What psychedelics really do to your brain

[Mik]

I have considerable personal experience with psychedelic substances and have for 50 years believed that it definitely changes attitudes. Ego death would be a good way to put it. I have always felt people who have done this find it easier to remove themselves from their deliberations on a given topic.

[Horace]

I would love to try them, but I've never been cool enough to have easy access.

[Mik]

Better for the young and innocent who kind of live in Disneyland anyway. I would not repeat the experiences today with an adult's awareness.

Well, maybe 'shrooms.

[kluurs]

Read this book last year - was fascinating.
Of course, Sam Harris is also a proponent. A number of prominent individuals have said that use of psychedelics were a major component of their personal development - Cary Grant took LSD over 60 times and felt it made him a much better person. Steve Jobs said it had a big impact on his thinking. I don't know that it made him a better person. He was a jerk - per a friend who knew him very well.

[mark]

@mik said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

I have considerable personal experience with psychedelic substances and have for 50 years believed that it definitely changes attitudes. Ego death would be a good way to put it. I have always felt people who have done this find it easier to remove themselves from their deliberations on a given topic.

I agree 100% with this.

I also have considerable personal experience with such substances.

I will never forget the Pink Floyd concert at Milwaukee County Stadium. We took a a small RV and several cars. Tailgating for hours prior to the event, as is the tradition. A group of us including my best friend's parents and grandmother were in attendance. We took some mushrooms, and Andy's mom saw us passing the bag of shrooms around and aked, "What do you have there?" needless to say, she joined us. We drank and smoked copious amounts of weed, with his father and grandmother. Andy's family had accompanied us to a Jethro Tull concert a few months earlier. We didn't do any psychedelics for that concert but it was the first time I had ever smoked weed with someone's parents and grandmother!

After the Pink Floyd show was over, I asked Andy's grandmother how she liked it and without hesitation, she replied, "That was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life, the lights, the sounds! The crowd with all those lighters! But, I liked Jethro Tull's music, better." lol

Seeing 70,000 Bic lighters waving in unison to Wish You Were Here, while on those mushrooms is forever etched into my visual memory.

That "trip" was one of the most memorable ones I ever had. This was in the early to mid 1980s.

[kluurs]

OTH, one of my piano teacher's sons killed himself to stop flashbacks that kept recurring. Needless to say, she felt quite differently.

[Mik]

I never knew anyone who had trouble with them that wasn't already a bit wonky. It is quite possible that if you already have mental issues it could exacerbate them. They all have a lot to do with brain chemistry.

[kluurs]

@mik That's what both Pollen and Harris would say - but that probably needs to be better clarified as psychedelics have been shown to be beneficial for treatment of a few mental health issues - e.g. PTSD, depression, anxiety.

[Aqua Letifer]

@horace said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

I would love to try them

The only thing that keeps me from saying that is that I already score pretty high on trait openness, which means I have a hard enough time with daily life as it is. I don't mean that in a "too cool for you man" kind of way. I actually find it very, very difficult to have conversations about house hunting, or my and my wife's grocery list. They're an important part of living, but for me it's also banal to the point of being painful. Sometimes I really have to work at being able to talk about that stuff, and my wife knows I'm struggling with it and ultimately of course just the struggling makes me look like a huge asshole. These aren't fun problems to have. I constantly have to work at it.

If psychedelics were to put me even more out there, and by an order of magnitude if the literature is to be believed, I dunno how much of daily life I could still juggle. Which would suck.

[Mik]

For me, I think it made it easier to dismiss those things in my own life. Not recommending it, because you are in a very different space than I was at the time.

[mark]

@mik said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

Forr egg me. I think it made it easier to dismiss those things in my own life. Not recommending it, because you are in a very different space than I was at the time.

I was just partying. lol

[xenon]

I've been super curious about this - just because of the rave reviews.

I feel very lucky to be in a good headspace these past few years - but doesn't seem like much downside? I dunno.

[mark]

Andy and I were tripping at the college dorms one night and he remembered he had a term paper due in the morning.

We spent sometime coming up with this simple phrase, "double wrap everything in heavy duty plastic". Then we just lost it and laughed our assess off for probably a half hour.

What a silly drug. Fun! but silly.

[Mik]

@mark said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

@mik said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

Forr egg me. I think it made it easier to dismiss those things in my own life. Not recommending it, because you are in a very different space than I was at the time.

I was just partying. lol

me too. I didn't notice these things until long after.

[Aqua Letifer]

@mik said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

Not recommending it, because you are in a very different space than I was at the time.

You say that, but then you also say this:

I have always felt people who have done this find it easier to remove themselves from their deliberations on a given topic.

At the risk of being promoted from Captain to Admiral Obvious, I think that I might benefit from something like that.

[Mik]

I think these things are better for the younger and more innocent. Too much barefooting around in the head is not good for adults. But I suspect a light dose of mushrooms would not hurt you. I'd try that before I went for some mystical experience. I've been pretty far out there hallucinogenically but cannot say I had something like that. I always knew where I was, even if I couldn't see it quite clearly.

[mark]

@mik said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

I think these things are better for the younger and more innocent. Too much barefooting around in the head is not good for adults. But I suspect a light dose of mushrooms would not hurt you. I'd try that before I went for some mystical experience. I've been pretty far out there hallucinogenically but cannot say I had something like that. I always knew where I was, even if I couldn't see it quite clearly.

This.

Even when your head melts into the tile wall as lean your forehead against it, while you're taking a piss at the local bar across the two lane 55 mph road from the drive through theater where you and your buddies are tripping your brains out at a triple feature on a Friday night, and you decide to play frogger because the bathroom in the bar , across the street, is closer than the bathroom at the drive-in, you know where you are.

When the light trails from the streetlights seem to shoot off into infinity. You still know where you are.

[Doctor Phibes]

[Mik]

That's Gene Simmons when he wanted to be Ozzy Osbourne. Quite appropriate to this discussion.

[Doctor Phibes]

That, my American friend, is Neil.

And you two sound just like him, man.