What psychedelics really do to your brain

[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.

[Mik]

Neil?

[Doctor Phibes]

He's a Young One. Least ways, he was about 40 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Ones_(TV_series)

[jon-nyc]

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

Better for the young and innocent who kind of live in Disneyland anyway.

Funny the first time I had acid was at Epcot.

[mark]

@jon-nyc said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

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

Better for the young and innocent who kind of live in Disneyland anyway.

Funny the first time I had acid was at Epcot.

[Horace]

@doctor-phibes said in What psychedelics really do to your brain:

He's a Young One.

Neil Young, then. Makes sense.

[Mik]

Can't be him. Pretty sure he was at the Democratic Socialists convention.

[George K]

Happy Birthday Albert Hoffman!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hofmann

While researching lysergic acid derivatives, Hofmann first synthesized LSD on 16 November 1938.[8] The main intention of the synthesis was to obtain a respiratory and circulatory stimulant (analeptic) with no effects on the uterus in analogy to nikethamide (which is also a diethylamide) by introducing this functional group to lysergic acid. It was set aside for five years, until 16 April 1943, when Hofmann decided to reexamine it. While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and discovered its powerful effects.[9] He described what he felt as being:

... affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated[-]like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.[10]
Three days later, on 19 April 1943, Hofmann intentionally ingested 250 micrograms of LSD. This day is now known as "Bicycle Day", because he began to feel the effects of the drug as he rode home on a bike. This was the first intentional LSD trip.[11]

Hofmann continued to take small doses of LSD throughout much of his life, and always hoped to find a use for it. In his memoir, he emphasized it as a "sacred drug": "I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality."[12]

Hofmann later discovered 4-Acetoxy-DET (4-acetoxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine, also known as ethacetin, ethylacybin, or 4-AcO-DET); a hallucinogenic tryptamine. He first synthesized 4-AcO-DET in 1958 in the Sandoz lab. Hofmann became director of Sandoz's natural products department and continued studying hallucinogenic substances found in Mexican mushrooms and other plants used by aboriginal people there. This led to the synthesis of psilocybin, the active agent of many "magic mushrooms."[14] Hofmann also became interested in the seeds of the Mexican morning glory species Turbina corymbosa, which are called ololiuqui by natives. He was surprised to find the active compound of ololiuhqui, ergine (LSA, lysergic acid amide) to be closely related to LSD.