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> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something

> There is a strong claim here that has never been tested: can psychedelics make you a better person? Never been tested !? Is this person on drugs or something !? Ahahahaha! But seriously, homo sapiens quite obviously happened from a collision of apes with psychedelics (most probably psilocybin mushrooms)... So without psychedelics there would never have been any people! Terrence McKenna very thoroughly explained this theory many times. Its easy to find on faceboogle. All his other theories are nowhere as solid as this one, imo. On another note, drugs are foods, and different foods are good for some people, in some situation, some of the time, at some dose. Finding those perfect variables is the real trick. Opium, for me (and almost anyone I believe), at a certain dosage, has tremendously improved my life, on all levels - but if I increase the dosage even slightly or don't take enough breaks, it begins to have negative repercussions. People who do endurance sports are all craving endorphines. Marathon runners could preserve their health by dosing opium properly. LSD is definitely a must-do for everyone, but in the right settings. Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more (which is really the quickest path to a cure). Iv met someone who cured acute autism with psilocybin. MDMA is renowned for treating victims of PTSD. I mentioned opium - opium isnt (really) a psychedelic but its certainly the most bewitched beneficial substance I know of - very good for older people or alcoholics. It takes away all cravings for alcohol, tobacco and coffee (3 most detrimental drugs on earth, with refined sugar). But be careful not to increase your tolerance. I agree with Eliot in MrRobot - you can take 30mg of morphine-equivalent per day forever and youll be able to run out without waking up in the ninth circle of hell. Given the choice I'd much rather incarnate a hardcore morphine user than a roaring alcoholic; at least I'll still be able to have a successful career, a thriving social circle and a very long life.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
andrei_says_ 8y ago
This is a very interesting take on opium. Are there sources on long-term use with regulated dosage you can point to? Doesn’t the tolerance increase with regular use? Or is this managed by takin brakes on a regular basis? In which case what about withdrawal?
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
  Re: Sources: Opium and its derivatives certainly are the most demonized substances, in the most drug-ophobic time in history. There was a very extended study done by Britain in India. It was quite extensive, and their TLDR: No worse than alcohol RE: Tolerance: The tolerance is very much dose-related. So if someone took large doses for just a week, they would suffer more withdrawal than someone who took small doses daily for a year. The breaks are something I found to be useful to 'feel' my current tolerance. Here's how it kind of goes; I'll have a 24-36 hour break, weekly, and if my tolerance isn't too high, the feeling will be a pleasant one. The feeling of my own body will be heightened, and I'll even have one good nap. I usually take this day to do hard physical activities, or do the menial tasks I dont like. It is also a good time to do psychedelics, like hash, since the body sensations are increased. If, on the other hand, my tolerance was too high, I'll have some mental/psychological discomfort and diareha. I won't try to avoid it, as I see this as a necessary part of life, and what I am doing,effectively, is condensing all my misery in a single day. In this case, I'll know that I need to brind my dose back down. The benefits are ability to sleep, as I suffered from chronic insomnia for my entire adult life prior to using it. This single benefit has an endless river of secondary benefits. The other great benefit happens at 'peak' effects - the mind becomes extremely clear and realist, so those are my most productive times. Combined with a good fermented Yunnanese tea, and the thinking capacities are just off the charts. It also took care of some social anger issues I have - being frustrated with most of the world commiting species-wide suicide; now I can think about my own ambitions instead. That all being said, opium is extremely powerful, and it will harm anyone without enough self-control, or who is ignorant of its power- It happened to me at the beginning, and I suffered a very bad week of withdrawals when I ran out once. But the experience was also beneficial in a sense; it thaught me a very good lesson about the impossibility of achieving eternal pleasure, which cured me totally of the hope that one day I might find nirvana - it's a joke. Enjoy your misery; it is part of your lot. The end of your misery is the end of you.
  - andrei_says_ 8y ago
    Thank you so much for this. I’m in no way interested in the popular prohibition-powered narratives and your account is very useful as it is rare and authentic.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
What's the problem with coffee?
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
  It is very bad for your health, and doesn't have much benefits. Opium is- again- a very good replacement. But the problem with opium as compared to coffee is that it doesnt have this 'uncomfortable dose' limit which basically stops people from taking extravagant doses of coffee. So a lot of people will just keep taking more and more, which ends up being harmful. Nothing is free in this world. But coffee is really bad for your health. If anything, switch to fermented black tea- much less harmful.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    That's not an explanation. Why is coffee so bad? I can find a ton of papers on the positive effects of coffee. Only very few on possible negative effects, they primarily focus on cafestol and kahweol as bad for cholesterol, but only when the coffee isn't made with paper filters, which trap those oils.
    - HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
      The book to read is entitled "Caffeine blues" - which you will not need to read completely to be cured of coffee forever. Finding tons of papers stating something or another about one of the most lucrative 'non-banned' drug in the world in the period of greatest drug illiteracy to information ratio is no great feat, my friend. Certainly, one can find tons of papers on the web on the merits of perpetual motion machines.
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
        You're making very lofty claims, based on a single pseudoscientific, for profit book, written by someone with very questionable credentials. Have his claims been peer reviewed? Can you give me a summary? I'm not going to waste money on a book full of unsubstantiated claims that are based on no actual research. It has all the hallmarks of bullshit conspiracy nonsense.
gnulinux 8y ago
> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more I really, really, don't want to write this because I'm a very drug friendly person. I personally don't do drugs except alcohol (I know how horrible it is, but I have anxiety problems) but I am ok with all sorts of drugs as long as there is scientific evidence it improves your life. Having said that, your quote up there is wrong, I know at least one datapoint. In my freshman semester in Berkeley my roommates tripped with LSD (I was sober and their sitter). Everything went well. However, the second time we did the same thing unfortunately one of my roommates absolutely berzerk and did things I cannot even begin to write here without getting banned. It involved violence, nudity, disgusting human fluids, you name it... Cops were ultimately involved since we couldn't stop him and he was about to harm himself by harming strangers. He ended up fine because he didn't harm anyone, just embarassed himself deeply. In fact, he had no repercussions other than having to live with the fact that he did all that stuff. Was this person insane in the first place? No, I lived 4 years of my life with this guy and he was one of the smartest, most intelligent people I've ever met. I don't know what it means to be "crazy" maybe he had psychological problems inside his head, but as far as we know he didn't have such problems. He went to a psychologist, but as far as we know, it was a fabrication to be prescribed Ritalin and Adderall. So, overall, it did not seem like he had any psychological problems. His experience affected me really deeply. I never got to do drugs I wanted (LSD and psilocybin). I don't want to give the message that "LSD is bad". No LSD is probably an awesome drug. But I really don't think "LSD can't make you crazy if you weren't in the first place". It's probably 1 in a million chance, but not impossible.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  "Was this person insane in the first place? No, I lived 4 years of my life with this guy and he was one of the smartest, most intelligent people I've ever met." Intelligent people can have mental issues. They can be really good at hiding them too -- both from other people and sometimes even from themselves. I've read over and over again of people living together for decades, and one day they find out that the other person is a serial killer or an abuser or some other sort of criminal, and they had no idea, even after living their whole lives with them. People are really good at deceiving each other, and often the people closest to them are just in denial, and either overlook or make excuses for behavior and signs that sometime look worrisome in retrospect or when seen by people who aren't so involved. Psychedelics, especially at large doses, are certainly not without risks. Some people just aren't ready to face what they might reveal. Many people also don't treat them with much respect, viewing them merely as party drugs or sometimes even destructively. There are ways to use them constructively, and ways of maximizing the chances of having a productive experience and of integrating what one learned during that experience back in to one's ordinary life. For specific recommendations on maximizing the positive potential of psychedelics I'd recommend reading "The Secret Chief Revealed" and "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide": https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff/dp/0966001966/ https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff... https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys/dp/1594774021/ https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
DanBC 8y ago
> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, This is untrue, and dangerously so. > Iv met someone who cured acute autism with psilocybin. This is incoherent. Autism is never acute, it's always chronic. Part of the diagnosis is "has this lasted since childhood?"
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
  Re: autism: Well, regardless, the person is now fuctionning quite 'normally' - nobody would know that this person in question was autistic. And it was psisocybin that did it. Re: LSD: I'm not backing off my claim. Almost everyone living in this society is insane. So in that sense LSD is 'dangerous' to almost everyone today.
n4r9 8y ago
A major problem with the Stoned Ape Hypothesis for me is that it lacks any physical mechanism. It's fair enough to argue that psychedelics might increase some cognitive or perceptual faculties, but McKenna never explains how this could lead to a selection pressure for intelligence, or any other mechanism for genetic alteration.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

andrei_says_ 8y ago

This is a very interesting take on opium. Are there sources on long-term use with regulated dosage you can point to? Doesn’t the tolerance increase with regular use? Or is this managed by takin brakes on a regular basis? In which case what about withdrawal?

HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
Re: Sources: Opium and its derivatives certainly are the most demonized substances, in the most drug-ophobic time in history. There was a very extended study done by Britain in India. It was quite extensive, and their TLDR: No worse than alcohol RE: Tolerance: The tolerance is very much dose-related. So if someone took large doses for just a week, they would suffer more withdrawal than someone who took small doses daily for a year. The breaks are something I found to be useful to 'feel' my current tolerance. Here's how it kind of goes; I'll have a 24-36 hour break, weekly, and if my tolerance isn't too high, the feeling will be a pleasant one. The feeling of my own body will be heightened, and I'll even have one good nap. I usually take this day to do hard physical activities, or do the menial tasks I dont like. It is also a good time to do psychedelics, like hash, since the body sensations are increased. If, on the other hand, my tolerance was too high, I'll have some mental/psychological discomfort and diareha. I won't try to avoid it, as I see this as a necessary part of life, and what I am doing,effectively, is condensing all my misery in a single day. In this case, I'll know that I need to brind my dose back down. The benefits are ability to sleep, as I suffered from chronic insomnia for my entire adult life prior to using it. This single benefit has an endless river of secondary benefits. The other great benefit happens at 'peak' effects - the mind becomes extremely clear and realist, so those are my most productive times. Combined with a good fermented Yunnanese tea, and the thinking capacities are just off the charts. It also took care of some social anger issues I have - being frustrated with most of the world commiting species-wide suicide; now I can think about my own ambitions instead. That all being said, opium is extremely powerful, and it will harm anyone without enough self-control, or who is ignorant of its power- It happened to me at the beginning, and I suffered a very bad week of withdrawals when I ran out once. But the experience was also beneficial in a sense; it thaught me a very good lesson about the impossibility of achieving eternal pleasure, which cured me totally of the hope that one day I might find nirvana - it's a joke. Enjoy your misery; it is part of your lot. The end of your misery is the end of you.
- andrei_says_ 8y ago
  Thank you so much for this. I’m in no way interested in the popular prohibition-powered narratives and your account is very useful as it is rare and authentic.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

What's the problem with coffee?

HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
It is very bad for your health, and doesn't have much benefits. Opium is- again- a very good replacement. But the problem with opium as compared to coffee is that it doesnt have this 'uncomfortable dose' limit which basically stops people from taking extravagant doses of coffee. So a lot of people will just keep taking more and more, which ends up being harmful. Nothing is free in this world. But coffee is really bad for your health. If anything, switch to fermented black tea- much less harmful.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  That's not an explanation. Why is coffee so bad? I can find a ton of papers on the positive effects of coffee. Only very few on possible negative effects, they primarily focus on cafestol and kahweol as bad for cholesterol, but only when the coffee isn't made with paper filters, which trap those oils.
  - HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
    The book to read is entitled "Caffeine blues" - which you will not need to read completely to be cured of coffee forever. Finding tons of papers stating something or another about one of the most lucrative 'non-banned' drug in the world in the period of greatest drug illiteracy to information ratio is no great feat, my friend. Certainly, one can find tons of papers on the web on the merits of perpetual motion machines.
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      You're making very lofty claims, based on a single pseudoscientific, for profit book, written by someone with very questionable credentials. Have his claims been peer reviewed? Can you give me a summary? I'm not going to waste money on a book full of unsubstantiated claims that are based on no actual research. It has all the hallmarks of bullshit conspiracy nonsense.

gnulinux 8y ago

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, and it would bring it out more I really, really, don't want to write this because I'm a very drug friendly person. I personally don't do drugs except alcohol (I know how horrible it is, but I have anxiety problems) but I am ok with all sorts of drugs as long as there is scientific evidence it improves your life. Having said that, your quote up there is wrong, I know at least one datapoint. In my freshman semester in Berkeley my roommates tripped with LSD (I was sober and their sitter). Everything went well. However, the second time we did the same thing unfortunately one of my roommates absolutely berzerk and did things I cannot even begin to write here without getting banned. It involved violence, nudity, disgusting human fluids, you name it... Cops were ultimately involved since we couldn't stop him and he was about to harm himself by harming strangers. He ended up fine because he didn't harm anyone, just embarassed himself deeply. In fact, he had no repercussions other than having to live with the fact that he did all that stuff. Was this person insane in the first place? No, I lived 4 years of my life with this guy and he was one of the smartest, most intelligent people I've ever met. I don't know what it means to be "crazy" maybe he had psychological problems inside his head, but as far as we know he didn't have such problems. He went to a psychologist, but as far as we know, it was a fabrication to be prescribed Ritalin and Adderall. So, overall, it did not seem like he had any psychological problems. His experience affected me really deeply. I never got to do drugs I wanted (LSD and psilocybin). I don't want to give the message that "LSD is bad". No LSD is probably an awesome drug. But I really don't think "LSD can't make you crazy if you weren't in the first place". It's probably 1 in a million chance, but not impossible.

pmoriarty 8y ago
"Was this person insane in the first place? No, I lived 4 years of my life with this guy and he was one of the smartest, most intelligent people I've ever met." Intelligent people can have mental issues. They can be really good at hiding them too -- both from other people and sometimes even from themselves. I've read over and over again of people living together for decades, and one day they find out that the other person is a serial killer or an abuser or some other sort of criminal, and they had no idea, even after living their whole lives with them. People are really good at deceiving each other, and often the people closest to them are just in denial, and either overlook or make excuses for behavior and signs that sometime look worrisome in retrospect or when seen by people who aren't so involved. Psychedelics, especially at large doses, are certainly not without risks. Some people just aren't ready to face what they might reveal. Many people also don't treat them with much respect, viewing them merely as party drugs or sometimes even destructively. There are ways to use them constructively, and ways of maximizing the chances of having a productive experience and of integrating what one learned during that experience back in to one's ordinary life. For specific recommendations on maximizing the positive potential of psychedelics I'd recommend reading "The Secret Chief Revealed" and "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide": https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff/dp/0966001966/ https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff... https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys/dp/1594774021/ https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...

DanBC 8y ago

> Nobody is driven insane by LSD - they had to already be insane, This is untrue, and dangerously so. > Iv met someone who cured acute autism with psilocybin. This is incoherent. Autism is never acute, it's always chronic. Part of the diagnosis is "has this lasted since childhood?"

HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
Re: autism: Well, regardless, the person is now fuctionning quite 'normally' - nobody would know that this person in question was autistic. And it was psisocybin that did it. Re: LSD: I'm not backing off my claim. Almost everyone living in this society is insane. So in that sense LSD is 'dangerous' to almost everyone today.

n4r9 8y ago

A major problem with the Stoned Ape Hypothesis for me is that it lacks any physical mechanism. It's fair enough to argue that psychedelics might increase some cognitive or perceptual faculties, but McKenna never explains how this could lead to a selection pressure for intelligence, or any other mechanism for genetic alteration.