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Communicating with people on psychedelics
- S_A_P 11y agoFrom some of my past experience, I am skeptical. I think they make assumptions about what people will and wont see that just arent correct.
- bmelton 11y agoI suspect that they're right for certain brains on certain types of LSD, but as someone who once had a pipeline to the stuff, there are many different formulations that produce dramatically different effects. Distinctly, I remember watching Mars Attacks in theaters (which should date the experience) on what was promised to be a "special" blend... how it was special, I have no idea, but the visualizations were very unique. In lieu of the strobe effect this article discusses, everything instead morphed. When someone turned their head, for example, my eyes (brain?) saw their head briefly in both positions (with no gaps), and then they morphed from the first position into the second position, its path being trailed by a ghost of their heads. It was unique, different, and I've never had another experience like it. Perhaps there was something in the mix that wasn't purely LSD, I honestly don't know, but from my (admittedly naive) understanding, not every trip produces the same effects as every other.
- ZeroFries 11y agoWhat do you mean by "types of LSD". It's one chemical, no?
- bmelton 11y agoI mean "types" more like I might say "types of water". Sure, there's only one real water, and whether there's lemon added, or if it's filtered through limestone, it technically bears a different configuration (now making it water with lemon, or water with limestone). That said, LSD is (to my experience) rarely concocted at pharmaceutical grade. Different concentrations, different configurations, different additives lead to different outputs, each of which we might all refer to as LSD colloquially, but which are all effectively "water, with a hint of lemon", or whatever else, moreso than LSD-25 vs. something else.
- pantalaimon 11y agoThere are not many chemicals active in the μg range, let alone when they are only present in traces. With psychedelics dose and unknown environmental and psychological factors can lead to different effect, so there is no need to speculate about a different chemical composition. I'd be careful when talking about 'different kinds of LSD' because while there are indeed various other Lysergamides that produce analogues effects, most of the time you are more likely to get something that is not LSD at all (e.g. NBOMe) when talking about 'different kinds' of LSD.
- mattdeboard 11y agoAgreed.
- empath75 11y agoI don't know how they'll get their message past the machine elves from dimension 9 that also communicate with people on LSD.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- notthegov 11y agoDMT is much different than LSD. I have never heard anyone talk about machine elves and LSD. DMT is a legitimate mystery of science and is not a drug in the traditional sense.
- rudolf0 11y agoIt's so odd how there's a near-universal reporting of small elf- or dwarf-like creatures from that drug. Is there any proposed mechanism of action for how it works?
- shredprez 11y agoPriming seems likely. Most experience reports I've read describe the "entities" as ineffable, so I have to think the language used by McKenna is more a cultural staple/fallback than a consistent hallucination unique to DMT.
- rudolf0 11y agoI'm sure that contributes to a lot of it, as well as experiences others have with harder drugs. But from my research, many people reported this experience without ever being aware that others have experienced it. I think there must be some factor unique to DMT that can create experiences like this.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- imesh 11y ago
- sqlftw 11y agoMany years ago I tried LSD, and for whatever reason, I never seemed to experience visual hallucinations. However, in recent years, cars have started having LED tail lights, which really bother my eyes. Several times I have asked my friends, "Aren't those terrible!?" to which they might reply, "They are pretty bright." Bright! They aren't just too bright, they are intensely STROBING! Can normal people not see that? Is this the flashback I was promised?
- 8d7a8 11y agoI have had rainbow halos around street and car headlights since my early twenties. I first noticed it whilst tripping and have yet to determine whether the cause is physical or mental. Looks pretty though.
- DanBC 11y agoYou noticed a change in your vision and you didn't go get it checked?
- Tiksi 11y agoI've had that for as long as I can remember, I'm pretty sure its a light reflection/refraction kinda thing.
- chillingeffect 11y agoA lot of that stuff is always there - just think of the hundreds of optical illusions that can be constructed! - but until it's connected with an emotional experience during a trip, the brain doesn't single it out. The effect that jumped out at me was focusing at a spot on the floor while standing up and turning. It creates the momentary impression of a spiral pattern in my perception. Especially with a dot-like pattern on the floor :) Also, if you like rainbow halos, you might also like Shock Diamonds: https://www.google.com/search?q=shock+diamonds&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4r5b2l47LAhXBFh4KHTq3D-gQ_AUICCgC https://www.google.com/search?q=shock+diamonds&source=lnms&t...
- leemoore 11y agoI've had something similar since at least my teens. At night if I look closely at streetlights, I see what looks to me like a magnetic field around streetlights. I don't think that's what I'm actually seeing, but that's what it looks like.
- tedmiston 11y agoIt would be interesting to hear more about the micro-dosing part. > Finally, we are currently experiencing a memetic explosion with regards to the use of micro-doses. .... A more noticeable enhancement would be observed on artists, writers and possibly mathematicians. It is genuinely exciting that there is a new wave of attention to this particular application of psychedelics: General, all-purpose life-enhancement.
- throwawayornot 11y ago"* LSD here is a shorthand for psychedelics in general."
- purplerabbit 11y agoThe tracing effect is specific to LSD and LSD-like compounds. Mescaline and DMT, for instance, have very different effects.
- ChristianBundy 11y agoYep, ergolines are known specifically for this behavior (although I've had similar experiences with psilocybin).
- elthran 11y agoInteresting idea - I wonder if this was investigated by the CIA during the MKUltra days?
- leemoore 11y agoI believe the main factor at play in the first pair of images, is that on LSD and other hallucinogens as well as intensive meditation is that there are little mind programs that run on our perception that smooth out reality for us. If you notice, even just sitting still we are constantly moving our head just a little, constantly moving our eyes. Without these programs, our visual field would seem far more jumpy and unstable. In certain states of consciousness, these smoothing programs can become intermittent, less effective or even completely disabled. Also, when mind rambling, chatter and perpetual loops stop, a greater amount detail can be seen and perceived through all senses. At higher and higher levels of perceptual resolution with our filters disabled and the smoothing programs down, you begin to notice that we don't perceive reality smoothly. We perceive it in tiny little frames. If you just watch the first picture, your mind isn't drawn to he frames. After looking for a bit at the second picture of the pair, suddenly you can start to see the frames of perception more clearly. It's simply a matter of learning to (or being tricked to) get past our habitual programs and filters to tune into a more fine grained perceptual reality happening. These observations come from my own experience with psychedelics in my 20's and extensive meditation practice including a number of longer meditation retreats.
- rudolf0 11y agoKind of like toggling "motion blur" on and off in a first-person shooter, I suppose? Or maybe more accurately "motion of other 3D objects" blur.
- choosername 11y agothat would rather be because of motor control issues, including inhibited feedback from the visual cortex or simply dry eyes but something about focus.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- GuiA 11y agoThis idea of reality being "passed through" multiple filters, and these filters being reduced or disabled on psychedelics, is developed (somewhat unscientifically) by Huxley in "The Doors of Perception"- it's a fairly good read. If I remember correctly, the main criticism against this is that if it were the case brain activity should be reduced, at least in some regions, when on psychedelics. However, observing people on psychedelics with fMRIs does not match with that.
- ryanlol 11y agoThis would be significantly easier to test if the author included a few more images.
- theboywho 11y agoHow about trying to apply the same logic for communicating with people with Synesthesia? As a synesthete myself, that was the first thought I had after reading this article. It would be interesting to see where this leads.
- ZeroFries 11y agoYou would have to find a synesthete with the same sensory cross-over to you, and hope you have a similar mapping of the senses, right? Aren't the mappings at least semi-individualistic? E.g. Person A sees red when looking at the number 42, Person B sees blue.
- Phemist 11y agoImagine the types of debugging tools you'd need to be able to finish a game like the one suggested in the article. They would necessarily need to encode transformations such as those that happen when taking LSD, compared to baseline sober people. Or of course, try and code while high..
- duaneb 11y agoRelated: gwern's study was pretty bad in a number of ways, most notably that it's unlikely the lsd was stored correctly, which will have a large effect on potency and make dosage much less meaningful as the test progresses. Furthermore, I think there's a lot to be said that the brain needs to be "trained" to make good uses of the drug, including microdoses—you might be able to recognize the effects better if you're already familiar with the doses at a strong level. However, this is completely spitballing. I'm eager to see proper medical/psychological testing with pharmacists maintaining dosage and administration.
- gwern 11y ago> Related: gwern's study was pretty bad in a number of ways, most notably that it's unlikely the lsd was stored correctly, which will have a large effect on potency and make dosage much less meaningful as the test progresses. It was stored fine. LSD will not self-destruct in days when stored in distilled water in a refrigerator. It will not even self-destruct after multiple decades in a jar. People store LSD in all sorts of forms for regular trips and it works fine, and somehow, people keep reporting positive microdose experiences regardless of how they sourced or stored their LSD...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- duaneb 11y agoYou were not in control of the drug before you took it. You have no idea what you took. the sample size is one (or arguably two). Are you saying that in spite of this, your experiment has any meaningful results? I have no idea why you're attempting to preserve the authenticity of your experiment when it had vanishingly few verifiable materials, effects, and samples. Your post has great value without attempting to draw results.
- 1812Overture 11y agoSounds like a great way to gaslight someone.
- ethanbond 11y agoWhich seems especially insidious to do to someone who's tripping. Holy shit.
- fomoz 11y agoPsychedelics aren't about pure visuals. They're more about meaning.
- ThrustVectoring 11y agoSame thing.
- indians_pro 11y agohow??
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago"Seeing" is the process of constructing meaning from the raw activation of the light receptors in your eyes. That's why optical illusions work. After all, it's simply patterns of ink on a page - why should you see things that seem impossible? It's because the image is designed to get your brain to construct a particular meaning out of the image.
- zardo 11y agoLSD's effect isn't limited to visual perception. One of the most common reported phenomenon is a sort of understanding of the connectedness of things. That may be a result of the reality that all things really are connected when they are stored as concepts in a network of neurons.
- ThrustVectoring 11y agoI'm well aware of that. What I'm getting at is that the same process that produces changes in how visual sense data gets interpreted also produces changes in how all your other sense data gets interpreted. This includes the sense data that introspection and narrative construction generates.
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- Franciscouzo 11y agoHere's a kinda related subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/replications/ https://www.reddit.com/r/replications/ 'The work submitted should seek to emulate the psychedelic experience as accurately as possible from a "first person" vantage point.'
- eip 11y agoReal heads just use telepathy.
- cubix 11y agoWhat I found most remarkable about my LSD experience were the auditory effects. It seemed like my hearing had been dramatically enhanced. I could readily pick out a conversation being held between two people standing a hundred feet away. Of course, that could just be an illusion, but I was curious if anyone had studied this phenomenon.
- logicallee 11y agoThe authors should get an Ig Nobel award for this. I mean, out of all the things to research... how to communicate secretly with someone who uses a decoding tool of a heavy psychedelic drug (instead of a decoder ring)...
- anigbrowl 11y agoEven more awesome is the idea that this technology can lead to the creation of a video-game that only people on psychedelics can understand and play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Giraffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Giraffe seems like a good candidate, though no for the reasons the author suggests. I usually suck on high speed videogames but I just kept endlessly running up a high score on Space Giraffe while my wife (who's way better than me at arcade games) sat there going 'but how are you playing? What's even going on?!'