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This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a

by MrLeap 7y ago

This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso. This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure. For about an hour, the world remained as it always had. Then, I started periodically feeling something akin to an electric shock pass through my body. Electricity is only a useful explanation in so far as how long the pulses lasted. On and off in an instant. The shocks were like momentary flashes of comfort. In the time between seconds when those flashes occurred, the chair I was sitting on was softer, my clothes were more comfortable and I felt a glow of appreciation for the people in the room with me. I decided to set a watch and eat more general tso on the hour. Eventually the pulses blurred from spikes to rolling hills. I realized they happened when I was stimulated by something beautiful. The mundane became beautiful. The contrast and saturation of my vision increased. My brain streamed my visual frame buffer through a pixel shader that made everything photogenic, perfectly tone mapped. It was like HDR for the eyes. Beauty is something I had never had a refined eye for. Stuff looked "neat". This felt like a visual sense that perhaps existed normally in other people, but for me I was only borrowing. Then my alarm went off. Time for more chicken! While I was eating, we started watching dune. I was stunned by how colorful David Lynch's dune is. Vibrant purple and green matte backgrounds. I would have told you the movie was all desert tone yesterday. I shut off my alarm until the movie was done. I ate one more scoop of general tso after that. Then, I laid down in the dark. I was able to visualize incredibly complicated 3d shapes. I could persist those shapes, rotate, scale and modify them while keeping the image at the forefront. This capability was clearly an enhancement. I got up, opened blender and "printed" some of the things created entirely mentally. After I laid back down, I thought about my childhood. I thought about frayed relationships and trauma I had experienced. Every negative experience I could come up with bounced off simple epiphany after simple epiphany. Prior to this, I was under a crushing amount of stress. I felt like I was being hunted, under attack in a world devoid of merit. I was misanthropic. I thought about the situation I was in, and determined I was fine. Everything is going to be okay. We're all bouncing amidst a manifold, influenced by each other. The whole of humanity, even the crabs pulling at our feet, is beautiful. Quite a few people try to pierce the manifold to transcend the chaos. Maybe we'll never do it? It's valuable to try regardless. The evil in my life became re-framed as force that might send me towards the boundary. Approaching the boundary is the goal. Even if I fail at everything, I'm better for trying, even after death.

taylortrusty 7y ago
Beautiful, and similar to my own experiences. Thanks for sharing.
ZhuanXia 7y ago
Is it possible to do mathematics while on such drugs? I am working through a textbook on projective geometry and I feel like those visualization enhancements would be super useful.
- roymurdock 7y ago
  I'd give microdosing LSD a shot: In the 1950s, before the term “Silicon Valley” existed, a handful of engineers at the tech pioneer Ampex were approached by Al Hubbard, the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD.” And with his help, they found that dropping acid could make their jobs easier. “[Hubbard] wanted to turn on the best and brightest and have the wisdom trickle down to the populace,” Pollan said. “Engineers who were working on chips found LSD very helpful in imagining a structure as complex as a computer chip. Before there were computers, designing a computer chip was much harder! It was a three-dimensional structure, layered, and you had to hold an incredible amount of information in your head.” The Ampex engineers started a nonprofit called the International Foundation for Advanced Study, giving LSD to people like inventor Doug Engelbart. His first under-the-influence invention was a toy for toilet-training boys, but Pollan pointed out that it was only after this experience that Engelbart did the work he’s most famous for: Inventing the computer mouse, the graphical user interface and key components of the internet. “Engineers, unlike scientists, deal with irreducible complexity,” Pollan said. “There’s so many variables that, instead of reducing a problem to simplicity like scientists, they have to find patterns in a very complex space. That’s what LSD does — it helps you find patterns.” https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind-book-drugs-engelbart-kara-swisher-podcast https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to...
- scarecrowbob 7y ago
  You'd have to try it yourself. Personally, I have very limited technical skill when tripping. I'm a semi-professional musician, and I can keep up with folks, but I don't think I sound better or worse. There are a lot of interesting aesthetics that you can pull from that kind of visual hallucination, but IME it's not super "realistic" or "rational". I've gotten a lot out of psychadelic drugs but the realizations are usually far more poetic than practical. The longer-term revelations I've found have more to do with realizing that, say, a lot of my relationships have been validated by caring for my partner because I didn't get a certain level of care growing up, and that I've probably worked to find partners who need a certain amount and kind of care... so as long as I keep doing that I will probably keep failing in those relationships. That's an example of something I realized in my last session, and it holds up well even now that I'm sober. It was also something that I have been working though over the last couple of years, so it's not like big astounding fact... it was just really brought home because it feels (once again, maybe just to me) much more inviting to really examine those kinds of thoughts and conditions in that setting. On the other hand, I can't program / do calc / do about anything technical... when I look at designs while sober it's all wingnuttery with obvious flaws. You might have a different experience

by MrLeap 7y ago

taylortrusty 7y ago

Beautiful, and similar to my own experiences. Thanks for sharing.

ZhuanXia 7y ago

Is it possible to do mathematics while on such drugs? I am working through a textbook on projective geometry and I feel like those visualization enhancements would be super useful.

roymurdock 7y ago
I'd give microdosing LSD a shot: In the 1950s, before the term “Silicon Valley” existed, a handful of engineers at the tech pioneer Ampex were approached by Al Hubbard, the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD.” And with his help, they found that dropping acid could make their jobs easier. “[Hubbard] wanted to turn on the best and brightest and have the wisdom trickle down to the populace,” Pollan said. “Engineers who were working on chips found LSD very helpful in imagining a structure as complex as a computer chip. Before there were computers, designing a computer chip was much harder! It was a three-dimensional structure, layered, and you had to hold an incredible amount of information in your head.” The Ampex engineers started a nonprofit called the International Foundation for Advanced Study, giving LSD to people like inventor Doug Engelbart. His first under-the-influence invention was a toy for toilet-training boys, but Pollan pointed out that it was only after this experience that Engelbart did the work he’s most famous for: Inventing the computer mouse, the graphical user interface and key components of the internet. “Engineers, unlike scientists, deal with irreducible complexity,” Pollan said. “There’s so many variables that, instead of reducing a problem to simplicity like scientists, they have to find patterns in a very complex space. That’s what LSD does — it helps you find patterns.” https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind-book-drugs-engelbart-kara-swisher-podcast https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to...
scarecrowbob 7y ago
You'd have to try it yourself. Personally, I have very limited technical skill when tripping. I'm a semi-professional musician, and I can keep up with folks, but I don't think I sound better or worse. There are a lot of interesting aesthetics that you can pull from that kind of visual hallucination, but IME it's not super "realistic" or "rational". I've gotten a lot out of psychadelic drugs but the realizations are usually far more poetic than practical. The longer-term revelations I've found have more to do with realizing that, say, a lot of my relationships have been validated by caring for my partner because I didn't get a certain level of care growing up, and that I've probably worked to find partners who need a certain amount and kind of care... so as long as I keep doing that I will probably keep failing in those relationships. That's an example of something I realized in my last session, and it holds up well even now that I'm sober. It was also something that I have been working though over the last couple of years, so it's not like big astounding fact... it was just really brought home because it feels (once again, maybe just to me) much more inviting to really examine those kinds of thoughts and conditions in that setting. On the other hand, I can't program / do calc / do about anything technical... when I look at designs while sober it's all wingnuttery with obvious flaws. You might have a different experience