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Anecdata: I once took LSD and went on a bad trip. I "discovered" that everything in the universe is fractal: space, time and causality. Every microsecond of ex

Anecdata: I once took LSD and went on a bad trip. I "discovered" that everything in the universe is fractal: space, time and causality. Every microsecond of existence contains within itself the whole existence of the universe and at the same time each one of those 'temporal universes' contains other temporal universes, every micrometer contains the whole space, and every moment there are millions of decisions that take us to the next 'frame', but the other decisions still exist and have their own decision trees. Also, we're all the same person or being. Weird day.

tcmb 5y ago
That sounds like a profound experience, would you say these insights had any lasting impact on your life? And, if may ask, in what way was it a bad trip? I once took LSD and was hoping for that level of experience, but only got nice visual sfx and some bad emotions later on.
- swayvil 5y ago
  Consider that you're remarking on his takeaway here. The "insights". The conceptual end-product of all that strange-seeing. But it's the strange-seeing that's the real feast.
- throwaway64389 5y ago
  I would say it has opened a door to different way of seeing reality, and I can open that door whenever I want, but I don't think it has changed any of the practical decisions I've made. It was a bad trip because the fractal nature of time implies that your life repeats itself infinitely many times (probably with the exact same details). You can never rest, it's all an infinite loop, and that idea made me extremely distressed, like this fractal nature was some sort of punishment or permanent purgatory.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "It was a bad trip because the fractal nature of time implies that your life repeats itself infinitely many times (probably with the exact same details)." This echoes Nietzsche's idea of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, which he thought would in fact be terrifying to the ordinary man, but the overman could live their life in such a way that the infinite repetition would be fully and unreservedly welcome.
jerrygoyal 5y ago
somewhat related to your second point https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI (egg theory)
skindoe 5y ago
Welcome to what mystics from the west and east have been saying for thousands of years.
thebas 5y ago
I find this description quite unsettling because it is so common. I experienced it myself after trying magic mushroom: We are all one being(we call it the universe), it's consciousness subdivided between us all in order to escape it's solitude. It was scary at the time believing this sad possibility. I'm not so sure but the thought remains. Also follows: whatever you do to me you will be experiencing it.
- sammalloy 5y ago
  > I find this description quite unsettling because it is so common. More importantly, the description isn't just found in trip reports. It's found throughout history, in reports of people who have had what are called peak experiences, sometimes involving trauma. There are many stories of prisoners in the literature, for example, who come to the realization that both the jailer and the jailed are the same. Jack Kornfield is one of many who is famous for relating the story about how the person being tortured suddenly observes that the person torturing them is the same entity. I believe there are also many reports from concentration camps coming to the same conclusion. It's difficult for us to admit this, because normal waking consciousness would have us sort things into us and them, but there is a level of perception that one can reach, where the interconnectedness of all things is seen. Many people tend to toss these things into religion or spirituality, but there's nothing supernatural about it at all, it's a biological and ecological reality. The question, however, that doesn't go away, is why are these peak experiences trying to communicate the same or similar ultimate truths to us, truths that seem to contradict and oppose the conditioning and programming of our dominant culture, which tells us we are separate from each other and should be fearful, aggressive, and violent.
  - roywiggins 5y ago
    The boring possibility is that humans have to self-generate an ego- babies don't really know the difference between themselves and other people, it's one of the recognized developmental stages. So in unusual situations it's maybe not surprising that that particular ability could get disrupted, it might actually be quite fragile.
ketamine__ 5y ago
I find these experiences like a video game. And since I have to take ketamine for my depression it sometimes provides entertainment to distract me from the other side-effects.
Applejinx 5y ago
What did you do next? :)
noja 5y ago
I think this is the way your brain decides things: by replaying events slightly differently, and choosing the best option. And if that is the way the brain works, then that is the way you would make sense of the world.
throwaway726665 5y ago
Had the same exact experience a year ago on my first trip. We’re all the same person = experiencing one-ness/ego death. For a lot of people it adds magic into their lives. For my materialist mind, not as much. Just confusion. I think it gave me what Jordan Peterson calls ontological shock. Having OCD doesn’t help since I now obsess about it and I also suspect it made me feel derealized.
rantwasp 5y ago
http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
romesmoke 5y ago
>Also, we're all the same person or being. > >Weird day. Not that weird according to Alan Watts' "Book" AKA "On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are". This is the main tenet, and it can briefly be described as a God who plays hide n' seek with Godself.
fastball 5y ago
Sounds like a fantastic trip.
gerdesj 5y ago
You mention microseconds and micometers. Those are on the scale of the edge of our various human senses. Now, your quantum thingies happen on the scale of the Planck constant. I've just asked Google what h is and I got this beast: 6.62607004 × 10^-34 m^2 kg / s Note the mixed suffixes and the silly precision for a web search result. I'm not a mathematician. If I was a physicist or chemist or whatever doing calcs for real, I probably wouldn't use Google to look up the latest result. I'd quote a paper. So 6.63 is more than enough for the number in a search result. Units: metres squared kilograms per second. The notation for the number is different to the notation for the unit, so we can conclude that Mr Google is a bit slack. The number is given with negative exponent notation and the units with slash notation. OK, so Google is a bit crap. Back to my thesis: Your trippy self needs to really get to grips with the fabric of reality. That fabric is far more fantastic and granular than you have experienced so far on LSD. You carved things up into 10^-3 (micro) when you stuffed some pretty funky drugs into your bloodstream. Mr Planck has shown that you need to worry about 10^-34 if you are going to really get to grips with the fabric of reality. You'll need quite a large lab and some decent funding .... or a bit more imagination. Good luck.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
I've noticed ... changes to existing facts in reality that shouldn't change. No, it wasn't bad memory. I have a bad memory, but when it's something I'm hyper (adhd) obsessively focused on, and then it changes within 3 days, that is different than a mis-remembered childhood spelling like Berenstein/Berenstain Bears. I'm agnostic (exmormon), I think God(s) are narcissistic man-king-modeled control structures. However after experience reality shift -- all without any drug use... I've become somewhat "spiritual" in a sense, in that I feel there's a lot more to everything than I ever imagined. Simulation theory is my strongest belief, but secondary would be entropic multiverses colliding when they have no more room to split into new universes. Scientifically, I find the Cosmological Axis of Evil quite odd that it puts our solar system somehow "central" to the universe (on one axis), from a simulation perspective you could argue the simulation renders what's needed and started here on out. Anyhow, i've been going down rabbit holes on "occult" wisdom trying to see if there's a way to actually change reality by one's accord. So far dead ends (or I haven't gone far enough yet to reach "enlightenment"), most promising idea is meditation (silencing brain completely) might open some "conduit" to learn from the universe or make changes, or both. Looking at toltec (/r/castaneda), spiritual subs, buddhist, hindu, etc... that's the one common thread: quiet the mind. Learn to meditate. Lucid dreams may help. Astral Projections could help. I guess in other words train your brain to find some of the same things LSD brings organically without the need for drugs. Probably healthier that way, but it's a long process. There is a big benefit though in working on meditation practices: anxiety goes way down. That's nice after last year. I've had panic attacks, etc. So, I guess if I figure shit out or not, there's at least a benefit for trying.
okareaman 5y ago
Somewhat similar: Based on the fact that if you break a holographic picture in half then the two halves show a fainter representation of the whole and not a left and right portion, I imagined we each contain the whole mind of god, but a faint representation of it, since we are only a part of the whole. https://www.litiholo.com/blog/2019/10/11/what-happens-when-you-cut-a-hologram-in-half/ https://www.litiholo.com/blog/2019/10/11/what-happens-when-y...
dmt0 5y ago
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.” https://youtu.be/DWpzT56nxZI?t=71 https://youtu.be/DWpzT56nxZI?t=71

tcmb 5y ago

That sounds like a profound experience, would you say these insights had any lasting impact on your life? And, if may ask, in what way was it a bad trip? I once took LSD and was hoping for that level of experience, but only got nice visual sfx and some bad emotions later on.

swayvil 5y ago
Consider that you're remarking on his takeaway here. The "insights". The conceptual end-product of all that strange-seeing. But it's the strange-seeing that's the real feast.
throwaway64389 5y ago
I would say it has opened a door to different way of seeing reality, and I can open that door whenever I want, but I don't think it has changed any of the practical decisions I've made. It was a bad trip because the fractal nature of time implies that your life repeats itself infinitely many times (probably with the exact same details). You can never rest, it's all an infinite loop, and that idea made me extremely distressed, like this fractal nature was some sort of punishment or permanent purgatory.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "It was a bad trip because the fractal nature of time implies that your life repeats itself infinitely many times (probably with the exact same details)." This echoes Nietzsche's idea of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, which he thought would in fact be terrifying to the ordinary man, but the overman could live their life in such a way that the infinite repetition would be fully and unreservedly welcome.

jerrygoyal 5y ago

somewhat related to your second point https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI (egg theory)

skindoe 5y ago

Welcome to what mystics from the west and east have been saying for thousands of years.

thebas 5y ago

I find this description quite unsettling because it is so common. I experienced it myself after trying magic mushroom: We are all one being(we call it the universe), it's consciousness subdivided between us all in order to escape it's solitude. It was scary at the time believing this sad possibility. I'm not so sure but the thought remains. Also follows: whatever you do to me you will be experiencing it.

sammalloy 5y ago
> I find this description quite unsettling because it is so common. More importantly, the description isn't just found in trip reports. It's found throughout history, in reports of people who have had what are called peak experiences, sometimes involving trauma. There are many stories of prisoners in the literature, for example, who come to the realization that both the jailer and the jailed are the same. Jack Kornfield is one of many who is famous for relating the story about how the person being tortured suddenly observes that the person torturing them is the same entity. I believe there are also many reports from concentration camps coming to the same conclusion. It's difficult for us to admit this, because normal waking consciousness would have us sort things into us and them, but there is a level of perception that one can reach, where the interconnectedness of all things is seen. Many people tend to toss these things into religion or spirituality, but there's nothing supernatural about it at all, it's a biological and ecological reality. The question, however, that doesn't go away, is why are these peak experiences trying to communicate the same or similar ultimate truths to us, truths that seem to contradict and oppose the conditioning and programming of our dominant culture, which tells us we are separate from each other and should be fearful, aggressive, and violent.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  The boring possibility is that humans have to self-generate an ego- babies don't really know the difference between themselves and other people, it's one of the recognized developmental stages. So in unusual situations it's maybe not surprising that that particular ability could get disrupted, it might actually be quite fragile.

ketamine__ 5y ago

I find these experiences like a video game. And since I have to take ketamine for my depression it sometimes provides entertainment to distract me from the other side-effects.

Applejinx 5y ago

What did you do next? :)

noja 5y ago

I think this is the way your brain decides things: by replaying events slightly differently, and choosing the best option. And if that is the way the brain works, then that is the way you would make sense of the world.

throwaway726665 5y ago

Had the same exact experience a year ago on my first trip. We’re all the same person = experiencing one-ness/ego death. For a lot of people it adds magic into their lives. For my materialist mind, not as much. Just confusion. I think it gave me what Jordan Peterson calls ontological shock. Having OCD doesn’t help since I now obsess about it and I also suspect it made me feel derealized.

rantwasp 5y ago

http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

romesmoke 5y ago

>Also, we're all the same person or being. > >Weird day. Not that weird according to Alan Watts' "Book" AKA "On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are". This is the main tenet, and it can briefly be described as a God who plays hide n' seek with Godself.

fastball 5y ago

Sounds like a fantastic trip.

gerdesj 5y ago

You mention microseconds and micometers. Those are on the scale of the edge of our various human senses. Now, your quantum thingies happen on the scale of the Planck constant. I've just asked Google what h is and I got this beast: 6.62607004 × 10^-34 m^2 kg / s Note the mixed suffixes and the silly precision for a web search result. I'm not a mathematician. If I was a physicist or chemist or whatever doing calcs for real, I probably wouldn't use Google to look up the latest result. I'd quote a paper. So 6.63 is more than enough for the number in a search result. Units: metres squared kilograms per second. The notation for the number is different to the notation for the unit, so we can conclude that Mr Google is a bit slack. The number is given with negative exponent notation and the units with slash notation. OK, so Google is a bit crap. Back to my thesis: Your trippy self needs to really get to grips with the fabric of reality. That fabric is far more fantastic and granular than you have experienced so far on LSD. You carved things up into 10^-3 (micro) when you stuffed some pretty funky drugs into your bloodstream. Mr Planck has shown that you need to worry about 10^-34 if you are going to really get to grips with the fabric of reality. You'll need quite a large lab and some decent funding .... or a bit more imagination. Good luck.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

I've noticed ... changes to existing facts in reality that shouldn't change. No, it wasn't bad memory. I have a bad memory, but when it's something I'm hyper (adhd) obsessively focused on, and then it changes within 3 days, that is different than a mis-remembered childhood spelling like Berenstein/Berenstain Bears. I'm agnostic (exmormon), I think God(s) are narcissistic man-king-modeled control structures. However after experience reality shift -- all without any drug use... I've become somewhat "spiritual" in a sense, in that I feel there's a lot more to everything than I ever imagined. Simulation theory is my strongest belief, but secondary would be entropic multiverses colliding when they have no more room to split into new universes. Scientifically, I find the Cosmological Axis of Evil quite odd that it puts our solar system somehow "central" to the universe (on one axis), from a simulation perspective you could argue the simulation renders what's needed and started here on out. Anyhow, i've been going down rabbit holes on "occult" wisdom trying to see if there's a way to actually change reality by one's accord. So far dead ends (or I haven't gone far enough yet to reach "enlightenment"), most promising idea is meditation (silencing brain completely) might open some "conduit" to learn from the universe or make changes, or both. Looking at toltec (/r/castaneda), spiritual subs, buddhist, hindu, etc... that's the one common thread: quiet the mind. Learn to meditate. Lucid dreams may help. Astral Projections could help. I guess in other words train your brain to find some of the same things LSD brings organically without the need for drugs. Probably healthier that way, but it's a long process. There is a big benefit though in working on meditation practices: anxiety goes way down. That's nice after last year. I've had panic attacks, etc. So, I guess if I figure shit out or not, there's at least a benefit for trying.

okareaman 5y ago

Somewhat similar: Based on the fact that if you break a holographic picture in half then the two halves show a fainter representation of the whole and not a left and right portion, I imagined we each contain the whole mind of god, but a faint representation of it, since we are only a part of the whole. https://www.litiholo.com/blog/2019/10/11/what-happens-when-you-cut-a-hologram-in-half/ https://www.litiholo.com/blog/2019/10/11/what-happens-when-y...

dmt0 5y ago

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.” https://youtu.be/DWpzT56nxZI?t=71 https://youtu.be/DWpzT56nxZI?t=71