# Psychedelic Medicine, Therapy and Science



## Tuan Jie

Continuing this thread, which you can't respond to anymore (This Thread is more than 121 days old, you can't reply to it. )

Brilliant writer Michael Pollan just released his new book, *How to Change Your Mind*, subtitled What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.

ABOUT HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND
A brilliant and brave investigation by Michael Pollan, author of five New York Times best sellers, into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs-and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences

When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into the experience of various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research.

A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both struggle and beauty, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives. [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/...ge-your-mind-by-michael-pollan/9781594204227]


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## Nick Attwell

Really?


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## sad1231234

Psychedelics? Mental expansion/exploration? Cosmic transcendance of consciousness? God forbid! Lol. 


Why havent they legalized this stuff already! Heck a little bit of weed helped me to get a good understanding of derealization, helping me to have a far better knowledge when it comes to coping with/curing my depersonalization-derealization disorder. I can barely imagine a glimpse of what psychedelics can do. Probably would cure all the mental crap i have in my head lol.


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## Erroll

Welcome back @Tuan Jie !

Thanks for the info on the book. Have you tried any of this stuff yet? It seems to me that you wouldn't want to do it alone, but under the guidance of someone very familiar with it; like a therapist of something.

I am fascinated by the literature that talks of psychedelics stripping away one's sense of self. I can't really understand what that would be like and so it sounds scary. Here's something I read on "shroomery" regarding what they call ego-death. It makes it sound like it involves looking behind the public mask that we wear, and seeing what we really are. I can't quite grasp that. I think I can already see behind my public mask. What do you think about the subject?

"3. Ego Death: What exactly is ego death? This could be debated until the end of time, and usually the confusion will come when people who have truly not experienced it argue with those who have. And in many ways, each individual experiences things differently, hence although we both experience loss of ego, that person who we lost was different. But.. lets explain what ego-death is at the least:

Ego death is the absence of who you have built yourself to be. It is the splitting of the mind when it first begins to happen, and the ability to truly LOOK at who you normally are, without rationalizing your flaws which you might normally do. It can be one of the most beautiful experiences in your life, but even more, if understood and dealt with properly, it can be more then just a single experience, but a way of life. But furthermore, it will draw out extreme hurt and pain because you will have uncovered a mask that the "real you" normally wears, and is so comfortable in wearing. It strips away your security of who you are, and it will be very clear to you that there are some serious issues with who you are that need to be dealt with. It is the feeling that you are speaking with your own mind, or watching the person you usually are on a movie screen, and a person with the opinion of only wanting the best in this world sits watching. But.. Let me make this very clear: There are very REAL positive and negative effects of ego death. These effects are the reason I am writing this report.

5. Negative effects of Ego Death 
It can be very confusing. It can cause a person who lacks balance in their life, or someone who is already very emotionally unstable to see the pain too quickly, and experience feelings which they are not yet ready to deal with in such volume.

It will unmask your securities, and unlock doors in your mind that hold back your fears from surfacing.

It will show you a different person, because you will be truly stepping out of your usual shoes and looking at the person who usually stands in them. This can be scary and for some who are so-tied to their ego for protection, insanely mind-shattering (overload).

It can make you disgusted or sick with the way you act. It can make you feel so awkward about who you are, that you don't feel as if you can continue living the way you are.

It can do many things psychologically, and change your thought patterns towards a very negative and volatile state.

Positive Effects of Ego Death:

You can feel extreme feelings in volume, and if prepared for this, it can be a euphoria of beauty, and a feeling that every moment in time can be wonderful.

It will unlock doors deep within, and allow you to get constructive criticizm that is of the most real honesty. You will see parts of you that you will want to change, and can be extremely happy to realize these things, knowing that you can make yourself a better person.

It will open up emotions that you usually are unable to feel, and allow you to touch yourself towards ideas and wants that usually the ego holds you back from. It can make you want to be a better person, and give you ideas of how you can accomplish that.

It will change the way you look at the world, maybe only temporarily, and it will undeniably break away a small part of the ego from who you will be when you return from this state. This will happen because people who have an ego which they have made COMPLETELY who they are, in the way that they are unchanging will not be able to experience ego-death in its wholeness. Their ego is attached to strongly, and they will need to experience much change in their life, before that can be achieved (to my knowledge and observations.)

It will remind you of feelings you once forgot, and show you feelings you have never felt before. This can be anything though, as each of us forgets different things, although all equally important. Some of us forget how to love, or begin beliving that such a thing is not possible because of the pain/hurt we have pushed within.. Ego death is one of those mind openers, and reminders.

----- All of these explanations are important, but most importantly is not what you experience while you sit in the seat of ego-death, but HOW you change yourself with what you see. "


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## Tuan Jie

Thank you @Erroll ! Nice to see you again. How are you?

Phone book alert....

I'm a fan of Michael Pollan. It was a surprise to me his latest book is about this subject. If I had to pick anyone who I'd wanted to research and make sense of this, I'd have picked him. So I'm looking forward to his findings.

This is the third day I'm out of the abyss. I've been there for five months straight. I've been hanging on by my fingertips. I turned to books in an attempt to maintain my sanity and to find a spark of hope. Until a month ago, this was the only source of information available to me. I did and I didn't find what I'm looking for. It's a long story...

I've been reading a couple of books about psychedelics and I've been watching a lot of videos about it lately. I am very scared of psychedelics (me), but I also see their enormous therapeutic potential. As I've stated before, this possibility is a last resort for me. It may come to the point where the choice is between this or die. With each major depression I'm getting closer to the point of ending my life. I think it's fair to say it's only a matter of time if the way I experience remains as it is. And that's what will happen with any intervention which doesn't impact my wiring. The vast majority of "experts" is just as handbound as I am when it comes to treatment resistant depression. Nobody truly knows the ins and outs of this condition. My impression is you're at the mercy of your therapists particular conviction. Which one that is, is quite arbitrary. Due to my long history as a "patient" and my character, I rather take my own educated guess. I'm not looking for a magic bullet, just one honest chance to start a sustainable upward cycle. Many seem to have found exactly that in psychedelics. It's worth looking into.

Science is finally starting to happen again in this field and this time we have much better tools, like fMRI, to gather data with. The outcomes of the studies done so far are stunning. It gives me hope, which is in itself counteracting the hopeless void pulling my ankles. These results are only preliminary though. It's going to take years before a consequent treatment will be available to the public, if at all. I've signed up to be a guineapig in a study, but I didn't match the criteria to be included. I've also asked my psychiatrist to ask around, so far without result. Chances are, this is a dead end. I catch myself thinking: "Am I capable of hanging in here for, let's say, ten years?". I don't think I am. When push comes to shove, I don't think I want to anymore. When I fall through, I'm simply in another reality. It doesn't even matter if I'm aware of it or not.

So what's the alternative? These are murky waters. It's a terrain I'd rather avoid, but I feel I can't afford that. It all changes if you're "already dead" and out of options. I'm not wreckless though. I'll be doing my homework first and then make up my mind. I'll take as long as I need. This is the part where many folks seem to be irresponsible. Not all, but many cases where the outcome was dramatic, have this in common. Psychedelics are tools, and if you don't know how to use them, you can be in for a traumatic surprise if you're unlucky. There are crucial do's and don'ts to follow, but there are no guarantees. A big mistake is to think it's only about the substance. It is not.

One of the questions I have is how one best "harvests" the expereinces of a trip. It seems to be difficult to integrate these. Some experienced users say this and preparation is actually 95% of the whole thing. That makes sense to me, since what ultimately matters is how it affects your life. But there is also micro-dosing, which doesn't involve any of the above and is also promising. James Fadiman and Sophia Korb are currently mapping this territory. There's also a chapter on this in Fadiman's book The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, which is on my list of books to read.

Ego-death fascinates me as well. I understand this can be a truly scary experience. Something like all solid ground starting to disappear underneath you. Everything you have learned to manage in life and you think you are dissolves. It must be utterly vulnerable and disorienting and it sounds a bit like what I've been through recently. It can be freeing and connecting on the flipside. A recurring theme is holding on/resisting makes it worse. But that's exactly what the ego wants to do. Letting go is completely counterintuitive. My hunch is that experienced meditators will have less problems here, because they are more familiar with noticing, rather than identifying with the ego. I'm pretty sure when curiosity prevails over anxiety, you're good. But I don't speak from experience. There are trip reports on youtube describing ego-death. It will always remain ineffable, but these people do speak from experience. There are tons of trip reports on erowid.org as well. This is also generally regarded as one of the best sources of information about anything drug related.


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## Erroll

@Tuan Jie

I haven't pre-ordered Pollan's book yet, but I do intend to read it. I guess it doesn't ship until May. "Self" is a very interesting to me. Buddhism says that "self" is the source of all dukka or suffering. And when you stop and think about "self", it's really just a collective noun indicating that a person is a unique bundle of integrated experience. That is to say that each new thing that we learn, is learned in terms of our previous bundle of experiences. Each instant, a new experience happens, so each instant we become a new self. Mostly this is by slight changes that aren't individually noticeable. But sometimes an instant can change our whole worldview; like with the Florida School Survivor Students here in USA. And Tuan, in the hopes of shedding a little brightness on your tortured bundle of experience, in each instant there is hope . There is hope because each lived instant is an instance of change. It is hard to believe if one has not yet experienced it, but any new stick in the Jenga pile (any new experience) can result in a huge change in the nature of the jenga stack (one's experience of life) as a whole.

Each experience brings change and each change brings new possibilities into sight; it's a cause for hope. Don't let hopelessness negate possibility. Each day that you hold out by exercising your hope based courage, is a small victory, and a little step towards a better life.

Thanks for the references on psychedelics. What do you see as the major impediments to your trying them? Lack of anyone with professional credentials? Money? Anxiety? I wish you some comfort from depression. Have you noticed that things we think of cause depression? Invariably, there are either things we anticipate with trepidation or things in the past which we regret or feel guilty about. Do you seek solace in just observing the present, much? At any instant, do you sense anything with your 5 senses that makes you feel bad? Not thoughts, they are always involved in the past and future and can make you feel bad, so not thoughts, just feeling seeing smelling etc, what you experience happening in the instant you are living , as you pass through these instants.

I would enjoy discussing Pollan's book with you on here, once it comes out and we have had time to read it.


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## Tuan Jie

@Erroll
I've been reading about "self" a lot lately. Particularly about how it and it's neurological reality is shaped by our interactions with our primary caregiver. It has dramatically altered my view of "mental illness" in general and my own depression/SA in particular. Subjective experiences, the nature of consciousness and self, the recurring nature of depression, SA, neuroscience, trauma, the fear of rejection, etc. Many pieces of the puzzle are falling into place since I discovered attachment theory and related studies. There's tons to say about this, but that would mean me dumping an entire off-topic phone book here.

It is very much connected to this topic though, because a fruitfull intervention has to involve rewiring of the brain. Neuroplasticity; the possibility to make new connections between neurons, which ultimately make up your reality and your self. Talking and psychopharmaceuticals are mainly palliative in this regard. It's also way more complex than a "chemical imbalance" or "unhelpful convictions or behaviour". This is where psychedelic therapy seems to occupy a unique niche. It makes parts of the brain temporarily more plastic, which allows for alternative connections to form. The brake which is on in daily life, the default-mode network, is lifted, allowing for brain regions to communicate with eachother much more freely. It's, off course, much more complicated in reality and there are still lots of unknowns. Mendel Kaelen, on the psilocybine reserach team of Carhart-Harris, uses an analogy which might help (see video below). I have no idea how microdosing psychedelics relates to neuroplasticity.






There are several reasons why I haven't tried psychedelics (accept from a failed attempt with iboga about 11 years ago). The main one is the possibility of having a PTSD-type trip on top of my "mental illness". Everything else boils down to common-sense homework which I'm not done with yet. There are several questions I'd like to have answered before I can make a proper assessment and decide if it's worth the risk in another than a clinical environment. If I get the chance to be a guineapig in a medical trial, I'll take it right away. A white coat is an amazing placebo and in this case the subject trusting the expertiese of the doc can make the difference. Psychedelic means mind-manifesting. What you are is what you get.

I'm starting to comprehend the essense of what's torturing me. I'm simply overwhelmed by extreme emotions, during which my body seems to have a mind of it's own. I just let it do what it needs to do. I trust it's wisdom. It is as physical as it is emotional. When I'm taken over by this, there hardly is any room for cognition, it just goes offline. Such is the language of trauma. The Body Keeps the Score, as Bessel van der Kolk puts it. There is a boy inside who's falling apart from all the hurt he carries. A baby on a bed of nails. His brokenness is beyond words, beyond tears. It's sub-rational. Although I have been through a lot in my life, the sheer intensity of these experiences has remained a mystery to me. Untill I discovered attachement theory (see off-topic video below). I have tools to alleviate, but actually addressing the issue is far from straight forward. Comprehending does helpt to determine which steps to take next. I'm not in this state of consciousness at the moment though. I've been feeling relatively well for four days already!

We'll get to discussing Michael Pollan eventually. Looking forward to it


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## Erroll

@Tuan Jie

_"I've been reading about "self" a lot lately. Particularly about how it and it's neurological reality is shaped by our interactions with our primary caregiver." 
_

*I think that the way that this works is that the edifice of personality is built upon the foundation laid by the primary caregiver(s) early in life. If we understand a novel experience in terms of our remembered past experiences, then you could say our experiences with the primary caregiver is at the core of how we comprehend everything in life. Douglas Hofstadter talks about this in "I am a Stranger Loop". He compares Kurt Godel's mathematical self referential systems to the self referential system of consciousness (each new experience being thrown into the pile of all previous experience). The entire path that a pendulum takes until it stops is affected from the point of bumping it. If you consider the pendulum life, and each experience a bump to the pendulum of life, you can see how each experience has the potential to change the entire future. And the earlier that you bump the pendulum, the more it affects the future path until it stops. That's why the effects of early caregiver's lies so deep within each personality.

*

_"It has dramatically altered my view of "mental illness" in general and my own depression/SA in particular. "
_

*My opinion; there is no such thing as mental illness. By that I mean that everything that we call mental is, at the base of it, really physical. Experience causes neurons to fire, and sends calcium messengers into the cellular nucleus. A RNA recipe is clipped off and sent to a ribosome in the neuron, where the recipe is followed to build a chemical. And chemicals make feelings, just like a few beers promotes a feeling of wellbeing, L'haim. So feelings are in reaction to experience, but the process is mediated by the production of chemicals like Serotonin and Dopamine and what not. If you don't have the right mix experience to unlock the release of dopamine in the Ventral Tegmental Area of your brain, it makes sense to me that the situation can be re-mediated either chemically (drugs) or experientially.

I would include electrical stimulation of the Ventral Tegmental Area to effect release of dopamine, as a chemical type intervention, just so it won't be confused with experience based interventions. I recently read this article about direct brain stimulation of this "feel good" circuit. And of course, people couldn't ever get enough of that kind of stim and developed tolerances, constantly requiring more stim to achieve the desired effect. Too great a concentration of neurotransmitter can kill cells, so direct stim is not a good intervention

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...hock-deep-brain-stimulation-happiness/556043/

*

_"Subjective experiences, the nature of consciousness and self, the recurring nature of depression, SA, neuroscience, trauma, the fear of rejection, etc. Many pieces of the puzzle are falling into place since I discovered attachment theory and related studies. There's tons to say about this, but that would mean me dumping an entire off-topic phone book here. "_

*Subjective experience is the experience of a current set of environmental stimulation interpreted in light of a subjects remembered life experiences. So the same thing happening in the environment can have different meanings for different subjects. I just saw an example of this on the news. Jeb Bush said that he was glad to be off of the campaign trail ,and at home with his wonderful children. He said it just as a compliment to his children. But Eric and Donald Trump Jr, trump's kids, took the same comment as an affront to their father, that Jeb Bush was implying that Trump enjoyed being away from HIS kids. Each interpreted the same words in accord with what was on their minds. It could be that you have an learned a self defeating interpretation of something in an innocuous set of environmental stimulus, that blows the thing up in importance and makes it seem like a problem which must be solved right now, and this causes you to continuously cycle through the same bad scenario, leading to an exhausted depressive state. 
*
.

_"It is very much connected to this topic though, because a fruitfull intervention has to involve rewiring of the brain. Neuroplasticity; the possibility to make new connections between neurons, which ultimately make up your reality and your self. Talking and psychopharmaceuticals are mainly palliative in this regard. It's also way more complex than a "chemical imbalance" or "unhelpful convictions or behaviour". This is where psychedelic therapy seems to occupy a unique niche. It makes parts of the brain temporarily more plastic, which allows for alternative connections to form. The brake which is on in daily life, the default-mode network, is lifted, allowing for brain regions to communicate with eachother much more freely. It's, off course, much more complicated in reality and there are still lots of unknowns. Mendel Kaelen, on the psilocybine reserach team of Carhart-Harris, uses an analogy which might help (see video below). I have no idea how microdosing psychedelics relates to neuroplasticity."_

*And the way that you intervene to change the wiring is to curb your thinking. You have to exit the default, mind wondering state, and to pay attention to a new path of thinking which ameliorates your old perception of the problem. As you practice the new logical path in your mind, neurons which fire together begin to wire together. This makes the new way of perceiving the problem second nature and automatic. Meanwhile, the old connections which led to depression will be stripped away due to lack of use. It's called Hebbian Plasticity, after the guy who discovered it. Now the trick in all of this is to try to identify the path that your thinking takes when you find yourself in a given circumstance. So you have to take note of what circumstances lead you to your depressive state and the chain of concepts activated by those environmental circumstances. Once you've identified circumstance, reinterpret it more favorably, and practice the reinterpretation over and over; the more you do, the better you will be able to follow the new perceptual path to an outcome that avoids the depressive looping around the same thought.

*

*This article claims that depression is caused by dwelling on self. It's a kind of OCD where the brain is constantly cycling through self-referential areas of the brain. That has to be due to either connectivity issues or chemical production/reception issues. Connectivity can be enhanced by mental exercises using these areas (The Hebbian Doctrine that cells which fire together, wire togeter.) And chemical production and use should be able to be addressed with chemicals that either inhibit production or inhibit reception of these chemicals.

https://www.sott.net/article/381014...-brain-receptor-responsible-for-sense-of-self
*

_"I'm starting to comprehend the essense of what's torturing me. I'm simply overwhelmed by extreme emotions, during which my body seems to have a mind of it's own. I just let it do what it needs to do. I trust it's wisdom. It is as physical as it is emotional. When I'm taken over by this, there hardly is any room for cognition, it just goes offline. Such is the language of trauma. The Body Keeps the Score, as Bessel van der Kolk puts it. There is a boy inside who's falling apart from all the hurt he carries. A baby on a bed of nails. His brokenness is beyond words, beyond tears. It's sub-rational. Although I have been through a lot in my life, the sheer intensity of these experiences has remained a mystery to me. Untill I discovered attachement theory (see off-topic video below). I have tools to alleviate, but actually addressing the issue is far from straight forward. Comprehending does helpt to determine which steps to take next. I'm not in this state of consciousness at the moment though. I've been feeling relatively well for four days already! "_

*It sounds like a horrible thing to have to go through. I am happy to hear that you are experiencing a respite for a while. Analyze how you came to have this respite from the usual torture that your mind seems to gravitate to. You might uncover a clue to what gets you out of the bad state into a more manageable one.

And what I write here and suggest is just based my beliefs and understandings of things I've been reading over the last 10 or so years. Read; A little knowledge is a dangerous thing  Good luck to you, buddy. 
*


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## RelinquishedHell

I've heard it's very effective. Mushrooms and DMT especially. Something about expanding your perspective and understanding, so you don't get sucked into one particular thought pattern.

I'm curious about trying it, but Idk where do get mushrooms and I hear bad trips from DMT are horrifying.


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## sad1231234

RelinquishedHell said:


> I've heard it's very effective. Mushrooms and DMT especially. Something about expanding your perspective and understanding, so you don't get sucked into one particular thought pattern.
> 
> I'm curious about trying it, but Idk where do get mushrooms and I hear bad trips from DMT are horrifying.


Craigslist. also on leafedin you can find people. And in certain seasons they'll be growing everywhere, just make sure you fully know how to identify them 100% cause if you pick the wrong ones cause they can cause a long agonizing death


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## Tuan Jie

@Erroll
Thanks Erroll. I'm going to try to stay on topic now  If I have gathered enough courage, I'll make a thread about how I think things got this way. Do you suffer from depression and has your method helped you to metigate it? Are you thinking about psychedelic therapy as well?

Rewiring the brain at the level of the default-mode network (DMN) has been proven to be a massive challenge. I haven't been able to hack it in all these years, not sustainably at least. Perhaps that's because it is the generator of "I" and there's no other "I" outside of the self-referential loop who can "interpret" differently. There's nobody home who buys into other truths, so to speak. It does feel like a prison or a hostage situation. I can't do this on my own. Not even a year in a therapeutic community where questioning your convictions and perceptions was the norm has resulted in significant changes, nor have a slew of meds, tons of self-help books and various other attempts. Some have helped for a while, but it always goes back to the default. Another approach is needed, hence this thread. Perhaps what's needed is to temporarily take down the DMN itself to experience outside the realm of these fixed settings. What's interesting is that the experiencer remains regardless. Any thoughts on that?

The 5-HT2 receptor has come up often. Pretty cool study narrowing down it's role in dissovling the self. It may lead to a more precise intervention in the future (although I'm weary of simple solutions in this case). I'm not going to wait for that though, it'll take ages, if ever. Since I've physically removed myself from a triggering enviroment leading to my distress, my nervous system has calmed down a bit. My amygdala is less marinating everything with danger. That includes my fear of a "bad trip". I find myself looking for alternatives to volunteering in a trial. However, the largest trial in psilocybin therapy for treatment resistant depression ever is pending. It's planned to be conducted in the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK. I'm trying to get myself onboard. Otherwise, other legal options are available in the Netherlands. I'll also be looking more into neuroplasticity, which can hardly be a depressive thing to do


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## Tuan Jie

@RelinquishedHell
If you're open to DMT, you may want to look into ayahuasca (which's active component is DMT). Are there any legal ceremonies held in the US? Maps.org will keep you posted on any developments with regard to psychedelic therapy within the law. It's founder, Rick Doblin is working with the FDA to make MDMA assisted psychotherapy available to the public. This could be as soon as 2021 and even sooner in some cases. 
@sad1231234
How've you been? How has weed helped you? It's about the last thing I'd think off being helpfull if you have depersonalization issues. But the same goes for psychedelics for mental health issues. I've stayed away from it because of it. It would be ironic if it's the thing which is very helpfull to treat it.


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## sad1231234

Tuan Jie said:


> @RelinquishedHell
> If you're open to DMT, you may want to look into ayahuasca (which's active component is DMT). Are there any legal ceremonies held in the US? Maps.org will keep you posted on any developments with regard to psychedelic therapy within the law. It's founder, Rick Doblin is working with the FDA to make MDMA assisted psychotherapy available to the public. This could be as soon as 2021 and even sooner in some cases.
> 
> @sad1231234
> How've you been? How has weed helped you? It's about the last thing I'd think off being helpfull if you have depersonalization issues. But the same goes for psychedelics for mental health issues. I've stayed away from it because of it. It would be ironic if it's the thing which is very helpfull to treat it.


weed gave me a good understanding of the mind, thoughts, and the connection between reality and the mind. Before i used weed i didnt really know what to do about my derealization but when i used it a while back i gained an understanding of how to live in the real world more instead of living inside my own mind lol. Derealization is very elusive but getting a bit of a grip on how the mind works helped.


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## Erroll

Tuan Jie said:


> Thanks Erroll. I'm going to try to stay on topic now  If I have gathered enough courage, I'll make a thread about how I think things got this way. Do you suffer from depression and has your method helped you to metigate it? Are you thinking about psychedelic therapy as well?


I have suffered from depression just enough to understand what a deep well it is to fall down. I feel better than at any time in my life now. maybe at my age, there's just less of a future to to worry about. Also, a lot of my past happened quite a while ago, and one has to remember the past to regret it  Depression is half worrying about the future and half regretting the past. We live in the present. I meditate regularly and take a bit of Prozac to help keep depression in check. I feel a bit down occasionally, but I find that I can usually snap out of it on the smae day that I notice it. Psychadelic therapy is interesting to me from the standpoint of understanding the 'self'. How on earth can a chemical cause the 'self' to weaken and a person to encompass the environment in his sense of self. I'm looking forward to Pollen's book on that.



Tuan Jie said:


> Rewiring the brain at the level of the default-mode network (DMN) has been proven to be a massive challenge. I haven't been able to hack it in all these years, not sustainably at least. Perhaps that's because it is the generator of "I" and there's no other "I" outside of the self-referential loop who can "interpret" differently. There's nobody home who buys into other truths, so to speak. It does feel like a prison or a hostage situation. I can't do this on my own. Not even a year in a therapeutic community where questioning your convictions and perceptions was the norm has resulted in significant changes, nor have a slew of meds, tons of self-help books and various other attempts. Some have helped for a while, but it always goes back to the default. Another approach is needed, hence this thread. Perhaps what's needed is to temporarily take down the DMN itself to experience outside the realm of these fixed settings. What's interesting is that the experiencer remains regardless. Any thoughts on that?


The "self" that we act with, now, is a product of our past. The only way to address any problem with our current 'self' is to address it in the present. Analogically, we can't remove the old shingles totally and put on a new roof. But we have to patch up the roof that we've got. All the past is incorporated in us; in the 'selves' that we currently are. We have to take that 'self' that the past gave us, and do something now to change the way our modified self addresses the future. We can worry about the future until we shrivel up and die. Or we can take actions regarding how we conduct ourselves in the present to change the course of our future. Anything can happen in the future and it is all based in what we do right now. So we can worry about the future, or we can choose to have faith in ourselves and in the present actions we undertake, to reach a future free of the burdens of the past. Mindfulness exercises can help us live in the present. These exercises help us to pay attention, and become aware of when the default network (DMN) of the brain is taking us for a dangerous ride into regrets of the past or worries regarding the future. That is the methodology of, as you say, rewiring the default mode network. I wouldn't say that the DMN is the generator of the 'I or self'. The 'self' exists in the present as a product of the past. If anything, the DMN draws us away from our true selves and causes us to reflect on either past 'selves' which we used to be, or on future 'selves', which we might never become. Living in the present is the key.



Tuan Jie said:


> The 5-HT2 receptor has come up often. Pretty cool study narrowing down it's role in dissovling the self. It may lead to a more precise intervention in the future (although I'm weary of simple solutions in this case). I'm not going to wait for that though, it'll take ages, if ever. Since I've physically removed myself from a triggering enviroment leading to my distress, my nervous system has calmed down a bit. My amygdala is less marinating everything with danger. That includes my fear of a "bad trip". I find myself looking for alternatives to volunteering in a trial. However, the largest trial in psilocybin therapy for treatment resistant depression ever is pending. It's planned to be conducted in the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK. I'm trying to get myself onboard. Otherwise, other legal options are available in the Netherlands. I'll also be looking more into neuroplasticity, which can hardly be a depressive thing to do


The chemistry of the neuron is everything. To say that it is massively complex is an understatement. DNA codes for every aspect of the body, which I like to call an "Environmental Detection and Response Machine" (EDRM) . The soul develops over a lifetime and is totally dependent on what the EDRM detects, and how it responds. Chemicals work on the body directly. Meditation works on the body via the intermediary of the soul. In both cases electro-chemicals are propagated from the huge network of body sensors and flow up the nerves and spinal cord to neurons in the brain's sensory cortices. The electric potential thus generated in these neurons causes a chemical signal to enter the neuron's nucleus and clip off a recipe for a molecule (like a 5-HT2 receptor or a molecule of seritonin). In a perfect world, the 5-HT2 receptor allows molecules of seritonin to enter a neuron and cause it to fire stronger and faster, yielding a normal state of consciousness instead of a depressed state of consciousness. But neural DNA is not always perfect. The new science of Epigenetics shows us many ways in which DNA gets modified; sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. So, if a genetic mutation causes a slightly different 5-HT2 receptor to be generated, and that receptor's shape does not allow seritonin molecules to enter the neuron, consciousness remains depressed.

So, for instance, to address depression chemically, you have to determine if seritonin or another body chemical is the problem, if your gut microbes are making enough serotonin, if receptors in the neuron are allowing seritonin to enter the neuron, if you have too few receptors for the seritonin you make, etc etc etc. And knowledge of how this massively complex dance of chemicals works to produce mood is incomplete and sketchy at best. I have a textbook on the chemistry of the neuron and it's almost impossible to read, because it is not a cohesive story, but an endless procession of what this or that chemical does under this or that circumstance. It is short on integration of this information, so that you can follow it from beginning to end. That's why I prefer to talk about addressing depression via mindfulness and talk. But I find myself using both chemical and mindful interventions. It's just that it is almost impossible to know exactly how chemicals work. Thus our fear of psycho-active mushrooms etc. It really is sort of 'trial end error'.


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## Erroll

sad1231234 said:


> weed gave me a good understanding of the mind, thoughts, and the connection between reality and the mind. Before i used weed i didnt really know what to do about my derealization but when i used it a while back i gained an understanding of how to live in the real world more instead of living inside my own mind lol. Derealization is very elusive but getting a bit of a grip on how the mind works helped.


My experience has been that weed increases the acuity of all 5 human senses. Food tastes better, music sounds better, sex is more intense, odors are more pronounced, and visually things are more focused and crisp and colors are more saturated. This more intense sensory stimulation seems to facilitate mindfulness meditation because the sensory stimulation of the present moment becomes more vivid and interesting. Sometimes the richer sensual experiences can make it seem like time passes more slowly, because you experience more sensual information across the same time span. And its a matter of dosage too. Too much and you start to see things that really aren't there ...hallucinations, obsessive thoughts, paranoia. (So perhaps this is one area where Jagger's maxim, below, does not hold true :smile2: )


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## sad1231234

Erroll said:


> My experience has been that weed increases the acuity of all 5 human senses. Food tastes better, music sounds better, sex is more intense, odors are more pronounced, and visually things are more focused and crisp and colors are more saturated. This more intense sensory stimulation seems to facilitate mindfulness meditation because the sensory stimulation of the present moment becomes more vivid and interesting. Sometimes the richer sensual experiences can make it seem like time passes more slowly, because you experience more sensual information across the same time span. And its a matter of dosage too. Too much and you start to see things that really aren't there ...hallucinations, obsessive thoughts, paranoia. (So perhaps this is one area where Jagger's maxim, below, does not hold true :smile2: )


Yeah it does, i havent tried actual psychedelics or anything but from my experience with marijuana it increases the effectiveness of the senses. Not to mention it also helps the brain to sort of "multitask" more, like in picking out different instruments in music and stuff. Yeah you're right, i mean i havent done weed much but i would imagine it would be good for meditating and stuff. Yeah everything in moderation haha unless you're some hardcore psychonaut or something. But thats whats cool about weed, because it is pretty much a psychedelic that is intense enough to be an other-worldly experience yet soft/mild enough so that you are still in the real world and able to think fairly normally.


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## Chevy396

Erroll said:


> @Tuan Jie
> 
> _"I've been reading about "self" a lot lately. Particularly about how it and it's neurological reality is shaped by our interactions with our primary caregiver."
> _
> 
> *I think that the way that this works is that the edifice of personality is built upon the foundation laid by the primary caregiver(s) early in life. If we understand a novel experience in terms of our remembered past experiences, then you could say our experiences with the primary caregiver is at the core of how we comprehend everything in life. Douglas Hofstadter talks about this in "I am a Stranger Loop". He compares Kurt Godel's mathematical self referential systems to the self referential system of consciousness (each new experience being thrown into the pile of all previous experience). The entire path that a pendulum takes until it stops is affected from the point of bumping it. If you consider the pendulum life, and each experience a bump to the pendulum of life, you can see how each experience has the potential to change the entire future. And the earlier that you bump the pendulum, the more it affects the future path until it stops. That's why the effects of early caregiver's lies so deep within each personality.
> 
> *
> 
> _"It has dramatically altered my view of "mental illness" in general and my own depression/SA in particular. "
> _
> 
> *My opinion; there is no such thing as mental illness. By that I mean that everything that we call mental is, at the base of it, really physical. Experience causes neurons to fire, and sends calcium messengers into the cellular nucleus. A RNA recipe is clipped off and sent to a ribosome in the neuron, where the recipe is followed to build a chemical. And chemicals make feelings, just like a few beers promotes a feeling of wellbeing, L'haim. So feelings are in reaction to experience, but the process is mediated by the production of chemicals like Serotonin and Dopamine and what not. If you don't have the right mix experience to unlock the release of dopamine in the Ventral Tegmental Area of your brain, it makes sense to me that the situation can be re-mediated either chemically (drugs) or experientially.
> 
> I would include electrical stimulation of the Ventral Tegmental Area to effect release of dopamine, as a chemical type intervention, just so it won't be confused with experience based interventions. I recently read this article about direct brain stimulation of this "feel good" circuit. And of course, people couldn't ever get enough of that kind of stim and developed tolerances, constantly requiring more stim to achieve the desired effect. Too great a concentration of neurotransmitter can kill cells, so direct stim is not a good intervention
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...hock-deep-brain-stimulation-happiness/556043/
> 
> *
> 
> _"Subjective experiences, the nature of consciousness and self, the recurring nature of depression, SA, neuroscience, trauma, the fear of rejection, etc. Many pieces of the puzzle are falling into place since I discovered attachment theory and related studies. There's tons to say about this, but that would mean me dumping an entire off-topic phone book here. "_
> 
> *Subjective experience is the experience of a current set of environmental stimulation interpreted in light of a subjects remembered life experiences. So the same thing happening in the environment can have different meanings for different subjects. I just saw an example of this on the news. Jeb Bush said that he was glad to be off of the campaign trail ,and at home with his wonderful children. He said it just as a compliment to his children. But Eric and Donald Trump Jr, trump's kids, took the same comment as an affront to their father, that Jeb Bush was implying that Trump enjoyed being away from HIS kids. Each interpreted the same words in accord with what was on their minds. It could be that you have an learned a self defeating interpretation of something in an innocuous set of environmental stimulus, that blows the thing up in importance and makes it seem like a problem which must be solved right now, and this causes you to continuously cycle through the same bad scenario, leading to an exhausted depressive state.
> *
> .
> 
> _"It is very much connected to this topic though, because a fruitfull intervention has to involve rewiring of the brain. Neuroplasticity; the possibility to make new connections between neurons, which ultimately make up your reality and your self. Talking and psychopharmaceuticals are mainly palliative in this regard. It's also way more complex than a "chemical imbalance" or "unhelpful convictions or behaviour". This is where psychedelic therapy seems to occupy a unique niche. It makes parts of the brain temporarily more plastic, which allows for alternative connections to form. The brake which is on in daily life, the default-mode network, is lifted, allowing for brain regions to communicate with eachother much more freely. It's, off course, much more complicated in reality and there are still lots of unknowns. Mendel Kaelen, on the psilocybine reserach team of Carhart-Harris, uses an analogy which might help (see video below). I have no idea how microdosing psychedelics relates to neuroplasticity."_
> 
> *And the way that you intervene to change the wiring is to curb your thinking. You have to exit the default, mind wondering state, and to pay attention to a new path of thinking which ameliorates your old perception of the problem. As you practice the new logical path in your mind, neurons which fire together begin to wire together. This makes the new way of perceiving the problem second nature and automatic. Meanwhile, the old connections which led to depression will be stripped away due to lack of use. It's called Hebbian Plasticity, after the guy who discovered it. Now the trick in all of this is to try to identify the path that your thinking takes when you find yourself in a given circumstance. So you have to take note of what circumstances lead you to your depressive state and the chain of concepts activated by those environmental circumstances. Once you've identified circumstance, reinterpret it more favorably, and practice the reinterpretation over and over; the more you do, the better you will be able to follow the new perceptual path to an outcome that avoids the depressive looping around the same thought.
> 
> *
> 
> *This article claims that depression is caused by dwelling on self. It's a kind of OCD where the brain is constantly cycling through self-referential areas of the brain. That has to be due to either connectivity issues or chemical production/reception issues. Connectivity can be enhanced by mental exercises using these areas (The Hebbian Doctrine that cells which fire together, wire togeter.) And chemical production and use should be able to be addressed with chemicals that either inhibit production or inhibit reception of these chemicals.
> 
> https://www.sott.net/article/381014...-brain-receptor-responsible-for-sense-of-self
> *
> 
> _"I'm starting to comprehend the essense of what's torturing me. I'm simply overwhelmed by extreme emotions, during which my body seems to have a mind of it's own. I just let it do what it needs to do. I trust it's wisdom. It is as physical as it is emotional. When I'm taken over by this, there hardly is any room for cognition, it just goes offline. Such is the language of trauma. The Body Keeps the Score, as Bessel van der Kolk puts it. There is a boy inside who's falling apart from all the hurt he carries. A baby on a bed of nails. His brokenness is beyond words, beyond tears. It's sub-rational. Although I have been through a lot in my life, the sheer intensity of these experiences has remained a mystery to me. Untill I discovered attachement theory (see off-topic video below). I have tools to alleviate, but actually addressing the issue is far from straight forward. Comprehending does helpt to determine which steps to take next. I'm not in this state of consciousness at the moment though. I've been feeling relatively well for four days already! "_
> 
> *It sounds like a horrible thing to have to go through. I am happy to hear that you are experiencing a respite for a while. Analyze how you came to have this respite from the usual torture that your mind seems to gravitate to. You might uncover a clue to what gets you out of the bad state into a more manageable one.
> 
> And what I write here and suggest is just based my beliefs and understandings of things I've been reading over the last 10 or so years. Read; A little knowledge is a dangerous thing  Good luck to you, buddy.
> *


You are on to something here. If you feel like talking g about your thoughts I would be interested in monotizing them. Maybe you re opposed to monotizing on these things, but in the modern world, that's the only way to get the word out.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## Chevy396

RelinquishedHell said:


> I've heard it's very effective. Mushrooms and DMT especially. Something about expanding your perspective and understanding, so you don't get sucked into one particular thought pattern.
> 
> I'm curious about trying it, but Idk where do get mushrooms and I hear bad trips from DMT are horrifying.


Mushrooms are easy to grow and legal to buy the spores (in most places). I highly recommend as I've had a bad trip on acid, but not on shrooms.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## Erroll

SolutionX said:


> You are on to something here. If you feel like talking g about your thoughts I would be interested in monotizing them. Maybe you re opposed to monotizing on these things, but in the modern world, that's the only way to get the word out.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


Thanks for reading, Solution. The theory of consciousness upon which I base what I write was developed by Douglas Hoffstadter of Indiana University, and discussed in detail in his _"I am a strange loop"_. It makes more sense to me than any other consciousness theory that I have ever encountered. I think that he's dead on.

The neurological substrate upon which consciousness runs, in the brain and body, is as as complex as life itself. What I say about that comes from my readings on anatomy, neurology, and connectome. 
It's functions are coded in the 3 billion base pairs in human DNA. But, I believe that that substrate could be replaced with computer-like hardware. I believe that if you had a deep-enough Markov Neural Network, running on a fast-enough machine, and if you exposed this neural net to a training set consisting of every single sensory experience that a 3 year old has had and in the same order, that you would end up with something very much like the consciousness of that 3 year old. That, of course, would entail that the machine had a body to house all the various sensors...vision, feel audio smell taste, etc, and it might even need a gut to house the microbes which send messages to the brain via the Enteric Nervous System and the Vagus nerve.

The human nervous system does everything with electrical potentials, mediated by electro-chemical transmitter molecules. A consciousness running on a hardware substrate would skip the chemical intermediaries and message directly with electricity, and that should reduce the complexity of the 3 billion base pairs of DNA, acting individually or in unison to produce bio-molecules based on electro-chemically mediated environmental messaging. I believe that feelings or quales, like pleasant/unpleasant are based in learned experience. The internal feeling of 'pleasantness' is created in analogy to outcomes of previous remembered pleasant experiences. I think that that is where all of the confusion used to occur in questioning whether infants could feel the pain of circumcision. I think that pain is not felt until it can be associated with previous causes and outcomes of similar circumstances which caused pain. So pain, like everything else, is not felt until it is learned. For example; the first few times that I used Marijuana, I did not notice the high, and the stuff seemed useless. But after repeated usage, I LEARNED to feel the high. You simply do not pay attention to meaningless feelings until you learn to associate and compare them with remembered previous experiential outcomes. (And Eric Kandel's work with Aplysia is a good place to read about how memory works.)

I love theorizing about this stuff and would enjoy discussing it in messages/posts, but my social anxiety prevents me from organizing my thoughts in real time, so I write. I discuss my personal ideas about consciousness in my blog on here, if you are interested.


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## Chevy396

I don't think I agree with the idea that pain only happens if you have a memory of it. If that were true then it wouldn't have hurt when I broke my leg because I had never experienced it before.

There is a first for everything, and often times the first experience is the most painful because you haven't developed a tolerance for the pain.

I like the rest though.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## sad1231234

SolutionX said:


> Mushrooms are easy to grow and legal to buy the spores (in most places). I highly recommend as I've had a bad trip on acid, but not on shrooms.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


generally from what i have researched, i think the majority of people will say that mushrooms are more likely to cause a bad trip than acid and that mushrooms are more harsh on the consciousness than acid. Not to say that mushrooms are more intense, a lot of people say acid is more intense, but acid is often recommended for a first trip for someone who has never tried psychedelics before. Because acid is one of those things that is harder to go wrong with than mushrooms, in low doses it often creates rather positive experiences more likely than not and it stimulates the dopamine in the brain which makes you directly feel good, rather than with shrooms where you indirectly derive the feeling of rewardance from the experience that you are having. But that doesnt mean that acid is better than shrooms, it just means that a lot of people seem to say that it is a more soft experience for a beginner when done in the right doses. Mushrooms are often said to be more confusing than acid trips. If you've seen psychedsubstance on youtube, he will recommend trying acid rather than shrooms on your first psychedelic trip. But just make sure you test it, because you dont want to get some fake stuff like 25i-NBOM or whatever it is called, that stuff has been known to kill people who took only 2 hits of it.


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## GeomTech

Erroll said:


> [MENTION=852441]
> 
> *Subjective experience is the experience of a current set of environmental stimulation interpreted in light of a subjects remembered life experiences. So the same thing happening in the environment can have different meanings for different subjects. I just saw an example of this on the news. Jeb Bush said that he was glad to be off of the campaign trail ,and at home with his wonderful children. He said it just as a compliment to his children. But Eric and Donald Trump Jr, trump's kids, took the same comment as an affront to their father, that Jeb Bush was implying that Trump enjoyed being away from HIS kids. Each interpreted the same words in accord with what was on their minds. It could be that you have an learned a self defeating interpretation of something in an innocuous set of environmental stimulus, that blows the thing up in importance and makes it seem like a problem which must be solved right now, and this causes you to continuously cycle through the same bad scenario, leading to an exhausted depressive state.
> *


*

Hmm. Very intriguing. Sorry to de-rail the thread, but I wonder what this will entail for hypothetical endeavors such as mind-uploading or consciousness transfer operations, or rather, subjective experience transfer / upload. Apparently, it might not be possible, as there are objections such as the likes of the transfer being just a mere copy, and not the actual subjective experience field. But, couldn't there be a kind of tethered dual entity; like it's split, but connected in some way? Perhaps not. Or perhaps, a kind of mini-fractal seed, but you feed it the pattern of experience (alterations in brain structure, neural patternings), or something along those lines? Hmm.... Or maybe a kind of mechanism; where you have the brain connected to a virtual copy mechanism, but embue it with a virtual realm, where one can experience a world akin to that of current reality, and trick the brain into thinking that it's actually within the virtual realm, and somehow have the virtual copy mechanism loop a virtual copy within the virtual realm. Not sure if that'd work, as the "in-between" steps would depend upon the initial consciousness being copied, and when that's gone, it's lights out, I suppose?

I was also thinking of a mechanism akin to entanglement transfer or something along those lines. However, Quantum consciousness theory or ORCH OR; the idea that consciousness is "quantum", and the origins of consciousness stem from the microtubules in neurons as opposed to connections between them, has been puportedly written off; as it is seemingly inconsistent, and is apparently at odds with "established" science; though, there could be something to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction*


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## Synaps3

Without having read the OP, I can tell you that mushrooms have been a GREAT help to me. Beautiful stuff!!! Do not trust it too much though because it can lead you astray. You may start believing in things that don't have any logical basis in reality.

It's always good if you are a very logical thinker. If you are a INFP or INFJ personality type, then forget it. You'll probably end up convincing yourself something ridiculous. I've seen this before. You have to have a strong mind to benefit from this stuff or else you'll just end up a hippy who believes everything that "FEELS" right.

It is a great tool. I've even used the stuff to have conversations with a god-like consciousness in my head. It told me what was right and wrong about my life and what I should do. It was amazing. Take it with caution and go into it with some questions you intend to ask yourself.


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## WillYouStopDave

Tuan Jie said:


> @Erroll
> 
> We'll get to discussing Michael Pollan eventually. Looking forward to it


 Can we please discuss bee pollen first?


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## GeomTech

Synaps3 said:


> Without having read the OP, I can tell you that mushrooms have been a GREAT help to me. Beautiful stuff!!! Do not trust it too much though because it can lead you astray. You may start believing in things that don't have any logical basis in reality.
> 
> It's always good if you are a very logical thinker. If you are a INFP or INFJ personality type, then forget it. You'll probably end up convincing yourself something ridiculous. I've seen this before. You have to have a strong mind to benefit from this stuff or else you'll just end up a hippy who believes everything that "FEELS" right.
> 
> It is a great tool. I've even used the stuff to have conversations with a god-like consciousness in my head. It told me what was right and wrong about my life and what I should do. It was amazing. Take it with caution and go into it with some questions you intend to ask yourself.


Hmm... On the border for T/F; but probably heavily leaning towards F; so an INFP (at least I think). In a way, I do lack "grounding" or whatever, and have a kind of disdain for it as well that is not inherently logical.

I'd probably start out with lower dosages or whatever, and use it sparingly. And then, I suppose incorporate a guided inquiry session to wrap the experience inside of as well.

Btw, are you an INTP / ISTP or INTJ?


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## Erroll

Interesting ideas, @GeomTech

But I think that copying a consciousness is a much greater undertaking than creating a conscious AI. I believe that connectivity is different in each individual, because each person has a different set of experience, occurring in different sequences. For example, person A, being an ancient Viking, might attribute thunder to Thor pounding with his hammer, while person B, being a modern scientist, might attribute thunder to friction in the atmosphere and electrostatic discharge.

Can you see how the organization of the information would be different in the two brains? For the Viking, thunder is understood in terms of a previously learned concept we might call God. For the scientist, thunder is understood in terms of the previously learned concepts of atmosphere, static, electricity, electrostatic discharge and such. Any copy machine would have to replicate a differently organized mass of connected neurons. There are a hundred billion neurons in a human brain, each with thousands of connections. Each pathway leading to an understanding of thunder would take a different path through each brain, because each person's understanding would have been achieved by a different route.

Also, the copy would have to emulate features down to the molecular level, because the number of receptors in cell walls determines the strength of the connection. And I don't think that copying brains would be enough. I believe that body sensors are necessary to feel emotions. Also, gut microbes communicate with the human brain via electro-chemicals. It seems to me that you'd have to replicate a whole body.

I haven't heard that Orch-Or has been discarded to the trash heap, but the idea just doesn't do anything for me. I think that the whole idea came from Roger Penrose's musings about the double slit experiment and the idea that consciousness collapses the wave function. When Hameroff told him about the segregated environment inside cellular microtubules, he theorized that it could support a wave function which would be collapsed by quantum gravity (at least one experiment I know of confirmed that the micro tubular environment could allow for a wave function to be maintained) . But I never thought that the idea held much explanatory power. For instance, Penrose even ends up appealing to Plato's world of perfect forms in _Shadows of the Mind_. If you are going to appeal to something as ethereal as that, you might as well opt for pan-psychism. Penrose's idea might tickle a Physicist's innards with a theoretical explanation of wave collapse, but there is no cohesive story of how consciousness takes in sensory signals and generates thoughts, memories, and emotions.

Hofstadter, on the other hand, addresses the whole taco in a simple process. At the bottom of consciousness, per Hofstadter, lies sensory stimulation. We perceive differences in the sensory simulation. We group together similar sensory stimulation patterns via analogy to come up with categories. We slice, dice, and compare previously learned categories to current environmental stimulus, to get meaning out of the current environmental stimulus. Meaning comes by way of analogy to remembered categories. For example, you might say that making the leap from the sensory perceived Golden Retriever, Boston Bull, and Beagle, to the non-physical, mind-internal category of 'DOG' is the most rudimentary function of consciousness. Dog would become subsumed into category 'ANIMALS' and animals into category 'living things'.


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## Erroll

Synaps3 said:


> It is a great tool. I've even used the stuff to have conversations with a god-like consciousness in my head. It told me what was right and wrong about my life and what I should do. It was amazing. Take it with caution and go into it with some questions you intend to ask yourself.


Can you discern any noticeable effects of psychedelics on the sensitivity of your vision, hearing, feel, taste, and smell? I am wondering if what has been called a 'breakdown of the self', is associated with turning attention away from personal thoughts and memories, towards raw current sensory stimulus, with minimal consideration of past personal experience. I think that 'self' is composed of integrated past personal experience, and if you just pay attention to the 'now', without reference to past experience, that you might lose your sense of 'self'. If you are just synthesizing meaning based on current sensory experience, I can almost see how visual and audible hallucinations might be realized, in being attentive to current sensory input, without comparing it to similar past sensory experience.


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## SwtSurrender

Erroll said:


> Welcome back @Tuan Jie !
> 
> Thanks for the info on the book. Have you tried any of this stuff yet? It seems to me that you wouldn't want to do it alone, but under the guidance of someone very familiar with it; like a therapist of something.
> 
> I am fascinated by the literature that talks of psychedelics stripping away one's sense of self. I can't really understand what that would be like and so it sounds scary. Here's something I read on "shroomery" regarding what they call ego-death. It makes it sound like it involves looking behind the public mask that we wear, and seeing what we really are. I can't quite grasp that. I think I can already see behind my public mask. What do you think about the subject?
> 
> "3. Ego Death: What exactly is ego death? This could be debated until the end of time, and usually the confusion will come when people who have truly not experienced it argue with those who have. And in many ways, each individual experiences things differently, hence although we both experience loss of ego, that person who we lost was different. But.. lets explain what ego-death is at the least:
> 
> Ego death is the absence of who you have built yourself to be. It is the splitting of the mind when it first begins to happen, and the ability to truly LOOK at who you normally are, without rationalizing your flaws which you might normally do. It can be one of the most beautiful experiences in your life, but even more, if understood and dealt with properly, it can be more then just a single experience, but a way of life. But furthermore, it will draw out extreme hurt and pain because you will have uncovered a mask that the "real you" normally wears, and is so comfortable in wearing. It strips away your security of who you are, and it will be very clear to you that there are some serious issues with who you are that need to be dealt with. It is the feeling that you are speaking with your own mind, or watching the person you usually are on a movie screen, and a person with the opinion of only wanting the best in this world sits watching. But.. Let me make this very clear: There are very REAL positive and negative effects of ego death. These effects are the reason I am writing this report.
> 
> 5. Negative effects of Ego Death
> It can be very confusing. It can cause a person who lacks balance in their life, or someone who is already very emotionally unstable to see the pain too quickly, and experience feelings which they are not yet ready to deal with in such volume.
> 
> It will unmask your securities, and unlock doors in your mind that hold back your fears from surfacing.
> 
> It will show you a different person, because you will be truly stepping out of your usual shoes and looking at the person who usually stands in them. This can be scary and for some who are so-tied to their ego for protection, insanely mind-shattering (overload).
> 
> It can make you disgusted or sick with the way you act. It can make you feel so awkward about who you are, that you don't feel as if you can continue living the way you are.
> 
> It can do many things psychologically, and change your thought patterns towards a very negative and volatile state.
> 
> Positive Effects of Ego Death:
> 
> You can feel extreme feelings in volume, and if prepared for this, it can be a euphoria of beauty, and a feeling that every moment in time can be wonderful.
> 
> It will unlock doors deep within, and allow you to get constructive criticizm that is of the most real honesty. You will see parts of you that you will want to change, and can be extremely happy to realize these things, knowing that you can make yourself a better person.
> 
> It will open up emotions that you usually are unable to feel, and allow you to touch yourself towards ideas and wants that usually the ego holds you back from. It can make you want to be a better person, and give you ideas of how you can accomplish that.
> 
> It will change the way you look at the world, maybe only temporarily, and it will undeniably break away a small part of the ego from who you will be when you return from this state. This will happen because people who have an ego which they have made COMPLETELY who they are, in the way that they are unchanging will not be able to experience ego-death in its wholeness. Their ego is attached to strongly, and they will need to experience much change in their life, before that can be achieved (to my knowledge and observations.)
> 
> It will remind you of feelings you once forgot, and show you feelings you have never felt before. This can be anything though, as each of us forgets different things, although all equally important. Some of us forget how to love, or begin beliving that such a thing is not possible because of the pain/hurt we have pushed within.. Ego death is one of those mind openers, and reminders.
> 
> ----- All of these explanations are important, but most importantly is not what you experience while you sit in the seat of ego-death, but HOW you change yourself with what you see. "


Yep this is exactly how I started feeling after my treatment with Prozac and even Zoloft! For me it seems that reaching a sense of mania really breaks through the ego entirely than any other high. Don't all psychoactive drugs induce a sense of mania or something stronger, well yes, it does. I wonder if other select few who got manic from Antidepressants experienced this similar ego death as I have. Amen brother! Did you see the episode S1:E1 around 52:00 of Sense8 on Netflix where that one hot girl goes with those 2 guys go over to visit a druggie friend and he coaxes her into trying this sexy psychoactive drug? The way he explains the freedom and otherworldly release of all pain is so beautiful, it reminds me so much of my treatment with Prozac than anything else, maybe weed a little. Ahh just really sexy like giving in to sex or pouring out all your feelings and thoughts to a psychiatrist.


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## sad1231234

Erroll said:


> I am wondering if what has been called a 'breakdown of the self', is associated with turning attention away from personal thoughts and memories, towards raw current sensory stimulus, with minimal consideration of past personal experience. I think that 'self' is composed of integrated past personal experience, and if you just pay attention to the 'now', without reference to past experience, that you might lose your sense of 'self'. If you are just synthesizing meaning based on current sensory experience, I can almost see how visual and audible hallucinations might be realized, in being attentive to current sensory input, without comparing it to similar past sensory experience.


Not really related to the hallucination part and not sure if you're talking about in general or if you mean an extreme case as in an ego death or something, but i believe that, just like you said, the "self is composed of integrated past personal experience". I have severe depersonalization/derealization disorder, probably almost bordering on psychosis or something, and i can definately attest to your theory. Whenever i focus my attention on current sensory stimuli/thoughts, it's like i am slowly slipping deeper and deeper into depersonalization/derealization. Because my mind is distracted from my conscious sense of self and my attention is turned away from my past, so therefore i lose my sense of who i am; almost as if my sense of who i am is sort of cognitively concluded from the moment in which my attention is turned to.

And vice versa: focusing my attention on personal thoughts/memories sort of tends to regain/maintain my sense of self. It is as if the sense of self is an entirely or predominantly conscious, rather than subconscious, construct. I notice that when i live in the moment too much and forget my past/problems etc, i slip deeper into a sort of semi-psychotic state in which i have a harder time trying to remember my past and in trying to maintain my sense of self.


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## Erroll

SwtSurrender said:


> Yep this is exactly how I started feeling after my treatment with Prozac and even Zoloft! For me it seems that reaching a sense of mania really breaks through the ego entirely than any other high. Don't all psychoactive drugs induce a sense of mania or something stronger, well yes, it does. I wonder if other select few who got manic from Antidepressants experienced this similar ego death as I have. Amen brother!


Interesting. I never heard of Prozac causing mania, but it is listed as a possible side effect, as is hypo-mania. It makes me wonder how the same drug can have opposite effects on different people.
I have been on a small dose of Prozac for 15 years. I feel that, for me anyway, its effect is to take the edge off of those worries which keep repeating in my head against my will. Prozac helps me to get out of the repeating loop and make progress. Like the "did I lock the door?" worry, which persists even after I've checked it 3 times. It doesn't happen with Prozac. Rollercoasters even became fun because I could get my mind off of the scenario of the train jumping the track and plummeting to earth. I think that those types of anxieties are born of an Obsessive Compulsive sort of thing. So I think that's where Prozac helped me; not so much directly with depression, but to escape the Obsessive Compulsions which tend to dwell on unpleasant things which lead to depression.


----------



## SwtSurrender

Erroll said:


> Interesting. I never heard of Prozac causing mania, but it is listed as a possible side effect, as is hypo-mania. It makes me wonder how the same drug can have opposite effects on different people.
> I have been on a small dose of Prozac for 15 years. I feel that, for me anyway, its effect is to take the edge off of those worries which keep repeating in my head against my will. Prozac helps me to get out of the repeating loop and make progress. Like the "did I lock the door?" worry, which persists even after I've checked it 3 times. It doesn't happen with Prozac. Rollercoasters even became fun because I could get my mind off of the scenario of the train jumping the track and plummeting to earth. I think that those types of anxieties are born of an Obsessive Compulsive sort of thing. So I think that's where Prozac helped me; not so much directly with depression, but to escape the Obsessive Compulsions which tend to dwell on unpleasant things which lead to depression.


Yeah, Prozac acts in different ways on different chemicals people have in their heads. The Prozac did also help me with OCD and also agoraphobia. You're right about that one on the OCD, I wasn't able to dwell or get stuck in this OCD which led to isolation and depression, I was free for once in my life, I stepped out of that continuous OCD loop and began to make progress. I experienced the same thing with airplanes that you experienced with rollercoasters. No anticipation or excessive worrying whatsoever. Maybe I attributed that freedom to feeling high but hypomania is a side effect of Prozac since it is the most stimulating SSRI-that is one major part of it to look at when people ask if you have bipolar. Like is it really bipolar mania if the Prozac is already stimulating in itself and has a side effect of hypomania?


----------



## Erroll

sad1231234 said:


> Not really related to the hallucination part and not sure if you're talking about in general or if you mean an extreme case as in an ego death or something, but i believe that, just like you said, the "self is composed of integrated past personal experience". I have severe depersonalization/derealization disorder, probably almost bordering on psychosis or something, and i can definately attest to your theory. Whenever i focus my attention on current sensory stimuli/thoughts, it's like i am slowly slipping deeper and deeper into depersonalization/derealization. Because my mind is distracted from my conscious sense of self and my attention is turned away from my past, so therefore i lose my sense of who i am; almost as if my sense of who i am is sort of cognitively concluded from the moment in which my attention is turned to.
> 
> And vice versa: focusing my attention on personal thoughts/memories sort of tends to regain/maintain my sense of self. It is as if the sense of self is an entirely or predominantly conscious, rather than subconscious, construct. I notice that when i live in the moment too much and forget my past/problems etc, i slip deeper into a sort of semi-psychotic state in which i have a harder time trying to remember my past and in trying to maintain my sense of self.


Well put, @sad1231234. What you say supports the idea that what we call 'self' involves a current sensory stimulus, which awakens a group of remembered similar past experiences, which give meaning to the present sensory experience. I believe that these brain structures are formed analogically. To remember something, we have to associate it with something which we already know. That is analogy. As the decades pass, analogy is stacked upon analogy, building ever higher levels of abstraction.

For example, if we see 3 animals, a Poodle, a Beagle, and a Collie, we will notice certain similarities in them, via the sensory neurons which fire when we see, hear, or smell them. Noticing that similarity leads to a higher level of abstraction, and we invent an abstract symbol 'DOG', to denote all the similarities we see in these 3 animals. We might also notice cats and hamsters, and lump them in with the concept 'DOG' to create a higher level abstraction 'DOMESTIC ANIMALS'. Then we might notice that not all animals live in our homes, to further abstract up to ANIMAL KINGDOM. Noticing that all living things are not animals, we might make an even higher level of abstraction and call it "LIFE ON EARTH". Can you see how, as we head up to higher levels of abstraction that more and more information is evoked by bringing the higher level abstract concepts (DOG.. DOMESTIC... etc) into consciousness. I think that the basic analogies at the bottom of the hierarchy remain buried in the subs-conscious, but that the chain of ever more abstract analogies extends into consciousness. That's what gives thinking the spiritual feel. The magical quality of thinking seems to come from some unknows 'soul' construct, but it is really just meaning bubbling up from the subconscious bottom of an analogy stack.

So, of course, if you willfully refuse to let a current sensory event evoke any memories, but just concentrate on feeling the present sensory stimuli, you will lose your sense of self. Because your self is a figment of your past. And we know that the past is not currently real, but only an abstract concept in the mind. "Now" is the only thing real that we ever experience.

So if we take that to be the case, is it good to lose our sense of the 'self'? Buddhists say that the 'self' is the source of all suffering.

Or is it bad to lose the self, because relating the future to the past is how joyful experiences like anticipation come about?

I think, maybe modulating the sense of self to some middle ground might be optimal. But how do you know what level of self-realization optimal? Use meditation to train your mind to focus on the present, but not to totally block out past experience or desire evoked by consciously recalling past experience? It's fun stuff to think about.


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## Erroll

SwtSurrender said:


> Like is it really bipolar mania if the Prozac is already stimulating in itself and has a side effect of hypomania?


I have read that they are unsure about prozac causing hypermania in bipolar people, since bipolar itself has its own hypermania, interspersed with depression.


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## sad1231234

Erroll said:


> Well put, @sad1231234. What you say supports the idea that what we call 'self' involves a current sensory stimulus, which awakens a group of remembered similar past experiences, which give meaning to the present sensory experience. I believe that these brain structures are formed analogically. To remember something, we have to associate it with something which we already know. That is analogy. As the decades pass, analogy is stacked upon analogy, building ever higher levels of abstraction.
> 
> For example, if we see 3 animals, a Poodle, a Beagle, and a Collie, we will notice certain similarities in them, via the sensory neurons which fire when we see, hear, or smell them. Noticing that similarity leads to a higher level of abstraction, and we invent an abstract symbol 'DOG', to denote all the similarities we see in these 3 animals. We might also notice cats and hamsters, and lump them in with the concept 'DOG' to create a higher level abstraction 'DOMESTIC ANIMALS'. Then we might notice that not all animals live in our homes, to further abstract up to ANIMAL KINGDOM. Noticing that all living things are not animals, we might make an even higher level of abstraction and call it "LIFE ON EARTH". Can you see how, as we head up to higher levels of abstraction that more and more information is evoked by bringing the higher level abstract concepts (DOG.. DOMESTIC... etc) into consciousness. I think that the basic analogies at the bottom of the hierarchy remain buried in the subs-conscious, but that the chain of ever more abstract analogies extends into consciousness. That's what gives thinking the spiritual feel. The magical quality of thinking seems to come from some unknows 'soul' construct, but it is really just meaning bubbling up from the subconscious bottom of an analogy stack.
> 
> So, of course, if you willfully refuse to let a current sensory event evoke any memories, but just concentrate on feeling the present sensory stimuli, you will lose your sense of self. Because your self is a figment of your past. And we know that the past is not currently real, but only an abstract concept in the mind. "Now" is the only thing real that we ever experience.
> 
> So if we take that to be the case, is it good to lose our sense of the 'self'? Buddhists say that the 'self' is the source of all suffering.
> 
> Or is it bad to lose the self, because relating the future to the past is how joyful experiences like anticipation come about?
> 
> I think, maybe modulating the sense of self to some middle ground might be optimal. But how do you know what level of self-realization optimal? Use meditation to train your mind to focus on the present, but not to totally block out past experience or desire evoked by consciously recalling past experience? It's fun stuff to think about.


Yeah it is a really interesting point you have, that we could just be composed so to speak of a bunch of analogies and abstract concepts. When i first read this post of yours it pretty much blew my mind lol. Because when we analyze the psychological constructs that compose our entire conscious being, we can see how fake it all is and how our minds love to trick us into living this illusion in which our consciousness is some kind of magical, immortal thing. When really consciousness is extremely subjective. But i guess the mind sort of tricks us into this illusion in which we are the centre of the universe, for the sake of our mental wellbeing. But what i wonder about these different analogies that our psyche may be composed of is, what part of the brain is the "soul", by that i mean i wonder what part of the psyche is the one that is flicking through these different subconscious analogies. Obviously our subconscious is like a non-conscious machine or computer, but i wonder what part of us activates that computer. Like a person flicking through tv channels, the tv is like the subconscious and the channels are like the conscious mind but who is the person with the remote. Unless perhaps we are all just computers living in a deterministic universe.

Thats a very good point you have there and i have been using it to overcome my derealization ever since i read this post of yours a few days ago lol. But unfortunately for me, i dont really have a substantial amount of memories to evoke whenever i go outside due to the fact that i've been stuck at home all my life. So when i go outside, it is like everything is completely new for me and rather than evoking old memories, it creates new ones that are blurry and confusing. When i'm at home though i do get memories that do reinforce my sense of self, but in a way that i dont like. I'm not a big fan of remembering my past lol. Yeah that is one thing that i cant wrap my head around, the fact that as real as any moment is, it will some say be an abstract concept that we will never be able to prove have happened. Like how can we prove our past memories happened and prove that we werent abducted by aliens or something lol. And yet at a point in time before those moments transitioned into memories, those memories were the "now". Unless of course consciousness is much more subjective and malleable than we think and we could just be some brains floating in jars in an experiment, experiencing one big mind-eff in which we in our limited conscious states percieve as reality. Who knows lol.

I think by the way our brains are wired, it is best to keep our sense of self. We are mortal conscious beings who are mentally made up of psychological constructs, and we cant change that or fight that, not currently anyway. We were wired by evolution or whatnot to be this way and to derive the maximum positive experience from our natural state of mind(in the aspect of sense of self at least). Thats what i am recently struggling to do if i understood your last few sentences correctly. I am having a dilemma where i am struggling to find that middle ground between my sense of self and between the likely reality that i am just giving in to the possible illusion of "consciousness".


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## Chevy396

Some very interesting posts in this thread. I'm still trying to work through them.


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## Erroll

SolutionX said:


> I don't think I agree with the idea that pain only happens if you have a memory of it. If that were true then it wouldn't have hurt when I broke my leg because I had never experienced it before.
> 
> There is a first for everything, and often times the first experience is the most painful because you haven't developed a tolerance for the pain.
> 
> I like the rest though.


I still think that pain is based in memory, for a number of reasons.

Look at the way that we describe different types of pain. It is always in analogy to some previous experience that we have had.

1. sharp pain - describes a very localized pain, which is like the point of a needle or knife or other sharp thing, which affects a very localized set of receptors

2. aching/dull pain - usually describes a pain which is not very localized, like "my back aches". Aches are usually felt in areas of the body where sensors are not very numerous, so it is hard to localize the exact spot in which the pain occurs. Sharp pain would be felt in the finger tips where sensors are very numerous. An ache would be felt in the back, where you might have a single sensor in a skin area the size of a playing card.

3. shocking pain - describes short duration and fierce intensity. It is like the sudden and quick pain you experience when you get electrical shock.

4. burning/searing - describes a pain that is of medium intensity and which feels like a thermal burn. Perhaps it feels analogical to a burn because the sensors that recognize thermal heat or cold are connected to the same neuron in the somatosensory cortex, which recognizes pain. Also, burning pain seems to be shallow or close to the surface of the skin.

5. throbbing pain - describes a type of pain in which the heartbeat is felt because of a tight stretching of the skin, like the tight covering of a drum. Like sound waves emanate from striking the surface of a drum, the pain emanates from the extra pressure of the blood, in the course of a heartbeat.

6. phantom pain - when a person loses a limb, they'll often still experience an ache in the non-existent limb . The reason for this is that the neurons in the cortex that used to be connected to the limb have been repurposed, but memory has not caught up with where these neurons now receive their input. So a neuron which used to be connected to a sensor in the big toe is now connected to a sensor in the knee. So an ache in the knee, being connected to a sensor that used to receive information from the big toe, now receives information from the knee, which our memories erroneously pair with the big toe.

So, if we have never experienced a broken leg, but we now have a fracture, we will feel the pain by analogy in accordance with 1 - 6, above. If we are a neonate with no previous experience, we will not react to pain because we have no analogical information to compare it to. I would think that in such a situation, pain would be experienced akin to seeing something or hearing something in the environment. It would be something out there in the environment, but the neonate would not connect the pain to itself. It would just be a sensation received from the environment. It would not be experienced by a 'self', because the sense of 'self' has not developed in a neonate, because it has had too few experiences.

Pain can also be willfully modulated by directing one's attention elsewhere. The video below talks about the importance of the attention of a 'self' as being necessary to experience pain (and what is 'self' but integrated memory?). If we can willfully direct our attention elsewhere (meditation helps learn this), we do not feel the pain. The video also mentions the joy of new love as an analgesic and talks about experiments where new lovers were shown to have less sensitivity to pain.

That's why I say that we LEARN to feel pain and that feeling pain depends on our memory and the connections between different areas of the brain (buckets of memory). Pain is sensory meaning wrought of analogy to remembered feelings.


----------



## Erroll

sad1231234 said:


> Yeah it is a really interesting point you have, that we could just be composed so to speak of a bunch of analogies and abstract concepts. When i first read this post of yours it pretty much blew my mind lol. Because when we analyze the psychological constructs that compose our entire conscious being, we can see how fake it all is and how our minds love to trick us into living this illusion in which our consciousness is some kind of magical, immortal thing. When really consciousness is extremely subjective. But i guess the mind sort of tricks us into this illusion in which we are the centre of the universe, for the sake of our mental wellbeing. But what i wonder about these different analogies that our psyche may be composed of is, what part of the brain is the "soul", by that i mean i wonder what part of the psyche is the one that is flicking through these different subconscious analogies. Obviously our subconscious is like a non-conscious machine or computer, but i wonder what part of us activates that computer. Like a person flicking through tv channels, the tv is like the subconscious and the channels are like the conscious mind but who is the person with the remote. Unless perhaps we are all just computers living in a deterministic universe.


Imagine that the environment is a confusing tangle of string and that the 'self' is a winch sort of device which gathers the string into a roll. The 'self' is like the roll of string, in that it is a roll of remembered environmental experience where each minute section of the string is intimately connected with all previous minute sections of string, so the part of the string just going onto the roll, which equates to present experience, has access to all previous minute sections of string already on the roll(memories).

"What part of the psyche is the one flicking through these different subconscious analogies?" Neurons in the brain's sensory cortices are connected to sensors throughout the body. Some subset of these cortical neurons is activated with each sensory experience. Memories are activated (flicked through) as a result of the similarity of the cortical neuron activation pattern of present experience, to that of past experiences.



sad1231234 said:


> Thats a very good point you have there and i have been using it to overcome my derealization ever since i read this post of yours a few days ago lol. But unfortunately for me, i dont really have a
> substantial amount of memories to evoke whenever i go outside due to the fact that i've been stuck at home all my life. So when i go outside, it is like everything is completely new for me and rather than evoking old memories, it creates new ones that are blurry and confusing. When i'm at home though i do get memories that do reinforce my sense of self, but in a way that i dont like. I'm not a big fan of remembering my past lol. Yeah that is one thing that i cant wrap my head around, the fact that as real as any moment is, it will some say be an abstract concept that we will never be able to prove have happened. Like how can we prove our past memories happened and prove that we werent abducted by aliens or something lol. And yet at a point in time before those moments transitioned into memories, those memories were the "now". Unless of course consciousness is much more subjective and malleable than we think and we could just be some brains floating in jars in an experiment, experiencing one big mind-eff in which we in our limited conscious states percieve as reality. Who knows lol.


I think that we become more conscious of present experience, the more that we can relate it to past experience. If a current experience can not be analogized to anything that we experienced in the past, it has no meaning to us. We are not conscious of it. I think that our consciousness grows with experience, throughout our lifetimes. Life becomes more meaningful in direct proportion to the number of environmental experiences which we have had.

As to brains in vats; we can't know. What we call 'ourselves' is locked up in a dark box of bone; our skulls. No light sound smell taste or anything can get inside the box. All that can penetrate our skulls are electrical potentials emanating from sense organs throughout our bodies. Our experience and what we know as reality is based on these integrated electrical readings from our body sensors. We can not directly know anything about the outside world. We can only know what our brains imagine, based on the electrical impulses which reach it. Everything is subjective.



sad1231234 said:


> I think by the way our brains are wired, it is best to keep our sense of self. We are mortal conscious beings who are mentally made up of psychological constructs, and we cant change that or fight that, not currently anyway. We were wired by evolution or whatnot to be this way and to derive the maximum positive experience from our natural state of mind(in the aspect of sense of self at least). Thats what i am recently struggling to do if i understood your last few sentences correctly. I am having a dilemma where i am struggling to find that middle ground between my sense of self and between the likely reality that i am just giving in to the possible illusion of "consciousness".


But 'self' is the cause of everything evil; hate, jealousy, lying...in short everything bad is connected with self (everything we see as good as well). Self impedes cooperation. What might humanity achieve as a whole, were it not burdened down by all of these 'selves' each out to seek their own welfare instead of the welfare of humanity as a whole. Our brains are made up of 100 billion individual neurons. Our species is made up of 7 or 8 billion individual 'selves'. What could a human organism of 8 billion people/neurons achieve by all trying to achieve the good of the community via perfect cooperation? Does the future of evolution involve a 'humanity being' where all 8 billion brains work together for the good of the 'humanity-being?'


----------



## Chevy396

Erroll said:


> I still think that pain is based in memory, for a number of reasons.
> 
> Look at the way that we describe different types of pain. It is always in analogy to some previous experience that we have had.
> 
> 1. sharp pain - describes a very localized pain, which is like the point of a needle or knife or other sharp thing, which affects a very localized set of receptors
> 
> 2. aching/dull pain - usually describes a pain which is not very localized, like "my back aches". Aches are usually felt in areas of the body where sensors are not very numerous, so it is hard to localize the exact spot in which the pain occurs. Sharp pain would be felt in the finger tips where sensors are very numerous. An ache would be felt in the back, where you might have a single sensor in a skin area the size of a playing card.
> 
> 3. shocking pain - describes short duration and fierce intensity. It is like the sudden and quick pain you experience when you get electrical shock.
> 
> 4. burning/searing - describes a pain that is of medium intensity and which feels like a thermal burn. Perhaps it feels analogical to a burn because the sensors that recognize thermal heat or cold are connected to the same neuron in the somatosensory cortex, which recognizes pain. Also, burning pain seems to be shallow or close to the surface of the skin.
> 
> 5. throbbing pain - describes a type of pain in which the heartbeat is felt because of a tight stretching of the skin, like the tight covering of a drum. Like sound waves emanate from striking the surface of a drum, the pain emanates from the extra pressure of the blood, in the course of a heartbeat.
> 
> 6. phantom pain - when a person loses a limb, they'll often still experience an ache in the non-existent limb . The reason for this is that the neurons in the cortex that used to be connected to the limb have been repurposed, but memory has not caught up with where these neurons now receive their input. So a neuron which used to be connected to a sensor in the big toe is now connected to a sensor in the knee. So an ache in the knee, being connected to a sensor that used to receive information from the big toe, now receives information from the knee, which our memories erroneously pair with the big toe.
> 
> So, if we have never experienced a broken leg, but we now have a fracture, we will feel the pain by analogy in accordance with 1 - 6, above. If we are a neonate with no previous experience, we will not react to pain because we have no analogical information to compare it to. I would think that in such a situation, pain would be experienced akin to seeing something or hearing something in the environment. It would be something out there in the environment, but the neonate would not connect the pain to itself. It would just be a sensation received from the environment. It would not be experienced by a 'self', because the sense of 'self' has not developed in a neonate, because it has had too few experiences.
> 
> Pain can also be willfully modulated by directing one's attention elsewhere. The video below talks about the importance of the attention of a 'self' as being necessary to experience pain (and what is 'self' but integrated memory?). If we can willfully direct our attention elsewhere (meditation helps learn this), we do not feel the pain. The video also mentions the joy of new love as an analgesic and talks about experiments where new lovers were shown to have less sensitivity to pain.
> 
> That's why I say that we LEARN to feel pain and that feeling pain depends on our memory and the connections between different areas of the brain (buckets of memory). Pain is sensory meaning wrought of analogy to remembered feelings.


I guess I still don't understand why you assume that memory has anything to do with whether or not you feel pain when you break a bone.

The feeling of pain is the result of neurons firing and chemicals being released in the brain. The same with pleasure. After it happens you remember it, but that has no effect on how it feels at the time. Morphine does, but memory is past tense.


----------



## SwtSurrender

Erroll said:


> Interesting. I never heard of Prozac causing mania, but it is listed as a possible side effect, as is hypo-mania. It makes me wonder how the same drug can have opposite effects on different people.
> I have been on a small dose of Prozac for 15 years. I feel that, for me anyway, its effect is to take the edge off of those worries which keep repeating in my head against my will. Prozac helps me to get out of the repeating loop and make progress. Like the "did I lock the door?" worry, which persists even after I've checked it 3 times. It doesn't happen with Prozac. Rollercoasters even became fun because I could get my mind off of the scenario of the train jumping the track and plummeting to earth. I think that those types of anxieties are born of an Obsessive Compulsive sort of thing. So I think that's where Prozac helped me; not so much directly with depression, but to escape the Obsessive Compulsions which tend to dwell on unpleasant things which lead to depression.


So you're saying there is a difference between the term side effect and the way I paraphrased it as blaming Prozac for causing mania? Well that's something, now I need to look into the term side effect to see that it might mean that it can awaken mania in someone who is already susceptible not literally that it would cause mania in someone who isn't. Well **** **** ****!


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## SwtSurrender

Erroll said:


> Interesting. I never heard of Prozac causing mania, but it is listed as a possible side effect, as is hypo-mania. It makes me wonder how the same drug can have opposite effects on different people.
> I have been on a small dose of Prozac for 15 years. I feel that, for me anyway, its effect is to take the edge off of those worries which keep repeating in my head against my will. Prozac helps me to get out of the repeating loop and make progress. Like the "did I lock the door?" worry, which persists even after I've checked it 3 times. It doesn't happen with Prozac. Rollercoasters even became fun because I could get my mind off of the scenario of the train jumping the track and plummeting to earth. I think that those types of anxieties are born of an Obsessive Compulsive sort of thing. So I think that's where Prozac helped me; not so much directly with depression, but to escape the Obsessive Compulsions which tend to dwell on unpleasant things which lead to depression.


Yes there's articles talking about antidepressant induced mania which is exactly what happened in my situation. So you're depressed and they give you an antidepressant, from there you can go manic and then you'll have to take anti-psychotics. It happens. I didn't know I was susceptible for it and I didn't know I was bipolar because I was just depressed in the past. I went crazy with Prozac just because of the mania it induced. And an anti-psychotic is just that, to prevent symptoms of psychosis that you can get from antidepressants if you're susceptible. I don't believe that crap, what I believe is that I became bipolar/manic because of this antidepressant-induced mania.

http://behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2015/01/12/antidepressant-induced-mania/
https://ssristories.org/9-out-of-10...h-antidepressant-induced-mania-doctor-speaks/


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## Tuan Jie

Hi folks. I haven't been able to follow this discussion and I'm not sure if that'll change shortly. I have been looking into psychedelics quite a bit though. The Compass Pathways trial with psilocybin remains pending. My psychiatrist couldn't find it in the database with upcoming studies, so who knows when it'll take place. I don't want to wait for this and looked for the most sane alternative underground-ish. I don't feel comfortable organizing something on my own with a tripsitter I don't know or a friend. It may seem an outrageous statement here, but I feel most comfortble doing this in a group. Particularly since I consider myself a psychedelic virgin, despite an iboga experience which I talked about in the thread before this one. So I arrived at ayahuasca, which is a bit of a hype here. I've signed up for two ceremonies on June 29th and 30th. Needless to say I'm crapping my pants.

I've come across a lot of interesting vids and other data I would like to share with you. But dosage is important, so I'll stop by and dump links here every now and then  Here's one recent vid I enjoyed a lot (as well as the book itself). Joe Rogan interviews Michael Pollan:


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## Tuan Jie

For harm reduction purposes, Bill Richards - Flight Instructions


----------



## Tuan Jie

*Psychedelics and the gathering of big data to further scientific understanding*

Are you in the UK, depressed, and would you be interested in treatment with psilocybin? You can enquire about eligibility at Imperial College London. Scroll down to "Upcoming trial - Psilocybin for major depression: A randomised control trial" at this page.

Are you planning to participate in a *ceremony* involving the use of a *plant medicine* (for example within an Ayahuasca retreat) or another form of guided psychedelic experience? If so, you can help further scientific understanding in this field by partaking in a unique, global, prospective study here.

Are you planning to take a *psychedelic drug*, such as a classical psychedelic (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, DMT, ayahuasca) or related drugs (e.g. Iboga/Ibogaine, salvia or Ketamine) in the near future? If so, you can help further scientific understanding in this field by partaking in a unique, global, prospective study here.

Are you planning to *microdose* a psychedelic substance (e.g. LSD/ 1P-LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca/DMT, etc.) in the near future? If so, you can help further scientific understanding in this field by partaking in a unique, global, prospective study here.

Here's a vid with Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the psychedelic research group at Imperial College London, in which he talks about the above mentioned survey's. Here's the website of the charity Robin mentions in the last part of the vid and below you'll find a vid which shines some light on what drives him. It's about the situation in the UK, but, as you know, this issue isn't confined to that particular part of the globe.


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## Tuan Jie

If you are interested to volunteer in a clinical trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov


----------



## Chevy396

Tuan Jie said:


> If you are interested to volunteer in a clinical trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov


Interesting, but I don't think a doctors office is where I'd prefer to have a trip. I have to be able to walk around outdoors and commune with environment in order to enjoy it.


----------



## sad1231234

To anyone reading this thread who is interested in this subject, i can most definately vouch for the use of psychedelics as medicine/therapy. Psychedelics allow the mind to reach a higher state of consciousness, like a hyper-awareness. This state of mind allows for very deep/overarching and unbiased introspection/extrospection of everything, caused by the drastic changes of normally unchangeable mental processes which are induced by psychedelics. These new perspectives, perceptions, and thoughts/feelings, allow for very deep, thorough, "infinite" thinking on a very cosmic, fundamental level, and they are usually accompanied with a pure and complete acceptance-of and peace- with everything that is.


----------



## VanDamMan

LSD and magic mushrooms could heal damaged brain cells in people suffering from depression

MMM.....thinking about taking a trip to the park now.


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## Synaps3

Tuan Jie said:


> Hi folks. I haven't been able to follow this discussion and I'm not sure if that'll change shortly. I have been looking into psychedelics quite a bit though. The Compass Pathways trial with psilocybin remains pending. My psychiatrist couldn't find it in the database with upcoming studies, so who knows when it'll take place. I don't want to wait for this and looked for the most sane alternative underground-ish. I don't feel comfortable organizing something on my own with a tripsitter I don't know or a friend. It may seem an outrageous statement here, but I feel most comfortble doing this in a group. Particularly since I consider myself a psychedelic virgin, despite an iboga experience which I talked about in the thread before this one. So I arrived at ayahuasca, which is a bit of a hype here. I've signed up for two ceremonies on June 29th and 30th. Needless to say I'm crapping my pants.
> 
> I've come across a lot of interesting vids and other data I would like to share with you. But dosage is important, so I'll stop by and dump links here every now and then  Here's one recent vid I enjoyed a lot (as well as the book itself). Joe Rogan interviews Michael Pollan:


Psychedelics are amazing and they should not be stigmatized. It's funny how all of the basics promote weed which is basically just a healthier form of alcohol imo. It will not benefit you.
On the other hand, psychedelics are not something I would even consider a drug. It is more like a sacrament.

They are the red pill. I've had a lot of benefit from taking them. It allows you to view yourself from a completely objective state of mind. I especially love mushrooms because when you take them, you can almost feel another consciousness there to help you. It's like it's trying to tell you something. It's a very good way to have a conversation with your true self. It will always offer advice and be helpful. Just don't get caught up in the loving aspect of it. Pay attention to what your thinking and discard the euphoria. The euphoria is almost like a side effect. The basics might enjoy it, but that's not what you're there for.


----------



## RMS

If you're like me and open to psychedelics, but don't react well with them, and want to get in touch with your deeper/truer self, focus on your dreams. Dreaming is a psychedelic trip every night, deep diving into the deepest recesses of your consciousness freely.

The more I focus on my dreams, the more I start realizing what I need to be focusing on in waking life. Its like your whole brain is sending you a message in a bottle every single night, and you just gotta read it. Takes a lot of effort to decode, and most of the time you'll never know for sure but the effort you spend trying to analyze your dreams will help you.


----------



## Tuan Jie

@Synaps3
Great to hear you have benefitted from psychedelics so much! I'd like to hear the details if you don't mind sharing them. My experiences are very different from yours, it seems. They were utterly brutal. There wasn't exactly much to enjoy about them. It's rather a state of dysphoria than euphoria they brought about. There is literally zero percent of me which would take this for recreational reasons, which don't appeal to me anyway. My approach to this is similar to yours. These are tools. Tools which promote spiritual bypassing in people who are sensitive to it and opportunities for personal growth in others. Some people claim to have benefitted from weed a lot too. I wouldn't discard it's therapeutic potential too quickly (neither does MAPS). I'm not happy with it's addictive character though. Some people should definitely stay away from it, just as psychedelics aren't for everyone either.

My objective was to take my ego/default mode network (DMN) offline in order to enable the rest of my brain regions to communicate freely and to physically connect to one another. In psychological terms, to integrate trauma and to initiate experiencing daily life a little differently. It makes sense I would feel so vulnerable, desperate and needy as I did if this is what happened, but there is no way for me to objectify this. From a neurological perspective, the subjective experience is of secondary importance. But our reality is subjective and that's the realm in which I found important insights and leads on how to proceed. I think I have experienced who I am without an operational DMN, the conditioning that shaped how I go about my daily life. That must be about as objective a perspective as you can get on yourself. This loving or open heart part has been an important part of the experience for me, the way into renewed connection with my family amongst others. I think there's a lot of value in and a lot to gain from it. It can coexist with a sober outlook on the world. We do seem to share the same allergy, but I want to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.


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## Chevy396

Synaps3 said:


> Psychedelics are amazing and they should not be stigmatized. It's funny how all of the basics promote weed which is basically just a healthier form of alcohol imo. It will not benefit you.
> On the other hand, psychedelics are not something I would even consider a drug. It is more like a sacrament.
> 
> They are the red pill. I've had a lot of benefit from taking them. It allows you to view yourself from a completely objective state of mind. I especially love mushrooms because when you take them, you can almost feel another consciousness there to help you. It's like it's trying to tell you something. It's a very good way to have a conversation with your true self. It will always offer advice and be helpful. Just don't get caught up in the loving aspect of it. Pay attention to what your thinking and discard the euphoria. The euphoria is almost like a side effect. The basics might enjoy it, but that's not what you're there for.


I like your post, but I do have to point out that cannabis actually is a psychedelic/hallucinogen. You probably have to use more of a sativa strain in large doses to experience it, and it may not be pleasant, but it will have a few similarities with magic mushrooms.


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## Chevy396

BTW, I always take a Xanax before doing any big trip, just to prevent the dysphoria and promote euphoria. If I don't have Xanax, alcohol does the trick.


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## Tuan Jie

SolutionX said:


> Interesting, but I don't think a doctors office is where I'd prefer to have a trip. I have to be able to walk around outdoors and commune with environment in order to enjoy it.


That's understandable. Most researchers I've come across are the first to acknowledge a hospital room is a sub-ideal setting to trip and put in some effort to dress it up. It makes me wonder how helpful that environment is for human beings in the first place. It's well established the presence of plants does wonders for our well-being. Imagine tripping in a brain scanner... Nevertheless, I'd grab the opportunity with both hands. Mostly for selfish reasons and a bit for science. Science is the only way to shine an honest light on dubious drug laws, which can possibly result in the availability of amazing tools for an enormous amount of people in despair. A bit of voluntary discomfort for some is a fair price to pay for that if you ask me. Do you have psychedelic experiences both indoors and outdoors, with and without guidance/companions?

That Xanax is something I must look into... Thanks for sharing!


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## Synaps3

SolutionX said:


> I like your post, but I do have to point out that cannabis actually is a psychedelic/hallucinogen. You probably have to use more of a sativa strain in large doses to experience it, and it may not be pleasant, but it will have a few similarities with magic mushrooms.


Not a fan of weed. It can feel good in the short term, but it's not a healthy choice (mentally). Shrooms or other psychedelics make you face your true self, but weed can lead you astray. That's why I compare it to alcohol. It can be fun, but it won't benefit you.

I really wish psychedelics were legalized instead of pot. It's funny because the government only wants to legalize things that make you complacent.


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## Chevy396

Synaps3 said:


> Not a fan of weed. It can feel good in the short term, but it's not a healthy choice (mentally). Shrooms or other psychedelics make you face your true self, but weed can lead you astray. That's why I compare it to alcohol. It can be fun, but it won't benefit you.
> 
> I really wish psychedelics were legalized instead of pot. It's funny because the government only wants to legalize things that make you complacent.


It might make you feel bad when you have a bad trip, but it's not bad for your mental health in any other way, and as soon as you come down it goes away. It's also very healthy in many other ways, even as a super antioxidant.

Anyway, it helps more people than it harms, and honestly any harm is literally in their heads and only temporary. You don't have to legalize either or. I wish we would just legalize all drugs for personal consumption.


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## Synaps3

SolutionX said:


> It might make you feel bad when you have a bad trip, but it's not bad for your mental health in any other way, and as soon as you come down it goes away. It's also very healthy in many other ways, even as a super antioxidant.
> 
> Anyway, it helps more people than it harms, and honestly any harm is literally in their heads and only temporary. You don't have to legalize either or. I wish we would just legalize all drugs for personal consumption.


I can see weed as a great solution for people that have certain health problems, but I don't think it's good for mental health. I remember back in my high school days when I was smoking weed and it did not help me in the least bit. If anything, it made me more introverted and less likely to want to socialize with people. It also gave me visual snow in the dark. Now whenever I go into a dark room, I have this static that fills my vision. It looks like a low quality video camera. I've heard of others who have had this problem.

The point is, weed is not the end all and be all medication that is right for everyone. It has become way too overrated. I'm sure it's helpful for some though.

I do agree with you on the legalization aspect. I think all drugs should be legalized. I'm a libertarian, so I believe anyone should be able to put whatever they want in their bodies. The ones that make stupid choices will ruin their lives and the people that make the right decisions will benefit. There's so much less drain on the people paying taxes to support imprisoning people with drugs.


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## Chevy396

Synaps3 said:


> I can see weed as a great solution for people that have certain health problems, but I don't think it's good for mental health. I remember back in my high school days when I was smoking weed and it did not help me in the least bit. If anything, it made me more introverted and less likely to want to socialize with people. It also gave me visual snow in the dark. Now whenever I go into a dark room, I have this static that fills my vision. It looks like a low quality video camera. I've heard of others who have had this problem.
> 
> The point is, weed is not the end all and be all medication that is right for everyone. It has become way too overrated. I'm sure it's helpful for some though.
> 
> I do agree with you on the legalization aspect. I think all drugs should be legalized. I'm a libertarian, so I believe anyone should be able to put whatever they want in their bodies. The ones that make stupid choices will ruin their lives and the people that make the right decisions will benefit. There's so much less drain on the people paying taxes to support imprisoning people with drugs.


I really don't feel like replying to this, so I will just congratulate you for thinking whatever you want to think, no matter how wrong it is.


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## Synaps3

SolutionX said:


> I really don't feel like replying to this, so I will just congratulate you for thinking whatever you want to think, no matter how wrong it is.


If it's what works for you then great. I think weed is a very personal drug. A lot of people get effected by it differently. It's the most dynamic thing I've ever tried. Every experience is different. Most other drugs have a similar experience each time, but not weed.

I guess I just have to say before I'm done: Remember that your mental faculties are more important that your emotional ones. If it's doing good for you mentally, then that's great, but you need to analyze the difference between pleasure and progress.


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## Chevy396

Synaps3 said:


> If it's what works for you then great. I think weed is a very personal drug. A lot of people get effected by it differently. It's the most dynamic thing I've ever tried. Every experience is different. Most other drugs have a similar experience each time, but not weed.
> 
> I guess I just have to say before I'm done: Remember that your mental faculties are more important that your emotional ones. If it's doing good for you mentally, then that's great, but you need to analyze the difference between pleasure and progress.


Lol


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## Synaps3

I've really had a serious benefit from taking psychedelics. It lets you see your true self and reality as it is. I love no-BS stuff and they are it. It allows you to boil down the feelings that you have and understand them on a deeper level. You will realize the crap in society and will be able to rise above it. Maybe that's a bit too hopeful, but it can help you if you make sure to treat it as a serious experience and not just a high.


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## sad1231234

RMS said:


> If you're like me and open to psychedelics, but don't react well with them, and want to get in touch with your deeper/truer self, focus on your dreams. Dreaming is a psychedelic trip every night, deep diving into the deepest recesses of your consciousness freely.
> 
> The more I focus on my dreams, the more I start realizing what I need to be focusing on in waking life. Its like your whole brain is sending you a message in a bottle every single night, and you just gotta read it. Takes a lot of effort to decode, and most of the time you'll never know for sure but the effort you spend trying to analyze your dreams will help you.


Dreams are natures psychedelics lol.


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## RMS

sad1231234 said:


> Dreams are natures psychedelics lol.


Ignoring the fact that nature produces a lot of psychedelic plants I agree with you.

Dreams are trippy. Pure hallucination and delusion without even an anchor of objective reality. At least on a trip its all based on distorted reality. In a dream there's absolutely no reality, its all being churned up by your unconscious mind.


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## sad1231234

RMS said:


> Ignoring the fact that nature produces a lot of psychedelic plants I agree with you.
> 
> Dreams are trippy. Pure hallucination and delusion without even an anchor of objective reality. At least on a trip its all based on distorted reality. In a dream there's absolutely no reality, its all being churned up by your unconscious mind.


Yeah there are countless psychedelics out there in nature, including ones we havent found yet and ones that the government hasnt gotten its filthy evil clutches on.

There are theories, often suggested by highly experienced psychonauts, that dreams are caused largely due to small amounts of DMT(dimethyltryptamine, as you probably know) within the human brain that is secreted every night. The reasoning behind these theories is that not only has DMT been found to be in most plants/animals and possibly in humans, but also that a dream seems to largely resemble some level of a DMT trip, especially in the way a dream fades away. If this is true, then everyone is a violater of the Schedule bla bla bla code of drug use.


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## sad1231234

I just noticed how inactive this thread is and i feel like it is a real shame, because the world would benefit so much if more people took psychecelics, but unfortunately most people will never know what they're missing out on.



Synaps3 said:


> I've really had a serious benefit from taking psychedelics. It lets you see your true self and reality as it is. I love no-BS stuff and they are it. It allows you to boil down the feelings that you have and understand them on a deeper level. You will realize the crap in society and will be able to rise above it. Maybe that's a bit too hopeful, but it can help you if you make sure to treat it as a serious experience and not just a high.


I like that aspect of psychedelics, at first i entered the psychedelic experience with amazement at how perfectly my mind seemed to find an "answer", but with time you find out that there is no general fix-it-all answers really. While this realization has clearly caused some discomfort lol, i think it is important for people to have an awareness that extends beyond the surface of psychological constructs. It has helped me to view things from a more unbiased perspective at the same time of helping me to waste less time with trying to validate my ego and my decisions. And yes a psychedelic experience is a lot more than just a recreational high, although there are a lot of very enjoyable moments on psychedelics and the overall experience is very satisfying.


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## Stewart Akinyemi

Do you consider consuming thc edibles as a therapy? The friend of mine gave this advice.
I've found a pretty good recipe but not sure about the whole idea. http://www.ncsm.nl/english/recipes/weed-cookies-recipes
Any thoughts are suggested


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## RMS

Stewart Akinyemi said:


> Do you consider consuming thc edibles as a therapy? The friend of mine gave this advice.
> I've found a pretty good recipe but not sure about the whole idea. http://www.ncsm.nl/english/recipes/weed-cookies-recipes
> Any thoughts are suggested


Try smoking first if you haven't to see how it effects you. Edibles are widely accepted to be far more powerful than just smoking.. More of a psychedelic effect


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## Tuan Jie

_Medicine_ is an autobiographical monologue, written and performed by TJ Dawe, centred around a retreat led by Dr. Gabor Mate, to heal stress and addiction.

At the retreat, participants ingested the Peruvian shamanic psychotropic plant medicine ayahuasca. TJ explored a disturbing recurring image with (seemingly) no discernible source. Coincidently, Medicine involves a critical incident in TJ's life that happened while his family lived in Whitehorse. Through Dr. Mate's psychological detective work, and the visceral psychedelic experiences of ayahuasca, he arrives at some surprising discoveries.


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## Tuan Jie

Got the lab results the other day. It turns out the website my friend purchased a 1P-LSD blotter from is selling what it advertises. My governement offers a free testing service for people who do drugs. For harm reduction purposes and to subtley discourage in the process. My friend had given me a sample, which I later found myself with at a service point. It was an interesting experience. I've never done anything in the realm of recreational drugs, except for the mandatory fling with weed in puberty and the odd occasion or two beyond that. I wasn't here because I wanted to change that. I was asked what I was going to use it for and where I got it and even the lab was called because they weren't sure if it could be tested. Since the budget is tight, you need to have a good reason for testing this because we usually don't do this because of the high cost relative to more commonly used drugs like MDMA, the lab reported. I was met with some surprise when I said I wanted to use it for microdosing and basically had to decide if I was willing to take a 80% chance it wasn't going to be tested when submitted. Putting an unknown substance into my body every third day? No thanks. So I said yes and got lucky. Looks like it's going to happen then. In case you're wondering, all of this is (still) legal in my country.


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## Tuan Jie

@Stewart Akinyemi
When I was a student I experimented with self medicating marijuana in small quantities to ease anxiety. That is to say, I swallowed it with some water. My experiences with it weren't very positive and I therefore abondoned the idea quite quickly. I lost too much focus and didn't feel all that relaxed on the stuff either. It often led to a massive brain fog. If I lowered the dose, it just didn't do anything. I have no recollection of the THC/CBD ratio in the stuff I used (I'm old af!). In my teens I drank a heavy weed tea once and was high for 12 hours. It's very different from smoking, as @RMS also suggested.

I wouldn't call this approach "therapy", just as I wouldn't call taking benzo's therapy (minus the risk for triggering schizophrenia in individuals prone to it). CBD, perhaps. But I must add that I'm not up to date on the research. Some at MAPS are looking into this, if I'm not mistaken. In general, I'm reluctant when it comes to THC because of it's addictive potential. Have you made up your mind yet?


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## sad1231234

Does anyone here have experience with psychedelics AND lucid dreaming? I am wondering how they compare, since i'm a newbie to both of them lol. I know this thread is about psychedelics but i have been really pondering the possible psychedelic properties of lucid dreaming. And i find it interesting that the brain is affected at least somewhat similarly during a psychedelic experience and a dream. Not only are various neurotransmitters flowing throughout the wholly-active brain during both experiences, but both experiences are characteristic of a drastic alteration in consciousness/perception, various levels of lucidity, various levels of ego loss, etc. Unless dreaming is more of like a delirious state? But like how cool would it be to have your own psychedelic trip every night lol where you are in charge and where you can lower/raise the lucidity and where you can exit whenever you want? I do know that i have experienced imitations of various hallucinogenic substance properties in dreams, leading me to believe that it may be possible that dreams could be arching-over or at least on-par with a typical(lol) psychedelic experience. If dreams are in fact some what resembling of a psychedelic experience then they would provide a very efficient/effective form of therapy/catharsis/mental exploration or whatever.


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## Tuan Jie

This morning I took 40 drops of relativism. 10mcg 1P-LSD. Three days prior I had taken 6mcg and not noticed anything. This time was quite a bit tifferent from that. I took it first thing in the morning, then started my routine of Wim Hof Breathing and physical workout. 

At a certain point I noticed something was going on. I started to become a bit uncoordinated, I think is the proper word for it. Just continue your routine, I told myself, which I did while having to drag my focus to the party every minute or so. I kept doing my exercises and became a bit concerned when I started trembling a bit afterwards and felt my awareness shifting somehow. My mind kicked in and for a few minutes I was afraid I had made a big mistake. This state didn't worsen, which eventually gave me the confidence this would be just an interesting experience. 

My brisk walk was strange. I experienced several moments of "how did I get here?", a bit like you have sometimes when reading a book but not having the slightest idea what you just read for pages! Interactions with people were more self aware than normally. Not necessarily in a bad way. More mindfull perhaps?

So I've been tripping slightly for hours. I was laughing out loud when I realized I was sitting in my apartment and I was tripping, that it had come to that. The absurdity, hilarious! Calming in a way which probably doesn't involve opioid receptors. Just getting out of my own way a bit. It fits well with the theory about the default mode network/diseases of the ego.

Meditation was different. I didn't have to, I already was meditating. Sort of. Sipt a cup of warm water while at it. Didn't feel like I was interrupting anything with it. 

No difference with the cold shower. Just the same as without microdose.

It seems like my optimal dose is somewhere between 6-10 mcg. Perhaps I'll experiment with taking it before I go to bed later on, since I have nightmares every night. Very interesting!


----------



## Tuan Jie

KENTUCKY AYAHUASCA is an exclusive look into the world of an ayahuasca shaman and the people who seek his help deep in the bible belt of Kentucky. The series will follow people who need help, salvation and enlightenment from any number of severe afflictions, including: depression, emotional or physical abuse, and addiction. https://www.ayaquest.com


----------



## naes

I got some shrooms and a lot of acid sitting in the cabinet drawer next to me rn


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## Tuan Jie

*Mental Health, Spirituality, and Psychoactive Substance Use*

Hello, my name is Kevin St. Arnaud, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Alberta, Canada.

I would like to invite you to take part in an online study investigating the links between mental health, spirituality, and the use of psychoactive substances.

This study entails an anonymous, online survey, which uses validated, self-report scales to asses:

-Basic demographic and personality information (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
-Mental Health (e.g., feelings about one's self and one's functioning in life etc.)
-Spirituality (e.g., religious/spiritual beliefs, spiritual experiences, etc.)
-Use/non-use parameters of various psychoactive substances (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, opioids, cannabis, psychedelics, etc.)
-Reasons for use (e.g., relaxation, creativity, socialization, entheogenic purposes, etc.)

Anyone over 18 years of age and capable of fluently reading and writing English is eligible to participate in this study, which is designed to take about 20 to 25 minutes to complete. The study is open as of August 14, 2018 and will close in roughly two to three months, or upon collection of a sufficient sample size.

This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of Alberta. The online survey is hosted using REDCap software, which is compliant with Canadian privacy legislation, such as HIA, FOIP, and TCPS2, as well as U.S. privacy requirements, such as HIPAA. All data sent to the REDCap server is encrypted with SSL, and stored and encrypted on servers located at the University of Alberta.

If you would like to participate, or are interested in further information about the survey, please visit:

https://is.gd/drugsmentalhealthspirituality

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kevin St. Arnaud, M.Ed., (Ph.D. Candidate)
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Alberta


----------



## Chevy396

I just ate some Grape Stomper edible oil and about thirty minutes later I was laughing at the fact I pulled a back muscle coughing and that I'm in extreme pain. I guess a pulled cough muscle is the most danger you can get from weed.

There is a lot of value in accepting pain instead of letting it anger you.


----------



## Tuan Jie

@Chevy396
lol. You're right. Be careful not to pull your laughing muscles on the GS


----------



## lily

I don't take psychedelic medicine but i think it's called psychedelic when you have dreams that are ie. like you're taking a ride.. and I've had dreams like that.. it's fun


----------



## sad1231234

Chevy396 said:


> I just ate some Grape Stomper edible oil and about thirty minutes later I was laughing at the fact I pulled a back muscle coughing and that I'm in extreme pain. I guess a pulled cough muscle is the most danger you can get from weed.
> 
> There is a lot of value in accepting pain instead of letting it anger you.


Maybe the government bans it cause they are trying to protect us all from having a good time! Lol. But speaking of medicine and laughter, you know what they say lol.



tea1~ said:


> I don't take psychedelic medicine but i think it's called psychedelic when you have dreams that are ie. like you're taking a ride.. and I've had dreams like that.. it's fun


Well it is interesting because there are theories suggesting that dreams may be the result of low doses of DMT(a pretty bad *** psychedelic) being released in our brains. In that case, dreams would be at least somewhat characteristic of a psychedelic experience. Now these are just theories but they do have things to support them. But i'm in love with the idea, like everyone's own little mini ayahuasca trip at night or something. In fact i've recently started with the practice of lucid dreaming because there is no way i want to miss out on a possible trip each night.

As for the definition of psychedelic, "psyche" means "soul/mind" and "delic" means "manifest/reveal", so anything that opens the mind is pretty much a psychedelic when technically speaking. But dreams may be particularly psychedelic due to my aforementioned reasoning and because of the fact that they involve altered states of consciousness in which the brain process information on a more deep/raw level.


----------



## Chevy396

sad1231234 said:


> Maybe the government bans it cause they are trying to protect us all from having a good time! Lol. But speaking of medicine and laughter, you know what they say lol.
> 
> Well it is interesting because there are theories suggesting that dreams may be the result of low doses of DMT(a pretty bad *** psychedelic) being released in our brains. In that case, dreams would be at least somewhat characteristic of a psychedelic experience. Now these are just theories but they do have things to support them. But i'm in love with the idea, like everyone's own little mini ayahuasca trip at night or something. In fact i've recently started with the practice of lucid dreaming because there is no way i want to miss out on a possible trip each night.
> 
> As for the definition of psychedelic, "psyche" means "soul/mind" and "delic" means "manifest/reveal", so anything that opens the mind is pretty much a psychedelic when technically speaking. But dreams may be particularly psychedelic due to my aforementioned reasoning and because of the fact that they involve altered states of consciousness in which the brain process information on a more deep/raw level.


Yes, that is cool. I do see a lot of similarities between an acid trip and a dream. Or even sleep deprivation can make you trip.

I miss my days on Valium when I never had to worry about stretching and never pulled a muscle lifting. I have yet to find a natural muscle relaxer near as strong. But by entering some sort of " trip" I can disassociate from the pain. Pretty sure LSD is a muscle relaxer too.


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## sad1231234

Chevy396 said:


> Yes, that is cool. I do see a lot of similarities between an acid trip and a dream. Or even sleep deprivation can make you trip.
> 
> I miss my days on Valium when I never had to worry about stretching and never pulled a muscle lifting. I have yet to find a natural muscle relaxer near as strong. But by entering some sort of " trip" I can disassociate from the pain. Pretty sure LSD is a muscle relaxer too.


Yeah i had one of my first lucid dreams the other day and i was surprised at the similarities between dreaming and tripping on acid. But dreaming is just a much more weird, variable, intense exprrience. Yet again i'm still somewhat of a newbie in the world of tripping lol. But it is interesting that you say that about sleep deprivation, because i saw a report once about someone who skipped sleep, and possibly fasted but i dont remember, for a few days and started to hallucinate. He then went along with it and was whisked away on a trip that he likened to his dmt trips.

Hmmm there's probablt something out there that works on a similar level, i mean i dont know much about muscle relaxers but there are a LOT of substances out there that hardly anyone's heard about. And trips do allow a good form of dissociation from the pain but it's probably a bit of an overkill haha.


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## RockmanJL9981

id try it but id want to make sure my envorionment didnt have any windows to fall out of or stairs to fall down


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## SparklingWater

MDMA has great success with treating ptsd (which is where my social issues hail from.) https://newatlas.com/mdma-ptsd-successful-trial-results/57074/ there are tons of articles this is just one I saw recently.

MAPS is now conducting phase 3 clinical trials. I've been in touch with one of the site doctors to be included in the trial. My hesitation is phase 3 is double blind, placebo controlled so it's just as likely I'd receive a placebo than treatment. https://maps.org/research/mdma/ptsd/phase3

I also know one therapist who will administer and sit with you if you want to use MDMA for therapeutic purposes. I know there are more but since i already have a relationship with them i think I'm going to with them. We'd be following the MAPS protocol anyway. I'll wait til i talk with the site doctor to make sure i fully understand the study before i decide which path I'll take.

I don't take drugs recreationally and am even wary of them therapeutically, but I'm definitely open to something having such great evidence backed success.


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## fluorish

I wish i could have some psychdelic medications right now, like magic mushrooms or something like that, that iv never tried before so i can buzz out while im trying to a learn biochemistry

But in all honestly i would absolutely love to try one of those therapy sessions where you take MDMA or something, although i did believe there were more of a myth or hardly accessible


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## sad1231234

RockmanJL9981 said:


> id try it but id want to make sure my envorionment didnt have any windows to fall out of or stairs to fall down


If you know the dosage of your psychedelic medication, and if you start small, then there isnt much that can go wrong. I've taken up to like 200ug of lsd and havent had any ideas to jump out of windows or anything. I can definately see how things could go wrong in a significantly higher dose though, especially with a person who isnt very careful-minded. I've found that the worst places are bathrooms and kitchens, especially when you're in such a deep state of trance(or zoning out) that you almost forget that you're standing up. Aside from that its fairly safe if you are cautious, its not like you lose your coordination on stairs or anything but the echoing of senses can make it hard to figure out which step you're on. I mean i would say that a relatively low dose of psychedelics is on a similar level of safeness to getting significantly drunk.



SparklingWater said:


> MDMA has great success with treating ptsd (which is where my social issues hail from.) https://newatlas.com/mdma-ptsd-successful-trial-results/57074/ there are tons of articles this is just one I saw recently.
> 
> MAPS is now conducting phase 3 clinical trials. I've been in touch with one of the site doctors to be included in the trial. My hesitation is phase 3 is double blind, placebo controlled so it's just as likely I'd receive a placebo than treatment. https://maps.org/research/mdma/ptsd/phase3
> 
> I also know one therapist who will administer and sit with you if you want to use MDMA for therapeutic purposes. I know there are more but since i already have a relationship with them i think I'm going to with them. We'd be following the MAPS protocol anyway. I'll wait til i talk with the site doctor to make sure i fully understand the study before i decide which path I'll take.
> 
> I don't take drugs recreationally and am even wary of them therapeutically, but I'm definitely open to something having such great evidence backed success.


It is good to be wary about using psychedelics even for therapeutic purposes, because any mind-altering substance is a mind altering substance. These things can change you. They can cause you to think in very counter-productive ways, but with a little less overthinking and a little letting go rather than holding on/holding back, i have found that psychedelics have helped me to think in a very mentally efficient and emotionally beneficial way. I've learned to flow in a beautifully relaxing/therapeutic stream of somewhat meditational consciousness. In other words, psychedelics can help you to think for the best, instead of in the very rugged and painful and self-destructive thought patterns/levels that people normally think in.

Normal thinking is doomed to negativity, and constant overthinking/overanalyzing of the psyche(and of its connections to the external reality) leads to negativity and frustration and emotional/mental "dead ends" so to speak. Which in turn leads to further negativity and to a loss of psychological balance in life. Thats some of my findings so far anyway. But at the end of the day, if the studies say that psychedelics can help with anything from anxiety/depression to PTSD and heroin addiction, then that alone is proof of the positive and powerful therapeutic effects of psychedelics.



fluorish said:


> I wish i could have some psychdelic medications right now, like magic mushrooms or something like that, that iv never tried before so i can buzz out while im trying to a learn biochemistry
> 
> But in all honestly i would absolutely love to try one of those therapy sessions where you take MDMA or something, although i did believe there were more of a myth or hardly accessible


LSA is a very useful psychedelic for medicational/therapeutic uses. Quite similar to LSD in most aspects, but a lot easier to access, i highly recommend googling "LSA" if you are interested. Just make sure you are fully aware of what you are doing and about the side effects and the laws etc etc.


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## Tuan Jie

@SparklingWater
Isn't it considered unethical to not offer the real substance after you got the placebo? I recall this was the procedure in at least one of the recent trials with psychedelics. They wouldn't withold such information from you before the trial, I presume.


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## Tuan Jie

sad1231234 said:


> If you know the dosage of your psychedelic medication, and if you start small, then there isnt much that can go wrong. I've taken up to like 200ug of lsd and havent had any ideas to jump out of windows or anything. I can definately see how things could go wrong in a significantly higher dose though, especially with a person who isnt very careful-minded...


I'm concerned about this logic. I'm not an expert nor very experienced, but reducing the risk to a matter of dosage is ehh, risky. Starting from the tripping threshold you are taking a risk. Previous experiences with x or y dosage are no guarantee for a comparable experience with the same dosage, particularly when it concerns psychedelics. There's always an element of gambling invloved.

That aside, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences and insights and how they affect your life.


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## sad1231234

Tuan Jie said:


> I'm concerned about this logic. I'm not an expert nor very experienced, but reducing the risk to a matter of dosage is ehh, risky. Starting from the tripping threshold you are taking a risk. Previous experiences with x or y dosage are no guarantee for a comparable experience with the same dosage, particularly when it concerns psychedelics. There's always an element of gambling invloved.
> 
> That aside, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences and insights and how they affect your life.


Yeah good point, it is a gamble, i mean i guess i should have said that it is still kind of dangerous. Like being fairly drunk, it has its risks and dangerous stuff can happen. But with low doses of psychedelics i have never come close to the "jumping out of window" stuff that you hear of. Although i have heard of cases where people got pretty shaken and rocked on low doses so i dont know. But at the same time, with experience and starting low and with careful precautions/mindfulness, then it isnt something people should be scared off from.

Oh i'm not really experienced haha but as with most people who take psychedelics, i've gotten some decent insights. Usually the typical "there is more to consciousness" and "positivity is vital" and "we are individually defined by our perceptions" etc. Nothing outrageously mindblowing yet. It has affected my life in various ways, i empathize more and i let go of my sense of self a little. And while it has made me doubt my entire grasp of reality/thoughts, it also helped me to think for the best. What about you? You seem to have a lot more experience, and i think i saw somewhere in this thread that you planned on doing an Aya ceremony or something? I've recently gained some interest in Ayahuasca due to its apparent spiritual/healing nature and its very entheogenic vibe. Although i certainly wont try it any time soon haha!


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## RelinquishedHell

There are several species of psilocybe that grow naturally where I live including the most potent in the world ( psilocybe azurescens ), I dont trust myself to not pick a deathcap or something equally horrible though, so I dont take my chances with that. 

I have taken high enough doses of thc that might be considered "heroic" though and have had transformative introspective experiences from that, that I would like to call psychedelic even though I don't have the comparison.


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## sad1231234

RelinquishedHell said:


> There are several species of psilocybe that grow naturally where I live including the most potent in the world ( psilocybe azurescens ), I dont trust myself to not pick a deathcap or something equally horrible though, so I dont take my chances with that.
> 
> I have taken high enough doses of thc that might be considered "heroic" though and have had transformative introspective experiences from that, that I would like to call psychedelic even though I don't have the comparison.


Hmm yeah you want to be very, very careful when/if you are hunting for your psychedelic medicine. Dunno about USA, but here we have a close relative of Azurescens which is Subaeruginosa, pretty similar i think. So anyways there is a highly toxic species called Galerina Marginata, which looks almost exactly similar to the two aforementioned active species. The only diffrentiation to tell if it is poisonous is stuff like a lack of blue bruising(in almost all cases, although in rare cases poisonous ones have bruised blue) and a slight difference in hue of the stem and cap. I am also currently hesitant to hunt for any due to the risk of picking a deadly species.

THC is actually quite good for having transformative and introspective experiences. I mean i doubt that THC could reach anywhere near a heroic level, cause like even a low dose of psychedelics can send someone beyond being baked/blazed and they eventually just get exponentially stronger as the dosage increases. But THC is partially characteristic of a psychedelic experience and you can have some whopping good insight on that stuff. One time on a weed trip, i realized that beneath my mental constructs/foundations, my life was empty and lonely as hell lol.


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## Tuan Jie

@sad1231234
Sounds pretty positive what you've gained from your experiences. It reads as "getting out of your own way" a bit. How often do you do this kind of thing and is there anybody with you or are you alone? Do you use some kind of ritual? Specific purpose? What safety concernes, I think it's a good idea to keep Stan Grof's view of psychedelics being "non-specific amplifiers" in mind. Since so much of us is unconscious, you can get an ugly surprise, of which the intensity partly depends on the dosage. We all work with what we've got, I get that.

I've stayed away from psychedelics virtually all my life believing it's the last thing anyone that emotionally unstable should turn to. It took the worst crisis in my life in '06-'07 to change this. My resulting experience with iboga didn't lead to much. In hindsight I think I didn't have the proper framework for it. I was still too much a human doing instead of a human being. It may also have been not the right substance for me. Anyway, I abandoned the idea. More than ten years, the 2nd + 3rd worst crisis of my life, a lot of research and careful consideration later I arrived at ayahuasca. The irony of my previous conviction is that I likely wouldn't still have been around if I hadn't taken aya this summer. It is arguably the most therapeutic intervention (on an extensive list) I've tried in the two decades dealing with "mental illness". The two experiences with aya were some of the most excruciating I've ever had and the profundity of the resulting internal shift is according (few!). I haven't felt broken in the core of my being ever since and I'm no longer suicidal. Besides horrific, they were also heart opening (ego-dissolving) experiences, which I've taken up as an incentive to reconnect with my mother whom I hadn't seen in years.

It's not all roses though. I feel like a part of early childhood trauma has been integrated, but the rest of it is close to the surface, often making life very hard. I hardly feel depressed anymore, but I do experience a lot of direct emotional pain. Being more aware of the mess under the hood is a double edged sword. Experiencing the seriousness of it on a daily basis keeps my attention where it should be. On the other hand, basically living in the stench of my emotional cesspool isn't getting me further. I'm afraid I'm going to need more of these interventions to integrate a significant amount of what's split off. So I'm in the process of planning more aya ceremonies, while making the most of the previous and staying afloat. One way I try to keep the momentum going is by microdosing 1P-LSD. Thus far, I'm not sure what this brings me. That's the short version.


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## sad1231234

Tuan Jie said:


> @sad1231234
> Sounds pretty positive what you've gained from your experiences. It reads as "getting out of your own way" a bit. How often do you do this kind of thing and is there anybody with you or are you alone? Do you use some kind of ritual? Specific purpose? What safety concernes, I think it's a good idea to keep Stan Grof's view of psychedelics being "non-specific amplifiers" in mind. Since so much of us is unconscious, you can get an ugly surprise, of which the intensity partly depends on the dosage. We all work with what we've got, I get that.
> 
> I've stayed away from psychedelics virtually all my life believing it's the last thing anyone that emotionally unstable should turn to. It took the worst crisis in my life in '06-'07 to change this. My resulting experience with iboga didn't lead to much. In hindsight I think I didn't have the proper framework for it. I was still too much a human doing instead of a human being. It may also have been not the right substance for me. Anyway, I abandoned the idea. More than ten years, the 2nd + 3rd worst crisis of my life, a lot of research and careful consideration later I arrived at ayahuasca. The irony of my previous conviction is that I likely wouldn't still have been around if I hadn't taken aya this summer. It is arguably the most therapeutic intervention (on an extensive list) I've tried in the two decades dealing with "mental illness". The two experiences with aya were some of the most excruciating I've ever had and the profundity of the resulting internal shift is according (few!). I haven't felt broken in the core of my being ever since and I'm no longer suicidal. Besides horrific, they were also heart opening (ego-dissolving) experiences, which I've taken up as an incentive to reconnect with my mother whom I hadn't seen in years.
> 
> It's not all roses though. I feel like a part of early childhood trauma has been integrated, but the rest of it is close to the surface, often making life very hard. I hardly feel depressed anymore, but I do experience a lot of direct emotional pain. Being more aware of the mess under the hood is a double edged sword. Experiencing the seriousness of it on a daily basis keeps my attention where it should be. On the other hand, basically living in the stench of my emotional cesspool isn't getting me further. I'm afraid I'm going to need more of these interventions to integrate a significant amount of what's split off. So I'm in the process of planning more aya ceremonies, while making the most of the previous and staying afloat. One way I try to keep the momentum going is by microdosing 1P-LSD. Thus far, I'm not sure what this brings me. That's the short version.


Yeah, it's great to get out of our own way cause a lot of our "way" consists of the urge to satisfy the sense of self. Which is pointless really. I feel like just letting things be and detatching from those strenuous mental connections is a much more healthy way to live. Oh i just trip once a week, and without any ritual or anything. My purposes are kinda split, like half the reason i do them is for an amazing experience and have the reason i do it is to get in touch with my higher self whilst learning/growing. Yeah psychedelics can reveal a few scary truths but as someone with lots of problems and not too much to lose, i think it is worth the risk. One scary thing about psychedelics, apart from the frighteningly real perspectives of reality/problems they can offer, is the fact that they peel away a lot of your coping mechanisms. Took me significant effort to sink back into the delusion of sanity, guess i realized that you gotta have some kind of grip on "reality" in life. Otherwise everything turns to mud haha.

About abstaining from psychedelics, it really depends on how emotionally unstable someone is, like you i also thought that psychedelics would be super rough on my already weak mind. But actually not only is it possible to safely navigate through a psychedelic experience for an emotionally unstable person, but they also have an amazing healing potential. Yeah ibogaine isnt for everywhere, definately not, you mostly hear of people using it to overcome addiction and stuff. Ayahuasca is often said to be best for purging oneself of impurities/flaws. That's amazing, it seems like Ayahausca benefited you a lot. I cant comprehend the magnitude of healing/fixing potential that it has but if people say such good things about it all the time then i am really interested in trying it eventually. I also have a lot of crap in my head, that probably goes deep down.

Well do you find that you are able to at least detatch yourself from some of the trauma? Unless it permanently shifted your thinking intensely, then it might be possible to sort of slowly focus on striving towards a positive mindset. I havent tried such powerful trips so i may not know what i'm talking about, but i find that even though psychedelics can show some scary stuff that can linger in your mind, it is best to sort of just accept reality and focus on thinking for the best instead of holding on so hard to that new perception. Cause life is so screwed up, if anyone was to face reality without at least some form/extent of detatchment, then they would go crazy. Sometimes that mess under the hood is simply best to be covered up. Everything is a huge mess under the hood really. There would be infinite suffering from everything in every way, if it weren't for the barriers of our perception. Interesting, do you mean that the LSD microdosing helps you to cope with the way things are in your situation, and to go forwards?


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## Noca

I don't know if this has been mentioned already on this thread because I don't care to read through 5 pages of posts but there is an initiative in Oregon to put medicinal Psilocybin on the ballot for 2020. https://www.countable.us/articles/16339

I think it will likely be legal for medicinal use in Canada for medicinal uses within 10 years, possibly sooner.


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## Tuan Jie

@sad1231234
Very interesting. I'm in a bit of a hurry atm, but I'll respond properly later.
@Noca
I wasn't aware of that. Do you have any insight in the likelihood of that passing? It would be nice to base policy on scientific findings instead of panic for a change. Rick Doblin said Trump recently signed a "right to try law" for MDMA on the basis that it's unethical to withold this option from people who are willing to pay for it themselves and who exhausted other options. Recently I heard Dennis McKenna say he expects psychedelic treatments to be available in Canada within five years. Seems like a major shift in attitude towards these compounds is going on in North America/globally or I'm completely biased. https://thera-psil.ca/reasoning/
Please enlighten me on the situation in Canada, this is fascinating!


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## SparklingWater

Tuan Jie said:


> @SparklingWater
> Isn't it considered unethical to not offer the real substance after you got the placebo? I recall this was the procedure in at least one of the recent trials with psychedelics. They wouldn't withold such information from you before the trial, I presume.


You were absolutely correct! I went in for my first in person screener yesterday (I've done 2 phone screenings previously.) The treatment will be offered afterwards if you receive the placebo, so that's awesome. There are so many checkpoints and screens you have to go through to be accepted. I won't know for at least 2-3 months whether I'll be in the study. Then if I receive the placebo, it would be about a year til I get the real treatment. In any case, glad the process has started. Wish me luck. I was super shut down emotionally throughout (false self was on full display,) but hopefully they were able to get the info they need.


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## Tuan Jie

@sad1231234 
Weekly trips he says! Tell me some more! I can relate not having much to lose and much to gain from the use of psychedelics and them peeling away coping mechanisms. It creates tremendous opportunity for personal transformation. Back to the drawing board, in a sense. I don't know about you, but I was very vulnerable in the aftermath of my experiences and I can't imagine having to go to work or school in such a state. For a couple of months. Those environments are difficult to navigate with a weakened ego. That's why I think psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy is a very good idea. The iron needs to be forged when hot.

What I find myself becoming more aware of and dis-identifying from are (subtle) ways of hypervigilance and reactivity. I'm finding other ground to stand on within. This is a result of integrated trauma. There is less in the outside world I have to defend myself against because there's less inside which is on the verge of entering my consciousness when it resonates with that. I'm less afraid to be authentic and more willing to be vulnerable in social interactions and also more aware of the suble ways I was not in the past. I'm able to be more present instead of fighting with internal sensations in particular situations. It's all still very fragile though. A seed is sprouting and I'm doing my best to nourish it in every way I can. Microdosing is one, but I find it very hard to determine what it does for me.

Suffering continues as long as that stuff under the hood is being triggered by situations in the outside world and your defences against horrible **** rising to the surface remain at the wheel. If life is somewhat livable like that it might be better to leave it alone. I have no choice but to go for the source though. Getting there has failed with many other approaches and living around it failed miserably. The strength of aya for me, is that it removes the illusion of "away" while it puts me in the midst of where the hurt is. This internal connection is changing how I connect outside (a friend says it's one and the same thing). There's a lot of overlap with what Rosalind Watts talks about in this talk:


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## Tuan Jie

@SparklingWater
Sweet! Completely understandable that your survival self took over. I'm pretty sure they would have kept you there longer if they needed more info from you this round.

Will you manage to hang in there if you happen to get the placebo first or will you explore other options in that case? I wish you luck in any case!


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## SparklingWater

@Tuan Jie

Unfortunately, I have no choice but to hang in there if I want the MDMA specifically. The person I thought was open to do it (sit with me,) turned out not to be. The other person they sat with was microdosing MDMA and had a lot of experience doing so previously. They didn't feel comfy doing a first trip especially with a therapeutic dosage. I completely understood. Plus tbh, I don't do drugs period lol so it was quite wishful thinking that I could get my hands on it lol. Not cool enough for a rave, just uncomfortable enough to not go on tor to find it. So all said and done, I'm staying legally a good girl. If the study doesn't work out, I may try aya or research a few other things (possibly psilocybin.) Honestly, as impatient as I can be, I'm pretty happy and hopeful with the pace of my recovery. So I'll keep chugging along chemically unassisted until the right opportunity falls into my lap. Hopefully the study will just work out.

Re being shut down: they definitely got the info they needed, but when I'm very shut down I minimize my experience beyond belief. I caught myself doing so a few times, so hopefully they got an _accurate enough_ read of my experience. Rather than my protector mode 'everything is fine' story.


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## Tuan Jie

@SparklingWater
It's great things are moving. The perspective of a psychedelic intervention coming up, legal or less so, has significant value in the current moment. Being "content" with your current pace of your recovery isn't a small thing either. It pleases me to read stuff like that! *does a pom pom dance thing*

Is there a fear they might still exlude you from the study because you may have come across as "too healthy"? Those PTSD researchers are well known with coping mechanisms. This one included. If I had to design a study, the level of dissociation before, during, and after the intervention would be one of my interests. Someone who's more dissociated prior is actually very interesting if you want to demonstrate the efficacy of an intervention. You may have done yourself a favor here.

In the unlikely event that you'll fall through, I'm sure you'll arrange the most sane alternative available. And there are a bunch to choose from, not necessarily invloving an illicit substance. I was excluded from a psilocybin study because I couldn't wait for it to start and went ahead with aya. When I later applied for it, they couldn't use me. People with psychedelic experiences bring expectations into the experience and therefore are unsuitable test subjects for these kinds of psychedelic studies. Best to stay above ground if you possibly can, not in the least because it ensures you of proper psychological care around taking the drugs. I help you hope the study will just work out.


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## sad1231234

Tuan Jie said:


> @sad1231234
> Weekly trips he says! Tell me some more! I can relate not having much to lose and much to gain from the use of psychedelics and them peeling away coping mechanisms. It creates tremendous opportunity for personal transformation. Back to the drawing board, in a sense. I don't know about you, but I was very vulnerable in the aftermath of my experiences and I can't imagine having to go to work or school in such a state. For a couple of months. Those environments are difficult to navigate with a weakened ego. That's why I think psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy is a very good idea. The iron needs to be forged when hot.
> 
> What I find myself becoming more aware of and dis-identifying from are (subtle) ways of hypervigilance and reactivity. I'm finding other ground to stand on within. This is a result of integrated trauma. There is less in the outside world I have to defend myself against because there's less inside which is on the verge of entering my consciousness when it resonates with that. I'm less afraid to be authentic and more willing to be vulnerable in social interactions and also more aware of the suble ways I was not in the past. I'm able to be more present instead of fighting with internal sensations in particular situations. It's all still very fragile though. A seed is sprouting and I'm doing my best to nourish it in every way I can. Microdosing is one, but I find it very hard to determine what it does for me.
> 
> Suffering continues as long as that stuff under the hood is being triggered by situations in the outside world and your defences against horrible **** rising to the surface remain at the wheel. If life is somewhat livable like that it might be better to leave it alone. I have no choice but to go for the source though. Getting there has failed with many other approaches and living around it failed miserably. The strength of aya for me, is that it removes the illusion of "away" while it puts me in the midst of where the hurt is. This internal connection is changing how I connect outside (a friend says it's one and the same thing). There's a lot of overlap with what Rosalind Watts talks about in this talk:


Bit of a read, hope it isnt too boring to read. I get carried away sometimes lol.

Oh i'll just have a mild trip once every week or so. Havent done any super deep stuff yet. Yeah psychedelics can really help you to think for the best, i mean they shake up the foundations of your coping mechanisms to some extent but they do allow immense opportunity for growing as a person. And a lot of it all from my point of view is really just coming to terms with your problems, undergoing catharasis so to speak, and then deciding how to deal with it all and what kind of grip on reality/coping mechanisms you can use that works best. In that sense, i think psychedelics have helped me to really shoot for the stars emotionally/mentally. But too bad psychedelics are not quiiite a time machine haha. Yeah, "back to the drawing board" lol, although lets hope we dont spend too much of our lives "drawing". Damn, that's awful, do you mean the aftermath of the negative incidents you experienced? Cause i can probably relate to that feeling of a weakened ego, i often feel like my ego is so weakened that i cant really cling on to reality properly. Unless of course you are talking abour your Aya experience. Oh i agree with you there, sometimes the best time for a psychedelic therapy experience is right when the iron is hot. Right when your ego is loose, when you feel really lost and distant from everything. It can be a refreshing or depressing but crucial opportunity to just step back and view everything from a more universal perspective.

That's great, that you are improving in that area. I think it is true when they say that the worst enemy is ourselves. We should be worrying less about the external environment, because that is why we worry internally in the first place. Instead of gluing our ego's, and consequently our emotional response mechanisms, to external factors that dont quite flow with our ideal state of being, we can just be ourselves and be happy. By letting go of our ego a bit. And in some sense, i feel like people should just be vulnerable and speak their mind really, i mean humanity is so compartmentalized into individual ego's and perceptual cages of culture or social expectation. When instead we could just eliminate all those barriers altogether, along with their corresponding limitations and negative effects, by breaking away from it all. With our without the unilateral effort of people. Society is a prison, and ego is a cell, and the only way to break from it all is to break from it. Hmm yeah i dont know much about microdoses either but maybe it helps you to sort of break down those walls a bit.

Good point, it is hard to be happy when there's some real big nasty problems looming over your mind all the time, constantly being triggered by day-to-day life. I guess with my problems, i have recently learned that staying at the "wheel" all the time is no way to go through life. Maybe it even contributed to a lot of my detatchment from reality, just getting so lost between all these concepts to the point where my ego is losing its grasp. But i do think it is possible, at least for my problems(i dont know about yours), to sort of let go of that wheel and to let go of that control. I found this extremely hard to do, and it took me years of immense frustration, but i was finally able to just let go. It might not apply to your situation, but it may be possible to sort of be one with your reality despite the majority of negative circumstances. To sort of just revert to a more primal level of existence, to dwell in a more survival ego rather than a thrive ego. I use this whenever things get too tough to cope, i try to just breathe and accept reality and deactive those fear/anguish mechanisms. I try to attain a perspective/perception that allows me to be at peace, regardless of past or future. Almost as if problems arent to be a source of suffering, but rather to be a situation that is to be calmly navigated, the worst outcome of which would be something that does not threaten the physical wellbeing and does not have any benefit in affecting the psychological wellbeing. But i havent really been through trauma, so dont know if it would help with your situation much or not. Been through a crap ton of misery and psychological deprivation/distress though and i can say it helps me. I hope you find a way out of it some day, and find the source.


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## Shredder

*A Melbourne Hospital Will Trial Magic Mushroom Therapy for Dying Patients*

An interesting article I came across today.

Here's the link to the article



> Dr Bright explained that by disabling the "default mode network" of the brain-that is, the neural network associated with a person's typical way of thinking-psilocybin can provide people with "a completely different perspective on their situation" and zoom in on thoughts or ideas that we typically repress or pass over.


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## Maslow

Shredder said:


> An interesting article I came across today.
> 
> 
> 
> Dr Bright explained that by disabling the "default mode network" of the brain-that is, the neural network associated with a person's typical way of thinking-psilocybin can provide people with "a completely different perspective on their situation" and zoom in on thoughts or ideas that we typically repress or pass over.
Click to expand...

The problem with that is it can make you "zoom in" on negative thoughts or insecurities, which might be dangerous and cause the patient to freak out. I've seen people freak out on LSD, which is generally much more powerful than psilocybin mushrooms. I've never seen anyone freak out on mushrooms, but I'd imagine that it could happen.

I guess it all depends on the patient and whether or not they want to try it. If they're dying and want to, let them. But for people with psychiatric disorders, it's probably not a good idea. I did acid when I was in my 20s and not as far gone as I am now. And music was a lot better back then, also. :lol


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## Tuan Jie

@sad1231234
Sorry for my late reply! Thanks for sharing.

It seems you have managed to get out of your own way quite a bit. That's really great! Would you say this is a cumulative effect of your psychedelic experiences? What you describe correlates with the theory of the activity in the default mode network being lowered when you are on psychedelics. Hyper activity in this network has been associated with anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive behaviour. In other words; psychedelics can help you become less rigid and more flexible in how you think, feel, act and relate to people and situations. Or, as you put it, you are better at letting go. I like the analogy of the snow covered hill a lot. It starts out pristine. When you ski down, you leave a trail. The next time you ski down, you have a chance to get into this trail and ski down this route. At a certain point one trail has become entrenched and it becomes almost impossible to go down the hill in any other way. Psychedelics cover the slope with a fresh layer of snow temporarily, so you have the opportunity to create new trails. The old one's won't disappear, but you have created alternatives. The challenge is to stay on the new trail as much as possible in daily life and to reinforce it.

I was referring to my aya experiences. The microdosing doesn't count as psychedelic experiences for me. It was rough, yeah. But I see them as challenging experiences, rather than negative incidents. A lot of my coping mechanisms were swept away and I've been in a difficult state for months. But when you consider that the coping mechanisms are a big part of the problem, this clears the way for change. The stuff the coping mechanisms had kept at bay, was in my consciousness most of the time now. Staying with it has been extremely hard at times and I'm pretty sure I would have ran from it if I could at some instances. That option didn't exist anymore though and I ultimately didn't wanted it to. That has actually been quite liberating. It has become much easier for me to stay present in difficult situations in daily life now. I do get the urge sometimes, but it seems to be less of a life or death situation. It's not as easy to get caught in a fight/flight mode now. I have options now in a given situation, where before, my survival response just took over. It seems to be what you're also saying and I'm happy for you that you've gained this flexibility from your experiences. Do you also meditate? I started doing this daily and it has helped me a great deal to deepen the "mindful" point of reference I got from the aya experiences. It's also a microdose in a way, because you disidentify from your ego and identify with your observer.

Coming back to reality hasn't been a very big challenge for me thus far. It takes a bit of time, and some quirky stuff happens in my mind now and then, but overall it's mainly an emotional challenge for me. If you struggle with reality, you might find some support at iceers. If I'm not mistaken, they provide some kind of free online service.


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## Shredder

Maslow said:


> The problem with that is it can make you "zoom in" on negative thoughts or insecurities, which might be dangerous and cause the patient to freak out. I've seen people freak out on LSD, which is generally much more powerful than psilocybin mushrooms. I've never seen anyone freak out on mushrooms, but I'd imagine that it could happen.
> 
> I guess it all depends on the patient and whether or not they want to try it. If they're dying and want to, let them. But for people with psychiatric disorders, it's probably not a good idea. I did acid when I was in my 20s and not as far gone as I am now. And music was a lot better back then, also. :lol


Yeah, the bad trip is the reason I haven't gone down the psychedelic path so far but I'm interested in the possibility. I think the dosage would be very controlled in this situation. I guess the main point I was interested in is that people are open to the fact that there may be benefits. I've heard a lot about people using psilocybin at sub-therapeutic doses. You dont "trip" but it apparently takes the edge of the anxiety and depression.

I agree with you on the music :grin2:


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## Tuan Jie

@Shredder
Wauw, even in Australia! I remember an episode of adventures through the mind, recorded a few years back, with a guy from your country. He was complaining that everything was blocked due to irrational politics, even harm reduction. This research going to happen seems like a revolution in that light. What happened? It's too bad that the media resort to using the term "magic mushrooms", where "psilocybin" is the correct term to use. Sensationalism isn't helping science.
@Maslow
You can't really compare treatment in a clinical setting with clandestine use of psychedelics. At the end of the article: "But if you look at the studies," he says, "it has minimal&#8230; serious adverse effects&#8230; [and] it has great potential." The latter is the reason for the current psychedelic renaissance. It's a tragedy that Nixon's moral panic resulted in a total, decades long, global ban of research into what can potentially benefit millions around the globe. Especially those in psychological distress. There's a mental health crisis going on and we collectively fail miserably to properly address it. Psychedelics are potentially a very important ally. It's about time to let science separate truth from fiction here once and for all. Sadly, most research has to be funded by donators because those substances can't be patented, which render them useless in the eyes of big pharma and politics is still under the influence of decades of fearmongering. Peter Thiel is backing research into the use of psilocybin for treatment resistant depression though. I'm very curious about the business model he has in mind for this. https://compasspathways.com/research-clinical-trials/

Several years ago magic mushrooms became illegal here because a tourist jumped out of a window under their influence. Off course the thousands of deaths and injuries due to the use of alcohol and tobacco every year are perfectly fine and normal. Or, more precisely, the public is being stimulated to leave tobacco alone and use alcohol in moderation but it's free to choose otherwise. The irony of it all is that psychedelics actually have great potential to save lives and promote health. I probably would not have been around anymore if it weren't for ayahauasca. I've been an extremely reluctant psychonaut because I don't take the combination of mental illness and these substances lightly and I don't think anyone should. These are very powerful and unpredicatable tools I'd rather only see in the hands of professionals. But I'm very grateful that I could get my hands on some psychedelics before it was too late. I'd rather have walked into a clinic and taken a known dose of a known substance and be guided by trained professionals before, during and after the experience. That possibility is likely to be there for people with treatment resistant PTSD in your country in two years. https://maps.org/participate/therapist-training-program


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## Chevy396

Tuan Jie said:


> @Shredder
> 
> Wauw, even in Australia! I remember an episode of adventures through the mind, recorded a few years back, with a guy from your country. He was complaining that everything was blocked due to irrational politics, even harm reduction. This research going to happen seems like a revolution in that light. What happened? It's too bad that the media resort to using the term "magic mushrooms", where "psilocybin" is the correct term to use. Sensationalism isn't helping science.
> 
> @Maslow
> 
> You can't really compare treatment in a clinical setting with clandestine use of psychedelics. At the end of the article: "But if you look at the studies," he says, "it has minimal&#8230; serious adverse effects&#8230; [and] it has great potential." The latter is the reason for the current psychedelic renaissance. It's a tragedy that Nixon's moral panic resulted in a total, decades long, global ban of research into what can potentially benefit millions around the globe. Especially those in psychological distress. There's a mental health crisis going on and we collectively fail miserably to properly address it. Psychedelics are potentially a very important ally. It's about time to let science separate truth from fiction here once and for all. Sadly, most research has to be funded by donators because those substances can't be patented, which render them useless in the eyes of big pharma and politics is still under the influence of decades of fearmongering. Peter Thiel is backing research into the use of psilocybin for treatment resistant depression though. I'm very curious about the business model he has in mind for this. https://compasspathways.com/research-clinical-trials/
> 
> Several years ago magic mushrooms became illegal here because a tourist jumped out of a window under their influence. Off course the thousands of deaths and injuries due to the use of alcohol and tobacco every year are perfectly fine and normal. Or, more precisely, the public is being stimulated to leave tobacco alone and use alcohol in moderation but it's free to choose otherwise. The irony of it all is that psychedelics actually have great potential to save lives and promote health. I probably would not have been around anymore if it weren't for ayahauasca. I've been an extremely reluctant psychonaut because I don't take the combination of mental illness and these substances lightly and I don't think anyone should. These are very powerful and unpredicatable tools I'd rather only see in the hands of professionals. But I'm very grateful that I could get my hands on some psychedelics before it was too late. I'd rather have walked into a clinic and taken a known dose of a known substance and be guided by trained professionals before, during and after the experience. That possibility is likely to be there for people with treatment resistant PTSD in your country in two years. https://maps.org/participate/therapist-training-program


That's great news. Results from certain types of therapies can be potentiated exponentially by doing it in a different state of mind.


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## DogOnaChair

I've tried LSD a couple of times before, it definitely made me look at the timeline of my life from a very long term perspective. Also bad trips and hallucinations made me believe in crazy sad things like the death of people I know. It definitely made me a little more appreciative of whats around me, before its gone you know. But I have this issue of just tripping alone in my room with a bunch of technology, which I don't think is conducive to the best thing since I end up realizing "hey this is why you're alone!" I do get the sense of "Get your **** together" and it works for a lot of the next day kinda. Issue is that my brain is too exhausted to do any mental work like schoolwork, or learning things on the side so I just end up doing physical things (cleaning, other chores). As far as "curing" my depression, anxiety it just makes me look at why what I do makes me depressed/anxious. So nowadays I see everything like that, it is kind of torture lately. I can't really get out of my head since it always goes back to that. On the other hand I was able to appreciate works of art more and actually form my own opinions on things beyond having it under the veil of depression/anxiety so I was considering microdosing to just get the ball rolling on myself. DMT I was considering as well, but I'll wait to do my research on it a bit more.


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## jtd1974

Interesting thread. It takes me back to my couple of experiences with LSD.

I wasted the opportunities. This was about 20 years ago, when I was young and stupid. I was going through a time of very heavy drug use, mostly ecstasy, and my supplier got hold of some microdots, so I thought I'd give it a go, expecting a buzz of some kind lol.

I remember being out with a friend in central London, just wandering around, after I'd taken some. 

What stayed with me was how at one point I became aware of the inner workings of my mind, which must usually be hidden away in the background somewhere. 

It's hard to describe, but it was like in certain situations I was aware of my mind entering a mode where various options became available to me.

For example, when my friend and I parted company, I saw how my mind entered "you're on your own now" mode, bringing along with it a feeling of depression. Kind of like the switching from one mood to another was very clear to observe.

The other time I took it and went to a nightclub with some people I knew, again expecting an ecstasy/speed type buzz. This predictably wasn't a good experience. I wasn't with people or in surroundings I felt comfortable with. The result was paranoia and confusion, with some weird visual stuff.

The dude who got me the dots told me afterwards that LSD can open doors in your mind, but that sometimes it opens doors that are best left closed. I thought that was a good way of putting it.

When I think back, I wish I'd been better prepared to make the most of the experiences, so I could have taken more out of them.

If I got the opportunity, I'd take LSD again. But now, with years of being on medication under my belt, I'm not sure what kind of experience I'd have.


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## Aylib

Definitely a proponent of LSD/shrooms to experience deeper states/emotions, although, like stated above--it can open doors and face you with uncomfortable revelations.


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## Chevy396

Does anyone else see these drugs as a type of exposure therapy for any kind of anxiety and PTSD? The more you use them the better you get at dealing with extreme anxiety.


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## Tuan Jie

Just reading into an article about ketamine treatment for depression, I think it should land here. A Vaccine for Depression? Thanks for sharing the article @Erroll!
@DogOnaChair @jtd1974
Thanks for sharing your experiences guys. Not in a place to comment at the moment...
@Chevy396
Yes, sort off. I'll expand on that later. What are your thoughts on this?


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## RelinquishedHell

I've taken edging psychedelic doses of psilocybin and I can definitely see how it can be effective. Everything became slightly dreamy and nothing seemed like a big deal at all. The world seems to turn to 4k HD and everything has vibrant depth and color as well. Objects get imposing and you can feel the presence of everything around you. Very interesting.


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## Tuan Jie

Investors are starting to bet big on psychedelic medicine
https://www.atai.life/#About

FDA approves Johnson & Johnson's ketamine-like nasal spray for depression


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## Noca

Tuan Jie said:


> Investors are starting to bet big on psychedelic medicine
> https://www.atai.life/#About


Take something that inherently doesn't cost much money, patent it and jack up the price 10,000%. No wonder why they are betting big money. That is the broken western medical system. Substances have no medicinal value until big pharma comes along and patents it, then all of a sudden it has medical value. No it didn't have medical value all along.


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## Tuan Jie

Chevy396 said:


> Does anyone else see these drugs as a type of exposure therapy for any kind of anxiety and PTSD? The more you use them the better you get at dealing with extreme anxiety.


In my view anxiety often is a sign of unintegrated trauma. If you find yourself in a situation resembling that, your system detects great danger, resulting in a fight/flight/freeze response. If I look at my case, I believe that a significant part of who I've become is a defense structure against the original trauma of being rejected for who I am. I feel fundamentally flawed and unlovable. This is triggered in many social situations, since the trauma is interpersonal. The level of anxiety is an indication of how much is not integrated and just below consciousness.

What I experienced during my first two aya trips was absolute hell. I just landed in the middle of it. Something has been integrated because of it. I hear from friends that I'm less skittish, more present, more balanced, less cramped. I think unintegrated trauma makes you rigid. Desperate to remain in control. A lot of energy goes into holding up the walls around it. Maintaining a persona, if you will.

So if you finally experience what you've been working so hard to avoid from entering your consciousness, what's left to defend against and to be anxious about? So rather than becoming desensitized, in the case of exposure, I think psychedelics can help you to integrate your past reality. The wall, the default mode network, is put out of business under their influence, so anything in your subconscious can now find it's way up. This may include those exiled parts of yourself that weren't welcome in the past. I welcomed some very vulnerable and innocent little TJ's on my last two aya experiences.

You could view this as exposure to what was and has been stored inside for ages.


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## Tuan Jie

Noca said:


> Take something that inherently doesn't cost much money, patent it and jack up the price 10,000%. No wonder why they are betting big money. That is the broken western medical system. Substances have no medicinal value until big pharma comes along and patents it, then all of a sudden it has medical value. No it didn't have medical value all along.


Your cynicism is understandable. Though the fact that big pharma shows interest in psychedelics doesn't automatically mean that they are "inventing" medicinal value. If you look into the research, the therapeutic potential is clearly there. This is the reason MAPS (non-profit) and other organisations have been promoting scientific research despite non-rational legislation for decades. The involvement of big pharma means rescheduling of these substances is much more likely than it ever has been. These guys bring in the big bucks for the large scale research to make that happen. If I have to choose between availability of these substances to those who can potentially save their life with them while filling the pockets of big pharma or no availability at all, that's a no brainer.


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## Noca

Tuan Jie said:


> Your cynicism is understandable. Though the fact that big pharma shows interest in psychedelics doesn't automatically mean that they are "inventing" medicinal value. If you look into the research, the therapeutic potential is clearly there. This is the reason MAPS (non-profit) and other organisations have been promoting scientific research despite non-rational legislation for decades. The involvement of big pharma means rescheduling of these substances is much more likely than it ever has been. These guys bring in the big bucks for the large scale research to make that happen. If I have to choose between availability of these substances to those who can potentially save their life with them while filling the pockets of big pharma or no availability at all, that's a no brainer.


Availability if you are rich, otherwise no it isn't going to be available. Es-ketamine is not available. I'm not saying there isn't medical evidence to support the medicinal use of psychedelics, there is, and it is equal to the amount of evidence that many doctors use to prescribe medications off label everyday. Yes those drugs have gone through large scale trials but usually for completely unrelated conditions so that those trials have little to do with the off label uses they are using them for. That quantum of evidence is apparently just fine for western medical doctors (hypocrisy).

It is the same bull**** with cannabis, the western medical establishment claims there is no medical evidence (only because they cant patent and profit) when actually there are over 21,000 published medical studies/articles on the medicinal properties of cannabis, including a number of placebo controlled studies. Of course big pharma tried to isolate and patent cannabis molecules but largely failed, like cesamet, marinol, sativex; those have medical value but cannabis does not. It is really laughable and disgusting.

Oh and when it came to rescheduling CBD, nope, it was only given to Epidolex instead even though they are essentially the exact same thing. Big pharma CBD has medical value, non big pharma CBD, abolsutely useless, no accepted medical value, high potent for abuse, etc etc bs.


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