But remember: we're talking about a state of mind that leads people to find the way a lit cigarette looks so cool that they just stare at it as it burns down to the filter instead of smoking it like they meant to. The way they affect your mind/thinking/etc. makes a big difference there.)
Topical.
"A case study of space-time distortion during a total lunar eclipse following street use of LSD"
Although psychedelics can induce "cosmic" consciousness through severe distortions of time and space perceptions, little attention has been given to examination of this psychopharmacological property. With the hope of providing an impetus to further research in this area, a case of cosmic perception under the influence of LSD is reported which included the apparent movement of consciousness to the lunar surface combined with the experience of remote viewing of the Milky Way galaxy. While the possibility of veridical remote viewing is unlikely, it is speculated that the neurocognitive action of LSD can sensitize the user to focused bright light, associated memories, and creative elaborations during actual eclipse events. Experimenters are urged to adopt precautions to avoid potentially detrimental effects of pharmacologically manipulating the space-time continuum [empahsis added -- JPS].
I definitely feel like I missed out by not taking any of this stuff when it was easy to do so (both in terms of access and in terms of lifestyle generally).
At this point, it's looking like weed will ultimately be legal everywhere, and at that point, I wonder what will be legalized next. I hope it's psychedelics.
This happening is freaking me out, man.
Nice visuals are a novelty, but what I enjoy about hallucinogens is the serene sense of understanding how everything fits together in the universe.
24 sounds like a nightmare. Is there a drug that makes you feel like you're by yourself in a quiet, dimly-lit room? "Rat Poison for Kids!" I guess.
||
It seems that somebody stole my exterior trash can while I was out of town. Who steals trash cans? And why didn't the trash-can thief steal the lid, too? I guess it could have been a drunk frat-dude thing. Drunk frat dudes are thick on the ground in my neighborhood.
|>
Not long ago I found an extra trash can outside my apartment after garbage pick-up day. I think we have to consider the possibility that trash cans can spontaneously emerge out of the vacuum or disappear back into it.
I've never been able to get myself interested in trying psychedelic drugs. I find ordinary experience confusing enough as it is.
What I loved about acid was that it cured my tone deafness. Really. I agree about the hallucinations not being "hallucinations", but the sense of depth and weight to perception was extraordinary. I very seldom got any sense of ultimate peace -- perhaps smoking myself down from a long trip -- and sometimes the most horrible paranoias -- being watched by the Czech secret police while trying to buy fish and chips in Glastonbury -- but the sense that all my problems were manageable, at least from a different perspective, and that I could just step outside the game that I was playing, was immensely valuable and comforting to me. I think if I were diagnosed with cancer, getting hold of some good acid would certainly be on my bucket list.
At worst, it would be no worse than trying to type on a goddamn Japanese keyboard.
Not a trier of psychedelics myself for Thorn-like reasons, also I've encountered a few too many acid casualties. I know that's not at all how most once or twice in college triers end up but honestly I'd personally rather roll the dangers of drugs dice on ending up an old drunk; you might be a rambling failure, dangerous to yourself and others, but at least your brain isn't actually melted.
Huh. Shrooms have always been more contented for me, in the "this is how the universe fits together" sense. Visuals mostly just in the intensity/beauty of the environment: but really, the surroundings in which you take these things is critical to the form of experience. For whatever reasons, the very few times I did acid occurred in a highly built and peopled environment, and I found it very .. clangy. Tinny, metallic, glarey, therefore needing to fend off the harsh and possible agitation. I don't find that kind of thing very fun (though others do).
Whereas shrooms were done pretty much always in nature, on the seashore or in the woods: this resulted in a lot of Ooooh, I need to take my shoes and socks off and feel this beautiful grass, and oh look! That piece of driftwood is so amazing, I must grasp it and gaze at it for some time. And this rock, this rock! I recall flopping down on my stomach for some time in the woods and beholding blades of grass and flowers and sticks and so on, smiling and smiling. Good times. Organic is the way to go.
37: It may have just rolled away with the wind or something.
40.first sentence is awesome! I bet psychedelics would permanently increase lots of people's appreciation for music.
So, the question is: of the people here who have had great experiences tripping, prior to your first trip would you have classified yourself in the Thorn/TRO/Ogged/Moby camp? (Not me. I was super eager and a little scared to try it, and dove right in, and it was the best.)
Alternatively, was there someone here who was curious to try them, and then at some point had a terrible trip that rendered the whole concept a huge mistake?
I'm trying to see if we self-sort really well, or what.
I'd personally rather roll the dangers of drugs dice on ending up an old drunk; you might be a rambling failure, dangerous to yourself and others, but at least your brain isn't actually melted.
Are you sure about that?
At this point, it's looking like weed will ultimately be legal everywhere, and at that point, I wonder what will be legalized next. I hope it's psychedelics.
I love the idea that in a few decades, I could travel with my grown children to Colorado and drop acid with them. Getting to be the rusty "I haven't done this in forty years!" old-timer who is wowed by all the technological improvements.
I did have a bad trip one time. Basically, I spent most of the time in bed, just waiting for my brain to shut the fuck up. And eventually it did.
Most of the other experiences have been positive, though it was probably unwise to have walked out on that frozen lake that one time.
was there someone here who was curious to try them, and then at some point had a terrible trip that rendered the whole concept a huge mistake?
I had a terrible trip on acid. Nothing devastating, but really unpleasant -- I needed to walk away from my surroundings completely -- such that acid was clearly not the thing for me. I continue to think that acid is not advisable for the majority of people.
Honestly, mushrooms are okay: you can control the dosage, for one thing. You can nibble just a little bit (and won't become nauseated) and just become more mellow.
In any case, all psychedelics are not the same, so heebie's question is unanswerable in the general case.
I was super eager and a little scared to try it, and dove right in, and it was the best.
This was me.
Alternatively, was there someone here who was curious to try them, and then at some point had a terrible trip that rendered the whole concept a huge mistake?
I had one classically bad trip, which I pulled out of by putting on a fuzzy bathrobe (because we'd gotten soaked out in a thunderstorm, of course), drinking whiskey, and reading Kafka. Seeing the ways Kafka made everything better was worth the couple of hours of horribleness. That was Good Friday and I went on to do a bunch more acid that spring, at least once a week.
46: seriously, a full-on alcohol casualty -- korsakoff's, whatever -- is as bad as an acid casualty. Differently bad, I agree, but with a brain just as completely ruined.
I'm also in the TRO/Ogged camp. Never tried them and they didn't appeal to me. Alcohol all the way.
Honestly, mushrooms are okay: you can control the dosage, for one thing.
Yeah, I definitely prefer a dosage on the lower end.
40: Japanese keyboards aren't a problem if you haven't had your brain melted by acid in your distant youth. GET OFF MY COMPUTER.
"Distant youth"??
What are forty years in a cosmic perspective?
The idea that there are "acid casualties" who are that way specifically and solely because of acid, as opposed to people who did a fuckload of drugs of all sorts (including alcohol) and had other mental issues besides strikes me as pretty silly, not to put to fine a point on it. I know people who've done absolute fucking truckloads of psychedelics (acid included) and are a-okay and perfectly sharp. On the other hand, I knew a guy who did acid once and it ended up bringing a lot of stuff to the surface (he was gay, probably, and super painfully repressed about it) that he ended up not being able to deal with at all and he ended up in a psych ward and then probably killed himself, so! If you think you might have serious mental shit that you keep deeply, deeply buried and you have no interest in exploring it, acid might not be for you.
The nice thing about acid, I always felt, was that it was the one drug that didn't make me feel in some way or another stupider. Not that I disliked drugs that made me feel stupider, but there was a mental sharpness while on acid that seemed fundamentally different.
The only time I dropped acid, I was fairly sure that it was probably a terrible idea, and was doing it basically out of bravado. And then loved it (not enough to, oh, ever bother getting my hands on any again. You know, I don't think of myself as pathologically cheap or lawabiding, but I believe I've never paid for, or actively arranged to obtain, anything mind-altering other than alcohol. I've taken things people were offering, but never quite bothered to get around to it otherwise.) So, a datapoint against self-sorting.
Kicks just keep getting harder to find.
I tried a mild array of the milder things at Reed, milder there including acid and shrooms but not PCP, and was never inspired to try them twice. I mostly remember being annoyed that all the revelations were unstable. Possibly annoyance is my (shallowly buried) authentic being.
I'm definitely in the "never tried anything, no interest in doing so" camp, to no one's surprise.
Mostly we're not surprised because we witnessed your adolescence and you never mentioned it.
Or young adulthood. Your prime tripping years, anyway.
57: Different strokes. Acid made me feel stupider*, while mushrooms never did. Nor did MDMA (sampled two or three times).
* By which I mean unable or unwilling to handle the circumstances at hand.
** MDMA leads to sex or dancing, or both. Take care, there.
I really think that the way various people respond to various psychedelics is a function of their core personalities to begin with. If someone is ever to consider trying them, they'd do well to note the type of person they are.
60: Possibly annoyance is my (shallowly buried) authentic being.
What does this mean?
62, 63: Heh. I actually had a lot of friends in high school who were into hallucinogens, so I tend to think of that as being prime tripping years and college as being more about alcohol. I think that's just a function of the social groups I was around, though.
I also dove right in when offered acid for the first time, mostly on the general principle of "if you think too hard about something you'll either psych yourself out entirely or just enough that you do it but hate it* so just make the decision immediately and then never rethink it". It was easily one of the best experiences I've had - lots of friends, a safe environment (sort of), and really neat things going on around me to look at/play with. The extent to which psychedelics give you a better look at yourself/your life/the world overall is really the genuine appeal of them though, which I think is a large part of why they tend to be effectively anti-addictive. Eventually you take some and think "ok that was fun but .... really I didn't get anything out of it" and stop being interested.
I'd like to try it again at some point, though, to see what the 10+ years since then have done to me from that perspective though.
*My suspicion about a lot of the picky eaters I know is that they do this every time they have an opportunity to try some new food, and then hate it as a result if they do try it.
there was a mental sharpness while on acid that seemed fundamentally different.
Was it legit, though, or was it like the sharpness that (I've heard) you get from speed? The only thing that's ever appealed to me about meth is the purported ability to concentrate for long periods of time, but when I talked about it with a friend he pointed out that if you were to start coding on meth, you'd think you were doing all sorts of amazing shit... until you went back to look at your code later, and found that what you had was mediocre code that happened to be REALLY REALLY well-formatted.
As far as the psychedelics go, there's definitely part of me that's wished I weren't so timid about them. OTOH it's not like it'd be hard to remedy that now, and I don't find myself rushing out to do so.
60: I mostly remember being annoyed that all the revelations were unstable.
And yet, you know what? I kept that stick referred to in 42. A smooth driftwood-like stick, which is in my lockbox to this day. Fucking hippie.
I feel like we're self-sorting pretty predictably so far.
I don't like MDMA. Do you all actually call it that? I feel hungover and also emotionally hungover for a few days, and it's not worth all the kissing and dancing.
72: Well, I wouldn't do it again, but when I was 22 years old, ecstasy was pretty interesting, two times, before I figured that it was not the best way forward.
Ahimsa, I had one classically perfect MDMA trip several years ago. It was so awesome. As I told my alienist, I feel really strongly that there is a huge potential for MDMA to be used in a therapeutic context for anxiety, depression, etc.
I still haven't ever dropped acid or eaten shrooms or anything like that. Someday. I have a good connect for all that kind of stuff, but it hasn't seemed like the right time. And I don't even really smoke mota anymore either. Sigh.
**MILD SPOILERS ALERT**
In the new Wm. Gibson novel, he talks about a substance or mixture called "Partytime" which turns those who are dosed with it into homicidally paranoid sex maniacs. I've been trying to figure out exactly what you would need to have to get that effect. I'm thinking datura, amanita, Viagra, some kind of skin-penetrating agent (if it is to be used as an aerosol, as in the novel), and probably some kind of stimulant. There's something called "Rage", I read about once, that illegal bare-knuckles boxers take to get hyped up before a match. That might be a good admixture as well.
It was easily one of the best experiences I've had - lots of friends, a safe environment (sort of)
This is definitely part of why I've never tried hallucinogens; when I was younger I never had either of those. And while tripping might help with my trust issues, there's kind of a catch-22 there.
72: I think "Molly" is the generic term nowadays. Of course, who knows whether what you're getting is MDMA, MDA, some amphetamine, cold pills or PCP or what.
69.1: it's hard to say, of course. Per parsimon's point above, it's also very easy to get extremely confused on acid, because the world around you is very different from normal, so it's not like you're going to be doing math problems or anything like that. But it's not at all fuzzy, if that makes any sense.
Also some people above were I think underselling where hallucinations can get; if you take a "normal" dose of acid, then, yeah, it's just kind of honeycombs and light trails and undulating surfaces and enhanced pareidolia. But if you take enough to get to the "ego death" phase (the amounts they gave MK-Ultra subjects, for instance, or the amounts used in the maybe-more-than-mildly disreputable LSD Psychotherapy approaches) you are in an entirely different world, with different rules, and have no real intuition about whether what you're seeing/experiencing is "real" or not. I only did that much once; it was one of the best experiences of my life, and has informed me creatively for going on fifteen years now.
64.last also seems very true, though I don't have a feel for what particular personality traits have which effects and if anyone else does I'd really like to hear about it because it sounds super interesting.
Anyway, if people are curious about what the basic sensory effects of psychedelics are (at low levels, without the genuine distortions) combining these two basically legal drugs is an easy, inexpensive, and effectively legal method.*
*No telling the government! Snitches get less access to interesting chemicals!
I feel really strongly that there is a huge potential for MDMA to be used in a therapeutic context for anxiety, depression, etc.
That prospect is being explored even as we speak. There was a Dianne Rehm show about it recently, though the focus was on PTSD.
Why are mirrors so awful when you're tripping?
I just bowled a 184. Which is on topic because of psychedelic lights. Full disclosure: the bumpers were out.
To expand a bit on my lack of interest, I think part of it is being tightly wound and concerned about losing control of myself, and part of it is being happy enough with the way I perceive the world sober that the opportunity to see it differently isn't worth the risk of having that experience be unpleasant. I was very slow to get into alcohol as well, even in college where it was readily accessible, for I think basically the same reasons.
82 first is me. I also had to nurse a friend through a bad trip once, and I think it coloured my perspective on it all.
However, I would now be open to it, though I might be too old? Oh, dear.
You're not too old. Go for it. Teo should drop a tab some night when the northern lights are out, commune with the universe.
Luckily for my sobriety, the northern lights are rarely visible in Anchorage.
To expand a bit on my lack of interest, I think part of it is being tightly wound and concerned about losing control of myself, and part of it is being happy enough with the way I perceive the world sober that the opportunity to see it differently isn't worth the risk of having that experience be unpleasant.
I'm the same way, and in fact the first time I took LSD I spent the entire experience thinking "Uh-oh. Is it getting more intense? Is it getting more intense? It's OK now, but how intense is it going to be? How long is it going to last?"
If I ever do it a second time It'll probably be less stressful since I'll know it won't be that bad.
I think part of it is being tightly wound and concerned about losing control of myself
My brother.
82, 87: Let's all not meet up and not have a drink together some time.
Some of my best friends in college tripped quite a bit, and I was always intrigued, but I also had a very good friend who had a seriously bad trip that kind of fucked her up semi-permanently*, so I wasn't just hearing the square message that acid is scary, but had in fact seen it firsthand.
And, truth be told, I wouldn't have trusted my best friend who would most likely have been involved. Had there been some more trustworthy guide, I might have gone for it at some point.
*she basically went from hippie-dippy happy to spaced-out, and ended up in a long term relationship with heroin (but AFAIK not for a few years after the bad trip)
I'm curious about the tightly wound people: do you experience that as a burden?
I mean, would you dream of a time in which you might be a soaring eagle (or some such)?
I'm curious about the tightly wound people: do you experience that as a burden?
NO EVERYTHING'S GREAT WHY DO YOU ASK???
That was Good Friday and I went on to do a bunch more acid that spring, at least once a week.
Heh. I spent Good Friday of IIRC 1993 hunting for mushrooms on campus* with aforementioned friend. I was still devout, but also open to being amused by spending those super-vigilant 12-3 hours in such an endeavor.
*for sale, not growing, obvs.
{clears throat} Perhaps I should clarify that doing drugs is not necessarily the obvious answer to being tightly wound. There's yoga. I recommend it.
You're not too old. Go for it.
Awesome. I have a vague fantasy that this would be a nice thing to do on a Scottish island (why, I don't know) so I should make it happen now that I can't get kicked out of the country for minor infractions.
I'm the same way, and in fact the first time I took LSD I spent the entire experience thinking "Uh-oh. Is it getting more intense? Is it getting more intense? It's OK now, but how intense is it going to be? How long is it going to last?"
Pretty sure this would be me, despite my interest.
I mean, would you dream of a time in which you might be a soaring eagle (or some such)?
Well, I once dreamed I had a falcon as a pet, does that count? But no, seriously, I don't think I'm *that* tightly wound, I just don't particularly enjoy losing control.
I don't think of it is a burden, I think of it as something with plusses and minuses - so, yeah, I'm the one picking up the beer bottles and taking care of the puking at a party, but - well - someone is taking care of the puking, and that's a good thing. Or, in times of emergency, it turns out I keep my shit and get things organised and dealt with. I don't lose things very often. I know what's generally coming, and I enjoy that. (I don't like surprises.)
Where it can become a burden - or at least, a serious minus - is when I spill over into generalised anxiety. But that's a bit different than just being tightly wound, and I have coping mechanisms.
I will say that on the rare occasions when I've had what I would consider transcendental experiences, I've really enjoyed them. In particular there's one day of motorcycling that I still remember almost 10 years later; I think it's the closest I've ever gotten to completely losing myself in an experience.
Also, you know, being tightly wound doesn't mean you can't sit there and enjoy a landscape, sensation, feeling, etc - or do yoga or meditate - just that generally you want to be able to have an element of control. (Well, at least, that's how it works for me.) Things that take away your illusion of self-control, like hallucinogens or alcohol* (which I do adore & use), are more of an issue for this tightly-wound person.
*It's taken me a long time to reach the point with alcohol where I feel reasonably confident that I know how things are going to affect me. I'm sure I could get there with hallucinogens, but might not enjoy the process as much. Or maybe I would! Who knows!
I would definitely say that acid made me more social during the periods I was doing it: not while high, when I preferred couchlock; not in need of connections, because it was trivial to score; but in the sense of being open and confidant toward emotional and social risks. It didn't last.
(Thinking back from my dotage, I realized I was three+ women up as a freshman on the virgin sophomores in my dorm. This was in no sense an accomplishment or achievement; the women chased and caught me. I just didn't say no, and as I remember, my classmates in various ways did.)
In general I don't recommend LSD, to me it is just an aesthetic experience, like reading Ulysses or seeing Kyoto. A very few people will be radically changed, some a little, most will just have pretty memories and a slightly different perspective. There are plenty of other extreme experiences that I don't recommend any. LSD is safer than Everest, though.
And there is the downside any intense endorphin experience has of branding the ecstatic pathways. Some remember their sleigh, some their first love. I will die yearning for synanthesia.
All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don't mind it. That's the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time.
I'm curious about the tightly wound people: do you experience that as a burden?
Thing is, even though I was pretty thoroughly square, I wasn't uptight or tightly wound. I was up for irresponsible hijinks (granted, not as irresponsible as the less sober members of the party might vote for), I would do weird things in public, I wasn't afraid to look like a fool, etc. At a college dance in another town, a friend of my date was convinced I'd been drunk due to my exuberance.
As I've related, BOGF was convinced that I was in fact repressing all sorts of emotions*, and therefore made me start drinking, but I'm roughly the same person drunk and sober. No hidden depths whatsoever.
I will say that I'm looser now than I was then, but I think that's mostly just age - I'm comfortable in my own skin in a way that's hard to be when you're young. Also, a certain seriousness was part of the persona I wanted back then, but as the anecdote in 91 suggests, I wasn't hung up on it.
*specifically the one of loving her, I guess
I would like to be less of a pain in an ass about changes in minor plans. That, that is not a good part of my particular make up. Not sure what will help with that, though.
Loving you is easy 'cause you're beautiful you made me drunk.
I will say that I'm looser now than I was then, but I think that's mostly just age - I'm comfortable in my own skin in a way that's hard to be when you're young
Oh man, I can already see such a difference in my early 30s when it comes to this. Can't wait to be properly 'old.' Fuck 'em all!
And yeah, I think people who know me superficially (especially my work colleagues) probably think I'm not uptight at all. (After all, I'm Californian!) It's just my nearest and dearest that get to experience my crazy!
I'm curious about the tightly wound people: do you experience that as a burden?
I would mostly agree with ()'s answers to this, I guess. I don't really experience it as a burden, but it's nice to sometimes be temporarily free of it via alcohol. The lowered inhibitions when I'm drunk do sometimes make me say or do things I later regret, but nothing very major. I think if I tried any hallucinogens I would probably enjoy them, but I still don't feel any particular desire to.
I'm curious about the tightly wound people: do you experience that as a burden?
I think about that question from time to time. Mostly because, no, I don't find it a burden by and large -- I find it productive. I sometimes wonder if that says bad things about me -- if it's another facet of my general lack of ambition that I'd rather be me, with my strengths and limitations, than have some sort of transformative experience.
I take it as either a confirmation of this belief or as a sign of just how tightly wound I am that the two times I've had enough alcohol to get to the "buzzed" state (1 drink, on an empty stomach) my reaction was, "this isn't unpleasant and I don't mind it, but I'm ready for it be over now."
But perhaps it matters that I don't consider myself a particularly creative person (thoughtful, yes, not not creative).
Tweety is correct in all of the above.
I have had some wine, so I'm in rambling mode, but I do find it really funny that most people I interact with here apparently cannot tell when I'm in a bad mood. I think it's an accent thing. (For instance, I have a hard time reconciling Australians' accents with the harsher emotions. Surely they're always happy, they sound it!)
I used to think I was tightly wound. Then I went to graduate school.
All the people who have known me at all well, who have also used any of the drugs under discussion, have advised me that it would be a really bad idea for me in particular to take them. I guess I'm some kind of archetypal bad candidate.
One oft-reported effect of psilocybin et al. is the dissolution of one's preexisting sense of self, such that one is thereafter permanently aware that one's ordinary idea of what "I" refers to is in some way tenuous and possibly illusory. Can any of you attest to that?
I'm tightly wound, but I didn't experiment mostly because it was drummed into me as a kid that if I ever screwed up ever, I'd be a complete failure. This is a bit of a mindfuck to do to a tightly wound kid. I didn't drink until I was 21.
But in any case, by the time I was past all that, I was sort of past the experimenting age. No desire for it and a vague sense that chasing it down would be like trying to have a midlife crisis early.
110: You can't step into the same mushroom twice.
My kneejerk response was that I'm tightly wound, but I guess I've gotten better at rolling with things in ways that seem incompatible with that. I mean, I just took three kids to Build a Bear in a crowded mall, which was both hellish and no big deal, maybe would have been more tolerable on hallucinogens.
I just have a tendency to respond strongly and badly to prescribed legal medicines and so the times I've seen time slow down through a raindrop or whatever, it's been associated with a racing heart and breathing difficulties, which I guess would not be a thing with acid but who knows? I find actual hallucinations upsetting but can't respond transcendentally to poetry the way I could as a teen. I really don't want to be no fun forever, but may be stuck with it.
110: you really have to take a hell of a lot at once for that to happen.
82,87, and 88 are probably me, too. I've quite literally never even been offerred anything illegal. Why am I no fun? I generally think most recreational drugs should be legal, although most stuff doesn't appeal to me personally. I am sort of a bad drinker, too. I usually manage to reach buzzed after a couple of drinks, then go immediately to puking without any intermediate stages of drunkenness. I think I give off "uptight" a lot more at work, where precision and focus are really important, but I'm probably fooling myself and am just uptight and Type A at all times.
110:I just took an internal poll, and it was 63-37 saying no loss of self.
Other people may differ, but LSD was to me strongly about perception, which is pretty fucking complicated and important, but may or not be tied to identity. Probably not.
Maiden or crone, vases or faces, do you have an existential crisis when you see those pictures? Maybe you should.
The lyrics and music, which really is the literature of LSD, emphasize values and emotions over facts, but usually also end up revealing deep structures amid apparent chaos. And fuckya, Topographic Oceans is brilliant.
My kneejerk response was that I'm tightly wound, but I guess I've gotten better at rolling with things in ways that seem incompatible with that. I mean, I just took three kids to Build a Bear in a crowded mall, which was both hellish and no big deal, maybe would have been more tolerable on hallucinogens.
This reminds me that this is one of the big advantages of travel for me: I'm *way* more laid-back and easy-going in foreign countries than I am at home. Things that would normally drive me to insanity here are no big deal abroad.
110 - 115 is right. I've done a few different psychedelics (though not in large doses) and never had anything like that happen.
113 - I've had pretty reliably bad reactions to most of the prescription drugs I've tried, sometimes only for the first few weeks and others long term or bad enough that there wasn't a long term. But psychedelics haven't caused any trouble along those lines. Actually most of the illegal/illicit/not-prescription drugs I've tried have been fine for me. The next time I need a new prescription I should ask the doctor to hook me up with a slightly sketchy stranger who only takes cash.
Also one thing that's worth noting is that I think what Sifu is pointing out when he talks about clarity is that the kind of intoxication you get from acid or shrooms is qualitatively different from the kind you get from alcohol or pot. You're a lot less likely, I think, to do something you really regret on acid than with whiskey, unless you'd really regret being abnormally fascinated by a small rock you found next to the sidewalk or a tree that you walk by normally but have never, like, really seen before. You definitely feel like you're in an abnormal state (absent ego-death level doses I guess, which are substantially different), but it isn't the uninhibited/foggy/vaguely but pleasantly impaired way you get with alcohol.
I just read that 80% of ear infections resolve on their own. How do I decide when I personally should head to a med clinic?
121: My docs say to wait 7-10 days in absence of high fever for most sinus stuff before they'll prescribe antibiotics.
That is, not a child's ear. I've ignored ear pain successfully many times. I don't know if it was an infection or not. I just put a couple of drops of rubbing alcohol. I don't think that does any good, but swim team people seemed to think it was the shit.
Are you a neti pot user? I think they're fantastic for resolving sinus pressure, which might be what's causing the ear pain.
I've quite literally never even been offerred anything illegal. Why am I no fun?
What!
Even if my nose feels totally clear and free? I've used one once, but we don't own one.
Most ear infection will improve in a few days without antibiotics. If it were me, I'd make an appointment for Monday, and cancel it if I felt better by then.
119.2 is interesting. At nerd camp, so when I was 16, my social group would pass around a clove cigarette before we had to go back to the dorms and that felt great, the way gravity would pull you a little harder while you could feel you lips sparkling. I'd do that again except that they're illegal now and I also probably shouldn't be a hypocrite about smoking. But at 17 I tried pot with one of those same friends and mostly just felt queasy and dizzy, which I chalked up to my stupidly low blood pressure after I realized altitude sickness felt identical. I didn't even manage to get drunk until I was almost 27, despite a few years of regular decent tries. I don't even know what's wrong with me, but at least I'm not judgmental anymore.
I don't think it takes large doses to put the ego into question, like I said the "vase or face" ought to do it sober. LSD, if you are receptive, should help at any effective dose. LSD showed me that my problem with Hindemith or Schoenberg was not Hindemith's or Schoenberg's problem, and it showed it fucking fast and strong.
Reality is constructed with given materials. And maybe even the materials are constructed. Aum.
Is there racism out there? Or do you want racism to be out there?
Is there anyone who would describe themselves as tightly-wound who actually has done mushrooms or LSD? We have our control group, but we need a treatment group.
128: Nothing looks as rented as a rented neti pot.
130: True story. I first tried tobacco (dip) on a high school class trip with the permission of the teacher.
The other LSD did was to teach me how to read, and the decade after the trips was much better than the trips.
At the risk of my sanity in moderate dosages of LSD, I learned to relax, not worry, not work at constructing and comprehending. Because asking why the coke bottle was melting and what the melting meant was a sure way to big trouble.
So when I went to highlit I was able to see that Mann and Stevens weren't out to hurt me, at least no more than I needed, and I just trusted and read the shit without expectations (of meaning or sense) or struggling.
And of course that just reinforced my sense of a constructed apprehension.
At least LSD isn't addictive. Like phonics.
OT SIL CD Bleg: So my SIL put all their CDs in binders and threw out the cases & covers and now my brother wants them all back in jewel cases. Is there any software that will grab the cover art and/or tracklist from the interwebs if you don't own the music in iTunes? (There are some 300 CDs, so the one-by-one approach is deprecated.)
138: Winamp used to do it, but winamp is no longer supported. But probably still out there You still needed to click on a song or play it, I think, but I could be wrong and you might have been able to batch it as a library function.
I think most music software will do it.
There was some open source data base that Winamp was drawing all those graphics and song titles from. It had been crowdsourced by a bunch of volunteers, and then some fuckers - I think Gracenote? - claimed all that work as their own and started limiting access. But maybe there is still access through Gracenote, I don't know.
Your SIL needs to put her foot down before he wants her to print out ebooks and wrap canned foods in bubble wrap.
Gestalt Psychology has the "vase or faces" etc down the page a ways.
Emergence
This is demonstrated by the dog picture, which depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing the ground in the shade of overhanging trees. The dog is not recognized by first identifying its parts (feet, ears, nose, tail, etc.), and then inferring the dog from those component parts. Instead, the dog is appears as a whole, all at once.
Gestalt theory does not have an explanation for how this percept of a dog appear
...
Again, gestalt does not explain how images appear multistable, only that they do.
Well damn. Wonder if cognitive psychology does better
I read Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman at least five years before I tripped.
I always figured the LSD melting coke bottle had to do with a) dynamic (but not random) interference with depth perception mechanisms, and/or b) an inability (unwilliingness?) to stabilize multistable images, or choose figure from ground.
AFAIK, in 75 years of LSD experience very few have actually scientifically studied how the shit works, although the artists did use the mechanisms in intuitive ways.
Most people who watched me though I was having bad trips, but I was just working real hard, and working at not working, and having a ball. Curiousity is a bastard.
My first trip was a goodly amount of LSD. It started out great, but it took a really strong, bad turn and overall freaked me out. I ended up with some classic PTSD symptoms from it. Wrong set and setting, I know now looking back at it. I'm glad I did it, but wish I'd approached it differently. (It was a strong enough trip for real hallucinations, but did not quite dissolve my sense of self. I actually think it was my resistance to that dissolution that made the trip particularly bad.)
After that, I did shrooms a few times, in mild to moderate doses. Nothing life-changing, but I learned some things and mostly enjoyed it, tempered by some bad resonances with the acid trip. I've had experiences on pot that were much stronger than some of my shroom experiences. I might try psilocybin again some day. But the parts of tripping that I found to be valuable, rather than just entertaining, I can get with a week or so of a meditation retreat.
A whole week? Drugs seem more efficient.
a pain in an ass about changes in minor plans
This is on the introversion checklists. Part of me admires people who are game, but that ain't me.
"Tightly-wound" is probably too vague to describe what is keeping people from experimenting. My reaction is something like: my wits are all I've got, you don't expect me to just give them up, do you? Part of that is resistance to giving them up in the moment, part resistance to risking long-term effects.
my wits are all I've got, you don't expect me to just give them up, do you?
I agree with this, defining "wits" as something like the rationalizing, ordering, narrative-making thought processes that we use to keep experience from getting too messy and scary. Psychedelics strip those away, and it can be disconcerting. (Plenty of people find it liberating, but for me it's disconcerting.) I think it's valuable, though, to experience what it's like to dampen those protective rationalizing thought processes for a while.
I like to be slowly seduced out of my wits. Alcohol is good like that.
I drank quite a bit, both at once, and over time, in college, and my friend's verdict was that I was exactly the same totally drunk as sober. I don't think alcohol disorders you in quite the same way it seems other drugs can.
This is completely idiosyncratic but I don't know that I'd try any illegal drugs now that I have kids. I was definitely offered marijuana while we were fostering and declined on principle, because if the kids' parents were going to be sanctioned for their use, then it seemed totally hypocritical for me to be able to use it. (I mean, also the state could have removed the children if we'd tested positive for anything while they were in state custody, which terrified me even without any extra helpings of paranoia.) Post-adoption they'd have to have more cause than that, but I still can't get the jerky judge and how it feels like I'd just be flaunting my privilege out of my head.
But the parts of tripping that I found to be valuable, rather than just entertaining, I can get with a week or so of a meditation retreat.
But isn't that unbelievably boring?
The thing about tripping is that it's unbelievably fascinating. It's like your brain is an elevator, and you get to stop on infinitely many different floors and explore. Yes, that analogy came from a specific acid trip.
149: Was your friend also drunk when you were?
I'm more comfortable with hypocrisy than Thorn and I agree with heebie-geebie about meditation retreats.
149: obviously all drugs are different, but really, really drunk people can be as incomprehensible and insensate as anybody on anything. It's just that most people pass out before that point.
At the very least, this thread is really making me want to listen to a lot of psytrance.
I am completely failing to see how raptors, soaring or not, are anything but tightly wound. The biggest ones aren't as twitchy as their prey animals but even in rehab centers it's obvious why they're proverbial for surveillance and control.
I keep scrolling up trying to figure out what 157 is to but I guess I should just chalk it up to urple being urple.
Thanks, all. I'll see what kind of winamp hacks are out there to assist my entirely unreasonable brother (who did do plenty of drugs back in the day and now needs one that's less about swirly colors and more about perceiving what actually matters).
Much of 116 is me. Friends in college would suddenly stop talking about drugs when I entered the room. I wasn't really interested in participating but was also not judgmental about it, but I guess I gave off too much of an "I'm a square" vibe.
I have never ever entertained the idea of taking psychedelic drugs. I have had more than enough horribly vivid nightmares in my lifetime, so even the IDEA that a drug could trigger a nightmare-like experience is enough to revolt me.
161: if you have any outstanding questions just send me a bulleted list in email and I'll do my best.
I am probably the squarest person here. When I was 28, somebody offered me marijuana off of a vaporizer which seemed like the best way to use it, but I declined. Since then I've only been around friends who knew I wouldn't use it.
I took a small dose of prescribed Seroquel for agitation once. That made me pretty loopy, and I was babbling strange things. I think that the illgal stuff would be too much for me.
121: Last time I got an ear infection, they gave me a solution of acetic acid with hydrocortisone. You could try putting some diluted vinegar drops in it without going to the doctor. I think people do that to prevent swimmer's ear.
149: I don't think alcohol disorders you in quite the same way it seems other drugs can.
You're right not quite the same way. Oh, and your friend is an idiot or a liar.
In fact, the general thrust of 149 is totally fucking insane. Have you or your friend ever been around a large group of totally fucking drunk people?
Granted, the fact that alcohol is a state and society-sanctioned drug means that support is much more readily available. therefor its use carries less risk of negative externalities (like prison, job loss, social ostracization, and the like) but ... just wow.
What Moby was supposed to reply: "Heh."
And then I would reply: "++"
But isn't that unbelievably boring?
Yes and no.
One of the things I like about prolonged meditation as opposed to psychedelics is that it's a much more gradual depotentiation of the narrative self, so I have longer to adjust to losing those defenses and also I have more of a feeling of agency about the process. It's really fun that psychedlics do similar things to you very quickly, but partly due to my first bad trip and partly due to a fair amount of underlying anxiety, the quickness of it makes me uncomfortable. I also get uncomfortable with it during meditation, but I'm also in a better position then to recognize and deal with my discomfort and fear.
I do think everyone should try psychedelics unless they have some really good reason not to. The "tightly wound" excuse is not sufficient.
but really, really drunk people can be as incomprehensible and insensate as anybody on anything. It's just that most people pass out before that point.
I have an aunt who maintains you can "drink yourself sober," and no word of a lie, I have seen her perform this feat.
She will drink (and drink, quite heavily) all afternoon and evening and, at a certain point, will move into "drunken party time!" mode, but will not go too wild and crazy in this mode. She knows how to pace herself, I guess, and anyway, she's too old to go wild (she's 82 years old). Drinking, and then drinking some more, is just altogether normal for her. Having reached the point where she really should have passed out by now, she will sit back, sit tight, just sit there quietly, and, while still drinking (still drinking quite heavily, by any normal standards), will move from "party time!" mode to a state that looks and sounds like sobriety. I kid you not: after a night of (by any normal standards) heavy drinking, she can converse sensibly on any topic you might name.
My sisters and I, we marvel at, we laugh about, her fortitude, her sheer booze-artistry, even as it freaks us the f*ck out.
But I've seen other relatives basically hallucinating on alcohol, doing that DT thing.
To Alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.
I do think everyone should try psychedelics unless they have some really good reason not to. The "tightly wound" excuse is not sufficient.
Could you expand on this a bit? The "tightly wound" language was mine, but I meant it as more of an explanation than an excuse. I'm not totally opposed to trying psychedelics, I've just never felt any particular desire to.
Just coming home from 4 hours of socializing for a good cause, one I totally believe in, and it was relatively enjoyable bur also kind of draining.
Like LB never took any illicit drugs I has to pay for but looking back that was never a limiting factor on what I took. No surprise, I'm on team tightly wound, also have had lifelong heightened sensory perception (sound and smell, linked) although vision bad, net result has to be managed to not be actively unpleasant (that's an understatement). Hallucinogens always seemed like a really bad idea. Best illicit drug experience was lamely hash and Schubert over a Vermont thanksgiving many years ago. Not very hip. Now am chary of experiences that will take time and energy out of daily trajectory unless they reliably deliver.
I'm curious about what set of mental illnesses 175.last would consider disqualifying. I actually have no idea, aside from the anecdata that a friend who ended up becoming schizophrenic had a horrible experience innocently trying shrooms as a teenager. (I don't know how many Madison teenagers learned the hard way that you probably shouldn't go to Ella's while tripping, but my impression is that the number's pretty, uh, high.)
On the music topic, mediamonkey will do this, though it's windows only. I suspect there are other programs that could be scripted to do so --most of them pull the data through Amazon's interface, I think -- but I've been using MM for ten years now and I'm too old to change. Perhaps I should try psychadelics.
OTH, if acid made me love iTunes, that would be a pretty unanswerable argument for team tightass here.
177: Just that psychedelics are an accessible way to have an experience that is way different from normal human experience, usually in an enlightening way. On the other hand, sure, if you feel no desire to do it, probably not a good idea to do it. Apologies if I came off as judgy. I would modify my comment to something like, if you're interested in the experience but are a little afraid for "tightly wound" reasons, it's worth exploring the "tightly wound" issue -- possibly with the help of some shrooms.
179: I also have no idea which mental illnesses would make psychedelics a bad idea and which wouldn't. I would guess that schizophrenia and psychedelics don't mix well, and some studies suggest that drug use can trigger schizophrenia in people who are predisposed (though apparently other studies dispute the causality). There are of course a number of interesting studies about using psychedelics to treat depression and addiction, although I would guess that they're not the right solution for all such cases.
Didn't try acid because it seemed likely to go badly with my neuroses. Don't regret it much, though I wish I'd done e which sounds fun. An imaginary Internet friend from elsewhere tells me he conquered all his fears and neuroses by doing ayahuasca. I hate barfing too much to try that one though it nags at me that maybe I'm missing the cure for all my woes.
I occasionally feel like I miss out by not drinking alcohol, and there have been a few social occasions where it almost certainly would have been a good idea for me to drink, but I also suspect that it would be a very bad idea for me to get used to drinking alone. There are some things where I just have no restraint.
Kicks just keep getting harder to find.
I blame the trids.
159: sorry it was to the OP not to a prior comment but don't worry, in the sober light of day i can now see that it didn't make much sense anyway. i concur with the prior comments.
People who drink alcohol but don't do any other drugs because they don't like losing control are insane. The loss of control--the "unwinding" and "loosening up"-- is one of alcohol's signature effects. More so than many other drugs, I think?
I think I would be a lot happier is I drank much, much less and did more other drugs instead. But that's not the world we live in.
Don't regret it much, though I wish I'd done e which sounds fun.
Careful. Pace Sifu @56, which isn't to be taken lightly, in my experience of people I know, the acid casualty list includes several people who had a bad day and three or four who had a bad week or two; the e casualty list includes one dead and two in intensive care from physiological side effects.
(but then of course I would say that today-- I'm terribly hungover)
Yeah, I new this one guy who went on an MDMA binge and had to be committed. So I've never tried it. Though I probably should.... I'm perfectly capable of trying shit and not going on a binge, whereas this guy was all about binging on whatever was available.
187: I'm the weird person who becomes less sociable & more introverted with alcohol (or in other words, probably more like my true self). I'm much better at forcing myself to be more sociable without it.
Alcohol takes the edge off for me in the sense of soothing the aftermath of a rough day by helping me not care/worry/etc as much. I also just like the taste & experience, and as I said above, understand way more about how the process of getting drunk (or stopping well before that point) is going to go than with anything else so I'm comfortable.
I've never known anybody to have to go to intensive care because of MDMA. (I would even suspect that the people chris has known who had such trouble had something other than (in addition to) MDMA in the pill -- not easy to know what you're getting, which is certainly not to be discounted as an argument against.) I have known people who were freaked out by the emotional/physical openness that the drug helps induce, and I've certainly known people that weren't able to "deal with it" in the sense that the emotional/physical openness they were feeling freaked them out while they were doing it, but nobody who suffered any long term effects other than not wanting to do it again.
In the interest of full disclosure I do know a guy who climbed and subsequently fell off a cliff while on e and possibly acid (I don't remember) and fucked himself up pretty good (broke his back, among other things) if not permanently. So I might recommend a safe space that does not include crumbly sandstone cliffs if you think you're the kind of person who might be inspired to do some climbing while high out of your gourd.
I'm really CHANGEBAD and especially don't like making decisions that can't be easily undone, I also am risk averse and don't enjoy getting away with something risky even when the bad consequence didn't happen (because it might have!), finally I underweight the value of experimenting because I'm bad at letting go of regrets. So it's not surprising that I haven't done many drugs (alcohol and pot which I like, nicotine and caffeine which I dont). Shrooms and MDMA are the drugs that I might have tried in principal. We had discussion of house shrooms night in grad school which I would have joined had it happened. (I think that would have happened if one of my housemates had gotten into a different grad school so hadn't moved out.)
I do know a guy who climbed and subsequently fell off a cliff while on e and possibly acid
Right. So people should stick to the safety of alcohol. Of course Tweety is certainly not making that point, but given the massive societal evident physical, emotional, and psychological ravages of acute and chronic abuse of alcohol I'm finding some of this thread quite mind-boggling. But yes, socially sanctioned drugs are, well, sanctioned.
There are cliffs around here that drunk people fall off of all of the time.
Oh, I think that was sort of your point.
149 is totally fucking insane
Easy, brah, take a Xanax. What I meant was that despite being very drunk, I could always see, even if very dimly, my way back to my reasonable self. I was never going to do something insane just because I was drunk. My sense from the descriptions of other drugs is that that is less likely to be the case when using those.
Nice truncation of the sentence. Rhetorical skills are a plus; you have an opportunity to go far in the world.
197: I don't agree with that. Large doses of alcohol are as altering as anything outside of, hm, large doses of ketamine or extremely large doses of acid. You should have gotten drunker, is what I'm saying.
197: From, as I said, very limited experience with psychedelics, I'd say almost exactly the opposite. Drunk enough, my judgment of what is a good idea to do (i.e., clambering around four stories above concrete) is gone -- it's still, in some sense, me, but the part of my brain that identifies things as a very bad (or, if you like, crazy) idea isn't working. Acid and shrooms, I felt as if I was having a very interesting perceptual experience without my judgment being damaged in anything like the same kind of way.
One time on shrooms, a couple of my buddies borrowed a motorcycle and rode it around eastern Oahu at 2:00 AM. They made it back ok, no harm done.
I'd say almost exactly the opposite
Ok, so maybe I could have safely done the other stuff, too. I certainly couldn't have been more drunk, but the "that's not a good idea" part of my brain never turned off. None more tightly wound!
acute and chronic abuse of alcohol
I think this is an apple and oranges sort of thing. Most people describing their experience on hallucinogens are speaking of it from a recreational perspective, most people describing their experiences with alcohol are also doing so. I certainly don't think that alcohol is benign, but I also don't ascribe pot the ability to make you insane after one inhalation (like a number of people here in the UK that I've spoken to; possibly a widespread view outside of CA?).
Never really had a bad trip, although seeing The Devils on a big screen high on acid didn't turn out to be that good an idea.
possibly a widespread view outside of CA?
No. I've never met anyone who hasn't subsequently died of old age who though such a thing.
I was exaggerating a bit - more like, small amounts of pot make you insane (suicidal, psychotic, schizophrenic) - but so far, I've met 4 people (men and women, over the age of 35 but under 70) here who have told me this. (And I don't really talk about pot with lots of people here, so that's like -- 4 out of 10? 12?) I really thought the first time it came up that it was an idiosyncratic view, but it just keeps popping up.
(204 context: N>100, over a 7 year period)
Further to 206, I know it's not exactly representative of views in general about marijuana in the UK! Just found it funny.
I think pot has done wonders for my sanity. Not so much for my motivation, tho.
I kind of started it I guess but comparing alcohol as a "drug" to LSD just seems like a category error in that the experiences dosages and purposes for which they are used are so different. No one except Ogged claims that alcohol doesn't affect your judgment but no one non-insane thinks that a standard night of getting drunk is a life-changing spiritual experience, it's just getting drunk. Alcohol is something that many people can do in small sustainable doses daily or near daily without much effect, and for people who suffer from alcoholism there's a prodigious ton of drinking almost all the time and over a lifetime.
I don't know what the boundary for "too much acid" is but I'd probably say that someone who has done it 200 times in a lifetime has a decent chance of being irretrievably fucked up; I'm sure a decent half of the people here (including me) drank alcohol more than 200 times last year without obviously terrible effect. That's not to say alcohol isn't a dangerous drug with terrible consequences for tons of people (obviously it is) just that it and acid aren't really comparable substitutes.
possibly a widespread view outside of CA?
My parents think pot is addictive and dangerous. My mom's first husband was apparently a frequent user of pot, speed, and maybe some other things, so if I tell her she's wrong about drugs she tells me I'm naive and that she saw it firsthand.
200.2 -- I think you're completely wrong about the 200 times. But then I would.
If your judgment really is unimpaired by alcohol, you're very very unusual. Believing that your judgment is unimpaired while you're drunk is standard, because your judgment about your judgment is also impaired, but almost everyone is wrong about that.
I do think that "pot's not addictive"'is overrated. I'll totally buy that it's not addictive as other drugs, including alcohol, and also that the consequences of addiction (while negative) aren't as negative as many other drugs (including, perhaps especially, alcohol). But you sometimes hear pot enthusiasts claim that pot addiction doesn't exist at all and/or has no negative consequences at all, and that's obviously wrong if you've known a few pot addicts.
I think ogged should start drinking heavily now, keep commenting while drinking, and let us judge later this afternoon whether his judgment is intact.
197 is exactly right. I can't think of a single thing I've done on psychedelics that I would have thought was a terrible idea* if I hadn't been tripping. One of the fascinating things about them in my experience is just how far out of your head you can feel while still being able and willing to act completely and totally normal around other people. Psychedelics are fascinating, mind altering drugs but they aren't intoxicating in the way that pot or alcohol are. I mean, I wouldn't say I was my normal self, of course, because I wasn't. But I wasn't uncontrolled or impaired either.
*Nearly wrote "that I wouldn't have done" and then remembered that I don't laugh and stare in wonder at things nearly as much when sober.
but I'd probably say that someone who has done it 200 times in a lifetime has a decent chance of being irretrievably fucked up
Don't have much other than self-reporting from the Leary crowd and West Coast musicians, but what evidence I do have weighs strongly against that conclusion. I would be wary rather of repeated high dosages over a short term, but Richard Alpert/Ram Dass and others were just ridiculous for months and he seemed ok decades later.
Wiki
The most recent data collected by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse), summarized results, comparing those who used psychedelic drugs to a population who had not, from 130,152 respondents (of the psychedelic drug users, 17,486 of 21,967 respondents accounting for 80% of the cohort had used LSD). They found that there was no association between psychedelic drug use and mental health problems in later life and if anything there was a trend suggesting that psychedelic drug users had a lower risk of a mental health problems than the control group.[62]
For the record, maybe 20-50 times over a decade, with a half dozen high-moderate (500 mcg+) dosages
The point of my commenting is to be candid, and on this subject there's almost nothing to say. I've never used an hallucinogen. MJ a few dozen times when young, always just because it was passed to me, mostly at parties, once at the start of a car journey when I was giving a guy a lift—of course in VW bug. Pleasant buzz.
Drank most regularly as that UofC type, a guy with incompletes: just beer, but enough to be drunk. Stopped doing it when I couldn't afford it, by which I mean able to pay for it. Trying to live on 10 dollars a day, '79-80, sometimes including a book purchase and a restaurant meal. Stopped drinking by myself when I got a girlfriend, didn't pick it up afterwards. I've been very drunk a few times a year since then, almost always in my neighborhood able to walk home.
My daughter's very much cut from the same cloth, but my son has been much more experimental since high school, and is a font of information about drugs and their culture.
I'm not wedded to the 200 number and there's probably way too much individual variation to make a particular number meaningful anyway.
Like Ogged, I feel like being drunk doesn't affect my judgement in the ways I hear other people describe. In part, that's because I can't actually get that drunk (I'll puke first). But I've never done something I really regret or think of as way out of character when drunk. It seems to have about the same affect on my judgement as being up until 2am does. (And similarly, the main poor decision I make when drunk is to drink more, and the main poor decision I make when sleep deprived is to stay up later.)
I'd really like to try psychedelics, but now that I'm an expat I suppose I need to be careful about not being deported. Maybe during future visits back to the bay area.
Has anyone got knecht's email address?
223: I think knecht underscore ruprecht at the yahoo mail service will get to him.
Oliver Sacks did hallucinogens daily for a very long time in the 60s, if I remember correctly, and while he did go a bit psychotic from time to time during that period (he writes very vividly about one break) he's clearly fine now - he writes about it in his book Hallucinations. I'm totally forgetting the details, which would fit in very well with this conversation.
223: You shouldn't try to procure drugs via e-mail. Just FYI.
227: I found an image I thought might interest him.
AIMHMHB or whatever the goddamn acronym is, I've never done anything illegal aside from underage alcohol. I've only been offered something illegal once in person and declined because I hadn't been expecting it to appear so hadn't thought it though. Might have accepted if I'd had prior warning. I've only been incapacitated drunk once, in Ireland perhaps not coincidentally. But that experience freaked out then-girlfriend now wife and turned her off drinking for the next dozen years because we didn't really have anyone who could help us in a fucked up state and she was puking. But at this point I'm with 111, seems kind of weird to pursue it now and I have too many things that could be messed up if I were somehow to face legal or employment ramifications.
I don't know what the boundary for "too much acid" is but I'd probably say that someone who has done it 200 times in a lifetime has a decent chance of being irretrievably fucked up
I'm going to agree with Presidential and bob that this isn't the case. You are getting into chicken or the egg territory here though, by the time you find someone who has devoted that much time to it. The time is also why it's incomparable to alcohol on the level of instances. Saying you drank alcohol 200 times last year truly can't be compared to taking acid 200 times. It's just not the same scale.
I think sacks was on speed rather than anything else. As a doctor he had access to the good stuff.
Yes, ex recto, it's going to vary between 5 and infinity, with virtually no one occupying the space in between. And very few people are in the five category, but it's no harm to society if folks who are not think they are and so stick with 0.
In my own case, my long-past experience with this stuff was not just a net positive for me, but a nearly unalloyed positive. This matches the experience of almost everyone I knew back then.
especially don't like making decisions that can't be easily undone
Is me , I guess, don't like getting myself into situations I can't get out of if I want. This is one reason for the stupid flying thing. I'd be fine with it if I could say, an hour in, "ok, no. We're landing now" and they'd all be like "no prob, dude/bro/fella" (depending where we were flying over). Anyway I guess I was never quite curious enough about it, partly because having 2-3 drinks makes me feel just about perfect so why bother with other stuff and have I mentioned it's weird I'm not an alcoholic?
Obviously when I'm drunk I don't have tea with Jesus or anything but everything I say seems smart and funny to me and everything everyone else says does, too. Who could ask for anything more??
Though I've only been VERY drunk few enough times I could count on both hands. One was with company the identity of which is protected by SOOBC and was one of the most fun drunkennesses ever, surely.
Is me , I guess, don't like getting myself into situations I can't get out of if I want.
I was just talking with Tweety earlier about this particular aspect of tripping. Since last night I have been thinking about this "tightly wound" class of people we've been talking about, and there are a lot of ways I would fit into it, and even more so when I was younger (HS/early college). That was part of why taking acid was good for me. There's that moment after dosing where you're like, well, I guess I've done it! Gotta figure out how to roll with things!* And then you get this real experience of dealing with things you can't control, and how you react to that. Or maybe more testing out your control over things, how much you can mentally take yourself to another place or redirect an initial reaction to something. Or when to take yourself out of a situation.
*When I was first pregnant with Zardoz I thought about it a lot in analogy to that moment in tripping. Well, now I've done it! Not quite sure what I've gotten myself into! No way out but through it!
When I was first pregnant with Zardoz I thought about it a lot in analogy to that moment in tripping. Well, now I've done it! Not quite sure what I've gotten myself into! No way out but through it!
Someone should write a book about these sorts of experiences.
There's that moment after dosing where you're like, well, I guess I've done it! Gotta figure out how to roll with things!
Those of us currently in the truly tightly wound class do not have this response in our settings, maybe, or can't always access it. If the thing one has gotten oneself into is unpleasant or scary enough, you're like: no no no no no no no no do not want no no no etc. and can remain so for a very long time.
If the thing one has gotten oneself into is unpleasant or scary enough, you're like: no no no no no no no no do not want no no no etc. and can remain so for a very long time.
Maybe I'm not truly tightly-wound, then. In those situations I tend to do okay; it's the ones where the stakes are actually kinda low that I go catatonic.
Amusingly, though not helpfully for my wish not always to be The Opera Guy, the comparable feeling I can think of is during the first few bars of Tristan when I'm like "ok, this is going to be my sometimes foreign and alienating set of experiences for the next five hours." Except I can leave the theater if that's not working out for me.
To be honest that sounds more like a reason to try them than not, only definitely to try them with a more experienced friend. I've actually never tripped on my own and despite having done my share of them (years and years ago so by now who knows) I wouldn't really be too comfortable without someone else around. The risks of anything happening that turn out poorly are low, but it's nice to have someone else around who is also tripping and, if necessary, to remind you that whatever is scary is just the result of a drug and will absolutely go away on its own or give you something warm and fuzzy like a blanket to calm you down or something.
240 makes me feel way better, since I tend to obsess about planning beforehand, but when things get off track, big or small, I'm generally fine. Either that, or I haven't fun into anything scary or unpleasant enough.
235: Preach it, Brother Smearcase. Everyone gets funnier and hotter and sluttier. Food tastes great and helps stave off the hangover. And the fact that coffee, my other great love, protects my liver from the alcohol is like the eighth godamn wonder of the world.
Different strokes I guess but the competition is here is offering what, kitten faces in the table and a serene understanding of the universe? You've got to be fucking kidding me.
If everybody being funnier and hotter and sluttier is what you're after, maybe consider cocaine.
Oh false equivalence! There's no reason to see the two in competition here. I've done all those things and a few others to boot. I mean, at the same time liquor and acid is kind of a waste of (any) liquor because acid trumps booze.
Plus I think we can all agree that tripping cop is the most amusing best cop.
I somehow neglected to conclude 230 with Off to swim! since it was a rare case where I could say that (on our way to a kindergarten birthday swimming party)
whatever is scary is just the result of a drug and will absolutely go away on its own or give you something warm and fuzzy like a blanket to calm you down or something
There's an old SNL with Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter talking down someone on a bad trip:
Walter Cronkite: Thank you, Mr. President, ha ha! Our next call is Peter Elkin of Westbrook, Oregan, whom I am told is 17 years of age.
Peter (on phone): Hello? Hello?
President Jimmy Carter: Yes. Hello, Peter?
Peter (on phone): Is this the President?
President Jimmy Carter: Yes, it is.
Walter Cronkite: Do you have a question for the President?
Peter (on phone): Uh.. I, uh.. I took some acid.. I'm afraid to leave my apartment, and I can't wear any clothes.. and the ceiling is dripping, and uh.. I, uh..
Walter Cronkite: Well, thank you very much for calling, sir..
President Jimmy Carter: Just a minute, Walter, this guy's in trouble. I think I better try to talk him down. Peter?
Peter (on phone): Yeah..?
President Jimmy Carter: Peter, what did the acid look like?
Peter (on phone): They were these little orange pills.
President Jimmy Carter: Were they barrel shaped?
Peter (on phone): Uh.. yes.
President Jimmy Carter: Okay, right, you did some orange sunshine, Peter.
Peter (on phone): Very good of you to know that, sir.
President Jimmy Carter: How long ago did you take it, Peter?
Peter (on phone): Uh.. I don't know. I can't read my watch.
President Jimmy Carter: Alright, Peter, just listen. Everything is going to be fine. You're very high right now. You will probably be that way for about five more hours. Try taking some vitamin B complex, vitamin C complex.. if you have a beer, go ahead and drink it..
Peter (on phone): Okay..
President Jimmy Carter: Just remember you're a living organism on this planet, and you're very safe. You've just taken a heavy drug. Relax, stay inside and listen to some music, Okay? Do you have any Allman Brothers?
Peter (on phone): Yes, I do, sir. Everything is okay, huh Jimmy?
President Jimmy Carter: It sure is, Peter. You know, I'm against drug use myself, but I'm not going to lay that on you right now. Just mellow out the best you can, okay?
In moments of stress I sometimes comfort myself by telling myself that I'm an organic being on the planet earth. Not that it means anything in particular, of course.
246: Yeah, but the alcohol is also relaxing. Coke, not so much.
247: Seriously, even if it were all legalized tomorrow I'd probably be pretty wary about hallucinogens in a home with like ten guns in it. Alcohol makes me less inhibited but I still seem to have an easy time recognizing danger. I get pretty damn drunk at home on a regular basis and never have I even remotely had the urge to handle a loaded firearm or think it sounded like a good idea. I'm not as confident that would be the case on other substances.
237 makes really interesting points. I definitely know that moment of, "It's done now!" and I actually rather enjoy it.
I fully endorse 239 except that at about 8 months pregnant the physiological realities of birth became really, hmmm, pressing, and I actually was able to access a "oh well no way around it but through it!" attitude.
I think of that moment as the upslope of the rollercoaster. Nothing bad is happening yet, but there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop whatever it is from happening.
Is me , I guess, don't like getting myself into situations I can't get out of if I want.
I definitely know that moment of, "It's done now!" and I actually rather enjoy it.
I am closer to the Smearcase position on this one. I eventually decided that was why I didn't like mountain biking -- even though I occasionally had fun, I really didn't like the feeling that you couldn't stop if it felt overwhelming (I expect that I would feel the same way about downhill skiing, but I've never really tried it).
I don't particularly enjoy roller coasters either . . .
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.
...
Karen: I happen to LIKE the roller coaster, okay? As far as I'm concerned, your grandmother is brilliant.
Gil: Yeah if she's so brilliant why is she sitting in our NEIGHBOR'S CAR?
An object lesson in the hazards of psychedelics.
I think (and I'm not a good skier) that if you're skiing and you feel as if you couldn't stop (for more than a few moments at a time when you're in a particularly difficult spot), you're skiing past your level of competence. If you're on a slope you can ski safely, you should be able to stop at will at almost any time.
With reasonable luck, you can go for a long time feeling out of control without actually hurting yourself, but you're doing it wrong.
I last was skiing 20 years ago. I went down the mountain in a pattern of very wide loops to stay in control. It worked, but mostly I got cold and I had trouble sleeping at night because of the altitude.
Coke plus firearms is probably not a great idea, though Scarface does make a compelling case for it being kind of fun. But I think that psychedelics are way less likely to result in deciding to go fire off guns than alcohol so I don't know if that would be particularly risky. I mean, not that they might not be fun that way (though I'd guess that sudden very loud noises would be less appealing rather than more), but that psychedelics don't generally have the kind of effect on your inhibitions that alcohol does.
Also I'm still enjoying the image of tripping cops too much not to recommend it to you. "Sir, are you aware that your taillight is fundamentally connected to the oneness of things? Ok, I'm going to need you to put your hands on the steering wheel for me and, like, really look at them you know?"
254: There are certain situations that send me into the no, no, no, no, no (roller coasters!) so I know that feeling too. I was thinking more of big level things (like moving to a new country without much preparing, etc) versus the smaller things, which, for whatever reason, are much more likely to create the horrible feelings.
I agree with 258.1. I like downhill skiing, but I don't like pushing myself skiing.
There are certain situations that send me into the no, no, no, no, no (roller coasters!) so I know that feeling too. I was thinking more of big level things (like moving to a new country without much preparing, etc) versus the smaller things, which, for whatever reason, are much more likely to create the horrible feelings.
In college I read an article that said that, essentially, it was better to spend more decision-making effort on maximizing day-to-day happiness (can I improve the food that I'm eating, or make my workspace more comfortable) and to not think to hard about major life decision (should I take this job, should I move).
The theory as I remember it (which I only mostly believe) is that the big decisions are largely unpredictable anyway and that, beyond a certain point, trying to reason your way through them just generates anxiety without improving outcomes. Whereas smaller scale improvements are fairly easy to achieve if you pay attention to them.
For what it's worth I have on good authority that guns and acid are super fun together, although it's hard to let go of that "gee is this actually a good idea?" feeling. Flamethrowers and acid are certainly a delightful combo.
263: My mother's explanation is that I'm a Libra, and thus a ditherer.
I think (and I'm not a good skier) that if you're skiing and you feel as if you couldn't stop (for more than a few moments at a time when you're in a particularly difficult spot), you're skiing past your level of competence. If you're on a slope you can ski safely, you should be able to stop at will at almost any time.
Further to how much I'm a noob, I'm not sure what the one thing that was offered to me was. I think hash? They had a little lump of something, put it on the end of a spoon, got it smouldering, then stuck it in a hole in the side of an empty soda bottle and inhaled the smoke out of the top of the bottle.
268: I'm not nearly high enough to answer that question.
267:Ignorant myself, but if it was opium I'll think I'll hate you. Sounds like it.
267: probably hash, yeah. Coulda been opium, I guess, but much more likely hash.
Confessions of an Opium Paraphenalia Collector
2012, but I read it recently. I thought the difference was that you applied flame directly to hash while inhaling, but you always heat up opium indirectly. Know nothing of hash oil.
And according to the link, opium for smoking is impossible to find.
I am pretty sure I smoked it twice, but not enough to get anything from it. A pretty subtle drug.
Hash, or the resin somebody scraped out of a pipe stem.
Ah! Long term memory still working okay:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_6435.html#506845
Just in from another afternoon of skiing: lots of snow. Took my first tumble of the season, but no harm done.
Smoked opium a couple times. Nice, but I wouldn't have wanted to make a habit of it.
I once lived a place where there was a folk belief that certain local hallucinogenic mushrooms were not illegal. I doubt that this was actually true, but people set out bowls of them at parties, which was kind of nice.
232: He wrote an article for the New Yorker about ordering LSD from the manufacturer in Switzerland as a child in the 50's. They ordered too little for it to do anything.
black tar heroine
Racist and sexist.
Just in from another afternoon of skiing
Right on topic!
277: Skiing in Colorado in 2 weeks!
282: Be sure to smoke some pot while you're there.
282 -- Excellent! We're getting a shit ton of snow right now. I suppose they're doing ok too down there.
I went snowshoeing today. It was fun.
I don't believe you. Try it again tomorrow to be sure.
What do you get when you snowshoe on acid?
Ruined snowshoes.
258 is kind of true, but not really. Being in control and being able to stop right away aren't the same thing- I often can control where I go, downhill, but the amount of time and space it would take to stop (because of, like, gravity and inertia and science) is large enough to be relatively meaningless.
Then there are moments within that where you aren't in control, so you pull back on the speed some or move over to where the snow's a little softer or something. I kind of like those moments too because it's a good time to practice mindfully engaging skills (knees forward!) that are the opposite of my instincts (lean way way back!). It is also the same feeling, to me, as driving on very icy roads. There are going to be some moments where you are not totally in control of the car, but the fun/interesting part is when you notice that and then regain control.
The skill/instict opposite thing is the same for that too.
But anyway I don't think either of those is a good acid analogy. The roller coaster one is better.
284- my dad says the weather guy called it "a high-impact snow event" which makes it sound Very Serious but I can't tell from facebook if that was really true or not. Guess I'll find out in the morning.
Also I'm still enjoying the image of tripping cops too much not to recommend it to you. "Sir, are you aware that your taillight is fundamentally connected to the oneness of things? Ok, I'm going to need you to put your hands on the steering wheel for me and, like, really look at them you know?"
Speaking of which (ok, not a great transition, but whatever), can the police write traffic tickets without stopping someone and giving them the citation in person? I'd like to believe that if I did something illegal, they'd have pulled me over, but I was driving in an unfamiliar place and I really don't know if I committed a traffic violation, but there was a cop car right behind me. They didn't stop me, but maybe they didn't have to. There were no cameras at the intersection, as far as I know.
292: Oh hey, I just got home. Anyways, generally not. They'd need to be able to say that they could identify you as the driver beyond a reasonable doubt and that can be difficult from behind. Not impossible, I've been able to do it on the right car with the right mirror angle but that's also been people I know on sight. But if the cops were right behind you and wanted to give you a ticket they would have pulled you over. Pretty common to have to let some stuff slide because you're on your way to something serious enough that you can't justify stopping over a traffic violation.
Belated love for Smearcase's analogy of "Tristan" to LSD.
I suspect that more than a few people at the New Year's Eve party I went to may have been on e. They certainly got a lot more huggy after about 2230.
249 is lovely, and suggests a similar project for other presidents. Clinton would have wanted to know if he had any more acid. Obama would have been helpful but disapproving. Bush would have bombed Canada. Reagan would have....I dunno, tried to find his shoes or something.
Bush 41 would have tried to sell him a petroleum based antidote; Ford would have called an aid to ask what acid was; Nixon would have supplied the bad acid in the first place.
"Just relax, son. You have nothing to fear but fear itself."
JFK would have secretly been out of his head himself.
294: Possibly an even better analog is Einstein on the Beach! Longer, more disorienting, but on the other hand it is actually built in that you can duck out when you feel like it.
I have a feeling you don't mean the Counting Crows song.
Because I was curious, I went back and looked at my copy of Sacks' Hallucinations. I definitely remembered wrongly, but the dude did serious amounts of drugs (starting in his 30s! It's not too late!).
After moving to LA in the early 60s, Sacks regularly took hallucinogenic drugs on the weekends, when he wasn't working. In his quest to see 'true indigo,' throughout 1964, he 'developed a pharmacologic launchpad consisting of a base of amphetamine (for general arousal), LSD (for hallucinogenic intensity), and a touch of cannabis (for a little added delirium.' (Chapter 6)
Then he took chloral hydrate to help sleep for most of 1965 (enough to give him a serious case of DTs), switched to meth in 1966 and using heavily into 1967, when he stopped. So, anyway. Just in case you wanted to know.