i took mushrooms once, and documented my experience. i've gone back and re-read it several times, and each time i do so, i both laugh like crazy and realize i was getting glimpses of ideas i'm only now starting to understand.
Thanks for sharing this. This is literally a legal proxy for understanding what kind of changes the article is talking about, so I think this is plenty relevant :)
Somewhat odd to have used OJ as the mixer; vitamin-C is often considered to accelerate the breakdown of psychoactive substances (especially those like MDMA and LSD), so would normally be avoided until you feel you're 'done' and want things to end.
I've always been told it enhances the experience...
Anyway, it doesn't follow that faster breakdown makes the trip end... could be that the very process of breaking down the active substance produces the effects desired, and the vitamin-C acts as a catalyst to "even out" the experience.
You might be confusing the OJ/vitamin C with the properties of grapefruit juice, which is well-established to alter the properties of various liver enzymes, particularly those which typically metabolise psychedelic / hallucinogenic drugs. Wikipedia has a brief blurb about it:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_drugs...
Actually, it does mention orange juice as containing flavonoids which may have some (albeit lesser) effect on drug metabolism.
Yeah. Actually, it looks like there is mention in the literature (Simon Wills Drugs of abuse, 2nd Ed, 2005)[1] of vitamin C in fruit juice, or Ammonium Chloride to acidify urine to promote sequestration and removal of amphetamine metabolites.
I'm not sure if/how that translates to other drugs like Psilocybin, but it does raise some interesting questions.
Do you by any chance have a source regarding the original
"enhances the experience" statement? (for my own curiosity really - I'm not saying that you're wrong or misinformed)
No real source, but googling "vitamin c mushrooms ehance" brings up lots of forum posts etc. In my case, this knowledge is just the sort of folk-wisdom picked up from a misspent youth :). I have heard lots of stuff to explain it, but all of that falls squarely in the "probably pseudoscience" and [citation needed] categories.
Vitamin-C does virtually nothing for the trip. It's all placebo.
Now, if you grind the mushrooms up and let them site in lemon juice for 30+ minutes. That will definitely accelerate the time you reach the peak of the trip. The acids in the lemon juice break down the mushrooms so the stomach can digest them more quickly.
That's pretty harsh. I bet you Huxley's original notes for Doors Of Perception were probably jumbled too. But both DoP and Mark's notes allude to the same thing: without a valve on our consciousness, we'd just sit around all day and be blown away by the creases in our jeans.
Seconded, thanks for sharing Mark. A number of friends have gone through life altering trips such as you describe, there appear to be positive things that can be gleaned from psychedelics about oneself.
That said I had one friend who didn't come back and ended up in an institution for a period of months. He had a number of underlying issues that the drug brought to the fore. It was a horrible experience for all involved.
Would you elaborate on this? Did he come out of it twelve months in? it's rare to find negative commentary on psilocybin on the internet. Only a couple warnings in the thread now.
He took some at a party I was at and freaked out. I nursed him for a few hours, he babbled the same phrase over and over until his housemates came and picked him up. I've been told since that he had freaked out before and had been fine once he came down so they treated this incident the same. Took him home and sat with him till he calmed down and put him to bed.
The next morning he was still acting strangely, not making sense etc. They kept an eye on him that day figuring he was just tired and worn out. But the next day he was worse so they got him into a psych hospital after some difficulty (he wouldn't go at first). He was put on anti-psychotics and stayed there for a couple of months.
He was released back into his parent's care, he is from the UK and this happened in Australia. So he went back to the UK and reportedly has found god and is doing fine. (apart from the religion thing ;)
It's alright to disagree strongly with someone else but mutual respect is one of the attributes that keeps HN an open and interesting discussion forum.
It's interesting to me that you believe you can achieve the same kind of inner thoughts from reading books. There are many people here that have come out from trips feeling more enlightened than when they entered them. Remember also that you are in the comments for an article about a study in which it is said to increase openness. You're telling people that it won't enlighten? Do you disagree with the results of the study?
The belief you're holding is too strong since you've not been able to demonstrate any evidence for it.
Lol, I don't think it's enlightenment, but I experienced the feeling without drugs first. In the Buddhist tradition, it's known as kensho or satori (technically different, but similar enough for our purposes.) In either case, it's definitely worthwhile and can't be learned from a book.
I have no issue with whatever it is you posited after your masturbatory experience. It's just that I don't find your epiphany particularly deep, nor do I see how LSD was even necessary for you to arrive at your destination of nowhere.
You know what actually makes a difference in life? Acquire knowledge, apply that knowledge, make connections and use all of that to HELP other people and change the world. Tripping on shrooms by yourself or with your fellow dunderheads does nothing for anyone, yourself included. Stop pretending it does.
You sound like exactly the kind of close-minded person who would benefit from a hallucinogenic trip.
The reality is, you have no idea what a trip is like. You're building an image of what it might be like based on your own actual experiences, and it seems pretty lame, but that image is just that: an image; a picture; not the real thing.
And, much like life cannot be experienced just by looking at pictures, drugs cannot be experienced just by reading trip reports.
If you can figure out ways to try crack, heroin and motor oil safely, with no harmful physical side-effects and no risk of addiction, then why not? What's wrong with trying them? Do you have an ideological opposition to new experiences?
The problem with crack, heroin and motor oil is that two of them are relatively likely to get you addicted and then damage your body as you abuse them, and one is likely to kill you outright if consumed.
Psylocibin and LSD, on the other hand, are basically harmless (at a reasonable dose) from a physical standpoint, and non-addictive. So what's your rationale for not trying them?
You might argue you won't try them because most people won't try them - well, that may be a point, but a lot of people have tried hallucinogenics, especially in the 60s, and the vast (99.99+%) majority had a good time, is perfectly fine and was happy about the experience. So social proof isn't your reasoning for not trying them.
Which leaves the law. Perhaps you won't try them because they're illegal. Fine. Would you not try tomatoes if they were illegal? If you would try tomatoes even though they might be illegal, then what's the big deal about hallucinogenics?
Someone like you almost always pops up in every internet discussion on hallucinogenic drugs - they're always pretty universally dismissed as what you would call, 'wrong', by everybody who actually knows what they are talking about.
Well, sexuality isn't the worst analogy one could make with drug use. Like sexual experience, psychedelic experience can be life alteringly profound and positive but is almost universally unprofound and vulgar when put into words. I enjoyed the parent's story both for it's entertainment and because I related to his experience.
I'm an avid reader, but experiences of these natures absolutely cannot be replicated with a book. I've never seen someone walk differently after reading a book the way someone walks different the day they've slept with a new lover. Likewise, it's impossible for prose to attempt to do what drugs and sexuality do - subtly suspend many of our basic assumptions simultaneously and thereby direct our attention to many fundamental blindspots in our thinking and experience.
Be careful - thinking that only well articulated sentences are the only valid form of intellectual stimulation is something of a logical fallacy common among brainy people.
> You know what actually makes a difference in life?
Taking action makes a difference in life. People don't take action just for its own sake. They have motivations. Where do this motivations come from? Ultimately the mind. The mind can be influenced by books and general knowledge, as well as experiences. Do you contest that if one did the same thing twice (once on drugs, the other not) that those experiences would different? Who's to say that the experience on the drugs can't be the one that inspires someone to do something with their life (or in this case, to alter their way of viewing the world)? You? What authority do you have in such a field? What are you credentials to make such proclamations?
You could claim the same about getting high off of glue since that affects the mind too. Seriously, what every day experience /doesn't/ affect your mind?
My point stands on its own. Taking action makes a difference, dropping acid does nothing for anyone. End.
So your argument is that (1) since every drug/substance/experience affects your mind everything is the same, (2) consuming something does not create so therefore has no utility to anybody: the only utility is 'taking action'.
These points do not stand on their own.
Everything might affect your mind but that doesn't mean that every experience is the same.
Consuming something may not make a difference to other people's lives, but it might give direct utility to yourself (for example eating food, drinking water, reading a book, watching a film.) This article was about an increase in openness. If you become more open as a result of doing something then indirectly your future actions might hold more utility to the people that you affect.
> Taking action makes a difference, dropping acid does
> nothing for anyone. End.
Converted to:
> Taking action makes a difference, <blank> does
> nothing for anyone. End.
You could insert anything into this sentence. Heck, I could insert "reading a book" into that sentence because "reading a book" is not "taking action," yet reading a book was one of your examples of a 'good' thing to do earlier in this thread.
You're ignoring the possibility that something that 'does nothing for anyone' can directly influence someone to take actions which do something for someone. E.g. if someone drops acid/watches a documentary/reads a book and it directly inspires them to open a soup kitchen for the homeless, how does that fit into your world view? Are the two things completely separate and without causation? Or is it only the influences related to drugs which hold this place in your mind (i.e. can never have a good outcome, so therefore if there is a good outcome it can't be because of the drugs)?
So everything's on the level, I should probably mention that I've downvoted just about everything you've said in this thread except this post, which strikes my curiosity.
Would you consider meditation equally as pointless as dropping acid? How about worshiping a God, or Gods? Sitting alone in a park? Writing a journal? Looking through a yearbook or perhaps a photo album? Are these things all pointless in your mind as well?
Taking actions to alter one's self can easily improve the ability to take actions that affect others. A simple example: lifting weights so you can be a more effective fire fighter. There are many others, including the ingestion of chemicals to alter mind state. Oh, I don't know: like drinking that cup of coffee in the morning, the one that gets you through your emails and keeps you from being a grumpy asshole all day?
Posting to a forum with your self-righteous, unapproachable attitude is the DEFINITION of masturbatory. You clearly cannot politely engage others on this topic, so why bother commenting here to simply tell the druggies how you feel about their petty dalliances? To make yourself feel better?
edt....I respect your opinion, but I would respect it even more if you had experienced even once what people are discussing here. From the way you write, I know you haven't.
If you have been through it, it's up to you to judge whether it is good or bad, for overall society, or even at the individual level. But as it is, you simply don't know what you're talking about.
We have a word in our vocabulary: transcendental
Some people would say we don't really need that word. No one that has taken a psychedelic experience would ever say that. It is truly out of this world. It is up to you to determine if it is beneficial for yourself.
Assuming you don't think it's beneficial for yourself, I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you think others should be denied this experience, if they harm no others. (assuming you are in favor of prohibition)
Nowhere did I say I support the war on drugs, prohibition, or any such rubbish. You are free to engage in whatever stupid activity you so choose. Just don't try to claim it was some kind of fulfilling accomplishment, when it was merely shallow recreation.
Why would you feel it's so important to belittle someone else's experience as "merely shallow recreation" when they obviously feel it meant more than that?
You know what actually makes a difference in life? Acquire knowledge, apply that knowledge, make connections and use all of that to HELP other people and change the world.
But you know what makes a difference to the experience of bring alive? Changing the way you interpret experiences.
(you're very negative for someone who claims Helping people is the only thing which makes a difference).
And since when are people only allowed deep epiphanies, but not shallow ones, even assuming you can judge that from outside?
if you are correct that my use of mushrooms has not and will not do anything for anyone, why are you telling me this?
if anyone reads what you have written and benefits from your insight, then you must have been wrong - because you wouldn't have written what you did if i hadn't posted this document detailing my experience with mushrooms.
You're missing the point here. The author was typing from a world where only a few have been, where things melt into the floor, music turns into objects, objects turns into people, and your mind is on a huge emotional rollercoaster. Imagine being fired, then getting a date, then you remember your sister died (many years ago), then you realize you are awesome, then you feel AWFUL because you said something you shouldn't have at that party two months ago, then you realize everything is actually one whirling organism of energy and you can never die, then you hear loud noises and think it's the cops and get scared. All of this in a very very short span of time.
You start sketching or typing and you realize you can see blood flowing through your hands, and then you realize you're actually an animal for whom it's hard to form coherent thoughts because everything is just so wobbly and undefined. Then you become amazed at how human language is actually a form of learned "symbols->sounds" synesthesia. And writing is "sound->visuals" synesthesia.
People have pissed their pants from fear on psychedelics, the fact that the author of the document was able to jot down his experience is a remarkable addition to the knowledge of humans.
if you want to read it, here it is:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9465583/ShroomReport.pdf