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Certainly not the only one. I once took too much (only obvious in retrospect) with friends, and the scene replayed what felt like thousands of times. Each time

Certainly not the only one. I once took too much (only obvious in retrospect) with friends, and the scene replayed what felt like thousands of times. Each time was subtly different than the last, but cumulatively it felt like a whole different world. Eventually I ran into the very difficult dilemma of having to "reconstruct" my original timeline so that I could return safely to it, rather than to the bizarre new timeline we all seemed to occupy. It felt like a Herculean (or maybe Sisyphean) effort to rebuild all of reality to the place where we had left it, but juuust as we managed to do it (seemingly eons later), the trip coincidentally ended. Haven't touched LSD / AL-LAD since. If I were a materialist, I'd find this hard (but not impossible) to explain. The only permissible explanation would be that the whole thing was an illusion of some sort (insert lots of handwaving), brought on by chemicals in a very real brain. But I'm (roughly) an idealist, and this isn't even the strangest experience I've had on psychedelics, so there's a much broader set of possibilities here -- some of which actually inform my sober life in practical and beneficial ways. Tangentially related, I found this to be a fun trip report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEg70Tf_V5A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEg70Tf_V5A

gavinray 6y ago
FWIW, I also had the experience/sensation of being "removed" from the standard reality we experience daily, and put into a slightly-altered one that had been "created" or brought on by what was happening. And it felt very clearly like "the rules do not apply here". This sort of sensation only happened in those particular experiences, all the other ones just felt "normal" (ironic term here). Look at how absurd all of this sounds when you say it publicly. Psychedelics are something else...
- monktastic1 6y ago
  Yes, I've also had very powerful demonstrations of the rules no longer applying. And the more my mind tried to fight it, the more explicit and painstaking the demonstrations became, until I was forced to submit to a shocking realization (roughly: that I do not, and cannot, know what reality "really" is, and shame on me for having the hubris to so confidently insist otherwise). It would have been very easy for me to ascribe this to something like advanced alien technology, or the simulation hypothesis, or other extraordinarily strange possibilities. From the Buddhist perspective, it is the very nature of mind to demonstrate and teach -- in whatever ways the sentient being requires -- the infinite flexibility and unlimited potential of experience. If one is receptive to it, it can be integrated in a healthy way (much unlike the alien or simulation explanations, IMHO). In my experience, that is why psychedelics are not necessarily appropriate for all people at all times. Would love to hear more about your story, if you feel like sharing.
  - gavinray 6y ago
    > The more my mind tried to fight it, the more explicit and painstaking the demonstrations became, until I was forced to submit to a shocking realization Exact same experience as well. It was like a Gordian Knot -- the worse I struggled, the tighter it squeezed. It's kind of eerie how similar all the variants of this experience I've read online are. > Would love to hear more about your story, if you feel like sharing. Sure. I think it's useful to share things like this so other people don't think they've gone insane/are the only one. Had a long discussion and went into detail on it before here: Initial comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991744 Background story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993060
    - ta1234567890 6y ago
      > Sure. I think it's useful to share things like this so other people don't think they've gone insane/are the only one. The weird/crazy/interesting and scary thing about it, is that many of these things can happen to people without taking any psychedelics. Some people do think they've gone crazy. Related research about persistent non-symbolic experience: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=conscjournal https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
vga805 6y ago
Well now we need to know, if you're willing to share: what was the strangest experience you've had?
- monktastic1 6y ago
  One problem is that the further out the experiences get, the less easy they are to put into words (or even into memories). The other problem is that this can sound like bragging or attention-seeking. Nonetheless, as another commenter pointed out, it might be healthy to normalize some of these experiences (insofar as such a thing is possible). In each case, I'm not the only one who has had the experience. On DMT, I've had the experience of retracting all of reality into a singularity, where I remained for eternity in infinite bliss, until I ("I") was ready to Big Bang the whole thing out again, which I of course dutifully did. As you can imagine, this is a very condensed version of the story. I've had experiences of discovering how reality is "actually" a dream, and becoming privy to all of the precise, minute details of how everything is projected from the psyche of the Godhead that we all ultimately are. I've had the experience of living countless lives, from the perspectives of both victims and their perpetrators, until I've seen very precisely why unerring compassion is the only sensible response to anything, ever, period. Why all evil is illusion, and can only be driven out by light (the primordial love that manifests as all of reality). Why humanity suffers so much: because we project the darkness within us outside of ourselves, so that we can avoid taking responsibility. How we wear these projections as a badge of honor: look, we are the good guys, fighting the bad guys! I have also had more "conventionally strange" trips (if that makes sense) in which physical laws are broken in arbitrarily strange ways. Think of the old Tibetan Buddhist story of a master who was able to fit a large animal (a yak maybe?) into his shoe, without the Yak getting smaller or his shoe getting bigger. Some of these experiences offered me the chance to use all of my normal tools to confirm them as thoroughly as I would be able in sober reality, until I was thoroughly satisfied that no combination of neurotransmitters or standard physics could suffice as an explanation. I would love to share more details, but I'm not sure I can. I would not blame someone reading this and concluding that I'm batshit crazy. From my perspective, the crazy part is us being so certain we've got reality figured out in the slightest bit. This belief in a fundamentally lifeless reality is the root of so much suffering (for example, the whole climate crisis), and yet we're doubling down on it. It breaks my heart. My rational mind has even constructed radically skeptical arguments demonstrating why we should not (see my profile, e.g.). Your mileage may vary, of course. Edit: wow, a lot in common with gavinray's response.
aaroninsf 6y ago
I think it's easier to explain (as a materialist, which I am) if you posit that what has been disrupted is not the real-time sensory and self-awareness functions of the mind, but those of encoding memory of those experiences, memory being the necessary stack layer through which this all transpires. Metaphorically, remember how skipping CDs sound? Generating and recording the same stream of sound is possible but as you say, "hard," but if the same outcome can through a relatively trivial disruption of a different part of the system... (I have intentionally made glitch music of various kinds... the fast path is always to force failure modes in the tools, not to try to replicate them through intentional construction :)) To add my own observation of the alternate experience of time on psychedelics: one reason I have loved the 2C family is the recurring perception that the entropic arrow hides from us that all states (T - N, T, and probably T + N) exist eternally all the time; the "we" of any given moment T merely experience it as illusory flow. As more and more friends die, and other things are lost, it is deeply reassuring to imagine that this might be so–that those people and things are still "there" in a literal real sense, even, nearby in some sense... ...just not one we are privy to given the limits of our embodiment. Not something I suspect is falsifiable, but if I'm going to have faith in something, as an aetheist, this is as deep a well of peace as I have found.

gavinray 6y ago

FWIW, I also had the experience/sensation of being "removed" from the standard reality we experience daily, and put into a slightly-altered one that had been "created" or brought on by what was happening. And it felt very clearly like "the rules do not apply here". This sort of sensation only happened in those particular experiences, all the other ones just felt "normal" (ironic term here). Look at how absurd all of this sounds when you say it publicly. Psychedelics are something else...

monktastic1 6y ago
Yes, I've also had very powerful demonstrations of the rules no longer applying. And the more my mind tried to fight it, the more explicit and painstaking the demonstrations became, until I was forced to submit to a shocking realization (roughly: that I do not, and cannot, know what reality "really" is, and shame on me for having the hubris to so confidently insist otherwise). It would have been very easy for me to ascribe this to something like advanced alien technology, or the simulation hypothesis, or other extraordinarily strange possibilities. From the Buddhist perspective, it is the very nature of mind to demonstrate and teach -- in whatever ways the sentient being requires -- the infinite flexibility and unlimited potential of experience. If one is receptive to it, it can be integrated in a healthy way (much unlike the alien or simulation explanations, IMHO). In my experience, that is why psychedelics are not necessarily appropriate for all people at all times. Would love to hear more about your story, if you feel like sharing.
- gavinray 6y ago
  > The more my mind tried to fight it, the more explicit and painstaking the demonstrations became, until I was forced to submit to a shocking realization Exact same experience as well. It was like a Gordian Knot -- the worse I struggled, the tighter it squeezed. It's kind of eerie how similar all the variants of this experience I've read online are. > Would love to hear more about your story, if you feel like sharing. Sure. I think it's useful to share things like this so other people don't think they've gone insane/are the only one. Had a long discussion and went into detail on it before here: Initial comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991744 Background story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993060
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    > Sure. I think it's useful to share things like this so other people don't think they've gone insane/are the only one. The weird/crazy/interesting and scary thing about it, is that many of these things can happen to people without taking any psychedelics. Some people do think they've gone crazy. Related research about persistent non-symbolic experience: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=conscjournal https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

vga805 6y ago

Well now we need to know, if you're willing to share: what was the strangest experience you've had?

monktastic1 6y ago
One problem is that the further out the experiences get, the less easy they are to put into words (or even into memories). The other problem is that this can sound like bragging or attention-seeking. Nonetheless, as another commenter pointed out, it might be healthy to normalize some of these experiences (insofar as such a thing is possible). In each case, I'm not the only one who has had the experience. On DMT, I've had the experience of retracting all of reality into a singularity, where I remained for eternity in infinite bliss, until I ("I") was ready to Big Bang the whole thing out again, which I of course dutifully did. As you can imagine, this is a very condensed version of the story. I've had experiences of discovering how reality is "actually" a dream, and becoming privy to all of the precise, minute details of how everything is projected from the psyche of the Godhead that we all ultimately are. I've had the experience of living countless lives, from the perspectives of both victims and their perpetrators, until I've seen very precisely why unerring compassion is the only sensible response to anything, ever, period. Why all evil is illusion, and can only be driven out by light (the primordial love that manifests as all of reality). Why humanity suffers so much: because we project the darkness within us outside of ourselves, so that we can avoid taking responsibility. How we wear these projections as a badge of honor: look, we are the good guys, fighting the bad guys! I have also had more "conventionally strange" trips (if that makes sense) in which physical laws are broken in arbitrarily strange ways. Think of the old Tibetan Buddhist story of a master who was able to fit a large animal (a yak maybe?) into his shoe, without the Yak getting smaller or his shoe getting bigger. Some of these experiences offered me the chance to use all of my normal tools to confirm them as thoroughly as I would be able in sober reality, until I was thoroughly satisfied that no combination of neurotransmitters or standard physics could suffice as an explanation. I would love to share more details, but I'm not sure I can. I would not blame someone reading this and concluding that I'm batshit crazy. From my perspective, the crazy part is us being so certain we've got reality figured out in the slightest bit. This belief in a fundamentally lifeless reality is the root of so much suffering (for example, the whole climate crisis), and yet we're doubling down on it. It breaks my heart. My rational mind has even constructed radically skeptical arguments demonstrating why we should not (see my profile, e.g.). Your mileage may vary, of course. Edit: wow, a lot in common with gavinray's response.

aaroninsf 6y ago

I think it's easier to explain (as a materialist, which I am) if you posit that what has been disrupted is not the real-time sensory and self-awareness functions of the mind, but those of encoding memory of those experiences, memory being the necessary stack layer through which this all transpires. Metaphorically, remember how skipping CDs sound? Generating and recording the same stream of sound is possible but as you say, "hard," but if the same outcome can through a relatively trivial disruption of a different part of the system... (I have intentionally made glitch music of various kinds... the fast path is always to force failure modes in the tools, not to try to replicate them through intentional construction :)) To add my own observation of the alternate experience of time on psychedelics: one reason I have loved the 2C family is the recurring perception that the entropic arrow hides from us that all states (T - N, T, and probably T + N) exist eternally all the time; the "we" of any given moment T merely experience it as illusory flow. As more and more friends die, and other things are lost, it is deeply reassuring to imagine that this might be so–that those people and things are still "there" in a literal real sense, even, nearby in some sense... ...just not one we are privy to given the limits of our embodiment. Not something I suspect is falsifiable, but if I'm going to have faith in something, as an aetheist, this is as deep a well of peace as I have found.