5 ms·
As someone who has taken extremely heavy doses of some very, very potent psychedelics (LSD, DMT, ketamine, mescaline and psilocybin), I am inclined to agree wit
by akuro 4y ago
As someone who has taken extremely heavy doses of some very, very potent psychedelics (LSD, DMT, ketamine, mescaline and psilocybin), I am inclined to agree with you. I acknowledge that some people experience great benefits from psychedelics, but the current push to label psychedelics as mental health miracle solution doesn't sit right with me.
Make no mistake: these chemicals are not to be trifled with. People with underlying mental health issues - the poeple who would be most interested in using psychedelics - are at heavy risk of exacerbating their illnesses. Even outside of those special cases, I've seen normal people become heavily affected by bad trips. I simply don't think that there is enough scientific literature on the adverse effects of psychedelics. I also do not like the heavy focus on the "spiritual" aspects that these drugs are believed to confer: are you really transcending, or are you just so heavily intoxicated that you believe you are and no longer have the rational capabilities to convince yourself otherwise?
If I can end on just a little anecdote myself, I personally believe that heavy psychedelic use is especially counterproductive to technical/knowledge-based work. I did barely any work during the year that I was experimenting with these drugs. I was so content with my life as it was that I simply didn't feel the urge to exert myself. I was becoming soft, more predisposed to magical thinking. I believed that psychedelics had revealed unto me truths about how society should be run, how life should be and the true nature of mathematics. But I didn't know a damn thing! I just lost the inclination to actually analyse my ideas (or notions, because they barely qualified as ideas), instead being content to just accept them as they were. After a long stretch of abstinence from these drugs, I realised how worthless most of these notions actually were. I also deeply regretted the amount of time I spent taking these notions seriously, as well as the amount of time I had wasted in thinking that I had actually been experiencing any spiritual truths.
- ekzy 4y agoThanks for sharing your experience. Most stories I read online about psychedelics are overwhelmingly positive, so much that it feels like you’d be missing out on life if you didn’t try it. It’s good to read your kind of stories too.
- leto_ii 4y ago> I was becoming soft, more predisposed to magical thinking. My experience is only with microdosing LSD and psilocybine mushrooms, however this 'softness' does ring true to me. The good part with microdosing though is that it doesn't last anywhere near a year, while the positive effects I've felt and the deep conclusions I reached about myself and life in general I think will last a lifetime. LSD has especially helped me get pretty much completely rid of anxiety in a particularly tense moment of my life. It has also 'thawed' some more ingrained thought patterns and ideas I had about things.
- alexvoda 4y agoWhat you are saying makes me wonder whether there is a correlation between predisposition towards magical thinking (spirituality, religiosity, etc.) and effectiveness of psychedelics? And for that matter could there be an equivalent of psychedelics for various types of AIs?
- moomoo11 4y agoAs my stoner friend says, “you just gotta believe, bro” Believe what tho?