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[deleted]

PraetorianGourd 4y ago
I am confident the OP meant “meet God” as short-hand for “a spiritual and transcendental experience wherein the ego is destroyed and rebuilt anew with a profoundly different perspective”. I don’t think anyone would earnestly claim that there is zero risk to any hallucinogenic experience. One of my hopes is that through study we can better understand the ingredients that lead to profoundly positive experiences vs. profoundly traumatizing experiences. And anyone who claims we know that today is acting in bad faith.
- ipnon 4y ago
  Roland Griffiths’ foundational psilocybin study did not have any adverse outcomes. They used a simple protocol: no patient or patient family history of schizophrenia or bipolar, patients underwent cognitive behavioral therapy before and after the trial, patients were made to develop a warm and trusting rapport with the physicians before administration, and a physician was on hand for the duration of the psilocybin administration to coach the patient through unforeseen disturbances and administer anxiolytics in the case of panic attacks. With this simple protocol they reported no adverse affects, although they also did not report a 100% rate of efficacy. Griffiths wrote an entire separate study on this protocol, it is self-recommending.
  - PraetorianGourd 4y ago
    This one? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909165/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909165/ Terminal cancer patients, those expecting to die and “meet God” soon, are a very, very niche audience compared to a general population with non-specific major depressive disorders. But at the same time, I love this. The more study, the better!
    - ipnon 4y ago
      After seeing the responses to my original post I wish I had used different terms. I did not mean "meeting God" literally, but used it more as a metaphor for "meeting your maker": coming to terms with universal human problems like mortality, our relations to our friends and family, the nature of good and evil, things of that nature. "Meeting God" I thought would sum all this up poetically, but you can always count on HN to take things literally! Griffiths' research is all high quality. He is the pioneer in making this field of scientific research palatable to the mainstream medical establishment.
ruined 4y ago
if i were unhappy with my life after an epiphany, i would simply act to change my situation
- bowsamic 4y ago
  The only great impulse of change I had after my trips was an intense urge to kill myself
  - ruined 4y ago
    what, with no reason? you didn't have a why? fix the why.
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      It didn’t show me a why it just showed me that I want to die. Other LSD users say I should take more at a higher dosage but that seems like a bad idea
      - chaps 4y ago
        What dosage did you take? I've heard low doses can actually be a deeply frustrating experience.
        bowsamic 4y ago
        100ug
      - ruined 4y ago
        you keep looking at LSD for feelings you're having while sober. examine your reasons for your feelings now. if you can't identify your own motivations, how can you attribute cause like that?
        bowsamic 4y ago
        I wasn’t ever suicidal before, I was after, that’s all I know
isoprophlex 4y ago
The experience is highly variable between people. I'm sorry you had such a rough time, and I'm hoping that things are at least slowly getting better for you. About the god thing, my 2 cents. "god" doesn't always mean Christian White Old Guy on a Cloud Looking Angrily Downwards. There's a less narrow interpretation. If psychedelics strip away your day-to-day preoccupations, and show you life with a vastly different set of mental filters in place, many people experience a transcendent feeling of belonging to something bigger than their sober selves. A connectedness to other humans and nature that goes beyond ordinary experience. The idea that death isn't so bad, only suffering is; and suffering is the price we must pay for the ability to see its opposite, beauty. Which people then conversationally condense to "yeah you meet god"
- bowsamic 4y ago
  So they just mean a transcendent, spiritual experience?
  - isoprophlex 4y ago
    Yeah i guess that's a lot more accurate if you want to avoid the cultural baggage of the god-word
  - swayvil 4y ago
    It expands your consciousness is a popular way of describing it. Imagine a chronic obsessive cellphone gazer. One day he lifts his nose from the screen. Sun! Clouds! Birds and squirrels! Except moreso.
    - canadiantim 4y ago
      This is a really good explanation
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      But shouldn’t God be in all things, including the profound, if he’s really the Absolute? I doubt he’d be limited to our human conception of nature
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Meeting is just a way of describing a numinous experience. I have heard atheists, christians, pagans and sikhs alike use the term. Mathematicians often use it to describe especially profound proofs regardless of religion.

[deleted]

I am confident the OP meant “meet God” as short-hand for “a spiritual and transcendental experience wherein the ego is destroyed and rebuilt anew with a profoundly different perspective”. I don’t think anyone would earnestly claim that there is zero risk to any hallucinogenic experience. One of my hopes is that through study we can better understand the ingredients that lead to profoundly positive experiences vs. profoundly traumatizing experiences. And anyone who claims we know that today is acting in bad faith.

ipnon 4y ago
Roland Griffiths’ foundational psilocybin study did not have any adverse outcomes. They used a simple protocol: no patient or patient family history of schizophrenia or bipolar, patients underwent cognitive behavioral therapy before and after the trial, patients were made to develop a warm and trusting rapport with the physicians before administration, and a physician was on hand for the duration of the psilocybin administration to coach the patient through unforeseen disturbances and administer anxiolytics in the case of panic attacks. With this simple protocol they reported no adverse affects, although they also did not report a 100% rate of efficacy. Griffiths wrote an entire separate study on this protocol, it is self-recommending.
- PraetorianGourd 4y ago
  This one? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909165/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909165/ Terminal cancer patients, those expecting to die and “meet God” soon, are a very, very niche audience compared to a general population with non-specific major depressive disorders. But at the same time, I love this. The more study, the better!
  - ipnon 4y ago
    After seeing the responses to my original post I wish I had used different terms. I did not mean "meeting God" literally, but used it more as a metaphor for "meeting your maker": coming to terms with universal human problems like mortality, our relations to our friends and family, the nature of good and evil, things of that nature. "Meeting God" I thought would sum all this up poetically, but you can always count on HN to take things literally! Griffiths' research is all high quality. He is the pioneer in making this field of scientific research palatable to the mainstream medical establishment.

ruined 4y ago

if i were unhappy with my life after an epiphany, i would simply act to change my situation

bowsamic 4y ago
The only great impulse of change I had after my trips was an intense urge to kill myself
- ruined 4y ago
  what, with no reason? you didn't have a why? fix the why.
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    It didn’t show me a why it just showed me that I want to die. Other LSD users say I should take more at a higher dosage but that seems like a bad idea
    - chaps 4y ago
      What dosage did you take? I've heard low doses can actually be a deeply frustrating experience.
      - bowsamic 4y ago
        100ug
    - ruined 4y ago
      you keep looking at LSD for feelings you're having while sober. examine your reasons for your feelings now. if you can't identify your own motivations, how can you attribute cause like that?
      - bowsamic 4y ago
        I wasn’t ever suicidal before, I was after, that’s all I know

isoprophlex 4y ago

The experience is highly variable between people. I'm sorry you had such a rough time, and I'm hoping that things are at least slowly getting better for you. About the god thing, my 2 cents. "god" doesn't always mean Christian White Old Guy on a Cloud Looking Angrily Downwards. There's a less narrow interpretation. If psychedelics strip away your day-to-day preoccupations, and show you life with a vastly different set of mental filters in place, many people experience a transcendent feeling of belonging to something bigger than their sober selves. A connectedness to other humans and nature that goes beyond ordinary experience. The idea that death isn't so bad, only suffering is; and suffering is the price we must pay for the ability to see its opposite, beauty. Which people then conversationally condense to "yeah you meet god"

bowsamic 4y ago
So they just mean a transcendent, spiritual experience?
- isoprophlex 4y ago
  Yeah i guess that's a lot more accurate if you want to avoid the cultural baggage of the god-word
- swayvil 4y ago
  It expands your consciousness is a popular way of describing it. Imagine a chronic obsessive cellphone gazer. One day he lifts his nose from the screen. Sun! Clouds! Birds and squirrels! Except moreso.
  - canadiantim 4y ago
    This is a really good explanation
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    But shouldn’t God be in all things, including the profound, if he’s really the Absolute? I doubt he’d be limited to our human conception of nature

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Meeting is just a way of describing a numinous experience. I have heard atheists, christians, pagans and sikhs alike use the term. Mathematicians often use it to describe especially profound proofs regardless of religion.