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LSD - Changing personality

D

d8rken

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Joined
Oct 12, 2011
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Hi, I've used LSD about 10 times starting from ~100ug, but it wasn't until my most recent trip at ~300ug (with 800mg piracetam) that I experienced an actual change in personality.

A little background. I used to be extremely introverted as a child. I have been improving slowly, but am still quite shy today at 23 years old. I took up dancing 3 years ago, and this helped me more than anything else, but I am still not how I want to be. In my dancing, although I have good technical ability, I find it very hard to "let go" of myself and really dance and have fun doing it. I think the problem is a lack of self confidence. I should note that from an intellectual perspective there is no reason why I shouldn't be confident: I am (or at least believe myself to be) good looking, have a good body, I'm young, healthy, and intelligent, I have an amazing girlfriend and great friends in my life, I have more money than I need, a good house and a decent job. Also I don't have depression or any similar mental disorder.

During the peak of this 300ug trip I felt like I 'let go' of myself and when my ego came back I was a lot more confident. It's hard to describe, but it felt like previously I would always be too embarrassed to try to do things, even if I believe I am already good at it. If I make a mistake, I would be embarrassed and not want to continue, and this is especially pronounced if someone is watching me (but still applies if I am totally alone). After the peak of this trip, I felt like I was no longer afraid of embarrassment, and instead I wanted to "show off" more at things I believe I am good at. I also felt extremely strong and muscular, whereas normally I feel much more average on a subconscious level (despite knowing that I am very athletic). This was not like the change I have experienced over the past few years, which although I have been getting more confident, it's more like I am less afraid of doing stuff after I force myself to do it many times. During this acid trip, it was like I just felt totally confident in myself, I wanted to even try new things and attempt with confidence that I could actually do it. I've never really felt this way before, it was sort of like I had an attitude shift from "I must be really careful not to mess up or do something embarrassing" to "I must make sure that I show off what I can, if I make a mistake then that is fine I'm only human". I had changed my mannerisms slightly, I held my face in a different way, I walked in a different way and it felt really good.

Anyway I felt like that until I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was back to normal. I tried to pull my face and walk back to what it was during the trip but it just felt forced and didn't bring back any of the confidence. My question is if anybody else has had similar experiences, if it is possible for these kind of changes to be more permanent, and if so how do I do it?

tl;dr I took 300ug of acid and felt a lot more confident until I came down, how can I make it permanent?
 
Listen, I can relate to your story shockingly so, all the way down to your personality type. You CAN use psychedelics to help you make the change but your gonna have to put in the work. From what I understood this confidence just came out of no where. The only times I have had true lasting changes is when I worked my problems out in my head during the trip, this can be very scary in high doses if you put up any resistance but sometimes you need to be smacked with a new perspective and let go of the old you (your ego). Psychedelics can be like therapy, only you are also the therapist if that makes sense, you've gotta do some digging around in your head and eventually things become obviously clear... your problems, your insecurities, and what you've done with your life along with what you must do to solve them. Until you work through your problems and find the root-cause of your insecurities and work to solve or come to terms with em your gonna keep getting dropped back as the same person, this is because nothings changed.

Even when I've had these purely therapeutic trips the feeling doesn't last forever. After a couple months I find myself falling back into my old patterns and that's when I know I'm due for another heavy "therapy session", very high dose LSD is my tool of choice. Mushrooms work but the durations shorter and the headspace can be more doom and gloom rather than therapeutic, well for me at least. Trust me when I say you can make the changes last longer, it's just not gonna be handed out like a piece of candy and may not be permanent.
 
I believe similar effects can be achieved with lower doses. I've had a similar situation where after a 125µg trip I felt almost as if I were reborn. I was confident, less anxious, more connected to the universe, and overall more happy. I probably need a much higher dose to achieve the same desired effect now, however, but I believe it is the afterglow associated with a spiritually refreshing trip. You definitely need to put in the work though, as CaptainKratom has suggested.
 
Zalo said:
I believe similar effects can be achieved with lower doses. I've had a similar situation where after a 125µg trip I felt almost as if I were reborn. I was confident, less anxious, more connected to the universe, and overall more happy. I probably need a much higher dose to achieve the same desired effect now, however, but I believe it is the afterglow associated with a spiritually refreshing trip. You definitely need to put in the work though, as CaptainKratom has suggested.
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It's possible with lower doses but I feel that if you truely wanna work through some stuff the ego's gotta go and at 125mcs that's unlikely to happen unless your abnormally sensitive. However push your boundaries too far and you will be shellshocked, hard to explore your mind when your being completely overwhelmed by panic, fear, and sinister visuals.
 
No, I don't think insights you come up with on an acid trip can "change your life" in any meaningful way. Other than the sense that there's more to life than you can realise without acid. It's hard to transfer stuff you thought of on an acid trip when you're getting up at 5am every day in the pissing rain to go to a job you hate. It's a little unfair on acid to expect it to do that for you.

I do think regular use of psilocybin can work as a permanent anti-depressant tho - regular use of it when I was younger seems to have cured my depression permanently.
 
Ismene said:
No, I don't think insights you come up with on an acid trip can "change your life" in any meaningful way. Other than the sense that there's more to life than you can realise without acid. It's hard to transfer stuff you thought of on an acid trip when you're getting up at 5am every day in the pissing rain to go to a job you hate. It's a little unfair on acid to expect it to do that for you.

I do think regular use of psilocybin can work as a permanent anti-depressant tho - regular use of it when I was younger seems to have cured my depression permanently.
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You honestly believe that psychedelics can't change your life in any way? If so I can tell you that you are wrong. You may not benefit from psychedelics but those with deeper issues that are usually buried in everyday life can. Psychedelics can bring up those issues in which you can learn to come to terms with. Why do you think psychedelics can provide help to those with PTSD? I will admit that if your not mentally stable you can walk out of a trip worse but you most definately can have life changing experiences... experiences that I've had multiple times. Like I said high doses of LSD (or any deep psychedelic for that matter) can be like therapy, they provide a fresh perspective and a straight forward aproach to your lifes' problems and can most definately cause some devastating life changes. I agree that alot of depression is caused by the shitty repetative lifestyle in which case psychedelics can't help you out there but some people carry some mental baggage, true emotional problems that they choose to bury instead of come to terms with in which case psychedelics can bring up and force the change upon you for better or for worse. I've gone into too many trips with the intention of having a deep introverted experience and have walked out a changed person, whether you wanna believe it or not. But then again me and you don't have the same problems in life.
 
Yes, but you arn't going to translate how you feel the day after a trip into your normal life. I think Ram Dass spent 3 weeks permanently stoned on LSD in an attempt to try and somehow translate the goodness into his ordinary life - it didn't work. After a few weeks you're back to normal again.

I agree it's like therapy - but better because it's just you and your own experience. But then again, one session of therapy isn't going to change your life either. Repeatedly doing it at regular intervals gives you more of a chance.
 
Ismene said:
Yes, but you arn't going to translate how you feel the day after a trip into your normal life. I think Ram Dass spent 3 weeks permanently stoned on LSD in an attempt to try and somehow translate the goodness into his ordinary life - it didn't work. After a few weeks you're back to normal again.

I agree it's like therapy - but better because it's just you and your own experience. But then again, one session of therapy isn't going to change your life either. Repeatedly doing it at regular intervals gives you more of a chance.
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What works (or doesn't) for Ram Dass is meaningless, everyone has different problems. The people that can benefit most from psychedelic therapy are typically sexual assault victims, war veterans, people with rough lives, the insecure or depressed etc... I will agree that the changes aren't permanent but I've found that changes can last for months although not always. One heavy trip every 4-6 months can be enough to bring a positive change in your life. Once again what may work for me may not work for others but it's definately possible to utilize the psychedelic experience, YMMV.
 
Ismene said:
Yes, but you arn't going to translate how you feel the day after a trip into your normal life. I think Ram Dass spent 3 weeks permanently stoned on LSD in an attempt to try and somehow translate the goodness into his ordinary life - it didn't work. After a few weeks you're back to normal again.

I agree it's like therapy - but better because it's just you and your own experience. But then again, one session of therapy isn't going to change your life either. Repeatedly doing it at regular intervals gives you more of a chance.
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I disagree, both that a singular ++++ experience can't change your life, but also on your interpretation of Ram Dass' story of regimented dosing over an extended period.

I believe, and have experienced, a singular ego shattering experience that shifted the way I looked at the world. It was in some ways the culmination of many trips, which doesn't make it quite so singular, but this was the ONE.

As far as Ram Dass, I believe in that experiment they were more showing that what goes up must come down, the body cannot safely existence in the perma-trip (but also that after a certain point you can only get so "High" and the continuing doses have decreasing effects).

I believe what everyone is trying to get at though is putting the insights into work yourself. If you're using psychedelic experiences as self-therapy there's gonna be homework, just like there would be from real therapy. You have to practice meditation, centering yourself, living in the now, and confidence-building exercises, as well as testing the limits of your anxiety-proving its not debilitating, little by little.
 
Lol. I'm just skimming but id say acid.changes pretty much anyone drastically.

if I had to guess it'd be the relevance of individuality on creation.
 
Like how acid changed the 60s generation? Just before they voted in Reagan and Thatcher?

Felonious Monk said:
I believe what everyone is trying to get at though is putting the insights into work yourself. If you're using psychedelic experiences as self-therapy there's gonna be homework, just like there would be from real therapy. You have to practice meditation, centering yourself, living in the now, and confidence-building exercises, as well as testing the limits of your anxiety-proving its not debilitating, little by little.
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I never found that. I've met very few people who were changed by taking acid. And I think this idea of saying "Yeah, acid changes your life" is disappointing and disillusioning for people when they find out it doesn't. Nothing changes your life in one day.

And as I said, what "insight" from acid can you apply to getting up at 5am in the pissing rain and going to a job you hate? As Lennon said "The trip is the trip. What you do with it afterwards is what you do with it afterwards".
 
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Ismene said:
Like how acid changed the 60s generation? Just before they voted in Reagan and Thatcher?



I never found that. I've met very few people who were changed by taking acid. And I think this idea of saying "Yeah, acid changes your life" is disappointing and disillusioning for people when they find out it doesn't. Nothing changes your life in one day.

And as I said, what "insight" from acid can you apply to getting up at 5am in the pissing rain and going to a job you hate? As Lennon said "The trip is the trip. What you do with it afterwards is what you do with it afterwards".
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Haven't you ever thought that not everyone has a shitty job? You do realize that people with rough childhoods can grow up to be succesful with a great job and family and still be miserable because all they did was shove everything into the back of their head? If therapy can fix people why can't you do it yourself? You know yourself more than any asshole who gets paid to sit down and spit generic advice and hand out SSRI's like they're candy. A fresh perspective can make a worlds difference, if I have had life changing trips then how can someone who doesn't know me say it's impossible?

Also when I had my first therapeutic trip I had no idea that psychedelics had any mental component, I was under the assumption that psychedelics were just pretty colors, shapes, and euphoria as all my trips prior to this were so you can't say I came into the trip with expectations. I was absolutely terrified but by the end I had made some serious progress. Realized that the people I was associating with were no good, mended old relationships, took education more seriously and doing this gave me my self confidence back. Is that not a life lasting change? Without that trip I likely would've headed down some dark paths, I DEFINATELY wouldn't have even graduated had I not had that trip.

We don't need to change generations here, not everybody has problems that need fixing. Also I think the psychedelic movement started to fail when people realized they can't do shit because were basically the governments property and as for reagan being elected, come on you really think hippies are gonna fuckin vote? Not when you got the media scaremongering and spreading their propaganda along to the people who actually vote. This is where democracy fails.
 
You write, "I used to be extremely introverted as a child. I have been improving slowly, but am still quite shy today at 23 years old."
I was very shy as a child, to the point where my shyness caused me to miss out on opportunities. Then, I went off to school where I attempted
to reinvent myself while indulging all too regularly in what would be considered too many psychedelics. Well, the two years at private-school went
by as a fast, drug and alcohol fueled blur after which I was reminded of the story of the quiet, thoughtful, caring man who was asked to run for public
office. After a political campaign wherein the now "candidate" did all sorts of things to become "popular", it could be said that the man who entered the
office was no longer the same man. In becoming popular, he lost the important qualities that made him appealing in the first place.
Presently, I am contemplating taking mescaline soon in the hope that it will help me gain valuable perspective regarding how I might actually gain from some
pretty terrible things that occurred in my personal life. Given the option to somehow be granted increased self-confidence I hope I would at least consider all the
supremely confident people who have really, really screwed things up. It might be that after a trip wherein I was granted great self-confidence I would look at myself
the way I look at myself in a picture from years ago. Having tripped, would I tell myself how ridiculous I "was", or how ridiculous I "am"? I guess if I were confident enough, "how ridiculous?" would not matter. . . to me. In any event, I think LSD can surely bring about profound changes in a person. I think it could bring you the confidence you seek. I guess it would be good to generally be very confident, but I would hope to find myself at times very confident that I was in error- after all, we are all human.
 
Maybe. I first took them as an older teen, and it cooccurred with increased attraction toward abstract thought, but maybe that attraction is what brought me to lsd.

ebola
 
I don't know if is attribute it to years of cannabis abuse or heavy lsd use but my personality has definitely changed. Yeah, I'm still depressed but I worry less, especially the 'bigger picture stuff'. (Death, dying....spiritual stuff).

Now I don't sweat dying at all. I feel a very positive spiritual connection and I don't worry like I used to about that kinda thing.

Also I can't tolerate mean people anymore. People who are mean just to be mean....gossip that sort of thing. I try to be friendly but I want nothing to do with people who get off on being mean. I used to partake in those types of activities but I no longer let myself fall into that trap. Holding hate and negativity and ill will is something I'd like to think I dropped and will hopefully never revisit.

Awful people spewing awful shit. It's like a black sticky slime of awfulness pouring out of their mouths. I feel for them but struggle.
 
CaptainKratom said:
Realized that the people I was associating with were no good, mended old relationships, took education more seriously and doing this gave me my self confidence back. Is that not a life lasting change? Without that trip I likely would've headed down some dark paths, I DEFINATELY wouldn't have even graduated had I not had that trip.
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So you're saying that before you took LSD you were going nowhere and the day after everything was hunky dory? Or are you saying it was sort of a good experience - like a talk from a friendly teacher - and it made you change a bit?

I think we might be at cross purposes - I'm talking about the idea that you take LSD and the day after you don't have any problems anymore. You seem to be saying it can be a positive influence which I'd certainly agree with. It might be a little to do with age tho - if you're 15 when you drop acid it might be more impressive than when you're 35.

as for reagan being elected, come on you really think hippies are gonna fuckin vote?

But there's plenty of guys like Jerry Rubin and Steve Jobs who claimed to be "children of acid" who turned out to be hardcore stockbrokers and big buisness capitalists making 10 year old chinese kids work like motherfuckers in their sweatshops. With some chinese bloke stood over them waving a club around.
 
This convo is funny as a shit. You do not see the future and can not say for certain what life would have been like had you not... done something. I have had headaches go away on their own and others got worse after taking an analgesic.
 
to the title

"a drug person can get used to seeing something like their dead grandmothers crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth, but what you learn from years of dealing with people like this is, you can turn your back on a person...but never turn your back on a drug."

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Hi, thought I would follow up on this a little bit in case anyone is interested.

It's been ~6 months since I wrote the OP, and since then I've not had any further ego death experiences, but have tripped a number of times on 200ug doses of LSD, and had quite an intense experience on 40mg 4-AcO-DMT (but no ego death). I feel that although my personality has never returned to what it was during that original trip, I am closer to that than I was before. When I trip now, even on less intense doses/drugs (e.g. 20mg 2C-B), I find that I partially return to the desired personality, and even in sober life depending upon my mood I am definitely more confident than I was before. Of course, I cannot say for certain that this wasn't due to other factors, but I feel like being shown the potential of what I could be like was very beneficial to me.
 
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