4 ms·
This sounds like a variation of Machine Elves -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine#Entity_encounters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltrypta
by pstuart 9mo ago
This sounds like a variation of Machine Elves -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine#Entity_encounters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine#Entity_enco...
Those are primarily associated with DMT (the one time I tried it, I too had such an encounter and I didn't know it was a thing until years later).
I'm sure I'll be corrected on this but I think DMT and Psilocybin ultimately affect the same pathways so it's just more evidence that Machine Elves are real! (/s on the real part).
- emymin 9mo agoThe mushrooms that the article talks about do not contain psilocybin (it's still not clear what psychoactive compound they contain), but you are correct in that DMT and psilocybin, at comparable doses, have extremely similar subjective effects.
- Teknomadix 9mo agoAvid conosour of both DMT and Psilocybin and would not characterize the effects as “extremely similar”. Psychedelic yes, but profoundly different at their core in heroic doses—at least from my vantage point.
- tastyfreeze 9mo agoJust curious, nn-DMT or 5meo-DMT? I haven't tried either but have heard nn-DMT to be more the machine elves type experience and 5meo-DMT to elicit a feeling of not existing in the physical world anymore.
- temp0826 9mo agoUsually when people just say DMT they mean nn-DMT (which is a lot more visual/weird and can bring on the "elves" at breakthrough dosage). 5-meo-dmt(/bufo) is much more of a felt thing, but can definitely have some visual effects (I usually get enveloped in the bright white light of god before dissolving into everything/nothing, ymmv).
- pstuart 9mo agoSame vantage point here (with sample size n=1 on the DMT front).
- Teknomadix 9mo ago>“It's not psilocybin that's giving the L. asiatica mushrooms their lilliputian effect” Unknown compound ATM.
- pstuart 9mo agoYeah, my comment was a bit loose, but I think it's likely that the pathways are ultimately arriving at the same destination. I've done plenty of psychonaut adventures in the past but it was only that one experience with DMT that actually gave that experience -- but it was also the only time in which I completely disengaged from local reality.
- WarmWash 9mo agoThey are both serotonin analogues, but they definitely yield different experiences. In chemistry it often only takes a single atom difference to totally and radically change a molecule's properties.
- pstuart 9mo agoIt would be fascinating to have research into what is effectively manifesting the experience. My (extremely limited) understanding is that humans are "hardwired" for pattern recognition (especially faces) -- could there be some sort of ROM equivalent of "this pattern is another human" that gets engaged by the chemical experience?
- duskwuff 9mo agoMaybe. It's certainly the case that there are areas of the human brain which are specifically associated with recognizing faces, like the fusiform face area - it's an intrinsic capability of the brain, not one that's learned. But I'm not certain that's sufficient to explain what's happening here. Increasing the activation of that area would most likely result in a person perceiving faces everywhere (e.g. an extreme form of pareidolia), not entire humanoid figures.
- pstuart 9mo agoMalkovich? Malkovich! -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIpev8JXJHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIpev8JXJHQ