7 ms·

Psychedelics: A Personal Take (2021)

130 points by rzk 4y ago

humbleguy 4y ago
I have been microdosing LSD for about 4 months now regularly with great success and it's now my go-to for focus and mood improvement.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  What's your regimen and how do you measure the effectiveness in an objective manner? I tried microdosing LSD for a few weeks and even at the smallest dose 10µg I felt like every dosing day was a lost day productivity-wise as I became even more unfocused than usual.
  - humbleguy 4y ago
    I drop a stamp into 10ml of vodka and take 1ml every 3rd day. I don't have an objective way of measuring an effectiveness of it, of course. However, I do feel that when I need to focus I can focus much easier. I don't feel jitters and the next day I also feel elevated mood and overall just more positive.
    - fieryskiff11 4y ago
cglan 4y ago
I'll play devils advocate and say mushrooms have not really helped me at all, and in many situations where I've been ~ stable ~ or mostly okay, they've dredged up a lot of feelings and emotions and traumas that I managed to tuck away very nicely, brought it all up to the surface and then proceeded to make me erratic and depressed and overly moody for months on end. I find that often times the extraordinary ability to be introspective on mushrooms is a detriment. I have the same issue with a lot of the push to be introspective lately. It keeps me in my head and away from properly enjoying things. I think mushrooms can be a good tool, and at worst a fun drug but they're not a cure all and they don't work for everyone.
- deurruti 4y ago
  Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    While your advice sounds totally reasonable, it's at the same time incredibly dismissive. In my opinion, it's not much different from "Have you tried being confident/not being depressive, bro?" If you need courage to face your demons but only facing those demons will give you the courage to do the thing in the first place, then how to solve that circular dependency?
- roflyear 4y ago
  My goal for 2023 is to be less self aware, really! Too much self awareness...
  - cglan 4y ago
    It's funny but this is my goal too. I couldn't agree more
    - roflyear 4y ago
      Much love, buddy!
  - 09bjb 4y ago
    Do you want to be less aware in general? Or spend less time ruminating about aspects of your own personality? I found the book "Self Awareness" by Red Hawk pretty helpful in disentangling and disambiguating some of this stuff.
    - roflyear 4y ago
      It would be good to think about stuff a little less. Do you mean "Self Observation" ?
  - 4y ago
martin1975 4y ago
erowid.org... for many many more experiences with psychedelics and all other types of drugs. Make sure you read both the negative and positive experiences and try not to self-diagnose.
- beenBoutIT 4y ago
  Mushrooms aren't like MDMA - terrible experiences aren't out of the question.
rileyphone 4y ago
This mirrors my experience with shrooms and depression, specifically the quote: > I felt like I was exhaling after a life spent holding my breath. Splendid stuff you can grow yourself for <$100, but it's also exciting to watch it become more legal in places and easier to access. Seems that we're finally recovering from the exuberance of the 60s.
roody15 4y ago
Disclaimer just my take: I wonder if the human mind is like a antenna or receiver of sorts. Outside of our physical world or perhaps at a distance so great may exists some greater entities. Gods if you will, or perhaps spiritual entities. I wonder if in certain states of dreaming or on certain substances our brain/receiver is more receptive to these “signals”. Perhaps bad trips … occur since you are in a receptive state “drugged lsd, etc” and a negative spiritual entity is able to access in this state. Perhaps in a good trip … you are able to increase your signal reception to a greater will, a more benevolent, a spiritual entity that is more positive, creative, loving, forgiving, etc. When you are cut off from these forces or the signal is diminished perhaps … depression sets in… no sense of purpose.. etc.
- FactoryReboot 4y ago
  Reminds me a bit of the old modest mouse song stars are projectors. That song had a related idea that our consciousness is in the cosmos and beamed down to us. Drugs could be interrupting that beam or something like you said. It’s an interesting thought.
- potsandpans 4y ago
  Would not expect to find a post like this on here. My totally unqualified intuition puts me somewhat in the panpsychist camp, that I'd crudely outline as "the brain does not produce consciousness but is more of an antenna that receives it." While I dont ascribe any spirituality to these "entities" as you describe, I do wonder if they exist in some physical form. If they do we'll no doubt find and classify them eventually.
- deleted 4y ago
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- chimen 4y ago
  Until someone comes back from such a trip with a new information, out of this world, I'll just put it on chemistry and stuff that the brain projects.
say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
What isn't mentioned is the state of mind that Ava was in before tripping and whether any integration work was done after. You can't just take a heroic dose of shrooms and expect transformation. You need to psychologically prime yourself for the experience.
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agnos 4y ago
I feel like all these articles about magical self-transformation through psychedelics are misleading and somewhat inaccurate. I would have liked to see more about the actual psychedelic experience itself rather than the aftermath. As an occasional "field researcher" of psychedelics, I'm skeptical of these magical claims like "curing" depression with mushrooms or discovering love after taking LSD without saying much about what actually changed in their thought processes or how that happened. Maybe I've yet to have that trip that will make me understand the magic, but I haven't read many accounts of the actual psychedelic experience that have been particularly compelling. Psychedelics do seem to break down lifelong mental models and thus increase your level of self-awareness but I've personally never been able to integrate these trip experiences to anything meaningful in my daily life. The insights I've gained from psychedelics have had little to no impact on my overall mental health, emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, etc. There seems to be a large gap between the psychedelic state of mind and the "ego" mind that we must embrace in daily life. Sure, I've had interesting trips that made me question the nature of consciousness and reality. I've alos had trips where I broke down all my mental models and experienced pure randomness/chaos, which I believe is just somewhat incompatible with my Earthly existence, which makes integration difficult. This "self-awareness" is a common theme I've experienced in trips is just the pure randomness of reality/existence. There is no "reason" why anything happens. There's no reason you are you, and there's no reason to be anything different. I think if you truly explore self-awareness, you will reach this point. You are a configuration that has no inherent "reason" to be that particular configuration. You can hope to transform into a different configuration, but there's no compelling reason to be anything else because at the core, everything is arbitrary. The best you come out with is a sense of disillusionment or depersonalization. Maybe you can overcome this point in the journey and reach "enlightenment". I've yet to experience what's past this, but maybe someone else can shed some light on that. Actually, I wonder if more self-awareness can be a bad thing for some people, and if that's what it comes down to. Often times when I feel the most self aware, I'm the most lost in my own head and disconnected from reality and other people. This isn't objectively a bad thing, but I don't see how it leads to realizations about love and connectedness, which I think are the real antidotes to things like depression and emptiness.
- deleted 4y ago
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lonetripper 4y ago
After being severely depressed for over a decade and wanting to die, seeing that the healthcare system had failed me and feeling utterly disconnected, rejected, unloved and anhedonic, I went to Amsterdam. After reading a lot about psychedelic experiences, it was the only thing left that I thought could give me a way out of my misery other than actual death. I bought shrooms, ate them alone in a room and soon felt the effects. First, some dizzyness and nausea, then, slowly, an increased brilliant feeling radiating from my stomach and soon encompassing my entire body. With it, a mental focus on small patterns, light projected through leaves of a tree outside into the room. For the first time that I could remember, actually feeling well inside my body, and feeling energetic, comfortable, not nervous. I looked at the wallpaper but my negative feelings about it were amplified a lot, I knew set and setting were important, so I dared to go outside into a park. For the first time that I could remember, I could smile. And someone smiled back. I sat down, and watched, and thought. For the first time that I could remember I felt connected to the world, in a way I died. I could see patterns if I wanted. Dare I say, I felt a bit human. It even seemed like people were there for me. This made me sad and contemplative, being aware of my past and present, but I could think about these things without extremely negative emotions disturbing my thoughts. I saw people in groups and for the first time believed I could be part of it if I wanted. Unfortunately these feelings faded soon after the trip, my life riddled with even more rejection and pain. I took shrooms again, but the second time I knew what to expect, and it didn't feel very special. The saying "if you get the message, hang up the phone" made some sense, since I felt I already got it the first time. The third time, I took a bit of DMT with someone who was there for me in the right moment. It was the first time in my life I dared to be close with someone. Yet again, I was rejected, but it didn't matter. A few weeks ago I took LSD. I enjoyed some music and patterns. Enjoyment, but exhausting enjoyment. Maybe I haven't gotten the full message after all. Ultimately, I think these substances can show someone that life can be worth living, that happiness is possible again, and help in reconsidering ones relationship to ones own body, other people and the world. For me, they did not have significant permanent effects however. I do not recommend taking these substances alone, especially if you are in a mentally extreme condition.
- filoleg 4y ago
  Not as dramatic, but shrooms helped me realize how fun dancing can be (like at clubs and concerts and such). And that realization stayed with me forever, even though I haven't done shrooms even once since then. Until that point, dancing for me was something that just you do socially because that's what people do, and (in my head) most people did it drunk because that was the only way it felt bearable to do. I know it wasn't some lifechanging discovery, but it definitely was one of those realizations that I thought i would never reach in my life (or that it was possible at all, i assumed it was something you either like or you don't, without much wiggle room for a change).
ogsalmanxxx 4y ago
xD
- par 4y ago
  > so... i've been on acid for about 100 days now uhhh.... ಠ_ಠ
par 4y ago
"I took psilocybin for the first time around 1.5 years ago. After that my life changed." Stopped reading right there. These over exaggerations and platitudes are really eye roll inducing.
- deleted 4y ago
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- kupopuffs 4y ago
  You gotta try it. I don't think it's an overexaggeration
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    I've always had a great time on psilocybin but never had a grand realization.
AmpsterMan 4y ago
Just a small thing on my part, but LSD has helped me enjoy music much more in my daily life. Basically, listening to it while high helped me notice the patterns, rythms, lyrics, etc. much easier and I've been able to transfer that to my daily life.
joegaebel 4y ago
I'm surprised to see the lack of support in the comments. In my take, this article was very well written and goes a long way to describe the refreshing and enlivening aftermath of a peak experience with Psilocybin. It also mirrors the experience of the research subjects at Johns Hopkins. One study, conducted on terminally ill cancer patients, found that most of them rated it as one of the most important experiences of their lives [1], rating it alongside the birth of their children, their wedding day, etc. Additionally, the depression easing effects were shown to persist up to a year by this study. I wouldn't be surprised if experiencing one of the most important, enliving, and connective experiences of your life wouldn't go on to reduce depression and anxiety for the rest of your life. [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucinogenic_drug_psilocybin_eases_existential_anxiety_in_people_with_life_threatening_cancer https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucin...
aszantu 4y ago
took psychedelics a few times and learned something every time. Guided meditation can be bliss - when u want to sleep and the patterns don't go away, the meditation will carry you into the underbelly of your consciousness. The voice becomes light that sometimes shines like rays into the underwater forests or cave systems of the subconscious. I once did some hypnosis where you meet your inner guardian and explore the inside of your subconscious. You're allowed to ask 3 questions, I wasn't prepared. Having experienced violence in my past I asked the wrong questions and the guardian threw me out. The trip ended there at the same moment and I felt miserable. I learned that you can't force answers. Whenever I took something I got headaches, these became more weird over time. My teeth were screaming for help, I asked them what they wanted and they told me they didn't want to be alone. Turns out that I got nerd neck and that's cutting off the oxygen to my face. Now I can feel it, my nose goes cold, headache starts, eyes feel weird, the inside of my mouth is cold. Haven't found the right diagnosis yet, but it likes me to drink warm beverages, sports, yoga, breathing exercises and cold water showers - can't do those when sober. I learned that my place is no fun or cozy, it's a wasteland when sober. Trying to make it better. No idea, I'd like to have some low budget low energy automated system that generates music, something to decorate time with. McDonald's Toilet can be the most calming and peaceful place on earth. Don't talk to conspiracy theorists or esoteric ppl when high. Have your dog around, they're wonderful guides. The hardware is boss, stop micro-managing. The list goes on and on... I do some art, but I don't know how to catch all this
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  We are compound beings, made of many cells. It is nice to be able to talk to your teeth, I hope they are feeling better.
  - aszantu 4y ago
    They do when I pay more attention to my posture. Tongue has some burning mouth syndrome. It's related to the c4 of the neck.
kaushikc 4y ago
My personal experience: Apologies in advance because it is really impossible to put it in words. When I consumed golden teachers the first time, I was physically in my room but the mental layer was lifted up and it flew up into the outer space, and as I had passed many far away galaxies I was there and eventually into a void. I saw some seriously scary creatures in the darkness of the void and there were millions around me, somehow from the deepest parts of my mind, what I perceived to be the scariest(I never told exactly what to anyone) had materialised in millions right in front of me. I was facing my worst fears a million trillion times amplified. Suddenly everything including me burst into smallest of particles so miniscule and it was just patterns and then I found my mental state inside my own blood stream feeling all the movement and rapid flows. Came out of there and I felt the suffering of death of this planet and fear of every person and every living creature that lived in the past until now combined on this planet at once right then. Sounds like my worst nightmare but throughout the journey there was a back voice guiding me to manage me and suggest me and everything I went through was almost consensual, like the depth was only offered to me when I consented to it and as if there was a friend to help me. There was a point I was getting auditory feedback and I was turning away from that depth and I did not consent to and so I didn't go into that part. When I was facing my fears the voice suggested to observe that they were actually harmless and they were just existing and simply doing their own thing. Something really deep inside of me was fixed. There is a lot more to the experience that I actually cannot put in words.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  This body holding me Reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion
  - lee 4y ago
    I LOVE listening to Tool while on psilocybin. This song especially gives me frisson even when I'm sober. There's something so beautiful about listening to the right music on psychedelics.
    - 4y ago
RomanPushkin 4y ago
One guy was supposed to write a comment here, but he had a really bad trip that flipped up his mind, so we'll never know about his opinion. Everyone else had a more or less positive "experience".
- HKH2 4y ago
  They end up on Erowid: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms_Bad_Trips.shtml https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms_Bad_Tr...
throwawayhn321 4y ago
My take: I took LSD back in 2020 and ended up in the mental hospital for several months. Would not recommend.
- procinct 4y ago
  Wow that’s terrible, sorry you had to go through that. If it’s not too painful, would you mind elaborating on how things progressed from taking the LSD to being in the mental hospital?
leashless 4y ago
I do not like what psychedelics did to my generation. I was a rave kid in the 1990s and I just don't like how most of us did in our 40s and 50s. Be careful out there. I think the upsides are balanced by a general under-performing malaise which gets worse over the decades. 5 years of bloom, but it's burning adaptation capacity and resilience which you'll need later. Be conservative of yourself. Experiment gently if you must.
sound1 4y ago
https://archive.is/9RiBq https://archive.is/9RiBq
willsmith72 4y ago
I'm curious about the background. Is psilocybin legal? Prescribed by someone? In what country? Where would someone start?
- humbleguy 4y ago
  It's legal-ish is San Francisco and Oakland.
- yboris 4y ago
  It's easy to grow your own (see the "Uncle Ben's Tek" on Reddit, see link below). It is legal to purchase the spores and have them shipped across state lines in the US because the spores do not contain psilocybin. Somewhat fool-proof, takes very little space, can be done in under 2 months. https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1da3/part_1_how_mushrooms_and_mycelium_grow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1da3/part_1_ho...
- dengxiaopeng 4y ago
  Many other commenters have provided high-level background answering your question, but if you want to see how legalization/decriminalization is unfolding across the US, this is a detailed map: https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws
- lake_vincent 4y ago
  It is legal in the US state of Oregon, and I think maybe one or two others I can't recall. You start by finding a doctor who specializes in the therapeutic use of psychedelics, and giving them a call! Watch How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan. Be safe, be smart, and consult a professional. I don't recommend doing it "street-style" where you buy it off the black market and take it at a rave :)
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  Legality varies. For the US, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization... But also, spores (which lack that chemical) are often legal, so if you want to avoid an illegal purchase, you could just get spores and grow your own.

130 points by rzk 4y ago

I have been microdosing LSD for about 4 months now regularly with great success and it's now my go-to for focus and mood improvement.

GameOfFrowns 4y ago
What's your regimen and how do you measure the effectiveness in an objective manner? I tried microdosing LSD for a few weeks and even at the smallest dose 10µg I felt like every dosing day was a lost day productivity-wise as I became even more unfocused than usual.
- humbleguy 4y ago
  I drop a stamp into 10ml of vodka and take 1ml every 3rd day. I don't have an objective way of measuring an effectiveness of it, of course. However, I do feel that when I need to focus I can focus much easier. I don't feel jitters and the next day I also feel elevated mood and overall just more positive.
  - fieryskiff11 4y ago

cglan 4y ago

I'll play devils advocate and say mushrooms have not really helped me at all, and in many situations where I've been ~ stable ~ or mostly okay, they've dredged up a lot of feelings and emotions and traumas that I managed to tuck away very nicely, brought it all up to the surface and then proceeded to make me erratic and depressed and overly moody for months on end. I find that often times the extraordinary ability to be introspective on mushrooms is a detriment. I have the same issue with a lot of the push to be introspective lately. It keeps me in my head and away from properly enjoying things. I think mushrooms can be a good tool, and at worst a fun drug but they're not a cure all and they don't work for everyone.

deurruti 4y ago
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  While your advice sounds totally reasonable, it's at the same time incredibly dismissive. In my opinion, it's not much different from "Have you tried being confident/not being depressive, bro?" If you need courage to face your demons but only facing those demons will give you the courage to do the thing in the first place, then how to solve that circular dependency?
roflyear 4y ago
My goal for 2023 is to be less self aware, really! Too much self awareness...
- cglan 4y ago
  It's funny but this is my goal too. I couldn't agree more
  - roflyear 4y ago
    Much love, buddy!
- 09bjb 4y ago
  Do you want to be less aware in general? Or spend less time ruminating about aspects of your own personality? I found the book "Self Awareness" by Red Hawk pretty helpful in disentangling and disambiguating some of this stuff.
  - roflyear 4y ago
    It would be good to think about stuff a little less. Do you mean "Self Observation" ?
- 4y ago

martin1975 4y ago

erowid.org... for many many more experiences with psychedelics and all other types of drugs. Make sure you read both the negative and positive experiences and try not to self-diagnose.

beenBoutIT 4y ago
Mushrooms aren't like MDMA - terrible experiences aren't out of the question.

rileyphone 4y ago

This mirrors my experience with shrooms and depression, specifically the quote: > I felt like I was exhaling after a life spent holding my breath. Splendid stuff you can grow yourself for <$100, but it's also exciting to watch it become more legal in places and easier to access. Seems that we're finally recovering from the exuberance of the 60s.

roody15 4y ago

Disclaimer just my take: I wonder if the human mind is like a antenna or receiver of sorts. Outside of our physical world or perhaps at a distance so great may exists some greater entities. Gods if you will, or perhaps spiritual entities. I wonder if in certain states of dreaming or on certain substances our brain/receiver is more receptive to these “signals”. Perhaps bad trips … occur since you are in a receptive state “drugged lsd, etc” and a negative spiritual entity is able to access in this state. Perhaps in a good trip … you are able to increase your signal reception to a greater will, a more benevolent, a spiritual entity that is more positive, creative, loving, forgiving, etc. When you are cut off from these forces or the signal is diminished perhaps … depression sets in… no sense of purpose.. etc.

FactoryReboot 4y ago
Reminds me a bit of the old modest mouse song stars are projectors. That song had a related idea that our consciousness is in the cosmos and beamed down to us. Drugs could be interrupting that beam or something like you said. It’s an interesting thought.
potsandpans 4y ago
Would not expect to find a post like this on here. My totally unqualified intuition puts me somewhat in the panpsychist camp, that I'd crudely outline as "the brain does not produce consciousness but is more of an antenna that receives it." While I dont ascribe any spirituality to these "entities" as you describe, I do wonder if they exist in some physical form. If they do we'll no doubt find and classify them eventually.
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chimen 4y ago
Until someone comes back from such a trip with a new information, out of this world, I'll just put it on chemistry and stuff that the brain projects.

say_it_as_it_is 4y ago

What isn't mentioned is the state of mind that Ava was in before tripping and whether any integration work was done after. You can't just take a heroic dose of shrooms and expect transformation. You need to psychologically prime yourself for the experience.

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agnos 4y ago

I feel like all these articles about magical self-transformation through psychedelics are misleading and somewhat inaccurate. I would have liked to see more about the actual psychedelic experience itself rather than the aftermath. As an occasional "field researcher" of psychedelics, I'm skeptical of these magical claims like "curing" depression with mushrooms or discovering love after taking LSD without saying much about what actually changed in their thought processes or how that happened. Maybe I've yet to have that trip that will make me understand the magic, but I haven't read many accounts of the actual psychedelic experience that have been particularly compelling. Psychedelics do seem to break down lifelong mental models and thus increase your level of self-awareness but I've personally never been able to integrate these trip experiences to anything meaningful in my daily life. The insights I've gained from psychedelics have had little to no impact on my overall mental health, emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, etc. There seems to be a large gap between the psychedelic state of mind and the "ego" mind that we must embrace in daily life. Sure, I've had interesting trips that made me question the nature of consciousness and reality. I've alos had trips where I broke down all my mental models and experienced pure randomness/chaos, which I believe is just somewhat incompatible with my Earthly existence, which makes integration difficult. This "self-awareness" is a common theme I've experienced in trips is just the pure randomness of reality/existence. There is no "reason" why anything happens. There's no reason you are you, and there's no reason to be anything different. I think if you truly explore self-awareness, you will reach this point. You are a configuration that has no inherent "reason" to be that particular configuration. You can hope to transform into a different configuration, but there's no compelling reason to be anything else because at the core, everything is arbitrary. The best you come out with is a sense of disillusionment or depersonalization. Maybe you can overcome this point in the journey and reach "enlightenment". I've yet to experience what's past this, but maybe someone else can shed some light on that. Actually, I wonder if more self-awareness can be a bad thing for some people, and if that's what it comes down to. Often times when I feel the most self aware, I'm the most lost in my own head and disconnected from reality and other people. This isn't objectively a bad thing, but I don't see how it leads to realizations about love and connectedness, which I think are the real antidotes to things like depression and emptiness.

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lonetripper 4y ago

After being severely depressed for over a decade and wanting to die, seeing that the healthcare system had failed me and feeling utterly disconnected, rejected, unloved and anhedonic, I went to Amsterdam. After reading a lot about psychedelic experiences, it was the only thing left that I thought could give me a way out of my misery other than actual death. I bought shrooms, ate them alone in a room and soon felt the effects. First, some dizzyness and nausea, then, slowly, an increased brilliant feeling radiating from my stomach and soon encompassing my entire body. With it, a mental focus on small patterns, light projected through leaves of a tree outside into the room. For the first time that I could remember, actually feeling well inside my body, and feeling energetic, comfortable, not nervous. I looked at the wallpaper but my negative feelings about it were amplified a lot, I knew set and setting were important, so I dared to go outside into a park. For the first time that I could remember, I could smile. And someone smiled back. I sat down, and watched, and thought. For the first time that I could remember I felt connected to the world, in a way I died. I could see patterns if I wanted. Dare I say, I felt a bit human. It even seemed like people were there for me. This made me sad and contemplative, being aware of my past and present, but I could think about these things without extremely negative emotions disturbing my thoughts. I saw people in groups and for the first time believed I could be part of it if I wanted. Unfortunately these feelings faded soon after the trip, my life riddled with even more rejection and pain. I took shrooms again, but the second time I knew what to expect, and it didn't feel very special. The saying "if you get the message, hang up the phone" made some sense, since I felt I already got it the first time. The third time, I took a bit of DMT with someone who was there for me in the right moment. It was the first time in my life I dared to be close with someone. Yet again, I was rejected, but it didn't matter. A few weeks ago I took LSD. I enjoyed some music and patterns. Enjoyment, but exhausting enjoyment. Maybe I haven't gotten the full message after all. Ultimately, I think these substances can show someone that life can be worth living, that happiness is possible again, and help in reconsidering ones relationship to ones own body, other people and the world. For me, they did not have significant permanent effects however. I do not recommend taking these substances alone, especially if you are in a mentally extreme condition.

filoleg 4y ago
Not as dramatic, but shrooms helped me realize how fun dancing can be (like at clubs and concerts and such). And that realization stayed with me forever, even though I haven't done shrooms even once since then. Until that point, dancing for me was something that just you do socially because that's what people do, and (in my head) most people did it drunk because that was the only way it felt bearable to do. I know it wasn't some lifechanging discovery, but it definitely was one of those realizations that I thought i would never reach in my life (or that it was possible at all, i assumed it was something you either like or you don't, without much wiggle room for a change).

ogsalmanxxx 4y ago

par 4y ago
> so... i've been on acid for about 100 days now uhhh.... ಠ_ಠ

par 4y ago

"I took psilocybin for the first time around 1.5 years ago. After that my life changed." Stopped reading right there. These over exaggerations and platitudes are really eye roll inducing.

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kupopuffs 4y ago
You gotta try it. I don't think it's an overexaggeration
- renewiltord 4y ago
  I've always had a great time on psilocybin but never had a grand realization.

AmpsterMan 4y ago

Just a small thing on my part, but LSD has helped me enjoy music much more in my daily life. Basically, listening to it while high helped me notice the patterns, rythms, lyrics, etc. much easier and I've been able to transfer that to my daily life.

joegaebel 4y ago

I'm surprised to see the lack of support in the comments. In my take, this article was very well written and goes a long way to describe the refreshing and enlivening aftermath of a peak experience with Psilocybin. It also mirrors the experience of the research subjects at Johns Hopkins. One study, conducted on terminally ill cancer patients, found that most of them rated it as one of the most important experiences of their lives [1], rating it alongside the birth of their children, their wedding day, etc. Additionally, the depression easing effects were shown to persist up to a year by this study. I wouldn't be surprised if experiencing one of the most important, enliving, and connective experiences of your life wouldn't go on to reduce depression and anxiety for the rest of your life. [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucinogenic_drug_psilocybin_eases_existential_anxiety_in_people_with_life_threatening_cancer https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucin...

aszantu 4y ago

took psychedelics a few times and learned something every time. Guided meditation can be bliss - when u want to sleep and the patterns don't go away, the meditation will carry you into the underbelly of your consciousness. The voice becomes light that sometimes shines like rays into the underwater forests or cave systems of the subconscious. I once did some hypnosis where you meet your inner guardian and explore the inside of your subconscious. You're allowed to ask 3 questions, I wasn't prepared. Having experienced violence in my past I asked the wrong questions and the guardian threw me out. The trip ended there at the same moment and I felt miserable. I learned that you can't force answers. Whenever I took something I got headaches, these became more weird over time. My teeth were screaming for help, I asked them what they wanted and they told me they didn't want to be alone. Turns out that I got nerd neck and that's cutting off the oxygen to my face. Now I can feel it, my nose goes cold, headache starts, eyes feel weird, the inside of my mouth is cold. Haven't found the right diagnosis yet, but it likes me to drink warm beverages, sports, yoga, breathing exercises and cold water showers - can't do those when sober. I learned that my place is no fun or cozy, it's a wasteland when sober. Trying to make it better. No idea, I'd like to have some low budget low energy automated system that generates music, something to decorate time with. McDonald's Toilet can be the most calming and peaceful place on earth. Don't talk to conspiracy theorists or esoteric ppl when high. Have your dog around, they're wonderful guides. The hardware is boss, stop micro-managing. The list goes on and on... I do some art, but I don't know how to catch all this

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
We are compound beings, made of many cells. It is nice to be able to talk to your teeth, I hope they are feeling better.
- aszantu 4y ago
  They do when I pay more attention to my posture. Tongue has some burning mouth syndrome. It's related to the c4 of the neck.

kaushikc 4y ago

My personal experience: Apologies in advance because it is really impossible to put it in words. When I consumed golden teachers the first time, I was physically in my room but the mental layer was lifted up and it flew up into the outer space, and as I had passed many far away galaxies I was there and eventually into a void. I saw some seriously scary creatures in the darkness of the void and there were millions around me, somehow from the deepest parts of my mind, what I perceived to be the scariest(I never told exactly what to anyone) had materialised in millions right in front of me. I was facing my worst fears a million trillion times amplified. Suddenly everything including me burst into smallest of particles so miniscule and it was just patterns and then I found my mental state inside my own blood stream feeling all the movement and rapid flows. Came out of there and I felt the suffering of death of this planet and fear of every person and every living creature that lived in the past until now combined on this planet at once right then. Sounds like my worst nightmare but throughout the journey there was a back voice guiding me to manage me and suggest me and everything I went through was almost consensual, like the depth was only offered to me when I consented to it and as if there was a friend to help me. There was a point I was getting auditory feedback and I was turning away from that depth and I did not consent to and so I didn't go into that part. When I was facing my fears the voice suggested to observe that they were actually harmless and they were just existing and simply doing their own thing. Something really deep inside of me was fixed. There is a lot more to the experience that I actually cannot put in words.

brokenmachine 4y ago
This body holding me Reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion
- lee 4y ago
  I LOVE listening to Tool while on psilocybin. This song especially gives me frisson even when I'm sober. There's something so beautiful about listening to the right music on psychedelics.
  - 4y ago

RomanPushkin 4y ago

One guy was supposed to write a comment here, but he had a really bad trip that flipped up his mind, so we'll never know about his opinion. Everyone else had a more or less positive "experience".

HKH2 4y ago
They end up on Erowid: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms_Bad_Trips.shtml https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms_Bad_Tr...

throwawayhn321 4y ago

My take: I took LSD back in 2020 and ended up in the mental hospital for several months. Would not recommend.

procinct 4y ago
Wow that’s terrible, sorry you had to go through that. If it’s not too painful, would you mind elaborating on how things progressed from taking the LSD to being in the mental hospital?

leashless 4y ago

I do not like what psychedelics did to my generation. I was a rave kid in the 1990s and I just don't like how most of us did in our 40s and 50s. Be careful out there. I think the upsides are balanced by a general under-performing malaise which gets worse over the decades. 5 years of bloom, but it's burning adaptation capacity and resilience which you'll need later. Be conservative of yourself. Experiment gently if you must.

sound1 4y ago

https://archive.is/9RiBq https://archive.is/9RiBq

willsmith72 4y ago

I'm curious about the background. Is psilocybin legal? Prescribed by someone? In what country? Where would someone start?

humbleguy 4y ago
It's legal-ish is San Francisco and Oakland.
yboris 4y ago
It's easy to grow your own (see the "Uncle Ben's Tek" on Reddit, see link below). It is legal to purchase the spores and have them shipped across state lines in the US because the spores do not contain psilocybin. Somewhat fool-proof, takes very little space, can be done in under 2 months. https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1da3/part_1_how_mushrooms_and_mycelium_grow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1da3/part_1_ho...
dengxiaopeng 4y ago
Many other commenters have provided high-level background answering your question, but if you want to see how legalization/decriminalization is unfolding across the US, this is a detailed map: https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws
lake_vincent 4y ago
It is legal in the US state of Oregon, and I think maybe one or two others I can't recall. You start by finding a doctor who specializes in the therapeutic use of psychedelics, and giving them a call! Watch How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan. Be safe, be smart, and consult a professional. I don't recommend doing it "street-style" where you buy it off the black market and take it at a rave :)
hunter2_ 4y ago
Legality varies. For the US, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization... But also, spores (which lack that chemical) are often legal, so if you want to avoid an illegal purchase, you could just get spores and grow your own.