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LSD: My Life-Saving Drug

• stevebmark 11y ago
  lol@adblock block trend for time wasting articles
  • employeee 11y ago
    shut up nigger
• _rc 11y ago
  For those who want to bypass the modal, you can type this in the javascript console: document.getElementById("abnm").remove();
  • bigDS 11y ago
    Readability also works: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readability/oknpjjbmpnndlpmnhmekjpocelpnlfdi?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readability/oknpjj...
• danharaj 11y ago
  It's a tired cliche to share one's fundamentally incommunicable drug experiences in the comments when the topic comes up, is it not? Let's have a go at it. The author paints an image of conflict between himself on lsd, and himself off lsd. Himself the perceiver, and himself the analyzer. I don't think these are integral to the experience. He mentions perceptions like '...the notion of “teetering” was meaningless too—I was on both sides of the precipice at once'. I can identify this dissolution of boundaries and commingling of opposites in my own experiences. If you try to interpret the experience in terms of dichotomies and distinctions, your words will be inadequate to describe it. The inadequacy of such understanding might agitate you. There is something here for the analytical mind to gain too: learning to coexist with uncertainty, doubt, paradox, and mystery and yet keep going and keep analyzing. You don't have to lose your head on LSD, but you'll find in the deepest places that there is no distinction at all between the analyzer and the dreamer. In regular old life, too, I believe that distinctions, drawing a line between 'this' and 'that' can be as much a handicap to understanding as an aid. Distinctions tell things apart, but unity and continuity are as integral to reality as difference and change. The wholeness of being engendered by psychedelic experiences is difficult to describe because distinctions are the easy aspect of language, and wholeness the difficult. True ugliness and true beauty walk hand in hand in that strange place. It does one well to let go of the distinction between good and bad when one is on a trip. Forcing it won't help though. "Have you ever tried to relax? It is a paradox!" I read Laozi for the first time at the end of a "bad" trip. It was a joy. To this day, it is the only text that makes perfect sense to me in the waking world and that other world, the world of dreams. That was my last trip. I wonder how the next one will be, when the time, place, and person are right for it?
  • EC1 11y ago
    What by Laozi did you read?
    • taurath 11y ago
      I assume the Tao Te Ching
    • danharaj 11y ago
      Dao De Jing. I read then Ursula Le Guin's rendition. since then i have also read Waley's translation and fragments of some others. i would say that reading widely and thoughtfully a variety of interpretations is worthwhile. The only 'layman' interpretation i find satisfactory is Le Guin's, but perhaps that is nostalgiac bias? I find other unscholarly attempts to be a bit vague and artificially 'mystical'. Scholarly translations are great because they really try to put the work in context and preserve its delicate meanings. That's rather important considering that the text, like many ancient writings has been corrupted through transmission and interpolation, and translation is fundamentally lossy.
      • carapace 11y ago
        The translation by Jonathan Star to me to be pretty good.
  • bonoboTP 11y ago
    "Have you ever tried to relax? It is a paradox!" No, it's not. Anger management is possible. (Often other emotions as well).
    • gerbilly 11y ago
      My take: you are both right. 1) "It is a paradox": Relaxation is not the absence of anger, relaxation is the abandonment of stress. Stress is the clinging resistance to things as they are. You can't "try to relax" because trying implies dissatisfaction with your un-relaxed state, and dissatisfaction is stress. You can only relax fully by not worrying about whether you are relaxed or not. 2) "Anger mgt is possible" : strong emotions, even positive ones, also cause disturbance. Disturbance is a form of stress. So to relax, one has to first learn to deal with emotions. Not to say you have to try to get rid of emotions, which would make them stronger, but to find a way to experience them without struggle. Once that is achieved then you can relax. But more subtly in order to relax, one does have to begin by first being dissatisfied with stress, which is itself stressful, but if this dissatisfaction is used skillfully it can help lead to relaxation. :-) So, in order to fully relax, one has to engineer disturbances that are less stressful than the stress you are trying to eliminate, and to modify your approach as you go. It also gets complicated because there are feedback loops in the system. Manipulating one thing, brings up another thing to deal with etc...
• colordrops 11y ago
  > When a freak brain hemorrhage struck out of nowhere a couple of years ago, I became a little depressed, stuck in a rut, and strangely fearful of death. So when I heard about people (in my neighborhood, even) using hallucinogens to push beyond their preoccupations, to help them live without fear, I decided that was a trip I had to take. Ironically, I had a bad trip on LSD where I thought I had a brain hemorrhage, and the experience damaged me for years.
  • edpichler 11y ago
    I believe on you. I read the those bad trips can be really bad. Using LSD when you are depressed is dangerous.
    • danharaj 11y ago
      It's a shame to see this comment in gray. You're right. It's not as if LSD has an intent to be therapeutic. It's a molecule that primes a brain for strange experiences. There's no reason why those experiences have to be good. They can be terrible.
  • deleted 11y ago
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  • jwdunne 11y ago
    Funnily enough, it's possible to have such experiences on a trip that is otherwise very positive. I panicked a few times that I may have severed my genitalia and been unable to feel it due to LSD - my partner was helpful in calming me down and making the experience truly great. It can definitely understand why it can be so damaging.
  • kahoon 11y ago
    How did it damage you? Did you continue to think you had a brain hemorrhage even after you became sober or was it "just" very traumatizing while it lasted?
    • colordrops 11y ago
• kurage 11y ago
  LSD helped me significantly; it alleviated my ADHD symptoms, and helped me get over my substance dependency issues over few low dose trips. Psilocybin helped bring clarity, motivation in my life, love for nature, and helped purge out some negative emotions by crying. Ayahuasca has been the most therapeutic; it allowed me to revisit very early childhood memories I've completely forgotten about, which later helped my interactions with my family and friends. It also showed me why I was born, which helped give me a sense of direction, purpose in life. Forever grateful for psychedelics and the guides that help facilitate a safe space.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • kendallpark 11y ago
    > it alleviated my ADHD symptoms What ADHD symptoms did it alleviate?
    • kurage 11y ago
      Bumping into objects, living in my head all day, failure to follow up on appointments, messy room, always lost things, moved around constantly, and more.
      • askafriend 11y ago
        How did it affect these things? I have a hard time imagining how it could all of a sudden fix ADHD symptoms like that.
        • fuzzywalrus 11y ago
          Never underestimate the placebo effect.
          • adrusi 11y ago
            I think it's important not to understate the importance of placebo in the effects, but psychedelics can lead you to confront the problems in your life in a way that you simply can't otherwise. These confrontations can be so profound and emotional that they leave a permanent impact on you. If you wrestle with the problems in your life, identify them as caused by ADHD symptoms, and commit to solve them while on LSD, you'll end up being very motivated to solve them. This experience can be as impactful as when people "find god" while struggling through something and then finally find the willpower to overcome it. Actually it can be more impactful; consider that a psychedelic user perceives that they are meeting with God and God is directly telling them what they need to change and how they need to do it, while the born-again Christian has only thoroughly convinced himself that his own will is actually God's will instilled within him, via faith. The psychedelic experience is much more powerful and much less fragile than the religious experiences that we are used to hearing about helping people through hardships. And ADHD is a condition whose effects can be entirely overcome through willpower.
• whistlerbrk 11y ago
  There is a lot going on in this article and I won't comment on all of it. I'll just address people who are perhaps curious about psychedelics. May I highly suggest that those wishing to experiment with psychedelics do it only in a place where you feel absolutely safe. That is, no risk of police, parents (if that is an issue), or neighbours to bother you. Additionally and I do think this is very important: in nature. Not in Times Square. When done right and with the right people it can be a truly profound experience which I firmly firmly believe all humans should participate in. I've heard just as many people though turned off to them permanently though through bad experiences which I (who am likely biased) chalk up to bad settings. I'd also say properly grown mushrooms may be a better option for most people. Finally, maybe mixing drugs isn't the best thing to do either.
  • cnp 11y ago
    I would like to add that the safest set and setting is your own own home, with a sitter. There's simply no substitute for it if you're just getting started. Call a friend up and ask; trip sitting is fun! Save nature for later, when you're familiar.
    • mvanvoorden 11y ago
      The times we did it, some parties excluded, we started inside, and then moved to the outside whenever we felt like. Nature is awesome, especially pine forests.
      • cnp 11y ago
        This is typically my routine. Make sure everything is all good, then embark :)
  • selestify 11y ago
    How do you go about obtaining such things if none of your friends do it either?
    • eric001 11y ago
• deleted 11y ago
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• mempko 11y ago
  I'm a bit unusual here. I have never taken any drugs. I don't drink alcohol. I am also not judgmental. There is the concept of the waking dream. That we are always in a dream which keeps being guided by our senses. Where the mind corrects the dream based on what we feel, see, and hear. Psychedelics seem to break this process. When people say they have "Profound" experiences, do they mean they finally understand this? This sense of wholeness. Reading the experiences people have had, I feel I have had similar ones through meditation. Maybe these drugs are just a shortcut.
  • SN76477 11y ago
    LSD and similar drugs somehow change your reality. In a way that nothing else seems to.
  • gnaritas 11y ago
    > Maybe these drugs are just a shortcut. That's exactly what they are. Few people reach through meditation what these drugs can show anyone, but meditation will get you there as well, perhaps with more control.
    • coldtea 11y ago
      "More control" though might be missing the point.
    • Jach 11y ago
      I'm still skeptical. I suspect meditation can give something similar, but not the same, as something like heroin, just like running can get you a "runner's high". But the brain just can't produce arbitrary chemical formulas. A fun passage from http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2011/07/dispatches-from-real-america.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2011/07/dispatc... "The serious heroin aficionado, if still functional, lives his junkie life surrounded by poor dumb muggles who believe they're getting "high on life." Bullshit! High is spelled heroin. Your muggle can't even imagine high. It's like trying to explain electricity to a blind man."
      • 11y ago
• ha8o8le 11y ago
  Weird that he titled it "my life saving drug" and went on to say it really didn't do much for him, much less get anywhere near saving his life...
  • alanh 11y ago
    He or his editor probably did so merely for the acronym (L.ife S.aving D.rug). Not very cool
• purplerabbit 11y ago
  //my experience var self = (function LSD(self) { if (self) { return { ontology: new Ontology(), ego: null } } else return self })(former_self) edit: spacing. But seriously though, LSD can encourage/force you to re-think things you've taken for granted or never really understood. Like what time is, or how empathy works.
  • lostgame 11y ago
    bloody brilliant
  • Ygg2 11y ago
    So its basically just like dealing with bureaucracy? Reduces your ego to null and forces you to rethink things you've taken for granted, while contemplating your existence within rules of it.
    • purplerabbit 11y ago
      That's an interesting comparison... Definitely some merit to it. The difference with LSD is that the rethinking occurs on more of a physical level than a social one.
  • fukusa 11y ago
    Just return self, no else, no?
    • purplerabbit 11y ago
      Valid.
• s_q_b 11y ago
  Steve Jobs famously commented on Gates, "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." Psychedelics aren't for me, personally, due to anxiety, but they are fascinating. Jobs also rated LSD as "one of the two or three most important experiences of my life." His experimentation with drugs is well-documented in his SF-86 (USG security clearance form), since he knew no matter what he said they had to clear him. The whole document is kind of hilarious. Imagine Steve Jobs sitting across from Federal agents explaining a traffic arrest for his driving antics, and talking to them about acid blotters.
  • cjslep 11y ago
    Lots of people's drug histories are in the SF-86 and got clearances. The Fed would rather you be truthful on the form and say "never again" than lie. Lying on that form is the best way to not get a clearance, let alone a host of other consequences.
    • s_q_b 11y ago
      Oh, I know. Ironically enough, Bill Gates actually did take LSD as well and obtained a TS. But the story of Jobs' clearance is especially funny. Remember, this is the same Steve Jobs that only ate fruit for years, didn't often wear shoes, put his feet up on other people's desks, refused to put a license plate on his car, parked in handicapped spaces, and was generally an anti-authority hippie his entire life. It's fun to imagine him being grilled by the CSS. That said, don't falsify a clearance document. It's a Federal crime, for starters. But the most severe typical consequence you'll face is having it committed to your clearance record forever. So if you lie on say a Secret clearance application form, there's no way in hell you're getting a TS/SCI. You can absolutely get a clearance with past history of criminal behavior and drug use, provided sufficient time has elapsed and you've demonstrated reform. Just don't lie.
  • robotresearcher 11y ago
    > Psychedelics aren't for me, personally, due to anxiety That's a tricky one. They can be very helpful for anxiety and obsessive disorders. Getting a whack with the chemistry stick can help you settle into a better place. But it's not ideal to go in afraid, no doubt. The cultural terror of drugs comes and goes over time and at some moments we can actually have real discussions and research. I hope we're swinging around to that again. I hope you find something non-chemical that helps you.
• RangerScience 11y ago
  The Five S's: (S)ource: Know where you got your stuff from, so you know it's what you think it is (S)elf: Know yourself, what you need to be comfortable and have a good time, what your demons are and how to deal with them (S)ubtance: Know what you're taking; dosage, duration, effects and side effects. (S)etting: The place you are when you take it. Put some thought into it! (S)set: The place your mind is when you take it. Your intention for the experience. Your internal setting. Tripper 101: Bad trips happen because you get stuck in a bad place inside your head. Want something to change? Change something else. Easiest thing to change? Where you are physically and the music (or ambient sound) that is playing. Reality Mantra: Cars are hard, fire is hot, and if you think you can fly, start from the ground!
• hackercomplex 11y ago
  For all you fraidy cats read about "micro dosing" there is a whole community around it with some fascinating observations.
• pakled_engineer 11y ago
  I did a ridiculous amount of LSD made by Nicholas Sand in the 90s and never had a bad trip. I did it in the worst possible settings due to idiocy of youth and all is good. Don't take too much if you've never done it, and stay away from traffic and you'll be fine. I didn't have any profound experiences, it was just fun to do. I did liquid and blotters, started at two doubles, then over time usually two "quads" which is 8 hits of insane quality Sand produced acid. It was way too much but I was never out of control, when it got crazy I just thought wow this shit is great. I did however always get sick whenever I tried Shrooms, that was pretty awful tripping and puking at the same time.
• kalzium 11y ago
  Somehow I have the feeling that psychedelics are still kind of glorified - mostly by creative people - and I can tell you all people are different. People's brains are all wired differently. Because they all went through different things in their lives. While it might help some, others might actually be left traumatized and with horrible flashbacks! Hacking your brain isn't easy! It happened to me as a teenager. I had troubles concentrating, chalk boards would melt around teachers, trains coming in as snakes hissing, swallowing and spitting out people... at some point it stopped, but it surely wasn't always that enjoyable being "stuck" on a trip and feeling like moving through a dimension between dream and reality constantly. I mostly didn't care back then and thought it was kind of entertaining. But I know now that I have some mental issues and LSD actually amplified the symptoms. So if you find yourself on the autistic scale and you're feeling depressed - probably better keep away from LSD... Your head is already so busy - try to do something more productive instead. ;) Have to admit it was super interesting, but it left me with more bad effects than good in the end!
  • stared 11y ago
    Depression is a big no (and other "demons"). But for autistic scale - experience of synesthesia is on the opposite edge. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/magic-mushroom-brain/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/magic-mushroom-brain/ Though, the "lack of control" needs to be addressed before starting adventure. I agree that "hacking one's brain" is not for everyone, and its better to be safe than sorry.
• artur_makly 11y ago
  and for those who seek the most purist trip and healing that blows away lsd or any other kind of artificially lab created chemical.. try ayahuasca. its the ulimate nuetropic and journey you can take. 2 nights ago i had My First #Ayahuasca Experience. The Quick Post Mortem - 10yrs of therapy.. in 1 night. - 2x more energy. - full chacras alignment - 3x more focus - 3x less stress - a more positive attitude - 100x more confidence - deep sense of gratitude - mega bursts of creative non-linear thinking - less physical pain ( stemming from long-term computer use ) - awareness & empathy ( which is hard for me being a lonely child ) - due to the pre-diet prep..i've now finally become vegan.
  • coldtea 11y ago
    >full chacras alignment You know that that is mumbo jumbo BS, right?
    • marshray 11y ago
      It means something important to him, whether he conveys the idea perfectly or not to us in this post.
      • coldtea 11y ago
        >It means something important to him Well, isn't that true for anyone believing in mumbo jumbo? Shouldn't truth be even more important?
        • csorrell 11y ago
          If you think of "chakra talk" as a particular dialect some people use to communicate where their emotional and mental state is at, you can hear the truth of what they are trying to say.
          • coldtea 11y ago
            How about they adopt an everyday dialect that's not choke-full of metaphysics and New Age scents?
• codeshaman 11y ago
  I know I'm not alone thinking that psychedelics might just be the solution (or key to finding solutions) to a lot of humanity's issues, including climate change, fundamentalism, war.. And it's easy to understand why - because most of humanity's issues are consequences of the spiritual health of every individual living on the planet. If the group, as a whole, is spiritually and morally lost or deceived, things like wars, dictatorships or disregard for nature can and do take place. If psychedelics can heal individuals, then we can eventually heal the whole of society, which is the proverbial moving on to the next level of global consciousness. Without any kind of real data, instinctively I feel like the world is going through an explosion of psychedelic use, partly due to music festivals, partly due to dark markets and partly due to the good press and incredible amounts of information available online. Another interesting aspect is that the users who experienced a powerful personal transformation often feel the need to spread the word and rightfully come to treat them as sacraments. So I think more and more people will use them, which will hopefully lead us to a peaceful, healthy future. AI, VR, Robots, Space exploration and Psychedelics .. Interesting times indeed.
  • fido68 11y ago
    It's interesting that this isn't anything new, it all together began in the sixties (source: http://fredturner.stanford.edu/books/from-counterculture-to-cyberculture/ http://fredturner.stanford.edu/books/from-counterculture-to-...) and we're only now getting there, with lots of caveats.
  • mercer 11y ago
    I wish I could share your optimism, but I'm afraid that while global increase in psychedelic use might bring some measurable improvement, it probably won't be too much, and definitely not enough. The main problems I see is that 1) the use of psychedelics is a bit of a shortcut, and as such perhaps deceptively ineffective for long-term change (in contrast to, say, daily meditation), and 2) humans seem to be really good at always returning to some base-line of behavior, and I suspect that this applies equally to 'enlightenment'. This might explain the first point as well. I only need to look at my friends and extended social circle(s) to see how relatively little their frequent use of psychedelics had on them. The ones where it seemed to have most effect were people who treated it as a more meaningful (and/or spiritual) experience, and especially those who changed aspects of their daily life through this. Whenever someone brings up Steve Jobs, for example, and his mention of LSD as life-changing, my immediate thought is: 'yeah, but he also lived in an stark, empty house, was spiritually 'active' (don't remember what exactly, some buddhist movement), and went as far as changing his diet and not going to a doctor when he should have. Clearly it wasn't just the LSD, but an entire way of living to go along with that. I'm afraid that if the use of psychedelics becomes a cultural norm, we'll just give it a small place in our lives where it can do little harm and is defanged of it's power. Like a nice rite of passage to go through before you get back to 'real life'.
• jsmeaton 11y ago
  I started to get nervous. I liked my brain the way it was. I mean, there were some pretty big issues there... but I didn’t want a new one. I had no interest, for example, in leaving my wife. A friend had told me a story about a couple who’d done ayahuasca and had an epiphany that they should get divorced, then took a second dose the same weekend and had an epiphany that they should stay together. What if they’d stopped after the first trip? I find myself having similar thoughts whenever I talk or think about having similar experiences. I've had small doses of mushrooms and LCD before which were a combination of good and ok experiences. DMT terrifies me for the reasons above. I like how I'm wired for the most part. I also know that I can have (and have had) some very bad experiences, even just with weed. I had a close friend that experimented with a few things I'd like to not say, and it changed his life profoundly for a long time, and still impacts him today 3 or 4 years later. The changes, for the most part, were mostly not good (from my perspective). I would say that he "lost his mind" for at least a couple of months. But he also made some changes that were absolutely positive. I'd like to see what all the fuss is about. But do I need to? Will life as I know it survive? For the moment I'm not seeking this experience out. I feel like if it comes to me in the right setting I'll likely participate, but until then, I'll sit on the sidelines and hope for the research (and laws) to improve.
• peter303 11y ago
  I belive there are some psychologists doing therapy with some of these drugs. Perhaps a guide could be useful. Tim Leary started that way.
• such_a_casual 11y ago
  All I will say about this topic is never try new drugs when you're drunk, never.
  • throwaway_2016 11y ago
    Truth. Although the problem is that you have to maintain enough executive function when drunk to prevent yourself from ingesting a drug. Easier said than done.
• throwaway_2016 11y ago
  I love LSD, and I've done a few (<10) full trips in my youth. But as I've gotten older that kind of intense experience just doesn't have the same appeal. One thing my friends and I have discovered is the pleasantness of micro-dosing. Put 1 tab of acid in 4 tablespoons of water, mix it a bit, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then each person takes a tablespoon. In about 45 minutes it comes on but it's not strong at all. No hall of mirrors effect, no out-of-control feeling, just 4 hours of laughing and a heightened sense of being in tune with your surroundings. Highly recommended.
  • roddux 11y ago
    The only issue I have with microdosing is getting a reasonably accurate measurement. The first time I tried it, a friend an I unintentionally dosed (with liquid, not tabs) to what we now estimate was ~700ug... Not quite what we were expecting for a first time!
• dineshp2 11y ago
  I feel research into psychedelic drugs needs to be conducted a lot more. There may be many applications of psychedelic drugs in treating various medical conditions, and only by understanding how psychedelic drugs work can we begin thinking about it's applications. Personally though, I feel we shouldn't be promoting the use of psychedelic drugs for recreational purposes in any form(such as commenting how awesome the experience of using LSD was) and especially not in public forums.
• leroy_masochist 11y ago
  Does anyone here have experience with ibogaine? A close friend recently went to Mexico to do ibogaine therapy and she says it's changed her life, mostly for the better. They have actual clinics in Mexico where they hook you up to an IV of the drug (oral ingestion problematic for whatever reason) and assign you a trip-sitter who has two jobs: for the first hour or two, when the drug makes you ill in an ayahuasca-like way, they help you get through it, go to and from the bathroom, etc. For the second part, which lasts around eight hours, the trip-sitter just hangs out and chats with you. According to my friend, it was an emotionally much deeper journey than ayahuasca, with much more pronounced long-term results. Evidently it gets rid of a lot of your deep-seated emotional and psychological issues (specifically, she says she's parted with "a shitload of petty little grudges against random people"), but it also, as she puts it, "takes all of your armor off". For example she reports that aggressive drivers used to be a source of mild amusement, but now she gets very saddened and anxious when another driver gives her the finger and refuses to let her change lanes.
• jordanbaucke 11y ago
  "In ten years, he believes, psilocybin will be reclassified a Schedule II drug; there will be clinical centers, equipped with trained and certified guides, around the country. This is his life’s mission—not only to get to the bottom of why psychedelic therapy works wonders but to legitimize it as a viable treatment." I think that quote was the most meaningful part of this article for me, declassifying / rescheduling drugs that are currently relegated to the "Scheduled 1/No accepted medical use", and the DEA almost NEVER granting research permits, not only creates unnecessary criminal felons in the United States, it has a second harm of suppressing research into as-yet unknown presumptive medically beneficial aspects of these substances.
• sova 11y ago
  perfect people perfect music perfect environs perfect trips
• sova 11y ago
  perfect people perfect music perfect environs perfect trips
• aaroninsf 11y ago
  Obligatory erowid.org plug... if you're curious, no better place to start. ITT: a lot of 100% accurate suggestion that understanding the concept of 'set and setting' is invaluable when experimenting with altered states...!
• hatchback176 11y ago
  Pfft, why should I feel guilty about openly advocating everyone use LSD anymore than advocating everyone learn how to drive knowing automobile accidents kills some huge number of people?
• imperio59 11y ago
  Drugs are bad. LSD has long-lasting effects not to be dismissed lightly. Best to stay away. See all the stories of people never recovering. It's not worth "trying it once" and ruining the rest of your life. Get some facts about LSD: http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/lsd.html http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/lsd.html
  • jaredandrews 11y ago
    People are probably assuming you are trolling and don't feel any need to explain the flagging. But... drugfreeworld is probably one of the last places to find facts about LSD or any drug. I would encourage you to read the wikipedia entry about the organiztion behind the site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_a_Drug-Free_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_a_Drug-Free_Wor... Almost everything on that site is misinformation, and no sources are ever cited. There is certainly danger associated with the use of any drugs but misinformation and fear mongering are not the way to go.
• timonv 11y ago
  From a culture where drugs aren't very much taboo (Dutch), I'm very interested in the (scientific) positive effects of hallucinogens. There seems to be more and more research going on in this, for many taboo, field with very interesting observations. Here's a great article (of a series) from 2014 which hovers over several researches in the years prior and covers some essential history: http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/05/19/44178/psychedelic-science-the-surge-in-psychiatric-resea/ http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/05/19/44178/psychedelic-scienc... What sets me off hard on this article is that the writer hallucinated from hash. I suppose anyone can have an off-the-charts response, but I've never seen anyone hallucinate from it. It's also rather striking how much of a 'hero' story this is. Started as a 'typical busy guy', 'struck by lightning', 'fear of death', 'start of epic quest', 'triumphed by wonder potion'. It's all so perfect. Maybe I'm just paranoid, and I applaud any (including this) discussion of taboos, but I can't help but feeling skeptic about the genuinity of this article.
  • soylentcola 11y ago
    > What sets me off hard on this article is that the writer hallucinated from hash. I suppose anyone can have an off-the-charts response, but I've never seen anyone hallucinate from it. I guess it depends on your definition of "hallucinate". I don't know anyone who's had the sort of obvious visual hallucinations associated with many psychedelics but plenty of people (myself included) have experienced mild auditory hallucinations and strong distortions in the perception of time and physical movement under the influence of a strong dose of cannabis.
  • cnp 11y ago
    Walter Benjamin's On Hashish might be a good place to start: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674022218 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674022218 This subject is extensive. Hashish can be extraordinarily psychedelic.
• edem 11y ago
  Please note that I can't read the article with an adblocker enabled and offers to read it for 45$. Nonsense. Luckily you can hide the popup using Stylebot by hiding the #abnm overlay.
  • soylentcola 11y ago
    For reference it worked fine for me with uBlock Origin enabled.
• blazespin 11y ago
  "When a freak brain hemorrhage struck out of nowhere .. I was not new to hallucinogens; in fact, I’d experimented with all manner of drugs in my youth." Out of nowhere, indeed. Doing drugs is not a harmless activity, folks.
• cdvonstinkpot 11y ago
  If anyone with pets does proceed to trip- DON'T PET YOUR CAT!!! It seeps from your pores & gets on their fur. They'll groom themselves & have a HELL of a bad trip. Then their liver will fail & they'll die a miserable death.
  • wheatbin 11y ago
    Thank you for this advice. To others: please upvote.
  • Blaque 11y ago
    That smells like bull. Source ?
  • danneu 11y ago
    The kind of bullshit you can find in the comments section on a post about acid.
• triplesec 11y ago
  For those new to psychedelics and data on interesting ingestion, go to www.erowid.org
• tezza 11y ago
  Before anyone rushes to try LSD or increase your dose significantly, please do your research[1]. Please speak to people who have used it (like me) and can assess how you personally will handle it. I will say LSD is a broad-sword drug and should be used with care. It is not playful. It will last as long as the dose, which may be longer than you had planned to trip. Generally only sleep will stop you tripping, and if you are tripping hard, you will not e able to sleep. One does not 'sober up' like beer. A lot of the effects depend on your personality, id, self confidence and any bad experiences you may have locked inside. Your biological reaction may be the lesast of concerns. LSD takes you on a journey, and you may not come the same person. It may give you a bad-trip, where your worst fears and memories manifest x 1000. I have seen many stable friends flip out, even when having the same dose in the same environment. Always have supportive straight friends who understand each time you are experimenting. Bear in mind you may be up for 36 hours as a result and they need to lead their normal lives. LSD starts as a liquid. Eating a drop or two is sometimes is how you take it. But frequently that liquid is dropped with an eye-dropper onto cardboard. This cardboard is perforated and torn into tiny squares. Roughly one drop per square [also called a Tab of Acid ]. But there you go. 1. How concentrated is the liquid acid? 2. How much was put onto the little square? 3. How long ago was this all made? 4. How accurate was the (illegal) chemist who made the LSD in the first place? I will say that one TINY drop of acid is enough to make you trip for 24 hours. And on the square of cardboard the LSD is not necessarily evenly distributed, so a corner of the square can be where 90% of the active ingredient is. The effects vary wildly: Some LSD is quite visual, some has almost no visuals but plenty of mind-messing. All of these factors combine to mean it is EXTREMELY difficult for anyone to estimate what a low dose is. Especially someone experimenting for the first few times. Please research carefully, and if you still decide to experiment, ensure you are in a safe environment with understanding people. ------- "I've read that if you take an extremely low dose it's non-psychotic but still has a number of positive cognitive effects" Non-psychotic depends a lot on who-you-are: not the dose. I don't know you, and further I don't know anyone else reading this in the future. Depending on the type of person you are, you could flip out badly on any dose. LSD can unleash things inside you. People who you love... you may see them as snakes/undead. You may see your face melt off. More importantly you will feel horrified when this happens. It takes a lot of training to overcome the horror (if it happens). I am not going to give the green light for experimentation with something that has such power when the downsides are so grim. All my friends who flipped out were sold on the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds version of events. But the variability of the ingredients, their situation and their personality sometimes made it awful. ----------------------------- [1] This is from my 2009 HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654676 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=655559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=655559
• exodust 11y ago
  Beware of NBOMes. Only discovered in 2003, these cheap, fake substances are commonly sold as LSD. Prior to this, a tab of acid couldn't be substituted with an imposter substance. Now it can. I'd be getting a testing kit, along with trusting your source and all the other sensible checks. NBOMes won't kill you but they are not without risk. High dosages not recommended. They are not LSD and should never be sold as LSD. I didn't read the whole article but anyone writing about LSD today should warn against NBOMes.