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Experiences with psychedelics?
I have no idea if anyone else is into this, casually or just past experiences, can remove if inappropriate.
Haven’t seen anyone else talk about it here in Tildes, so, anyone else have any experience with any sort of psychedelic adventures?
I try to trip once every couple years because I feel like its easy for me to forget about myself and what I want and how that fits into what the world wants from me. I use the ‘me’ time to just sort myself out, get my priorities straight, and keep going.
Anyone else?
About ten years ago, I spent a few years taking a deep dive into the world of psychedelic drugs. According to my list, I tried over thirty different psychedelics. A couple of friends and I explored Erowid and the work of Alexander Shulgin for knowledge, ordering whatever we could from the online "research chemical" scene. I read a lot of books, went through countless trip reports, started with low doses, and really experimented. At our peak, we were taking some kind of psychedelic almost every weekend for around three years. I look back on that time as the most interesting period of my life. I learned a lot about myself, without a doubt. Most of the experiences were spent chilling on the couch with some tunes playing in low light, just you, the music, and the drug.
Every one has a slightly different feel. Some are more visual, others more cerebral. Some are extroverted, some introverted. A few are downright strange. Take DiPT, for example. It mostly affects your auditory system. Your head feels mostly normal, but everything you hear drops a couple of octaves, and music sounds terribly discordant. It’s a very bizarre experience. Others are intense and challenging. 2C-E, for instance, is not something you take for a good time, but rather to potentially work through some issues. Personally, I prefer the tryptamines. I find them deeper, and I enjoy the visuals more, like complicated fractal patterns and intricate 3D machinery.
As I got deeper into the scene, I eventually started volunteering for Erowid as a way to give back for all the incredible knowledge they had curated. That led to a project where I helped hand-transcribe the lab notebooks of Alexander Shulgin. I headed the project with the help of other volunteers, and over several years, we completed nearly all of his notebooks. My work can be found here. I put a huge amount of time into that project, and I’m proud of it.
As a thank-you, I was invited to one of Shulgin’s famous Easter parties at his home in the hills of San Francisco. I got to meet him before he died and spent a day hanging out in his lab. The event was attended by many from the San Francisco psychedelic scene, including some notable names, I met a lot of fascinating people. I later returned to the Shulgin Farm a second time, this time after his passing, while his wife Ann was still alive. If you don’t know who these two people are, there’s a documentary that’s very much worth watching.
When used responsibly and with the right knowledge and expectations, I think psychedelics can offer tremendous potential for self-discovery and growth. They certainly did for me.
If anyone is interested here is my list of psychedelic drugs that I have tried:
DOC
LSD
LSA
AL-LAD
Mushrooms (various varieties)
DMT
DPT
MET
DiPT
MDMA (maybe not a psychedelic?)
MDA
2C-C
2C-D
2C-B
2C-E
2C-I
2C-T-7
25C-NBOMe
Ketamine
Nitrous Oxide (Not really psychedelic, but its effect on them is wild)
Salvia
4-Aco-DET
4-Aco-DMT
4-Aco-DiPT
4-AcO-MiPT
4-HO-DET
4-HO-MET
4-HO-MPT
4-HO-DiPT
4-HO-MiPT
5-MeO-DMT
5-MeO-DiPT
Methoxetamine
Allylescaline
That's quite an impressive list. I was also into the "research chemical" scene for a while, back in the day, though I didn't try quite as extreme a variety:
1P-LSD
2C-E
2C-I
4-AcO-DMT
4-HO-EPT
4-HO-MET
5-MeO-DALT
5-MeO-MiPT
AL-LAD
Hawaiian Baby Woodrose (LSA)
LSD
Psilocybin Mushrooms (4-PO-DMT)
MDMA
Mephedrone
Methylone
2-Oxo-PCE
3-MeO-PCP
Dextromethorphan
Deschloroketamine
Ketamine
Memantine
Nitrous Oxide
PCP
Separately, I don't know that I'd necessarily consider dissociatives like ketamine or methoxetamine to be psychedelic, really - their effects are extremely distinct from the classical psychedelics. Same with serotonergic stimulants like MDMA. Which isn't to say they can't also be very valuable, therapeutic experiences.
PCP, that one always scared me too much too try ;) I've also got a list of non-psychedelics but it's nothing special and that wasn't the topic. I really liked MDPV, but started to see concerning side effects and stopped using it.
I think of all of them 4-ACO-DMT is my favourite.
I think PCP gets kind of an undeserved bad rap. Most of the hazard in using it comes down to 1) it's illegal but not widely used, meaning it's hard to find high quality, unadulterated PCP, and 2) people generally don't understand how to actually dose it - it's often dissolved in something, and a cigarette or joint is dipped in the solution, but this is so inexact that it's easy to do way too much by accident. Doing way too much PCP is likely a recipe for disaster, but frankly, so is doing too much LSD.
I think the attractive thing about ketamine is that if you do so much that you enter a state of temporary psychosis, the drug also basically renders your immobile. It's hard to assault your neighbor and drive into the side of a 7-Eleven when gravity feels like it's operating at 10x the intensity. K-holes have a whole different set of dangers, of course. But I think in comparable doses, PCP isn't much more likely than ketamine to cause actual insanity. It's actually pretty warm and relaxing, I found, maybe even moreso than ketamine. You just have to be responsible with it.
3-MeO-PCP, on the other hand, is actually kind of dangerous. It has none of the warmth and mildly sedating trippiness of PCP - it is more of a stimulant in some ways, but has a habit of causing amnesia, complete physical anesthesia and a striking loss of sanity at even moderate doses. It's pretty fun if you can handle the risks - I remember one time I took some in the middle of a cold winter night and went out for a walk. It was well below freezing but I hardly felt cold at all (though I dimly noticed that my body was still shivering). The darkness and utter lack of people in what was often a busy part of town gave me the profound feeling that I was walking through an abandoned movie set. Everything looked 'hollow' - every building seemed like just a facade hiding a big empty space, every car seemed like it was probably just an empty metal chassis. At one point I saw people walking in the distance, and I was almost certain that they knew exactly who I was and were specifically put there to observe me and/or to give the environment a certain verisimilitude (one which I had seen through immediately).
Of course, at the same time, I had enough insight to recognize that these thoughts were, of course, not even remotely true. All of these errant, temporary beliefs were the effect of a drug and had no bearing on consensus reality. And knowing what I do about psychiatry, I recognized a resemblance to the typical thoughts and beliefs of a psychotic person. Fortunately, I seem to be very resistant to psychosis - despite using drugs like this one, plenty of psychedelics, and frankly a drastically unhealthy overuse of amphetamines, I have never experienced a real psychosis, nothing that lasted past the duration of the drugs themselves. I imagine not everyone would be so lucky, though.
I usually tour my town late xmas day for a similar experience.
Both your description and my experience remind me of passages from the Tibetan book of the dead, or the more accessible paraphrase The American book of the dead.
I find it fascinating how some others deal with dissociation. I don't agree that it is dangerous, except in that it requires very small doses so it is not good for measuring out by eye and unlike ketamine it is stimulating rather than depressing so its less likely that someone will just be laid out on the floor if they do too much.
I really wish there were more places to get this substance these days if you're not in Europe, as it is one of the few drugs I've found to deal with my chronic dorsal scapular nerve pain. I've been careful to preserve as much of it as I can, but one day I will run out, and then I will only have opioids at my disposal again.
Hah, 4-ACO-DMT is different than straight up DMT, DMT is definitely #1 for 'wow!' factor and just unbelievable experiences. I actually wrote about my DMT experiences in another comment here
4-ACO-DMT is very similar to Shrooms but with a more DMT visuals vibe to it, really deep. I recommend trying it at a dose of .45mg/kg of body weight, but that would not be for the inexperienced.
Nice, you don't hear about this one a lot.
Some friends and I got pretty deep into that stuff about 10-15 years ago, IIRC right after it became illegal. We'd binge about every weekend, it was pretty irresponsible and the comedown was rough. But, the stuff is a strong empathogen, and that feeling of oneness has carried forward for most of us. We're all a lot kinder than we were before that, and while many of us were always going to be lifelong friends before methylone, those drug experiences sealed the deal.
What was your experience with it like?
My experiences with it were merely okay. It never really seemed to have the intense euphoria of MDMA or mephedrone, and while it did increase empathy, it never pushed me into that state of extreme, joyous talkativeness and bonding that other empathogens did. I actually felt kind of moody and quiet on methylone, even sad at times, though not intensely sad - more like a bittersweet, nostalgic sadness that the drug was somehow also consoling me about, if that makes sense. None of this ended up being particularly therapeutic, though perhaps my prior use of MDMA had done all the good empathogens would do for me, at that point.
Super cool, I used to read erowid a ton in my teens before getting into psychedelics myself. Thanks for your contribution!
Edit - only 4 votes, and an exemplary tag... I'm guessing the mods know what's up!
I'm curious, why did you experience that much with psychedelics? What kept you going to try for more?
Hmmmm, I found it very interesting, I really geeked out how each of those different substances was a little different of an experience. How can changing the position or type of a single atom on a molecule change an experience so much? It fascinated me.
I wasn't really 'searching' for anything, which is what I think a lot of people are doing when they experiment with psychedelics. I wasn't trying to find 'meaning' to life or have spiritual experiences, I never went down the woo-woo rabbit hole which captures so many people. I approached things with a scientific mindset as much as I could. I felt these drugs were like tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness.
How much of our world view and experience in life is put together by our brains if that experience can be changed so wildly by 10mg of a simple molecule? Does 120mg of MDMA change me into a deeply empathetic person or is that already inside of me and like a key the molecules open doors to myself that I never knew existed? Can I learn to be a better person when I'm sober because of what I've learned about myself while tripping?
What new novel experience was waiting around the corner in a new substance? What more could I learn? They weren't causing me any harm and I had almost no negative experiences (even then the few negative experiences were probably the most valuable, as sometimes you have to face things that you didn't want to admit about yourself) so I just kept trying to get my hands on new things and trying them. Eventually priorities changed in my life and the lives of my friends and it just kind of naturally ended.
This comment perfectly describes my experience and outlook with psychedelics in general. They've changed me as a person for the better, prior to them I didn't know I could be as kind and as connected to my emotions; definitely made me heaps more empathetic. Unfortunately, I have been very limited in what I've tried. Despite my desire to experiment and explore, I've only done less than a handful of different things, but I'm still stoked I get to play with them at all!
Thank you for the detailed answer, I very appreciate it.
I feel like that's a very good mindset to have and in a way, the scientific approach might have protected you from potential downsides since I suppose every drug intake was like "oh, let's see what X mg of Y drug does to Z part of my brain".
I'm still curious about some stuff if you don't mind.
Would you say your overall wellbeing, stress levels and health influenced positively all the drugs? You don't really mention bad trips, why would you say experiences have been positive? How were you able to dose everything right? Have you?
I do think my 'overall wellbeing, stress levels and health' did positively influence my experiences, my demons were my own personal issues I needed to deal with (I had serious issues with anger, bitterness and being a hateful person in my youth) they weren't caused by latent trauma or outside problems which I could see as being more difficult and troubling for people to work through. If every time I tripped I had to deal with horrible memories or feelings from a traumatic childhood I probably would not have continued. I am very lucky in that regard.
I haven't talked much about 'bad trips'. I didn't have very many and most experiences were positive, some neutral, there were definitely some 'I'll never do that again' (Salvia, 2C-E) drugs and only one what I would consider a true 'bad trip' but that lone experience changed my entire outlook on myself overnight and it was early in my experimentation, it was the eureka experience that showed me the power of these drugs.
They needed to be respected and it's important to be content with yourself, and if you aren't, changes need to be made so that you are. It allowed me to see that inside of my mind was the person I wanted to be, not the angry, bitter person I was to everyone around me. The psychedelic experience allowed me to think thoughts that normally never occurred to me and see things from angles I couldn't before, sort of like Douglas Adams 'Total Perspective Vortex' except the outcome is more positive. "You know, these terrible negative feelings you are having are really your own fault and just a reflection of the negativity you project onto the world, stop blaming everyone else and fix yourself".
Dosing the drugs is actually easy and easier than ever as good scales are cheap now. Getting a +- .002g scale was not cheap when I started but should be easy to find now. I still never trusted anything with a dose below 10mg, because +- 20% can be a big deal with some of these drugs. A few mg can make a HUGE difference. Below 10mg, say for something like DOC where a 'medium dose' is 1.5-2.5mg and a 'strong dose' is 2.5-5.0mg you can't mess around so I water weighed the drug, so 100mg in 100ml water = 1mg/ml dose. Measuring liquid accurately is easy with a syringe.
I also has the huge benefit that there was no such thing as Fentanyl when I was experimenting, things are much more dangerous and scary now. It's a shame really, kids are dying because some asshole used the same scale to weight Fentanyl and then some random party drug and a few grains made it through. Awful.
Again, thank you for your answer, it's very insightful for me.
I smoke a lot of pot and my life is going great, better than it's ever been, and I owe a great deal of that to pot.
A lot of people around me say that pot makes them anxious, depressed, they get caught in their bad thoughts or they want to do nothing, chill and numb themselves, I never experience any of that. Every time I smoke, I have positive experiences and positive thoughts all the time, and I'm beginning to think it's because I'm mostly a happy person. In reality, all my drug experiences have been great (although limited to pot/pot derivatives/mush).
I questioned you because I feel that this positive outlook, in a way, allowed you to experience all of these in a fun and curious manner, rather than experience the drugs in a sort of escapism or a quest to discover something. Perhaps, the only thing you searched for was fun.
Daily smoker for 25+ years, I feel it hasn't been a hindrance to my life at all. Good tunes and good Marijuana is a spectacular way to wind down in the evenings :)
While this is an important part of one's outlook, I would challenge you to think larger about this issue. The reality is that none of our brains are the same - they are incredibly diverse from person to person. Not just in the pure biological sense (how we process and respond to specific chemicals on a receptor level), but they are amazingly diverse on a connection level. What parts of the brain connect to other parts of the brain and where we process things are wildly variable from person to person. There are broad patterns in certain kinds of processing (visual and auditory processing centers, for example) but when it comes to accessing memories and placing things in context, it's practically the wild west.
All of this means that everyone responds to drugs differently. There are things that drugs often do that are applicable to humans, but just like those long lists of side effects they rattle off during a drug commercial, some people just simply don't experience the drug in the same way that you are. This is the difference between an energetic happy drunk and a sleepy sad drunk. One experiences euphoria and stimulation, the other finds it more of a depressant (in both ways). With that being said, the set, setting, and intention are all just as important. If you approach a drug with curiosity you are more likely to be okay with whatever the outcome than if you have pre-set expectations. Similarly if you're in an overly stimulating environment or surrounded by strangers and difficult situations, the drug experience will be markedly different from a comfortable setting surrounded by friends or alone.
That was very interesting. I must say that I have thought about what you said in the first paragraph, at great lengths even. The differences between humans fascinate me.
I'm very much interested in reading more about it. Do you have any litterature I could read on the subject? Your information seems to come from a good source.
I also challenge you to understand my point of view: happiness is a very broad term and it means different things to different people. Regardless of its definition, "being happy" is a state that is also defined differently from everyone.
I have taken drugs with a lot of people, a lot of people. From analyzing them, I found that people that straight out refuse drugs or just don't want too much, do so for plenty of reasons: health, anxiety, bad thoughts, repercussions, loss of control, etc.
I also spent a lot of time with many of them to see the opposite: from my point of view, daily or frequent users do so either as a form of escapism or as a way to feel better (i.e. make the party "more fun", "loosen up", "be more creative", "be more productive", etc.). So from those two options, I see a dichotomy (escapism or enhancement), which I then define as being a "happy person" (enhancement) or "not happy person" (escapism). The frequency is perhaps the same, but the root intention is different. Ergo, being happy with your life will make you seek drugs as a form of enhancement rather than an escape, shaping drugs to be positive experiences. Does that make sense?
I would wager that at least some differences of users' experiences/consequences around drugs can be attributed to the difference of happiness.
...or is it a chicken or the egg thing? Perhaps the inner differences in DNA define those consequences before the self is fully formed, as you mentioned in your comment, and I'm curious to read more about that.
It's really difficult for me to pinpoint at a single source, or even list of sources to explain this. The relevant background here is that I have a degree in neurobiology, I work in healthcare, and I've definitely nerded out about drugs. I've used quite a few in my life (my psychonaut/rc/substances list is quite long) and regularly served as an ambassador or perhaps arguably a shaman of sorts for many others on drug subjects. I find it both a public health issue as well as a calling because of how frequently I find that others don't understand or respect drugs.
I completely agree. It is rare to find someone who uses drugs at a high frequency who is not attempting to escape from something. That something might be their anxiety, depression, or other mental issues or it may be more mundane and just something they find lacking in life. In broad principle I agree with your dichotomy, but I have also known plenty of people who have fallen prey to their own biology and otherwise well adjusted people have become addicted to a substance because they were just unlucky and predisposed to do so. I've also seen people who were using drugs as escapism manage to work through it with the right drugs and/or intention and emerge out the other side - finding enhancement through initial escapism. I think the world is a messier shade of grey than the black and white picture you paint, but I do agree that most folks fall into the general bucketing you've done here.
When we talk about physical differences, such as conditions like sickle cell anemia, there's a very strong biological component that is set at birth. When we talk about mental differences, however, due to the diversity explained above, it really is not so simple. The reality is often somewhere in the middle, a combination of nature and nurture (and I think both epigenetics and the connectome are important parts of that, being simultaneously both nature and nurture) and that there isn't a predisposed path for nearly anyone so much as there are many different complex paths that lead to different outcomes. At best I think we can talk in generalizations. X drug generally has some of the following Y effects. People who control for set and setting generally result in Z experience and so on. We should be thinking in terms of "best practices" framing, which inevitably won't be correct for everyone, but are a good blueprint and a way to think about drugs and how they affect us on a conceptual level.
That was certainly a nerd-level drug breakdown, thank you for your insight.
Drugs fascinate me too, hence why I've followed up on you and plutonic. I got officially diagnosed with ADHD in october of last year and started medicating with drugs since then (pot too). My life has totally changed for the better and it's impossible to deny the importance drugs took in my life getting better. How can such a tiny amount of a substance can literally "unlock" someone is a crazy thought. Thinking that those changes are already predefinely set by your DNA is another perhaps crazier thought. Fascinating.
I've had salvia; it gave me synesthesia. When I walked, it felt like my feet were lego blocks locking into the concrete. I could taste my blanket with my fingers. Stuff like that. But mainly it turned me into a vegetable. It felt like something that could put you into a dangerous position if you weren't careful (or in a safe place), so I never did it again.
I did something labeled as MDMA once and I'm pretty sure it was mostly speed; the actual psychedelic effects weren't long-lasting and I just had an excess of energy for the rest of the night. Also never did it again because fuck speed.
I gave a dude a ride home once and he sexually assaulted me, then tried to bribe me with LSD tabs. When I gave him two options: get out of my car or I'd call the cops, he threw some of the tabs at me out of protest... or something? Anyways, the next day I went out and got myself some pepper spray. Then I tried one of the tabs and it ended up being inactive. Prick.
I've always been curious about shrooms, particularly as the news continues to develop about their potential against depression. However, now that I'm starting a family, I'm afraid that ship has sailed; I want to provide a safe home and be able to respond if my little one has an emergency.
Oh, there was also DXM (tussin). You know when you're falling asleep and you see those fractals on the inside of your eyelids? Yeah, that's pretty much all it did. Then it made me throw up continuously. Do not recommend.
Hahahahaha that all sounds exactly like some shit I would have gotten into in my 20s!
I had far better luck with mdma, though, several good times were had.
As I got older, I somehow managed to seek out more connections to various psychedelics and with age those experiences became less…. Like your experiences. So, it can be different, if you ever wanted to give it another go some day.
If you're ever in a position where you're comfortable trying mushrooms out, it can be a fun project to grow your own. In many places (Check your local laws) trading spores is fine, so it is completely legal to purchase them. Then you take care of them for a few weeks and then you'll have your own grown psychedelics.
I've done a decent amount of drugs over the course of my life. Shrooms are definitely my favourite, I have had some incredibly spiritual experiences with them (and a few terrible ones too!).
I tried something I was told was acid once when I was 19, and then had HPPD for the next several years... Whenever I looked at popcorn ceilings for an extended period of time, the whole ceiling would start moving like the surface of water. Besides that, there were no other symptoms.
I tried salvia once with a friend, and it was extremely powerful. I sort of blacked out after smoking it, and came to by myself in the forest carrying the salvia pipe and a stick, apparently having smoked more. I remember listening to a song while coming down, and being convinced the vocals were intended directly for me in that moment, and I swear it sounded like the salvia singing - it was a weird one.
I have tried DMT a couple times as well. In terms of straight up visual hallucinations, DMT is probably the most intense. I have actually had some for the last year or so, but haven't had the right time to use it (also I'm really not looking forward to the taste 😑). As a warning, if you look at someone's face on DMT, things are going to get weird. (Although shrooms have their moments for this as well, I've had whole nights with the classic "mouth for eyes" effect on everyone I looked at... Horrifying stuff).
The best trips I have had have all involved mushrooms, often with music being a key component. Hiking with friends is magical, but so is laying in bed in a dark room with headphones in. One time I had 4-5g of shrooms then kayaked down a river by myself, listening to music and watching what I would describe as a (very sexual) movie animated in the clouds. That day was absolutely beautiful, I cried a decent amount.
I'd strongly advise learning some basic meditation going into psychedelics for the first time, as calming yourself down can quickly change what you're seeing.
One final point - probably the strongest I have ever tripped, including mixing drugs at festivals, was when eating brownies my friends made using home-made hash. Everyone else greened out, so I went home and went to bed. Then I lay awake for hours having the most confusing thoughts of my life... it was like my consciousness split in half, and I literally had 2 separate streams of thought occurring at the same time. The sheer amount of information coming at me made me feel sick. The next day I had to go to class at like 9 or 10 AM, and was incredibly high when I showed up. Those brownies were on an entirely different level, basically a guaranteed 24+ hour trip.
More specifically, grounding/centering techniques that don’t involve anything external to you. Breath is a good one, so is listening for the void.
Psychedelics can get dark. This can be good shadow and trauma work, but it can induce panic and psychosis which sometimes can lead to good work and sometimes not.
I've tried shrooms a couple times at this point in my life (all good so far, knock on wood), and your experience with tripping more from hash is almost a perfect mirror of my experience getting WAY too high from edibles.
I went over to my uncle's best friends house to celebrate his birthday. They're all Gen-X'ers, mid 50's and they all smoke a ton of weed. One of them (Rick) is rather... clinical with his consumption, only gets pure THC to use for some reason. I think they called it Caviar. Any way, it's later in the night we've smoked a bit of a bowl already, and Rick comes around with a mini snickers square asking if my wife and I want some caviar. We ask what it is, he explains, and we say sure why not? He slathers a hefty portion on the snickers square and we both get one. About 15 minutes later we hear others talking about the Caviar and how "one serving size" is about the size of a grain of rice..... We were given way more than that.
We make the call right then we have to make it home before it kicks in (stupid decision, I know) and thankfully beat it home. My wife is a weed aficionado, much more so than I, and while still absolutely high, is enjoying the ride that we're having once it kicks in. I on the other hand am struggling. The body high was so intense that it was uncomfortable from the get-go. We were laying in bed riding the (seemingly multiple, never-ending) waves and I had to keep fidgeting rubbing my legs together because nothing felt right for more than a second.
The wildest part for me though was the Reiki. She was doing Reiki on me in order to help me get a little more comfortable and calm down. Imagine a movie scene where somebody goes into a dusty old attic with a flashlight, and how you see the motes of dust in the beam. To me, it felt like I was made of glass, and someone was shining a bright flashlight through my body. I could feel the energy emanating from her hands as a beam, and felt it move as she moved her hands around. Wildest thing I've ever experienced.
Same. My brain was going a mile a minute, couldn't focus on anything apart from not panicking as the 73rd wave of high crested again haha
I had to go to my Mom's birthday dinner the next day. My sister said I showed up looking pale as a ghost. I was definitely still a little fucked up at that point, the weed hangover was intense to say the least.
Been there... I decided to orally take a large amount of RSO oil (Rick Simpsons Oil) to test my tolerance for THC at one point. Eventually caused some vomitting, and I spent the night at my friends' house. It was quite the experience waking up still high.
Weed hangovers suck. I never took that much again!
Overall I had negative experiences with psychedelics. I developed HPPD after using LSD every few months over a period of about 2 years. At onset it was comorbid with a severe episode of DPDR that lasted several months. The visuals from the HPPD have faded significantly after about 2 years, but are still present roughly 6 years later. I stopped using psychedelics once I recognized that I had HPPD (although I didn't know what it was initially, I just noticed my psychedelic visuals didn't go away despite enough time passing for me to theoretically be sober).
Unfortunately, this is one of those things which seems to be partially genetic and partially luck. Some people can use psychedelics for their whole life and never develop it, while others can have HPPD onset even from a small amount of marijuana consumption.
Ignoring that, the first few times I used them, the experience felt truly profound and was fascinating. After a few times, I began to recognize more that the experience feels very profound because I'm high, and it felt a lot less magical after that.
Do you know if you have a family history of any schizoid disorders? Those have a genetic component, so I usually warn off anyone with a family history of schizophrenia or the like. Even drugs like THC can activate it, and that's really not something you want to activate...
No history of schizoid disorders in my family. And yes, you're correct, anyone with a history of that should avoid mind-altering substance use.
But, HPPD isn't one of those disorders and I don't believe it has any correlation with them. It's also not treatable with antipsychotic drugs. Fortunately, a large component of HPPD is psychological and can be resolved through therapy. However, the visual component seems largely permanent.
It's one of those things that's hard to study due to drugs being illegal. The last I saw, the leading hypothesis is that it's a physiological change in the brain that results in a permanent chemical imbalance of some kind as a result of the specific actions that psychedelic drugs take.
I experience it sometimes, not all the time. It seems to happen when I’m in a particular mindset. I cant remember when it started happening, its been many years.
It doesn’t really bother me, when it does happen, the effects are really mild and only noticeable if I’m looking for it specifically. It feels a little bit like seeing through the matrix.
Yeah, for me that's the state it's at now. It's no more severe a visual impairment than an optical illusion. It was quite severe when it first came on (equivalent to a 25-50 ug trip).
Oof yeah Ive also heard of people who have to stop driving because they cant see objects correctly with all the trails.
I’m super thankful for what I got. Its like a tiny present from the universe to remind me not all is as it seems.
Just mushrooms so far.
First tried last year with friends in Texas.
Have now moved to Colorado where they're legal, taken them 3-4 times here. The legality of them here is new, so sourcing is more difficult and expensive compared to THC, so I've just started to grow my own (have my very first pins!). Mycology community up here is great so far, very friendly and encouraging.
Texas was a small dose and enjoyed it, but wasn't really a "trip" just felt like a good THC high. Have slowing increased and had actual, colorful, textural, psychedelic experiences now.
Woah thats awesome! Growing my own is a long term goal, I’m still trying to be able to grow ….tomatoes, haha.
I do keep reptiles, so the sanitization and misting equipment is all there I just need substrate and really I have no idea how to buy spores.
Growing my own will be an achievement. I kill everything that can't feed itself. I'm not allowed to touch the succulents in the house for example as I've killed every single one and they thrive on neglect.
For these I've made a reminder to just check on them once a week and otherwise leave them be. First batch is in all-in-one grow bags to make it stupid simple.
Grow bags are easy to find online, hell even Bezos' site has them (not that I'd recommend that option as sterilization is questionable), and you can find spore/culture syringes online "for research purposes" pretty easily as it's not the spores/culture (I'd suggest culture, not spores, just FYI) that's illegal in most places, it's the fruiting body itself. (insert check your local laws disclaimer here)
For succulents, it helps if you don’t live in a humid climate. I also struggle with those and I’m positive thats what it is. Even inside with the ac on its still 50-60% humidity in my house. Every succulent I get becomes diseased.
I’m subscribed to the uncle bens subreddit but people are pretty good at hiding the specifics of growing, things like which website is best for buying culture syringes, etc. i appreciate that this should be knowledge I have to seek for myself because the act of doing that work prepares me for what I’m getting into, but life is busy and its just been on my todo list for years now. One day!
I have a buddy that grows his own and one summer he had to leave for a job and left his cultures at my house and gave me detailed instructions on how to take care of them.
I did a good job of taking care of them.....for about a week, and then I forgot about them. Remembered a couple weeks later and went into the (otherwise unused) room to check and....full harvest all ready for me to take. So I take that harvest and leave the room and promptly forget they're there again.
This happened like 3 or 4 times. I somehow managed to be wildly successful at growing "my own" mushrooms despite putting in effectively zero effort. I don't think my buddy ever managed to reach that level of success....
I've grown kitchen mushrooms before, and in many ways they're much easier than tomatoes. If you're willing to accept higher probability of losses, you don't have to follow all of the super stringent sanitization processes. Just sort of keep as clean as you can and if it's a failed batch oh well. Even if you only succeed 20% of the time, if you try it ~10 times you'll still have more than you started with. Especially if you use it once every couple years, one success will last you forever.
Thats true, it kills me a little inside to watch things die though. Idk if I could put any effort in at all and know that it mostly wont work.
I think I could handle the sanitization. I have to do the same process regularly to clean out the mister that my reptiles use, shouldn’t be too much hassle but I guess we will see
I have a family member with significant trauma they had to work through, and they have spoken positively about using mushrooms to do so. They described it as being able to take a step outside themselves and reorder things. They highly recommended it to me. Apparently in Oregon there are licensed therapists trained in facilitating the trip.
I am interested in it myself, but too many irons in the fire right now.
I'm my late teens/early 20s I also tried various drugs. For psychedelics specifically I've only really tried mushrooms and DMT (I'd not class MDMA as a psychedelic, it's more a body high or feeling enhancer).
Mushrooms were fine really, pretty fun at various doses. I got angry at my kitchen one time for looking "too surgical" because it was white at the time.
Thing that put me off mushrooms and most others was just the length of time you need, it's like 8 hour highs and that's a lot of time to dedicate to being high.
DMT was a different story, that shit was wild. I had scales to make sure I could dose it correctly, so the first couple times I tried it I intentionally never made it through "the tunnel" (for those unaware, under a certain dosage DMT just makes you feel a little high and not much else, at the magic number you start to get intense visuals of "a tunnel", more than the magic number is the famous ego death and intense visuals).
After I was happy, I went for the real high and it was insane, I've never felt anything like it because I'm quite used to having my body, but the visuals were crazy.
I decided to try it one more time with my then ex sitting for me and right as I took the hit she got a text and said "oh my friend is here! I'm going out for a bit!" and I had the worst trip of my life. I'd not recommend having DMT snake god demons chase your disembodied self through a maze, at least it only lasted like 3 minutes.
Anyway I dunno, I've been a little tempted to try LSD, I think I need to before I die which is quite a long time away, but you never know.
Jesus thats terrible she just left you. I know that would mess up my trip too, I’m so sensitive to people leaving me.
This thread is a fantastic read. I've only done 3 mushroom trips and I thought I could contribute to the thread.
I then realized there was waaaay more psychedelics than I thought.
I honestly was expecting mostly people who have had maybe one or two experiences years ago, I’m pleasantly surprised. Seems theres a ton of people on Tildes way more into it than I am
No, never tried. A younger me might have been interested in trying. These days, there's a lot of thoughts that come unbidden, and it takes more effort to not dwell on them, both because they're unwanted unpleasant thoughts, and alternatively because sometimes they're very welcome unhealthy thoughts. I'm quite vulnerable to mind-altering experiences from just regular stuff already, and have become more risk adverse when it comes to experiences people have reported as being especially potent.
Oh I didn't know about the saying. It's good people are talking and sharing and making sure folks be safe and have a good time.
It does sound like it gets to be more difficult to start doing something like this as you get older and more set in your ways.
I did it when I was younger and kept seeking it out as I got older, so doing this has just become “my ways” haha
I spent my early twenties doing a good amount of LSD, psychedelic mushrooms, and MDMA (responsibly, at least from a medical point of view). Also dabbled in a few of the more eclectic substances but those aren't as noteworthy. It was a really fun time in my life, honestly. Had some profound insights as to my own inner nature, gained a deeper understanding about the world we exist in, had some fun giggles with my friends. Started paying more attention to what I ate, where I spent my time, and how I affected the people around me.
Now in my late twenties, generally sober with the exception of an occasional drink or toke if it feels right. I struggle with mental wellness at times, but I feel like I've been given all the tools to understand and manage everything on my plate. I don't know if psychedelics still have anything to offer me at this point in my life, but I'm certainly happy that they were available to encourage me to grow and develop as a human being.
I've tried mushrooms, LSD and mescaline. Mushrooms are definitely my favorite and probably are the only psychedelic you need. For me LSD was just anxiety-inducing. Mescaline was interesting but I didn't have quite enough to fully experience it. It's a really slow build up and more of a body high than mushrooms - less sedative as well.
What's funny is I recently went to Amsterdam and the smart shops I looked around in seemed to have worse selection than my local smart shop in San Francisco.
Always wanted to try them, never had the chance. LSD scares me a bit but I'd love to try mushrooms and work my way up to LSD and then eventually DMT
Yeah, shrooms are good to start with cause its easy to just take a little bit. With lsd tabs you get the full dose and thats it.
i microdose golden teacher on tuesdays and saturdays (50mg now) and was microdosing LSD on thursdays, but the 20umg I was doing was a little much. I do a gram of Alacabenzi shrooms in a lemon or grapefruit tek every so often. Its a really nice level --- like a perfect buzz with no downsides. I've done other types of shrooms, but this specific one is my favorite.
My use has always been limited to multi-day festivals and since I've been at that for 20 years and counting, I don't see myself ditching psychedelics or 'mood enhancers' until I've lost interest in that kind of event.
The festivals in western Canada have a special air about them. The small population and large swaths of land up here mean that in addition to the larger festivals, smaller communities of 300 - 2000 people can also find optimal spots for 'enhanced camping' weekends.
Like others here, adding substances to the mix allows the people you're with and people you'll meet to connect, have fun and loosen up. There's little room for adults to play and be silly when you're working, parenting and doing your best to contribute to society, so the chance to shut your brain off (and your phone, too) is something to look forward to.
I won't go into specifics about my favourites, but I do think that we'd all be happier people with more agency if everybody had experiences with psychedelics and serotonin dumpers.
Responding to your comment about everyone, I have history that leads me to believe that trips would be bad.
That's a no from me. I'll make my progress with meditation the slow way.
To each their own!
I have a ton of friends who all attend festivals, but I really cant be safe at these events. I’m autistic, and so I have sensory limits that other people don’t have. It sucks, but, everyone kind of understands that I cant go with them, and I like hearing about it when they get back.
Friends who understand and relay the winnings moments are the best kind.
The larger events are absolutely a sensory overload, especially if they're stage and music based. Regional Burning Man events might be up your alley as the lights and sound aren't there. However if it's the social chaos that triggers you, they might not be appropriate.
Its kind of everything about festivals that triggers me haha.
Its loud, its hot, its dirty, theres a ton of people and access to a clean quiet place to wash my hands is pretty much not a thing.
I can occasionally attend concerts with ear plugs as long as I know theres a good bathroom available, thats really the thing I need thats hard for a lot of places to provide.
I could just be drunk the entire time so that I don’t care about any of those things, but that seems not ideal for my health.
Oh yeah, you've defined everything about the awful material reality that all festival goers must stomach to get to the good stuff. Lol - totally not worth it.
Yeahhh, I can see how it would be worth it for people without sensory issues, but I feel these things just so intensely I cant brush it off like normal people, it becomes debilitating for me. Its unfortunate.
Possibly my number 1 trip was at a Tor set, it was insanely beautiful. I imagine you're familiar!
I'm not! Please introduce me to your favorite mix!
I've found it hard to find mixes of his online, here is a crowdless one from a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_CLOlJYtZo
I would honestly say just check out his albums though, they are phenomenal. If you're into this kind of music, I'd check out the whole Loci label starting with Emancipator and working down. (I realized after posting this that Tor's albums are no longer listed under Loci... the advice stands though!)
Side note, I'm hoping to make it out to Glass Beams next weekend - just need to find some cheap last minute tickets :D
Ah yeah, I know the genre sound and have heard Emancipator before. Likely at Basscoast ;)
My pick from the -- I'll call it beach-stage bohemian downtempo -- is Bonobo, though I'm not terribly familiar with it outside of him and some of the lighter Shpongle stuff. Do you like Dub techno -- the darker, more mathematical cousin?
DI.FM usually has a decent mix of that going. https://www.di.fm/dubtechno
Update - I'm enjoying Tor so far -- I'll surely pick up an album. Thanks!
I haven't really heard of dub techno as a genre, it sounds pretty interesting however. Will probably listen to some more!
Bonobo is definitely a classic, have been a fan since the late 00s.
Please do! If you're close to Western Canada, Basscoast (the festival video you posted) is a worthy party to check out. It's hot, but you'll have a blast.
One of these years I will definitely check out bass coast, it's actually the closest one to me. Probably the only thing that has kept me from going so far is that the tickets aren't substantially cheaper than shambhala, and shambs generally seems to have a way bigger lineup of artists I want to see. I've heard the camping situation for bass coast is better however (and presumably a LOT less dusty).
Listening to Oasis Sky right now. I love it - this is really special stuff. He brings what I love about Tycho and Bonobo together with a distinctly PsyChill vibe. Thanks for turning me (and my wife by proxy) on to this guy.
No worries, always glad to share some great music 🙂
Here's one bonus mix for you, assuming you haven't heard it yet: https://tipper.bandcamp.com/album/sunrise-at-the-gorge-2
Assuming you haven't heard this mix, I would highly recommend saving it for something special!
Shambhala was my first festival in '05! It's such a wild time - I loved going there. I don't think I've ever been to anything that matches the frenzy of Shambhala, but in a more mature way, Basscoast comes close. I mostly stick to Burner events and the odd Motion Notion when it happens in 'Berta these days. That said, there's nothing like a BC festival.
I don't get to tripping much these days but at one stage was doing so every couple months with close friends and/or at music festivals. Generally an even split between mushrooms (both native Irish Liberty caps and typical Amsterdam truffles) and LSD. My acid experiences were a mixed bag, the best were always in nature, mild trips while hiking and the likes, or at festivals, whereas the urban ones tended to wind up kinda aimless and crappy - I learned early that it's not a party drug, definitely needs some solid intention before dropping. While the acid visuals are a ton of fun, overall, I've found mushrooms to make for a far more reliable and holistic experience.
The only guy I knew who I trusted to provide anything like that died a few months back so I think I'll probably just keep the good memories like they are. I don't have enough free time to trip anymore.
Not that I wouldn't ever but just... I dunno, makes me sad a bit.
I never regularly messed with psychedelics but when I did it was great, every time. I'll just give you all of em, chronologically.
The first time, I had a moment in which something just sort of fell into place in my mind, and a wave of contentedness overwhelmed me. By "contentedness" I don't mean a positive, euphoric sort of thing, but rather the absence of all negative. The negative did not matter, none of it felt big enough to matter. I did not hallucinate an image, rather I had an all consuming feeling of being but one small thing within an unfathomably large thing. And, simultaneously, I felt i was myself. As I was in this space an image came together. I can't describe the image to you, because I can't find the words. I can't draw it, because it was fluid and changing. The sight is not what struck though, it's that the sight emerged from the feeling, is the best I can put together for that.
It was not euphoric, nor was it disturbing. Nothing in particular emerged from it, it never became anything, I was just sort of suspended in this state for an amount of time I could not perceive. I felt the okayest I had ever felt. I became OK, the concept, the ideal.
This experience stayed with me. It is something I remember sometimes when things wear at my nerves and when shit gets difficult. Folks I talk to don't know it, but I sometimes tell them "God is pretty ok" and mean it in a completely different sense. When I've taken the time to describe the experience to more devout people, some of them have said I witnessed something. I don't believe so, but I felt it, I lived it, so it doesn't really matter either way. The memory is there, the feeling is something I can recall, and it does what it does.
The second time was just as good but in a different way. I took my dog for a walk as the sun was setting. Where we were, it was a bunch of small restaurants, apartments, a downtown sort of area. We just walked along, and it was the most beautiful couple of hours. The sky was gorgeous, the lights from the cars and the street bounced across everything, the smells would come and go, the wind felt good in the humid heat. The buildings had cool shapes, the people were all nice to us, we walked along a park and the trees' rustling was like a warm blanket. We got back to my friend's apartment, played diablo 3 and ate sausage poboys. I slept on his couch, put in headphones and looked around on my phone. When I couldn't make a decision, I said "fuck it Dark Side of the Moon" and man that was the best time I have ever heard that album, goddamn. My sense of time was just gone, so it was like just being inside the music, until those fucking alarm clocks went off. But, by the time my brain connected the dots to hit the >15s button, they were over and I was back in it. I didn't hallucinate this time, there was no imagery. I could tell the squiggly weirdness was happening but it was too dark for anything to take shape.
The third time, I was living with a crazy artist woman in an illegal apartment. We did it together, and spent the evening painting things. At first we were painting on paper but then we decided we would paint things like cups and jars and stuff, "things patterns are for" was how she put it. We sat on the kitchen floor painting every cup and jar we could find well past midnight. Instead of going to bed we brought some blankets into the room for later (we were not at all tired) and kept painting. Eventually we did both start to get sleepy, right about when the sun was coming up. We ended up moving to the living room and slept on the couch together. The feeling of this other person was so nice that every time I started to wake up I would drift back to sleep because I was so comfortable. She was doing the same thing so we just continued to be asleep until the next day. There is a whole other layer to this story I am politely leaving out, but let me tell you, wow, omg, damn. Wew. We got up at like 2am the next day, and demolished a bag of pizza rolls. I went to work later, did my things, life carried on as normal but occasionally, we would share a look, and whatever plans each of us had that evening would mysteriously fall through.
Finally, the last time, I was living in my own space, just me and my dog. A friend had given me a gift, and so I set aside a couple of days and decided to take a trip. This one was heavy on the hallucinations, lots of squiggly weirdness and angles in things. I put on an album, "Departure Songs" by Hammock, and drew pictures while I just sorta floated along with it. Drawing was really fun in that state. It felt like the paper was moving around, so when I would draw a line and it would be straight I felt really good about it. I didn't draw anything in particular, just patterns and shapes and whatever. My dog started to play so I went and played with her, for like an hour. I remember her face being all wobbly and weird, sometimes her eyes would look bigger in a really funny way. She had a great time, lots of pets and treats and tumbling around. Eventually I went to my bedroom, and listened to a different album, "Does it Look Like I'm Here" by Emeralds and got way lost in it, and eventually drifted off to sleep. Just an all around pleasant time, a good evening.
Damn you’re lucky! Those all sound like really great experiences! Jealous of you and your artist friend, Ive never been able to get my s/o to trip with me.
My most recent trip I found umma gumma by pink floyd and one of the songs sounded like I was an Indiana Jones character walking through the desert. It was great.
Your first trip reminded me of my first trip, where I learned that all I have to do is be good at computers and I will be okay.