9 ms·

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization e

I'm the one who provided the third quoted anecdote in the article. What I didn't mention was the HPPD coincided with a sort of depersonalization/derealization effect. Basically I got very checked out from my own life. I felt as if I was a spectator watching my life happen and I didn't really feel any connection or agency towards anything coming into my sensorium. It was a really weird and hard time for me. Those feelings as well as the hallucinations came and went together for me. After about 1-2 years I was completely back to normal. During that time I still microdosed occasionally, but that didn't seem to have any effect on those symptoms either way. I didn't have experience anything like that until I took pretty large doses (>200ug). I was taking 100ug doses on a regular basis without having any lasting effects, it appeared to me that the high doses came with the aftereffects. I also didn't experience anything like that with psilocin (mushrooms). I'm willing to answer any questions about my experience if anyone has any

mistrial9 7y ago
did you read any Franz Kafka novels at any point?
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
How do you know I'm real?
proverbialbunny 7y ago
DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.
- bjourne 7y ago
  How would an instruction manual have helped improv32?
  - proverbialbunny 7y ago
    A manual for a trip sitter would have helped more than anything imho. A trip is steered through belief. It was a belief that gave improv32 DP/DR. (Though there is always edge cases, like toxicity from being a black market drug.) A trip sitter can clarify the faulty belief steering them back in a healthy direction. There are certain techniques to identify this. On the tripper's side of things, they have to be comfortable enough with the trip sitter to openly talk about things, and ofc have a good set and setting, which is also in part the trip sitters job.
- trevyn 7y ago
  I think an argument could be made that the sense of self is a psychological disorder.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Not if it is the baseline we measure against (which it is). Or if it has survival/performative utility (which it does).
    - proverbialbunny 7y ago
      How does it have a survival / performative advantage? You can, eg, protect the body from harm, without having a sense of self, which ties into survival.
      - doboyy 7y ago
        Basically allowing societies to function (people assuming roles, shame, and whatever). It should be of no surprise that a damaged sense of self often correlates with poor integration into a society.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        proverbialbunny 7y ago
        Roles, shame, and whatever doesn't sound like self. It sounds like cultural taboos and status within society. Neither of those are a sense of self. Also, countries that are more Buddhist (ones that have less sense of self) tend to be more community based cultures, so that doesn't correlate.
        doboyy 7y ago
        If status is not tied to a sense of self then I don't know what is. You mentioned in another comment that the skills you've learned are not you (roles?). They are just things you have. You've just said that identifying these roles as an abstraction is an essential part of understanding the self. All of these things increase order in a society, and therefore, survival value. This is what I was responding to. I didn't say that more of a sense of self, whatever that means, makes more community based cultures.
- gpvos 7y ago
  DP/DR = depersonalization/derealization disorder (I assume)
nefitty 7y ago
Alan Watts wrote: > “Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen.” What message, if any, were you looking for during your psychedelic explorations? Did you receive it?
- coldtea 7y ago
  >What message, if any, were you looking for during your psychedelic explorations? I just wanted to get stoned out of my head, and see some weird colors and shit man. >Did you receive it? Oh, yeah. (I'm a little snarky here about the whole coming into psychedelics looking for some "message", and seeing that you receive it too).
- derpherpsson 7y ago
  The experience of ego-softening, or even complete ego-death, is something that some psychedelics bring to their users. LSD, mushrooms and especially DMT does this. Many normal humans will not know that this experience is even possible, or might dismiss it straight off as humbo jumbo. (Many drug users that did the drugs just for fun will get this as a sort of surprise gift. Sometimes they dismiss it despite having experienced it, sadly.) Once one have experienced this a couple of times, it is possible to learn whereto steer the mind during normal meditation. It is possible, although it requires skill, to come there with normal sober meditation.
solveit 7y ago
Have you read Scott's recent article on what people report "enlightenment" feels like? If so, how did you relate to it?
precisioncoder 7y ago
Something I'm surprised hasn't come up yet is the ability to flex... "something" in your brain and turn hallucinations on and off. I grew up in a Buddhist family and was meditating since an early age. I'm not sure if this was related at all but since I was young I could look at things when I was bored and do something in my brain that would cause the patterns to move. If I then needed to concentrate I could focus and it would go away. I did some research and found out that there is a common effect with meditators that they can meditate while on drugs in order to mitigate or in some cases even deactivate some of the effects. So if you want to experiment it might be good to learn a bit so you have an extra tool to work with your mind while you're altering it. YMMV of course.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jokowueu 7y ago
  Fascinating thank you for sharing . Never heard of this
- aphextim 7y ago
  This came naturally for me although I'm sure the technique is not as refined as someone who practices it a lot. When I first tried this I noticed that the hallucinations were very similar to those old magic eye books. https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eye-New-Looking-World/dp/0836270061 https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eye-New-Looking-World/dp/083627... In those books you relax and are able to see the image through the chaos. The same can be said for when you are on these types of drugs, or at least for me personally. When I was able to relax and let my mind go, the hallucinations and visuals would come at a greater intensity. If I needed to, I was able to snap out of it by focusing my mind on the moment and tangible reality in front of me. When I was leading a few people on their first experience I explained this to them, that if they are unable to relax and let go, the visuals would not come as quickly or be as intense. Do not be afraid, relax and let go and if needed you can ground yourself back if you have a decent mind and didn't take an amount larger than you can handle.
- dejawu 7y ago
  I honestly don't remember exactly where, but I was reading a wiki for psychonauts once and it provided a scale for the potency of a dose (e.g. No effect, threshold, etc) and the metric they used was the observer's ability to consciously resist the effects of the drug - kind of like when you're drunk or stoned and try to "force" yourself to sober up.
nwellnhof 7y ago
> I also didn't experience anything like that with psilocin (mushrooms). A guy once told me that he was suffering from a severe form of HPPD for months. It was slowly driving him crazy, but the symptoms disappeared immediately after he consumed psilocybin.
IAmGraydon 7y ago
Derealization/depersonalization (known as DPDR) is a defense mechanism against painful sensory input - typically fear and/or anxiety. You brain sort of attenuates the external world and goes inside itself like a turtle that thinks it’s in danger. The state normally occurs in response to dangerous or traumatic situations (you often hear about out of body experiences in these situations), but particularly traumatic experiences (often from hallucinogens, abuse, war, etc) can cause a sort of sensitization that makes DPDR chronic.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

mistrial9 7y ago

did you read any Franz Kafka novels at any point?

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

How do you know I'm real?

proverbialbunny 7y ago

DP/DR is like that. Psychedelics are a tool that can be used to remove psychological disorders, but in the same vain can be used to create psychological disorders. In an ideal world, if psychedelics were legal, they'd come with an instruction manual.

bjourne 7y ago
How would an instruction manual have helped improv32?
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  A manual for a trip sitter would have helped more than anything imho. A trip is steered through belief. It was a belief that gave improv32 DP/DR. (Though there is always edge cases, like toxicity from being a black market drug.) A trip sitter can clarify the faulty belief steering them back in a healthy direction. There are certain techniques to identify this. On the tripper's side of things, they have to be comfortable enough with the trip sitter to openly talk about things, and ofc have a good set and setting, which is also in part the trip sitters job.
trevyn 7y ago
I think an argument could be made that the sense of self is a psychological disorder.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Not if it is the baseline we measure against (which it is). Or if it has survival/performative utility (which it does).
  - proverbialbunny 7y ago
    How does it have a survival / performative advantage? You can, eg, protect the body from harm, without having a sense of self, which ties into survival.
    - doboyy 7y ago
      Basically allowing societies to function (people assuming roles, shame, and whatever). It should be of no surprise that a damaged sense of self often correlates with poor integration into a society.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - proverbialbunny 7y ago
        Roles, shame, and whatever doesn't sound like self. It sounds like cultural taboos and status within society. Neither of those are a sense of self. Also, countries that are more Buddhist (ones that have less sense of self) tend to be more community based cultures, so that doesn't correlate.
        doboyy 7y ago
        If status is not tied to a sense of self then I don't know what is. You mentioned in another comment that the skills you've learned are not you (roles?). They are just things you have. You've just said that identifying these roles as an abstraction is an essential part of understanding the self. All of these things increase order in a society, and therefore, survival value. This is what I was responding to. I didn't say that more of a sense of self, whatever that means, makes more community based cultures.
gpvos 7y ago
DP/DR = depersonalization/derealization disorder (I assume)

nefitty 7y ago

Alan Watts wrote: > “Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen.” What message, if any, were you looking for during your psychedelic explorations? Did you receive it?

coldtea 7y ago
>What message, if any, were you looking for during your psychedelic explorations? I just wanted to get stoned out of my head, and see some weird colors and shit man. >Did you receive it? Oh, yeah. (I'm a little snarky here about the whole coming into psychedelics looking for some "message", and seeing that you receive it too).
derpherpsson 7y ago
The experience of ego-softening, or even complete ego-death, is something that some psychedelics bring to their users. LSD, mushrooms and especially DMT does this. Many normal humans will not know that this experience is even possible, or might dismiss it straight off as humbo jumbo. (Many drug users that did the drugs just for fun will get this as a sort of surprise gift. Sometimes they dismiss it despite having experienced it, sadly.) Once one have experienced this a couple of times, it is possible to learn whereto steer the mind during normal meditation. It is possible, although it requires skill, to come there with normal sober meditation.

solveit 7y ago

Have you read Scott's recent article on what people report "enlightenment" feels like? If so, how did you relate to it?

precisioncoder 7y ago

Something I'm surprised hasn't come up yet is the ability to flex... "something" in your brain and turn hallucinations on and off. I grew up in a Buddhist family and was meditating since an early age. I'm not sure if this was related at all but since I was young I could look at things when I was bored and do something in my brain that would cause the patterns to move. If I then needed to concentrate I could focus and it would go away. I did some research and found out that there is a common effect with meditators that they can meditate while on drugs in order to mitigate or in some cases even deactivate some of the effects. So if you want to experiment it might be good to learn a bit so you have an extra tool to work with your mind while you're altering it. YMMV of course.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jokowueu 7y ago
Fascinating thank you for sharing . Never heard of this
aphextim 7y ago
This came naturally for me although I'm sure the technique is not as refined as someone who practices it a lot. When I first tried this I noticed that the hallucinations were very similar to those old magic eye books. https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eye-New-Looking-World/dp/0836270061 https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eye-New-Looking-World/dp/083627... In those books you relax and are able to see the image through the chaos. The same can be said for when you are on these types of drugs, or at least for me personally. When I was able to relax and let my mind go, the hallucinations and visuals would come at a greater intensity. If I needed to, I was able to snap out of it by focusing my mind on the moment and tangible reality in front of me. When I was leading a few people on their first experience I explained this to them, that if they are unable to relax and let go, the visuals would not come as quickly or be as intense. Do not be afraid, relax and let go and if needed you can ground yourself back if you have a decent mind and didn't take an amount larger than you can handle.
dejawu 7y ago
I honestly don't remember exactly where, but I was reading a wiki for psychonauts once and it provided a scale for the potency of a dose (e.g. No effect, threshold, etc) and the metric they used was the observer's ability to consciously resist the effects of the drug - kind of like when you're drunk or stoned and try to "force" yourself to sober up.

nwellnhof 7y ago

> I also didn't experience anything like that with psilocin (mushrooms). A guy once told me that he was suffering from a severe form of HPPD for months. It was slowly driving him crazy, but the symptoms disappeared immediately after he consumed psilocybin.

IAmGraydon 7y ago

Derealization/depersonalization (known as DPDR) is a defense mechanism against painful sensory input - typically fear and/or anxiety. You brain sort of attenuates the external world and goes inside itself like a turtle that thinks it’s in danger. The state normally occurs in response to dangerous or traumatic situations (you often hear about out of body experiences in these situations), but particularly traumatic experiences (often from hallucinogens, abuse, war, etc) can cause a sort of sensitization that makes DPDR chronic.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]