Thread: LDs and psychedelics

^ That reminds me, a few years ago I also had an interesting experience looking at clouds, but on a strong weed trip. I was able to see the full 3-dimensionality of the clouds and focus on them long enough to see how they evolve over time. I could see little wind currents shaping the clouds and I could see the continual process of evaporation/condensation that defines the life of a cloud. I gained a new intuitive grasp of cloud formation.

Obviously, any sober person could stare at clouds and get the same result with enough meditation or even with time lapse photography, but the weed seemed to put my brain in exactly the right mode to be able to watch a cloud long enough to see its true nature without losing interest or having intrusive thoughts.

That being said, I don't smoke weed very much any more because it can make me focus on bad thoughts with just as much intensity. For me it's like a focus amplifier, which isn't always good.

Originally Posted by sivason

I am not oppossed to what you have said, but the deffinition of lucid is 'clear.'

Say someone is slobery drunk and rambling, you may say "he is not lucid at all" refering to how unclear his speech is. So, what drugs do is decrease lucidity.

Comparing alcohol's stupor and impairing effects to the mind expanding effects of psychedelics is questionable.
I have much experience with heavy psychedelic substances including: LSD, 2C-E, Mescaline, Psilocybin Mushrooms, Salvia Divinorum, and DMT.

I feel some psychedelics enable you to think much more clearly and understand complicated logical concepts. For instance, it is known Francis Cricks was under the influence of LSD when he discovered and understood the intricate DNA molecule. Also, Steve Jobs himself embraced LSD's effects as life-changing in a positive way. LSD will enhance sensory input and allow people to view things differently for a short period of time. I find that I don't question whether I'm dreaming as much while under the influence of acid due to the fact that I am too aware that I am on LSD. The effects and mind states are distinct and it's difficult to emulate them within a dream. Reality Checks may be interpreted as positive whilst on a tryptamine such as LSD, but there's limitations to what you can control. For instance, you can't exactly fly unless you've consumed a ridiculous dose that influences DMT like effects. DMT on the other hand is basically a dream and very comparable to lucid dreaming but you may not be questioning whether you're dreaming or not; you'll be too distracted.

i'm a big fan of psychedelic drugs for spiritual exploration, though i'm trying to get into these altered states of consciousness without the aid of substances. i've become annoyed with the lack of control psychedelics offer. they're a ride you can't get off until the chemical has run its course. they definitely have their place, and if you want to open your mind up...psychedelics are the easiest place to start


for anyone curious, i recommend doing research on erowids. it's probably the best drug usage resource on the internet. educate yourself...




enlightenment is just a word. words don't effectively convey meanings

Just to round out the "trippy clouds" discussion, I too had a similar experience, but without hallucinogens. I spent a week and a half training for a Japanese performance art called "Butoh". The class was conducted far from any nearby city in the New Mexican desert. Butoh is focused on internal transformation, spontaneity, and an exchange of energy between the audience and performer. Butoh had many mind-expanding effects on me. After one session, I collapsed on the ground (with the heat of the desert and the intensity both physically and mentally of what we were doing it was easy to work to the point of exhaustion). I looked up at the sky and saw the clouds swirling, dancing, and joining together, very much like what I had seen on psychedelics. I must have layed there staring at the clouds for about ten minutes. This was the first time I realized that it is possible to experience the same effects of psychedelics without the drugs - it just takes a lot of work.

Royce White was drafted in the first round by the Houston Rockets this year, but hasn't played because of disagreements with the Rocket's about how his mental health issues should be dealt with. I ran across this interview excerpt today...

White's problems began at age 165, in a cabin outside of Minneapolis, on the first (and only) day he ever smoked marijuana. The episode may superficially seem like a standard case of weed-induced paranoia, but that's not how it felt to White. "I think it was in Forest Lake, Minnesota," he recalls. "I had an out-of-body experience. It felt like I was watching myself have the experience. It was so traumatic for me, and I had such a bad reaction, I started having panic attacks for the next two or three months, in rapid succession. Sometimes two or three a day."

Chuck Klosterman on Royce White - Grantland

I'm posting because of its relevance to the thread, not because I agree or disagree with his story or think that it is characteristic of anyone else's experience. I'm inclined to think he's a bit of a drama queen who needs to take more responsibility for himself, but I can see a lot of room for differing views about that.

Biographer, Matt Ridley, reported in the New York Times that Crick experimented with marijuana and LSD.

In the book "Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code", Ridley wrote:

I am frequently asked for my opinion on the speculation that Francis Crick was on LSD when he discovered the double helix; or that he was involved with a man named Dick Kemp in the manufacture of LSD. These assertions were reported second hand in an article in the Mail on Sunday by Alun Rees following Crick's death and they have since gained a certain amount of traction on the internet. Both stories are wrong. The true story, which I was told directly by Crick's widow and by the man who (as his widow confirms) first supplied the Cricks with LSD, is much less sensational. Crick was given (not sold) LSD on several occasions from 1967 onwards by Henry Todd, who met the Cricks through his girlfriend. Todd did know Kemp, with whom he was eventually prosecuted, but the Cricks did not. As for the implausible idea that the then impoverished and conventional Crick would have had access to LSD when it was newly invented in the early 1950s, there is simply no evidence for it at all. Those who wish to argue that LSD helped Crick make discoveries should note that all his major breakthroughs in molecular biology were made before 1967. -Source

^^ Buzzkill.

I think this highlights a common misconception, particularly among mystics, about what science is. Its not a bunch of smart guys sitting around conjuring up results with flashes of intuition. Its an enormous amount of work of a kind that most people would regard as drudgery. And progress in hard sciences like physics requires an elite amount of clarity in relation to a staggeringly large base of knowledge. If successful scientists abuse drugs its going to be more along the lines of amphetamines. Something like LSD isn't even going to seem to help.

People like to quote anecdotes about Einstein not being very good at math. Actually he was phenomenally good at math, even if he wasn't as good as the top handful of mathematicians. He had "problems with math" because the math he needed to do was really, really hard. Einstein's work, while relatively intuitive, was not something that he came up with by daydreaming. Its essentially Poincare's geometry with tensors. Einstein didn't come up with the ideas, he built a formal model out of existing ideas.

Veering even further off topic...Sivason, there's a guy named Joel who I met playing go in Boise in about 1992. He used to work in Kinkos downtown in the late 90's. He's got long blond hair, a pretty, effeminate face, and used to be into hallucinogens and creating alternative music with children's toys. He's probably about 40 now. In the mid 90's there was a late night hangout downtown, maybe at about Main and 11th, where I saw him occasionally, and I've seen him in a coffee shop somewhere around that area also. Joel was an arrogant guy who saw him self as smarter or more progressive than most other people. In the early 90's he had an 'accident', I don't know with what drug, after which he could not focus logically any more. In everyday conversation he seemed normal enough, but I'd ask him about an intellectual pursuit and he'd say "I can't do that anymore". He came in once when I was playing go with someone and he couldn't stand to look at the board. I found it sad.

In '98 and '99 when I was teaching at Boise State I would often sit outside at the starbucks at 17th and State. I don't drink coffee, but it has outside seating, is close to where I used to live, and at that time I could meet other interesting people to talk to there. Sometimes I would also be at the student union on campus, because my girlfriend and I rented a small house about a block from there. I spent so much time outside downtown, since I didn't drive, it seems surprising if we've never seen each other.

Neal, who I used to hang out with from the early to the mid 90's, is still in town as far as I know. He's about 5'7, freakishly skinny, and at least in his 60's by now. He used to wear sandals and a white Russian sheepskin hat, or occasionally a British style cap. I've never seen him outside his house without a hat. He has a strong gaze and usually a long white beard. He's not very honest in my view, and not half as smart as he thinks he is. But if you want exotic experiences you probably can't talk to him once without learning something. See if you can read his mind a little bit while he's describing his awareness of the 'conscious self', he'll let you do that if you push him in that direction.

Daniel is interesting too. He's taller, darker, heavier, and used to play chess at a high level. I don't know where to run into him, he doesn't go out as much. He's also arrogant as hell, and not particularly objective. But if you can coax him out of his usually impervious 'teacher' persona and get him to talk from the heart, you can learn stuff from him also. Daniel fucked himself up with marijuana and LSD in my opinion, though I can't fairly judge that because I didn't know him beforehand.

I am very familiar with the locations. The 17th and state location is very pleasant. I actually tackled a purse snatcher within a block of there (Rite Aid). Of course thecity is 200,000ish people,,, so I do not recognize the descriptions. On topic, you mention your first friend loosing mental ability with the passing years (possiblydrugs), well I will mention Todd, a guy about our age, from the area. He was smart enough as a teen, that it was not obvious who was smarter, me or him, if you did not know us. He was sharp and creative. He has to have some formm of drug induced brain damage. He admits it, and thinks he knows the time frame when it happened, smoking something like 'bath salts'. He does not remember any details from his past (say ten years back) unless someone starts helping him grasp the memories. Very sad.
The bath salts stuff is not actually on topic. I do not think any of the damage came from LSD or mushrooms, or even the many designer drugs he would have bought thinking he was getting one of those two. He must have done no less then 250 LSD trips, and he never once told me about any sspiritual or special moments. He always just seemed to get stupid and see things and laugh alot. I on the other hand was often experiencing interesting and thought provoking effects. I would say that out of the entire group of say 20-30 LSD users I knew, only 1 in about 5 had experiences that would fit into the OPs concept. The individual had more to do with it then the drug, I guess. Those few, would have many many experiences that were of the thought provoking/spirit kind. The other almost never did.