19 ms·

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

by nefitty 11y ago

Pretty cool. I'd like to point out that meditation might have a similar dampening effect on the default mode network as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238 The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Finally, a quote from a letter to Osho: "Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy. I heard you say once that a lie is sweet in the beginning and bitter in the end, and truth is bitter in the beginning, and sweet in the end. I have been meditating, but I don't have the experiences people report from the drug ecstasy. Is the drug like the lie, and meditation the truth? Or am I missing something that could really help me?"

notthegov 11y ago
If you meditate for emotional stillness and spiritual depth, then there is no reason you can't seek happiness and awareness from a girlfriend or a psychedelic drug experience. Or from both at the same time. You could meditate alone for a thousand lifetimes and not experience love. Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. It can only show you glimpses. Whatever this world is, it is here for us to enjoy. Proclaiming the answer to enlightement is living an ascetic life without luxury items, smart attractive people or drugs of any kind is silly. "Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun." - Alan Watts (Obviously Osho didn't live an ascetic life. He meditated enough not to need MDMA but not Rolls-Royces.)
- taneq 11y ago
  > Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. Even if some people can experience psychedelic states through extensive meditation, that doesn't make their experience intrinsically better. They're chasing the same experience as someone who experiments with psychedelic drugs, but there always seems to be an irritating sense of smug superiority from people who do meditate.
  - tabooacct1 11y ago
    Meditation is a virtue signal, like jogging or being vegetarian. It also tends to go along with a sense of being on a cosmic path toward truth, beauty, and enlightenment...
    - taneq 11y ago
      Ugh, those people. I bet they think that "turbos don't make real horsepower" too.
      - saiya-jin 11y ago
        well, this is the topic of quality vs quantity, and most people including me prefer the former for obvious reasons
  - kr4 11y ago
    meditation is just like teaching yourself programming for years. after 10k hours of practice in either you can reach to a state of expertise. E.G., you can write any kind of software in your expertise with ease. Similarly you can repeat the same experience as per your wish (like traveling through different planes of existance, hering/seeing extra-dimensional stuff and much more). Taking drug to experience the state is like throwing yourself onto the source code without any learning/experience to fix a bug. You might end up fixing the bug by accident in some cases, but it can very well lead to other failures which you couldn't imagine with virtually zero experience in programming. More often you end up having bad experiences In both and frustration thereafter.
coldtea 11y ago
>The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Wait, how is the second settled? E.g. about "meditation" being a way (and much more, the "only" one) "to create permanent positive change in that direction"? I've known a few ex-monks that have been doing meditation for decades, and that have become as anyone since they've stopped, or worse, alcoholic etc. So I wouldn't call that a "permanent positive change". And also, though I don't hang with such crowds, I imagine lots of people doing "medication" of the western lifestyle type (think californians), that are just as jerks/selfish/psychotic/etc as anyone can be, even while doing it.
- nefitty 11y ago
  I was referring to the physical changes in the brain, which I guess could translate into noticeable behavioral change. I wish meditation was a "take this once" pill, but from my experience as well, when I slack on my practice I notice myself falling back to my original baseline, but maybe a bit higher than when I started. Anyways, if a meditative practice seems to bring fleeting results, I'm sure you can imagine how much quicker the psychological breakthroughs on psychedelics can dissipate.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Anyways, if a meditative practice seems to bring fleeting results, I'm sure you can imagine how much quicker the psychological breakthroughs on psychedelics can dissipate. Not sure this is that obvious though -- psychedelics are strong chemicals and can produce physical changes of a scale that meditation probably can't (e.g. on a negative side, haven't heard of anyone being "fried" from too much meditation).
- kr4 11y ago
  meditation not done correctly and without guidance would mostly result in no progress. You should try meeting Om Swami [0] to check for yourself the man who has attained spiritual adeptness with meditation – he'd be in Canada next month. 0: omswami.com
lossolo 11y ago
I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD or ecstasy are not aware what their brain is capable off. When i first took ecstasy i didn't believed that you can feel that way. So different from alcohol, weed. You feel love. LSD was even weirder experience. On LSD you can shape reality, you can feel reality so well, like you are part of it, connected. I saw snail on the road, everything was blurry around him, but he was visible, so sharp, i could feel him as part of me, connected, in this journey called life. Everything was so obvious, answer for question "why?" was known, even if i couldn't say it out loud, i could feel that answer for this question was somewhere in my mind, but i just couldn't access it. Feeling that it's there made everything clear, i felt peace. Everything that i did in life before and what i would in future seemed such trivial and not important. That connection with reality, understanding different forms of it, changed me. I feel like LSD can give you answers, answers for questions that you would not find without it.
- aaroninsf 11y ago
  Worth noting that mileage varies, many people report an after-glow, not 'feeling awful', when coming down from MDMA, which may linger for hours or be present the next day. For anyone interested, I recommend visiting the non-profit Erowid.org – a great source of anecdotal 'experience reports' for various psychoactives, as well as often providing information on legality, chemistry, toxicity, etc. Some other footnoes: The term 'ecstasy' is sometimes used [and sometime used unscrupiously] to refer to mixtures of pure MDMA with other things, or even mixtures devoid of MDMA entirely. DanceSafe.org and others have tested and reported on countless 'brands' of pills etc. and in some the primary identified active ingredients are caffeine or amphetamines. Impurities definitely results in some of the bad experiences associated with ecstasy :( Be safe out there...!
- lsd_throwaway 11y ago
  For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw them shift, it felt similar to those computer vision machine learning videos from google. As if I could see my vision attempting to resolve images into objects that fit their parameters. I felt like I got some insight into how consciousness works by messing with it. The trip itself was mostly pleasant - the next day and several months were not. The next day I couldn't stop pacing, couldn't relax - kept hyperventilating. I couldn't eat either, basically kept having panic attacks. Over the next few weeks I felt outside of myself - like it was weird to be alive and in a person. I was terrified that I was going schizophrenic or losing my mind. I thought I might have a psychotic break. All of this paired with insomnia/general sleep disturbances (which scared me too). I thought I might have to stop working, I had anxiety with real physical effects (headache, lack of appetite, extreme fear). Even watching TV was difficult/overwhelming. I had serious existential fear about dying and the inevitability of my family dying (and still do to some extent) - sometimes feeling that everyone else is insane for not being afraid. I didn't end up taking SSRIs, but I did tell people and got help - it's about seven months later and I feel mostly better. I'd caution people against trying it.
jbhatab 11y ago
The things you can experience and learn about people while on ecstasy and LSD don't even compare to meditation. Meditation is about silence in your mind and removing thoughts. The most profound effects I've seen from LSD and ecstasy come from when people interact with each other. They feel a sense of bond that is nearly impossible sober. People are free to express things with each other on these drugs and the mental barriers are removed which creates that strong connection. There is another element that happens at festivals where there is the feeling of not following the rules. Not just to break the rules, but you are free to do whatever you want and no one will judge you. This reenforces that connection feeling by just talking to people while you are high and feeling no judgmentalism, which is near impossible in normal life. Further I feel like meditation has reached a state of popularity and like it is what you are supposed to do which makes it lose some of it's essence for some people. Anything that's done because others are doing it can cause this feeling. The fact that I see kids age 5-15 meditating makes me think this because there's very little chance all those kids have the problems and mental state where meditation will be a huge help. It's more of something they should be doing which takes away from what meditation is really for.
- kr4 11y ago
  The original goal of meditation isn't to solve mental problems (though it helps when you really have them) but rather to realize that you're not this body, mind, thoughts etc we often associate our selves with. Yoga sutras starts with: The goal of Yoga is to regulate the modifications (tendencies) of mind, So the seer rests in its true nature. The true nature of our consciousness (the seer) is existence-knowledge-bliss. With meditation (which is 7th limb of yoga) practitioner increasingly progresses to realize his true nature eventually. It requires constant long effort and perseverance and right guidance.
YungDonk 11y ago
That quote is used in one of 2015's top electronic songs: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17515-dj-koze-xtc/ http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17515-dj-koze-xtc/
empath75 11y ago
Remixed by Dj Koze https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiTkGjO7Rc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiTkGjO7Rc
sixQuarks 11y ago
If you have the right sort of brain for it, ecstasy will give you the best feeling you will ever experience. It is so beyond what you would have imagined possible. For me, the come down is not hard at all, it's pretty enjoyable actually. LSD can also give you small glimpses of ecstasy here and there, but overall it's way different. It basically allows you to experience a different consciousness. LSD is often life-changing, because it really shows you that reality is not what you thought it was. It kind of gives you a glimpse of a reality that is richer and more "real" than what you're used to. There's really no way to explain it, honestly.
sixQuarks 11y ago
If you have the right sort of brain for it, ecstasy will give you the best feeling you will ever experience. It is so beyond what you would have imagined possible. For me, the come down is not hard at all, it's pretty enjoyable actually. LSD can also give you small glimpses of ecstasy here and there, but overall it's way different. It basically allows you to experience a different consciousness. LSD is often life-changing, because it really shows you that reality is not what you thought it was. It kind of gives you a glimpse of a reality that is richer and more "real" than what you're used to. There's really no way to explain it, honestly.
rosser 11y ago
> The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? I have over the past seven years taken ayahuasca more times than anyone who isn't studying to become a shaman probably reasonably should. (Still debating the apprenticeship, but leaning strongly towards yes.) Doing so — and, more specifically, the changes I have witnessed and implemented consequent to those experiences — has, without question or hesitation, improved pretty much every aspect of my life. I'm smarter, I'm happier, I'm calmer, and I have a better and more diverse community of friends; I've shed bad habits, delusions, maladaptive behaviors, and people who brought — and kept — me down. Many regard it as form of "cheating" your way towards enlightenment — as if that's even a thing. I think that's a misinformed and prejudiced attitude; and, yet, if you look at it in a non-judgemental light, it's also a little bit true. Psychedelics, taken intentionally, can be powerfully positively transformative, and they can get you there in an eyeblink. Literally, I've had years-, even decades-old behavior patterns that were limiting me that evaporated instantly, never to return, after ceremonial experiences that showed me what was behind those patterns, why I kept engaging in them, and how that was holding me back. Others have taken a bit more chipping away at, but the end result is the same: a way of engaging with the world that wasn't conducive to success or happiness or whatever is recognized, and changed, and the experience you have of life, particularly in places where those patterns would previously have been expressed, is forever changed, for the better. There are risks, and they most definitely aren't for everyone, but for those for whom they are indicated, and who are willing to engage with the experience as a transformative one, and not merely one of, "Ooh, pretty colors!" the only things that limit how far you can go are yourself, and the laws of physics — and I'm starting, sometimes, to question the latter (or, rather, some of the assumptions behind them) a bit... EDITs: there were many.
- sonoffett 11y ago
  Beautiful, thank you for sharing your experience.
wutf 11y ago
@nefitty, you posit that the diminishment of the self is a "permanent positive change." But you didn't provide any evidence. The reductio of your argument is that it's better to just be matter, since no self is involved. Few will agree with you.
- rosser 11y ago
  "Diminishment", not "negation". A reductio argument is only valid if the assertion whose absurd terminal case you're highlighting is actually part of the original claim. You're making a straw man here.
  - wutf 11y ago
    A reductio does not suggest that an argument is false. It is instead a tool that is useful for contrast enhancement. The real meat of the point I made is that there cannot be evidence for the OP's claim. It's just an opinion founded in OP's spiritual preference, which is apparently to not exist as such.
    - rosser 11y ago
      > which is apparently to not exist as such. You're once again mischaracterizing the actual claim, and in a way that suggests you not only disagree with it, but feel a need to mock it. Please don't do that.
      - wutf 11y ago
        Just because you don't like the point doesn't mean I am mocking anyone - it's a legitimate point. What do you think the dissolvement of the self entails? No Self! You literally cease to feel like you exist independently of the rest of reality. You may be new to this kind of thinking, but some of us have explored this thought space fairly exhaustively. And it's not your role to come onto HackerNews, declare people as mocking others, and to ask them in a parental tone to not do that. If anyone does that, it's dang (which I still don't appreciate, but hey, it's his job, at least. It's not your job).
CuriouslyC 11y ago
Psychedelics can absolutely have profound, long lasting changes. It is quite common for a powerful Ayahuasca experience to have residual effects for months, and sometimes even years afterwards. Of course, your neuroses are strongly influenced by your environment, so if you go back to your old life eventually you will probably end up with the same problems again. Ayahuasca, when taken in conjunction with positive lifestyle modification, has the potential to make absolutely radical, permanent changes on a time-scale that most western psychiatric professionals find absolutely incredible.
duaneb 11y ago
I suspect LSD and meditation might approach the same thing from different angles. LSD itself can force you to deal with thoughts in your brain you can normally filter or suppress—potentially similar to how meditation can reveal unconscious biases, fears, desires, etc. I don't think that meditation is CONTRARY to drugs. Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. LSD is far more substantial: if you're laughing, you're laughing for a reason. If you're happy, something is making you happy. If you're scared, it's because of something already in your brain (or I guess some immediate danger like normal).
- adrice727 11y ago
  > Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. There's a reason why MDMA has had such a long history of use in psychotherapy, and it's not just because other psychedelics were taken off the table in 1971. When used in the right context, it can be a very useful tool for introspection and processing difficult emotions. http://www.maps.org/research/mdma http://www.maps.org/research/mdma
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I agree; however, it doesn't naturally lend itself to introspection without focus. I'm emphatically for its use in traumatic therapy.
- rpearl 11y ago
  Why do you need a reason to love yourself?
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I'm not quite sure what you mean. I certainly have fears, anxieties, and assumptions that build up in my mind that prevent me from taking the best care of myself as I can. I would be surprised if I were unique in this.
- tabooacct1 11y ago
kr4 11y ago
Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. The Himalayan yogic and tantrik traditions have gone to the depth of consciousness, dimensions, multiverse ETC, and literally have thousands of books written on the subjects (both practical and theoretical). There aren't only drugs but better mechanisms like mantras, rituals etc to actually experience different dimensions literally as you experience this physical dimension. Our mind acts as a filter to have us only perceive the quantum part of the reality for which 5 senses capture input. The rest is too magnanimous to even try to pen it down. The mind needs gradual training to be ready to experience those states or else it'd just damaged with information-overload as in case of LSD etc. 10k hours of intense concentrative meditation and you'd not remain a human forever. The expansion of consciousness would let you perceive dimensions at your will, move about in other worlds with subtle body and in this world you can literally look into someone else's mind and thoughts they're having. But this science was, is and would never be available online, rather under direct guidance of an adept, who'd only impart it to worthy, selfless individual. as it stands a very good chance of miss-use by selfish individuals
- devishard 11y ago
  > Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. Wow, you sure don't know what you're talking about. David Nutt, Albert Hoffman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Charles Darwin... every single one of these scientists has both made statements about the nature of consciousness and done research which has significantly furthered our understanding of consciousness. And I'm not even bringing up the field of psychology in that list because arguably the entire field of psychology is about consciousness, so I wouldn't know what scientists to pick from that field. What you said was both ignorant and insulting to a lot of people's hard work.
  - kr4 11y ago
    so tell me any theory that tries to validate the existence of non-material consciousness. Giving loads of names of scientists won't help in establishing what modern science says about consciousness. The current stance is to try to define consciousness in physical terms (as a matterial substance) but with no success. As per scientists consciousness behaves to be more than the sum total of neurons in the brain. It's impossible so far to articulate consciousness in The law of thermodynamic, so hence the material hypothesis has never stood a chance. Non-material is where science hasn't taken a single step AFAIK yet.
matt4077 11y ago
There are no 'lies' or 'truths' in this. It's all emotions, and they aren't meaningful at all. Meditation may have positive effects such as increased conscientiousness or ability to focus. But while certainly good, it doesn't have any of the meaning people like to ascribe to it. Drugs aren't actually that different, except they're more dangerous because the effects of meditation are limited by the available time and exhaustion. Also, I can't recommend experimenting with LSD. mdma and possibly ketamine highly enough. It got me out of a 10-year spiral of depression and at least the first two are self-limiting to a degree where the temtation to take it too often is low. Just stay away from cocaine (&derivatives) and all opiates.
vitro 11y ago
So far the best comment regarding drug use vs meditation I came across is, that with drugs, you can experience something that is true but not good, or good, but not true. During meditation, on the other hand, you experience what is good and true. I am meditating regularly and I can support that claim about goodness and trueness. For me, true & not good or good & not true comes with smoking the pot, for example. With LSD I am not that sure, lately I have been experimenting with microdosing and have mainly positive experiences, close to those of meditation, although sometimes I felt a bit more agitated than usually, but it is just the matter of the right dose, you should be noticing almost nothing special when microdosing. Interesting is to combine both, microdosing and meditation.
gil 11y ago
Funny you quote that. There is a song by DJ Koze with that in the lyrics and I always wondered where it came from. https://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa024-dj-koze-xtc https://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa024-dj-koze-xtc
filoeleven 11y ago
There is a book called the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, by James Fadiman, which among other things contains the results of some psychedelic studies that were done in the 1960s before it was all banned. The executive summary is that long-term changes in behavior frequently occurred, and they were overwhelmingly positive: increased conscientiousness, openness towards others, self-love, diminishing unhealthy fears and behaviors. Really quite amazing stuff.

by nefitty 11y ago

notthegov 11y ago

If you meditate for emotional stillness and spiritual depth, then there is no reason you can't seek happiness and awareness from a girlfriend or a psychedelic drug experience. Or from both at the same time. You could meditate alone for a thousand lifetimes and not experience love. Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. It can only show you glimpses. Whatever this world is, it is here for us to enjoy. Proclaiming the answer to enlightement is living an ascetic life without luxury items, smart attractive people or drugs of any kind is silly. "Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun." - Alan Watts (Obviously Osho didn't live an ascetic life. He meditated enough not to need MDMA but not Rolls-Royces.)

taneq 11y ago
> Saying you can endogenously experience psychedelic states by meditation or Kundalini yoga sounds nice and ideal, but it is only partially true. Even if some people can experience psychedelic states through extensive meditation, that doesn't make their experience intrinsically better. They're chasing the same experience as someone who experiments with psychedelic drugs, but there always seems to be an irritating sense of smug superiority from people who do meditate.
- tabooacct1 11y ago
  Meditation is a virtue signal, like jogging or being vegetarian. It also tends to go along with a sense of being on a cosmic path toward truth, beauty, and enlightenment...
  - taneq 11y ago
    Ugh, those people. I bet they think that "turbos don't make real horsepower" too.
    - saiya-jin 11y ago
      well, this is the topic of quality vs quantity, and most people including me prefer the former for obvious reasons
- kr4 11y ago
  meditation is just like teaching yourself programming for years. after 10k hours of practice in either you can reach to a state of expertise. E.G., you can write any kind of software in your expertise with ease. Similarly you can repeat the same experience as per your wish (like traveling through different planes of existance, hering/seeing extra-dimensional stuff and much more). Taking drug to experience the state is like throwing yourself onto the source code without any learning/experience to fix a bug. You might end up fixing the bug by accident in some cases, but it can very well lead to other failures which you couldn't imagine with virtually zero experience in programming. More often you end up having bad experiences In both and frustration thereafter.

coldtea 11y ago

>The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? Wait, how is the second settled? E.g. about "meditation" being a way (and much more, the "only" one) "to create permanent positive change in that direction"? I've known a few ex-monks that have been doing meditation for decades, and that have become as anyone since they've stopped, or worse, alcoholic etc. So I wouldn't call that a "permanent positive change". And also, though I don't hang with such crowds, I imagine lots of people doing "medication" of the western lifestyle type (think californians), that are just as jerks/selfish/psychotic/etc as anyone can be, even while doing it.

nefitty 11y ago
I was referring to the physical changes in the brain, which I guess could translate into noticeable behavioral change. I wish meditation was a "take this once" pill, but from my experience as well, when I slack on my practice I notice myself falling back to my original baseline, but maybe a bit higher than when I started. Anyways, if a meditative practice seems to bring fleeting results, I'm sure you can imagine how much quicker the psychological breakthroughs on psychedelics can dissipate.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Anyways, if a meditative practice seems to bring fleeting results, I'm sure you can imagine how much quicker the psychological breakthroughs on psychedelics can dissipate. Not sure this is that obvious though -- psychedelics are strong chemicals and can produce physical changes of a scale that meditation probably can't (e.g. on a negative side, haven't heard of anyone being "fried" from too much meditation).
kr4 11y ago
meditation not done correctly and without guidance would mostly result in no progress. You should try meeting Om Swami [0] to check for yourself the man who has attained spiritual adeptness with meditation – he'd be in Canada next month. 0: omswami.com

lossolo 11y ago

I did ecstasy and i did LSD. Ecstasy is like a lie in this quote comparison. You get high in the beginning and it brings you down at the end, really awful feeling at the end. LSD is different, i experienced world differently even for couple of days after i took LSD. World seemed different. I knew what was important in life and what not, very clear. I can't describe how you feel on LSD, and people that didn't took LSD or ecstasy are not aware what their brain is capable off. When i first took ecstasy i didn't believed that you can feel that way. So different from alcohol, weed. You feel love. LSD was even weirder experience. On LSD you can shape reality, you can feel reality so well, like you are part of it, connected. I saw snail on the road, everything was blurry around him, but he was visible, so sharp, i could feel him as part of me, connected, in this journey called life. Everything was so obvious, answer for question "why?" was known, even if i couldn't say it out loud, i could feel that answer for this question was somewhere in my mind, but i just couldn't access it. Feeling that it's there made everything clear, i felt peace. Everything that i did in life before and what i would in future seemed such trivial and not important. That connection with reality, understanding different forms of it, changed me. I feel like LSD can give you answers, answers for questions that you would not find without it.

aaroninsf 11y ago
Worth noting that mileage varies, many people report an after-glow, not 'feeling awful', when coming down from MDMA, which may linger for hours or be present the next day. For anyone interested, I recommend visiting the non-profit Erowid.org – a great source of anecdotal 'experience reports' for various psychoactives, as well as often providing information on legality, chemistry, toxicity, etc. Some other footnoes: The term 'ecstasy' is sometimes used [and sometime used unscrupiously] to refer to mixtures of pure MDMA with other things, or even mixtures devoid of MDMA entirely. DanceSafe.org and others have tested and reported on countless 'brands' of pills etc. and in some the primary identified active ingredients are caffeine or amphetamines. Impurities definitely results in some of the bad experiences associated with ecstasy :( Be safe out there...!
lsd_throwaway 11y ago
For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw them shift, it felt similar to those computer vision machine learning videos from google. As if I could see my vision attempting to resolve images into objects that fit their parameters. I felt like I got some insight into how consciousness works by messing with it. The trip itself was mostly pleasant - the next day and several months were not. The next day I couldn't stop pacing, couldn't relax - kept hyperventilating. I couldn't eat either, basically kept having panic attacks. Over the next few weeks I felt outside of myself - like it was weird to be alive and in a person. I was terrified that I was going schizophrenic or losing my mind. I thought I might have a psychotic break. All of this paired with insomnia/general sleep disturbances (which scared me too). I thought I might have to stop working, I had anxiety with real physical effects (headache, lack of appetite, extreme fear). Even watching TV was difficult/overwhelming. I had serious existential fear about dying and the inevitability of my family dying (and still do to some extent) - sometimes feeling that everyone else is insane for not being afraid. I didn't end up taking SSRIs, but I did tell people and got help - it's about seven months later and I feel mostly better. I'd caution people against trying it.

jbhatab 11y ago

The things you can experience and learn about people while on ecstasy and LSD don't even compare to meditation. Meditation is about silence in your mind and removing thoughts. The most profound effects I've seen from LSD and ecstasy come from when people interact with each other. They feel a sense of bond that is nearly impossible sober. People are free to express things with each other on these drugs and the mental barriers are removed which creates that strong connection. There is another element that happens at festivals where there is the feeling of not following the rules. Not just to break the rules, but you are free to do whatever you want and no one will judge you. This reenforces that connection feeling by just talking to people while you are high and feeling no judgmentalism, which is near impossible in normal life. Further I feel like meditation has reached a state of popularity and like it is what you are supposed to do which makes it lose some of it's essence for some people. Anything that's done because others are doing it can cause this feeling. The fact that I see kids age 5-15 meditating makes me think this because there's very little chance all those kids have the problems and mental state where meditation will be a huge help. It's more of something they should be doing which takes away from what meditation is really for.

kr4 11y ago
The original goal of meditation isn't to solve mental problems (though it helps when you really have them) but rather to realize that you're not this body, mind, thoughts etc we often associate our selves with. Yoga sutras starts with: The goal of Yoga is to regulate the modifications (tendencies) of mind, So the seer rests in its true nature. The true nature of our consciousness (the seer) is existence-knowledge-bliss. With meditation (which is 7th limb of yoga) practitioner increasingly progresses to realize his true nature eventually. It requires constant long effort and perseverance and right guidance.

YungDonk 11y ago

That quote is used in one of 2015's top electronic songs: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17515-dj-koze-xtc/ http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17515-dj-koze-xtc/

empath75 11y ago

Remixed by Dj Koze https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiTkGjO7Rc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiTkGjO7Rc

sixQuarks 11y ago

If you have the right sort of brain for it, ecstasy will give you the best feeling you will ever experience. It is so beyond what you would have imagined possible. For me, the come down is not hard at all, it's pretty enjoyable actually. LSD can also give you small glimpses of ecstasy here and there, but overall it's way different. It basically allows you to experience a different consciousness. LSD is often life-changing, because it really shows you that reality is not what you thought it was. It kind of gives you a glimpse of a reality that is richer and more "real" than what you're used to. There's really no way to explain it, honestly.

sixQuarks 11y ago

rosser 11y ago

> The question arises again, can psychedelics have lasting effects or is meditation the only way to create permanent positive change in that direction? I have over the past seven years taken ayahuasca more times than anyone who isn't studying to become a shaman probably reasonably should. (Still debating the apprenticeship, but leaning strongly towards yes.) Doing so — and, more specifically, the changes I have witnessed and implemented consequent to those experiences — has, without question or hesitation, improved pretty much every aspect of my life. I'm smarter, I'm happier, I'm calmer, and I have a better and more diverse community of friends; I've shed bad habits, delusions, maladaptive behaviors, and people who brought — and kept — me down. Many regard it as form of "cheating" your way towards enlightenment — as if that's even a thing. I think that's a misinformed and prejudiced attitude; and, yet, if you look at it in a non-judgemental light, it's also a little bit true. Psychedelics, taken intentionally, can be powerfully positively transformative, and they can get you there in an eyeblink. Literally, I've had years-, even decades-old behavior patterns that were limiting me that evaporated instantly, never to return, after ceremonial experiences that showed me what was behind those patterns, why I kept engaging in them, and how that was holding me back. Others have taken a bit more chipping away at, but the end result is the same: a way of engaging with the world that wasn't conducive to success or happiness or whatever is recognized, and changed, and the experience you have of life, particularly in places where those patterns would previously have been expressed, is forever changed, for the better. There are risks, and they most definitely aren't for everyone, but for those for whom they are indicated, and who are willing to engage with the experience as a transformative one, and not merely one of, "Ooh, pretty colors!" the only things that limit how far you can go are yourself, and the laws of physics — and I'm starting, sometimes, to question the latter (or, rather, some of the assumptions behind them) a bit... EDITs: there were many.

sonoffett 11y ago
Beautiful, thank you for sharing your experience.

wutf 11y ago

@nefitty, you posit that the diminishment of the self is a "permanent positive change." But you didn't provide any evidence. The reductio of your argument is that it's better to just be matter, since no self is involved. Few will agree with you.

rosser 11y ago
"Diminishment", not "negation". A reductio argument is only valid if the assertion whose absurd terminal case you're highlighting is actually part of the original claim. You're making a straw man here.
- wutf 11y ago
  A reductio does not suggest that an argument is false. It is instead a tool that is useful for contrast enhancement. The real meat of the point I made is that there cannot be evidence for the OP's claim. It's just an opinion founded in OP's spiritual preference, which is apparently to not exist as such.
  - rosser 11y ago
    > which is apparently to not exist as such. You're once again mischaracterizing the actual claim, and in a way that suggests you not only disagree with it, but feel a need to mock it. Please don't do that.
    - wutf 11y ago
      Just because you don't like the point doesn't mean I am mocking anyone - it's a legitimate point. What do you think the dissolvement of the self entails? No Self! You literally cease to feel like you exist independently of the rest of reality. You may be new to this kind of thinking, but some of us have explored this thought space fairly exhaustively. And it's not your role to come onto HackerNews, declare people as mocking others, and to ask them in a parental tone to not do that. If anyone does that, it's dang (which I still don't appreciate, but hey, it's his job, at least. It's not your job).

CuriouslyC 11y ago

Psychedelics can absolutely have profound, long lasting changes. It is quite common for a powerful Ayahuasca experience to have residual effects for months, and sometimes even years afterwards. Of course, your neuroses are strongly influenced by your environment, so if you go back to your old life eventually you will probably end up with the same problems again. Ayahuasca, when taken in conjunction with positive lifestyle modification, has the potential to make absolutely radical, permanent changes on a time-scale that most western psychiatric professionals find absolutely incredible.

duaneb 11y ago

I suspect LSD and meditation might approach the same thing from different angles. LSD itself can force you to deal with thoughts in your brain you can normally filter or suppress—potentially similar to how meditation can reveal unconscious biases, fears, desires, etc. I don't think that meditation is CONTRARY to drugs. Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. LSD is far more substantial: if you're laughing, you're laughing for a reason. If you're happy, something is making you happy. If you're scared, it's because of something already in your brain (or I guess some immediate danger like normal).

adrice727 11y ago
> Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason. There's a reason why MDMA has had such a long history of use in psychotherapy, and it's not just because other psychedelics were taken off the table in 1971. When used in the right context, it can be a very useful tool for introspection and processing difficult emotions. http://www.maps.org/research/mdma http://www.maps.org/research/mdma
- duaneb 11y ago
  I agree; however, it doesn't naturally lend itself to introspection without focus. I'm emphatically for its use in traumatic therapy.
rpearl 11y ago
Why do you need a reason to love yourself?
- duaneb 11y ago
  I'm not quite sure what you mean. I certainly have fears, anxieties, and assumptions that build up in my mind that prevent me from taking the best care of myself as I can. I would be surprised if I were unique in this.
tabooacct1 11y ago

kr4 11y ago

Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. The Himalayan yogic and tantrik traditions have gone to the depth of consciousness, dimensions, multiverse ETC, and literally have thousands of books written on the subjects (both practical and theoretical). There aren't only drugs but better mechanisms like mantras, rituals etc to actually experience different dimensions literally as you experience this physical dimension. Our mind acts as a filter to have us only perceive the quantum part of the reality for which 5 senses capture input. The rest is too magnanimous to even try to pen it down. The mind needs gradual training to be ready to experience those states or else it'd just damaged with information-overload as in case of LSD etc. 10k hours of intense concentrative meditation and you'd not remain a human forever. The expansion of consciousness would let you perceive dimensions at your will, move about in other worlds with subtle body and in this world you can literally look into someone else's mind and thoughts they're having. But this science was, is and would never be available online, rather under direct guidance of an adept, who'd only impart it to worthy, selfless individual. as it stands a very good chance of miss-use by selfish individuals

devishard 11y ago
> Modern science hasn't even started to appreciate the existence of consciousness let alone validating which is the better method. Wow, you sure don't know what you're talking about. David Nutt, Albert Hoffman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Charles Darwin... every single one of these scientists has both made statements about the nature of consciousness and done research which has significantly furthered our understanding of consciousness. And I'm not even bringing up the field of psychology in that list because arguably the entire field of psychology is about consciousness, so I wouldn't know what scientists to pick from that field. What you said was both ignorant and insulting to a lot of people's hard work.
- kr4 11y ago
  so tell me any theory that tries to validate the existence of non-material consciousness. Giving loads of names of scientists won't help in establishing what modern science says about consciousness. The current stance is to try to define consciousness in physical terms (as a matterial substance) but with no success. As per scientists consciousness behaves to be more than the sum total of neurons in the brain. It's impossible so far to articulate consciousness in The law of thermodynamic, so hence the material hypothesis has never stood a chance. Non-material is where science hasn't taken a single step AFAIK yet.

matt4077 11y ago

There are no 'lies' or 'truths' in this. It's all emotions, and they aren't meaningful at all. Meditation may have positive effects such as increased conscientiousness or ability to focus. But while certainly good, it doesn't have any of the meaning people like to ascribe to it. Drugs aren't actually that different, except they're more dangerous because the effects of meditation are limited by the available time and exhaustion. Also, I can't recommend experimenting with LSD. mdma and possibly ketamine highly enough. It got me out of a 10-year spiral of depression and at least the first two are self-limiting to a degree where the temtation to take it too often is low. Just stay away from cocaine (&derivatives) and all opiates.

vitro 11y ago

So far the best comment regarding drug use vs meditation I came across is, that with drugs, you can experience something that is true but not good, or good, but not true. During meditation, on the other hand, you experience what is good and true. I am meditating regularly and I can support that claim about goodness and trueness. For me, true & not good or good & not true comes with smoking the pot, for example. With LSD I am not that sure, lately I have been experimenting with microdosing and have mainly positive experiences, close to those of meditation, although sometimes I felt a bit more agitated than usually, but it is just the matter of the right dose, you should be noticing almost nothing special when microdosing. Interesting is to combine both, microdosing and meditation.

gil 11y ago

Funny you quote that. There is a song by DJ Koze with that in the lyrics and I always wondered where it came from. https://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa024-dj-koze-xtc https://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa024-dj-koze-xtc

filoeleven 11y ago

There is a book called the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, by James Fadiman, which among other things contains the results of some psychedelic studies that were done in the 1960s before it was all banned. The executive summary is that long-term changes in behavior frequently occurred, and they were overwhelmingly positive: increased conscientiousness, openness towards others, self-love, diminishing unhealthy fears and behaviors. Really quite amazing stuff.