Lysergamides The Big & Dandy ETH-LAD Thread
- Thread starter Solipsis
- Start date
Kaleida
Bluelight Crew
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- Sep 6, 2015
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Hey ClarityPSY, thanks for sharing this, and for your work for the community in general.
I have given your page a look, and since you asked for feedback, I will give you some.First of all, here's a study citation that proves that ETH-LAD binds to at least 5-HT2, D1, and D2 receptors.
Now, bare in mind that I have only used ETH-LAD once so far myself, at 100 micrograms. That being said, most of what you described about the physical effects was pretty accurate for me, especially the less desirable ones, with one exception: I actually found it quite sedating at this dose. I'm sure it could get stimulating at higher doses for me, but I have spoken to others who took several hundred micrograms and described it as incredibly relaxing in comparison to LSD too. I don't know how common that reaction is, this just stood out to me.
About the psychological effects, that does seem relatively in line with what many people have told me, and I could see my trips on it being like that at higher doses too, but I did think it's worth pointing out that I think you're leaving out a portion of the population. Your descriptions seem to pretty biased towards those who experience ETH-LAD as an extremely disorienting or deep chemical, but there is actually a percentage of people as well that seems to fairly consistently experience ETH-LAD as an incredibly clearheaded trip in comparison to things like LSD, and these people often tell me it's this lucidity combined with the extreme visuals that makes it one of their favorite psychedelics. I hear this enough that I felt it was worth a mention.
I don't have much to say about the hallucinogenic effects, that all seems about right, well enough for a general guide anyway.
There is just one thing that I particularly take issue with, and that's the disconnective effects.... It's not necessarily that on its own, I get what you're trying to do with it, but I would argue that you guys have some more house-cleaning to do before throwing in concepts like this. For instance, are you really trying to tell me that effects like blurred vision and psychological dissociation are so rare on psychedelics that literally only the few most extreme ones ever deserve to have it listed on their pages, while ego death is so common and readily achievable that it deserves to be listed indiscriminately in the same place and order without any further description on every single psychedelic's page from LSD to 2C-B? That's pretty hard for me to swallow.
I honestly doubt that there are really any psychedelics at all that don't become dissociating at a high enough dose, as long as they don't become lethal first. I've been to the void multiple times on 2C-I, and 4-HO-EPT has almost completely detached me from my tactile and visual perception at a dose that still had almost no hallucinations or mental stimulation. I do believe that we recognize these psychedelics like ETH-LAD, 2C-P, and DPT as being so powerful in part because they are able to do this more readily than many other psychedelics while also being extremely hallucinogenic, but I wouldn't agree that that makes them so unique as to be totally sectioned off like that, just stronger. In any case, certainly not to that extreme while something like ego death is paraded around so readily. I feel that that kind of setup will lead to more confusion than clarity, and that if you want to try to introduce more controversial topics to your site you should make sure the loose ends on your more typical topics are nicely tied up first.
One final note, about this: "Additionally, users should be aware that there are reasons to believe that this combination may result in unforeseen neurotoxic effects." That's not the kind of thing you can say followed by [citation needed] and still remain credible. I've never heard about these concerns, where are you hearing this from?
Those are my thoughts on it all, thanks again for your efforts!
I agree that ETH-LAD is sedating and I've tried it at doses from 100-400ug. It's a different kind of sedation compared to tryptamines though, the former feels like uncomfortable sedation where as the latter feels more blissful. That's my experience FWIW.
pupnik
Bluelighter
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- Dec 24, 2013
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Being able to focus on an idea is really important: the above comment reminds me of some experiences I have had on speed during which I wanted to include any partially or loosely related associations in order to deliver a complete picture. (I would have it no other way!)
Filtered down to essentials, you may not be saying that much, but I do like your recasting of "ego death" as "continuity of identity suppression".
As a repository of fact rather than conjecture in this day of 'fake news' and 'fake science' you would not want to go on too much about gating, thalamic or otherwise, since no in vitro experiments have been done with psychedelics comparative or otherwise that review this scale of brain circuitry. I can't even imagine how intrusive that would be. Maybe with the tools of star trek in hand!
Notes on short term memory and long term memory are valid, in the context of adding to a body of evidence, but not enough testing has been done to evaluate comparisons. This ties overall to the same issue as stages of "continuity of identity suppression".
Filtered down to essentials, you may not be saying that much, but I do like your recasting of "ego death" as "continuity of identity suppression".
As a repository of fact rather than conjecture in this day of 'fake news' and 'fake science' you would not want to go on too much about gating, thalamic or otherwise, since no in vitro experiments have been done with psychedelics comparative or otherwise that review this scale of brain circuitry. I can't even imagine how intrusive that would be. Maybe with the tools of star trek in hand!
Notes on short term memory and long term memory are valid, in the context of adding to a body of evidence, but not enough testing has been done to evaluate comparisons. This ties overall to the same issue as stages of "continuity of identity suppression".
ClarityPSY
Greenlighter
- Joined
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- Messages
- 24
Well to be fair, I came in asking about whether the community thinks introducing "psychedelic dissociation" was a valid phenomenological construct in the context of the framework we use (we want to be as open, fair and scientifically possible of course.) The simplest course would have just been to say "this substance seems to be really super duper ego death-y, like DPT and such" and just leave it at that, but I wanted to see if there were alternate explanations for heavy psychedelic states by very experienced psychedelic users.
FWIW I have high functioning autism, and yes, it does lead to overelocution (which, to demonstrate, is partly why I am drawn to psychonautwiki, because writing pages for it forces me to pare my writing/thinking down). TBH it is kind kind of hurtful that all you can see is that ("while you might not be saying much"), when I am just trying my best to lay a solid, comprehensive framework as a basis for constructive dialogue (I wrote this while dead sober, btw, just after having the issue on the back of my mind for a while).
The principal reason for me coming here is to spark some discussion on the experience and phenomenological construct of what is colloquially known as "Ego death" and whether the very intense states able to be reliably produced by certain psychedelics on even two or three times the common dose needed for the core activity (within a "sensible" dose range) are actually able to be separated from what we describe as an entirely cognitive phenomenon (i.e. this is not the ++++ type ego death, but rather just a basic description of what happens when you take heavy doses of strong psychedelics, which can reliably induce potent short and long term disruptions in memory encoding and retrieval that we are actually beginning to understand on a neurological level using brain imaging techniques).
But yes, boiled down to the essentials, the question that inspired me to come here relates to my curiosity as to whether anyone else noticed that ETH-LAD seems to produce that "I am viewing my consciousness in a far-away screen in a totally dark movie theater" effect, and why do certain psychedelics also seem strongly associated with "psychedelic dissociation" when the current theory is predicated on direct NMDA receptor antagonist binding activity and efficacy? Is it just to do with higher degrees of temperature regulation suppression and overheatiing leading to partial delirium? Is it just normal extreme hallucinogenesis? Also, why does this seem hard to just tie this down to memory suppression or states of boundary-lessness? Instead of charitable dialogue, I am brought to the stand to defend why the whole site does something a certain way (I'm not in charge of it, it's a Wiki and I am trying to retool the framework precisely by making adjustments like these and using them as prompts for discussion). Then I am told to "clean house" first by just removing ego death from large swathes of pages before having this discussion, which as I have discussed in the post above, can make things incredibly convoluted >.<
Not I am not in disagreement with this notion but it seems like there's a bit of underlying hostility delivered with it (which I'll admit I could just be misperceiving). But really, all I am really trying to do is make the site more scientifically and phenomenologically accurate and grounded, while writing from a generally conservative, harm-reduction oriented perspective (again, considering like half of our base only spend 10 seconds on the site looking up etizolam doses and whether they're gonna die if they mix it with heroin and 1,4-BD and flunitrazolam). I am wary of the impression we could give (particularly to new users interested in the psychedelic) that psychedelics are so predictable in behavior that we can very precisely categorize which ones are efficacious enough to induce "ego death", as this may give them the impression that there is some sort of evidence-grounded hierarchy. Although this information is extrapolatable/hypothesizable to some degree there is no currently methodology in which we can really present this information in a simple way that we've found, which is why I am asking questions about retooling the framework, and trying to comprehensively describe the factors in a way that our user analytics informs us as to how the information we present is being consumed.
Note that our base is _not_ comprised of Bluelight oldheads who have spent years lurking here and really hashing out the nuances of the varieties of psychedelic experience. I didn't just come in this forum making a thread about how we our construction/presentation ego death and how OUR site can fix it (it seems a little bit inappropriate for me as a guest). I put this in here to spark some discussion because I am truly fascinated by this compound and enjoy it immensely, while also trying to tie the divergences it displays to even a basic neurophenomenological explanation.
However, I do understand if this is seen as unwelcome, that people here don't really care about providing constructive input about the site (which I do understand if you don't feel any connection with it) and I should just be tl;dring. Like I put out something that I clearly label as a guess/speculation and then get an admonition of advancing warrantless conjecture (which I would argue is actually not so warrantless, even if it is heavily simplified, you will find not even an inkling of such speculation on that page). They are based on recent studies released by Carhart et. al on 5-HT2a associated disruptions to the "DNM", alterations in network synchronicity/oscillatory activity and trying to go deeper down the rabbit hole of the downstream cascade(s) that just get initiated by initial 5-HT2Ar binding/activation; as well as Vollenweider et al who talks about both dissociatives like ketamine + psychedelics in tandem and hypothesizes about cortico-striatal-thalamo loop collapses as the neural basis for ego dissolution, extrapolating from recent neuroimaging studies and the general principles of neurobiology. For those interested, I will post the papers I am using below as the basis of this very weak, simplified conjecture and welcome any alternate models to use as the neural basis for the phenomonology observed in hallucinogen-induced altered states such as the one ETH-LAD produces.
"Notes on short term memory and long term memory are valid, in the context of adding to a body of evidence, but not enough testing has been done to evaluate comparisons. This ties overall to the same issue as stages of "continuity of identity suppression". Well to be fair, I don't think enough studies have been conducted on psychedelics overall, but we are doing the best we can with the studies that are just coming out. For example, even if you just go back to Strassman's pilot DMT phenomenological studies you see a measurable correlation with dose compared to what the subjects describe as "ego loss", forgetting and not being able to remember who they were or why they were in the "place" they found themselves in, and I believe this dose-dependent response has been further validated within the last decade with the works of Carhart and Nutt, Griffiths, Vollenweider, Nichols and others.
Again, I would like to appreciate more constructive dialogue on this topic, if it is welcome here of course. It seems like I am receiving two different points of views arising from the same underlying sentiments, however, which is kind of confusing. Perhaps my post above was not clear enough; I am neither beholden to the framework we currently use regarding "ego death" but also cannot disentangle it from the feeling here that people are beang distracted by s kneejerk rejection to the word/label (again I don't like it either, but up this site is intentionally trying to balance rigor with accessibility, and the vast majority of substance users are not the type to conduct extensive research on the substances they use, like the regulars here on bluelight).
This wiki entry is not meant to be a scientific paper, if that wasn't clear. Nor is the entirety of the site. I am not proposing a theory, but rather a hypothesis and an invitation from the community to propose what they think would be an improved conceptual framework from the current "leveling" system we have for ego death, which is really very basic and can be described in this manner: 1) Partial suppression of short term memory, 2) Total suppression of short-term memory, 3) Partial suppression of long term memory and 4) Total suppression of long term memory.
I will not go so far to suggest this is a wholly linear progression. "Ego death" is just the colloquial descriptor of memory suppression in its fullest cognitive manifestation; we do not attribute it any inherent profundity. I do think continuity of identity suppression is more precise but I am worried about sacrificing accessibility for the average drug user at the expense of total precision (though I will probably add it to the page it links to itself even if I don't go with it as a label). If that term proves to be too wordy so as to be easily communicable. I am also able to entertain changing it to "ego loss" or "ego suppression/disruption" with descriptions of what we mean by "ego" (which for us is just a coherent, stable, personal identity continuum). Again though, what is the criterion and metric that should be used to compare, given the fact that research has been held back for decades, and how complex neuropsychopharm is? What to do about the edge cases? We could provide descriptions for each one I suppose, but they largely won't be read and will also result in a combinatorial explosion of claims that by their nature have incredibly little data on them. I mean I think it's pretty easy to assign "ego loss" to simple substituted tryptamines like 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, the classicals or even "disconnectivity" to ibogaine, but what about substances like 2C-I, 2C-C, escaline or 4-HO-DPT, DiPT, DET/DPT or bufotenin or salvia?
Okay, I will put an end to this here. Again, if this kind of discussion is not welcome here, I will not waste either of our time. At the same time it would be nice if we didn't have people wagging their fingers at us at a distance instead of dialoguing with us constructively. We really are just trying to be a trusted, reliable, and adaptive resource for the entire community. Like, a point of feedback that isn't just "I like that name better than the other one" rather than a re-evaluation or suggestions to retool the entire construct is more of what I was trying to provoke with this. Perhaps I am being too sensitive here, I don't know. Anyways, thank you for taking the time to respond.
P.S. the page has been updated to incorporate the latest feedback received. The revision is available for view here: https://psychonautwiki.org/w/index.php?title=ETH-LAD&type=revision&diff=102924&oldid=102865
Thank you again to everyone for taking the time to read it.
Sources:
Simplified powerpoint on hallucinogenic action and what it suggests about the nature of visual processing and consciousness (focuses on corticothalamic interactions): http://visionlab.harvard.edu/Members/Olivia/tutorialsDemos/Hallucinogens&Percept.pdf
Vollenweider, F. X., & Kometer, M. (2010). The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(9), 642-651. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2884 (includes some discussions about similarities in network alterations between ketamine and psychedelics)
Vollenweider, F. X. (2001). Brain mechanisms of hallucinogens and entactogens. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 3, 265-280. PMCID: PMC3181663. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181663/
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Muthukumaraswamy, S., Roseman, L., Kaelen, M., Droog, W., Murphy, K., … Nutt, D. J. (2016). Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518377113
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Leech, R., Hellyer, P. J., Shanahan, M., Feilding, A., Tagliazucchi, E., ... & Nutt, D. (2014). The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020
FWIW I have high functioning autism, and yes, it does lead to overelocution (which, to demonstrate, is partly why I am drawn to psychonautwiki, because writing pages for it forces me to pare my writing/thinking down). TBH it is kind kind of hurtful that all you can see is that ("while you might not be saying much"), when I am just trying my best to lay a solid, comprehensive framework as a basis for constructive dialogue (I wrote this while dead sober, btw, just after having the issue on the back of my mind for a while).
The principal reason for me coming here is to spark some discussion on the experience and phenomenological construct of what is colloquially known as "Ego death" and whether the very intense states able to be reliably produced by certain psychedelics on even two or three times the common dose needed for the core activity (within a "sensible" dose range) are actually able to be separated from what we describe as an entirely cognitive phenomenon (i.e. this is not the ++++ type ego death, but rather just a basic description of what happens when you take heavy doses of strong psychedelics, which can reliably induce potent short and long term disruptions in memory encoding and retrieval that we are actually beginning to understand on a neurological level using brain imaging techniques).
But yes, boiled down to the essentials, the question that inspired me to come here relates to my curiosity as to whether anyone else noticed that ETH-LAD seems to produce that "I am viewing my consciousness in a far-away screen in a totally dark movie theater" effect, and why do certain psychedelics also seem strongly associated with "psychedelic dissociation" when the current theory is predicated on direct NMDA receptor antagonist binding activity and efficacy? Is it just to do with higher degrees of temperature regulation suppression and overheatiing leading to partial delirium? Is it just normal extreme hallucinogenesis? Also, why does this seem hard to just tie this down to memory suppression or states of boundary-lessness? Instead of charitable dialogue, I am brought to the stand to defend why the whole site does something a certain way (I'm not in charge of it, it's a Wiki and I am trying to retool the framework precisely by making adjustments like these and using them as prompts for discussion). Then I am told to "clean house" first by just removing ego death from large swathes of pages before having this discussion, which as I have discussed in the post above, can make things incredibly convoluted >.<
Not I am not in disagreement with this notion but it seems like there's a bit of underlying hostility delivered with it (which I'll admit I could just be misperceiving). But really, all I am really trying to do is make the site more scientifically and phenomenologically accurate and grounded, while writing from a generally conservative, harm-reduction oriented perspective (again, considering like half of our base only spend 10 seconds on the site looking up etizolam doses and whether they're gonna die if they mix it with heroin and 1,4-BD and flunitrazolam). I am wary of the impression we could give (particularly to new users interested in the psychedelic) that psychedelics are so predictable in behavior that we can very precisely categorize which ones are efficacious enough to induce "ego death", as this may give them the impression that there is some sort of evidence-grounded hierarchy. Although this information is extrapolatable/hypothesizable to some degree there is no currently methodology in which we can really present this information in a simple way that we've found, which is why I am asking questions about retooling the framework, and trying to comprehensively describe the factors in a way that our user analytics informs us as to how the information we present is being consumed.
Note that our base is _not_ comprised of Bluelight oldheads who have spent years lurking here and really hashing out the nuances of the varieties of psychedelic experience. I didn't just come in this forum making a thread about how we our construction/presentation ego death and how OUR site can fix it (it seems a little bit inappropriate for me as a guest). I put this in here to spark some discussion because I am truly fascinated by this compound and enjoy it immensely, while also trying to tie the divergences it displays to even a basic neurophenomenological explanation.
However, I do understand if this is seen as unwelcome, that people here don't really care about providing constructive input about the site (which I do understand if you don't feel any connection with it) and I should just be tl;dring. Like I put out something that I clearly label as a guess/speculation and then get an admonition of advancing warrantless conjecture (which I would argue is actually not so warrantless, even if it is heavily simplified, you will find not even an inkling of such speculation on that page). They are based on recent studies released by Carhart et. al on 5-HT2a associated disruptions to the "DNM", alterations in network synchronicity/oscillatory activity and trying to go deeper down the rabbit hole of the downstream cascade(s) that just get initiated by initial 5-HT2Ar binding/activation; as well as Vollenweider et al who talks about both dissociatives like ketamine + psychedelics in tandem and hypothesizes about cortico-striatal-thalamo loop collapses as the neural basis for ego dissolution, extrapolating from recent neuroimaging studies and the general principles of neurobiology. For those interested, I will post the papers I am using below as the basis of this very weak, simplified conjecture and welcome any alternate models to use as the neural basis for the phenomonology observed in hallucinogen-induced altered states such as the one ETH-LAD produces.
"Notes on short term memory and long term memory are valid, in the context of adding to a body of evidence, but not enough testing has been done to evaluate comparisons. This ties overall to the same issue as stages of "continuity of identity suppression". Well to be fair, I don't think enough studies have been conducted on psychedelics overall, but we are doing the best we can with the studies that are just coming out. For example, even if you just go back to Strassman's pilot DMT phenomenological studies you see a measurable correlation with dose compared to what the subjects describe as "ego loss", forgetting and not being able to remember who they were or why they were in the "place" they found themselves in, and I believe this dose-dependent response has been further validated within the last decade with the works of Carhart and Nutt, Griffiths, Vollenweider, Nichols and others.
Again, I would like to appreciate more constructive dialogue on this topic, if it is welcome here of course. It seems like I am receiving two different points of views arising from the same underlying sentiments, however, which is kind of confusing. Perhaps my post above was not clear enough; I am neither beholden to the framework we currently use regarding "ego death" but also cannot disentangle it from the feeling here that people are beang distracted by s kneejerk rejection to the word/label (again I don't like it either, but up this site is intentionally trying to balance rigor with accessibility, and the vast majority of substance users are not the type to conduct extensive research on the substances they use, like the regulars here on bluelight).
This wiki entry is not meant to be a scientific paper, if that wasn't clear. Nor is the entirety of the site. I am not proposing a theory, but rather a hypothesis and an invitation from the community to propose what they think would be an improved conceptual framework from the current "leveling" system we have for ego death, which is really very basic and can be described in this manner: 1) Partial suppression of short term memory, 2) Total suppression of short-term memory, 3) Partial suppression of long term memory and 4) Total suppression of long term memory.
I will not go so far to suggest this is a wholly linear progression. "Ego death" is just the colloquial descriptor of memory suppression in its fullest cognitive manifestation; we do not attribute it any inherent profundity. I do think continuity of identity suppression is more precise but I am worried about sacrificing accessibility for the average drug user at the expense of total precision (though I will probably add it to the page it links to itself even if I don't go with it as a label). If that term proves to be too wordy so as to be easily communicable. I am also able to entertain changing it to "ego loss" or "ego suppression/disruption" with descriptions of what we mean by "ego" (which for us is just a coherent, stable, personal identity continuum). Again though, what is the criterion and metric that should be used to compare, given the fact that research has been held back for decades, and how complex neuropsychopharm is? What to do about the edge cases? We could provide descriptions for each one I suppose, but they largely won't be read and will also result in a combinatorial explosion of claims that by their nature have incredibly little data on them. I mean I think it's pretty easy to assign "ego loss" to simple substituted tryptamines like 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, the classicals or even "disconnectivity" to ibogaine, but what about substances like 2C-I, 2C-C, escaline or 4-HO-DPT, DiPT, DET/DPT or bufotenin or salvia?
Okay, I will put an end to this here. Again, if this kind of discussion is not welcome here, I will not waste either of our time. At the same time it would be nice if we didn't have people wagging their fingers at us at a distance instead of dialoguing with us constructively. We really are just trying to be a trusted, reliable, and adaptive resource for the entire community. Like, a point of feedback that isn't just "I like that name better than the other one" rather than a re-evaluation or suggestions to retool the entire construct is more of what I was trying to provoke with this. Perhaps I am being too sensitive here, I don't know. Anyways, thank you for taking the time to respond.
P.S. the page has been updated to incorporate the latest feedback received. The revision is available for view here: https://psychonautwiki.org/w/index.php?title=ETH-LAD&type=revision&diff=102924&oldid=102865
Thank you again to everyone for taking the time to read it.
Sources:
Simplified powerpoint on hallucinogenic action and what it suggests about the nature of visual processing and consciousness (focuses on corticothalamic interactions): http://visionlab.harvard.edu/Members/Olivia/tutorialsDemos/Hallucinogens&Percept.pdf
Vollenweider, F. X., & Kometer, M. (2010). The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(9), 642-651. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2884 (includes some discussions about similarities in network alterations between ketamine and psychedelics)
Vollenweider, F. X. (2001). Brain mechanisms of hallucinogens and entactogens. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 3, 265-280. PMCID: PMC3181663. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181663/
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Muthukumaraswamy, S., Roseman, L., Kaelen, M., Droog, W., Murphy, K., … Nutt, D. J. (2016). Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518377113
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Leech, R., Hellyer, P. J., Shanahan, M., Feilding, A., Tagliazucchi, E., ... & Nutt, D. (2014). The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020
Last edited:
Kaleida
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2015
- Messages
- 2,417
ClarityPSY, thanks for the detailed response. There's a lot that you've said here so please excuse me I miss any of it in what I say, I'm trying to work through the best way to express my thoughts in relation to it all....
First of all, I want to reiterate that my problem was not with the concept of the disconnective effects themselves, and that I totally understand what you're trying to say with them. I have experienced the kinds of effects you're talking about on psychedelics before, I get it. The problem I had was not that you were trying to introduce this concept, but that I felt that you were doing it in a way that wad incongruent with the current progress of the site's articles.
This is why I bring up the ego death. The topic of just what ego death is and how should be defined on these pages and such is its own complicated topic, let's hold off on that for the moment.... For now the memory suppression label is fine for the sake of discussion. So, as you say you can indeed so, these effects are listed relatively indiscriminately among the different psychedelic pages. I will confess that it's been a while since I looked very thoroughly at too many of them myself, but as I recall I felt that certain things like empathy were accurately categorized with the substances they were likely to occur with, but other things like the memory suppression and delusions were listed pretty much all over the place with no further descriptions. I was perfectly fine with this as is because as you say they were generic pages and I thought that was obvious, it was just a basic blueprint of psychedelic effects made to allow for the generation of a lot of pages for later editing. However, for that reason I do also believe that that later editing needs to come before trying to experiment with too many new concepts.
That's all I really meant by tying up loose ends, I have no problems with the site in general or the typical page layouts. Basically what it comes down to is just that while I do recognize that certain psychedelics seem more likely to cause this sort of dissociation and should be noted for it, it seemed very odd to me to introduce this concept with that level of organization while still leaving other more intricate differences between the psychological effects of psychedelics less explored than they need to be. I feel that it could be misleading in some circumstances, for instance, my experience with large doses of 2C-I have led me to believe that the type of dissociation you describe with it is FAR more likely than any significant memory suppression. Now, that may be higher than the doses in your "typical" range, in fact I took it all the way up to 90 mg to get these effects really prevalent, but nonetheless, the fact that I could take it that high (and I'm far from the only one who ever has) and experience this form of disconnectivity but not memory suppression/ego loss makes me feel that if either of these effects deserves to be listed on its page it's the former, whereas with this current system only the latter would be displayed instead.
I hope that makes sense, that's really all that concerned me. Really, my belief is that probably it would be best to list ego loss (or however you want to call it) and disconnectivity effects as potential effects of all psychedelics somewhere nice and visible, and then just make a specific note also for the ones significantly more likely than most to cause either. But I really haven't thought too deeply into it, that's just what comes to mind....
Personally, to divulge my own opinion a little bit, I actually think we're starting to reach a point where it might be a valid time to have a discussion about the extent to which psychedelics and dissociatives actually do overlap. A lot of the science seems to suggest that they have very similar effects on cortical neuron activity, brain wave generation, complex sensory processing, and just recently MEG signal diversity. In addition, it seems to me like the more drugs we try, the more we find both more "dissociating" psychedelics like ETH-LAD, DPT, and 2C-P and more "psychedelic" dissociatives like those with a PCE base. I think it's worth considering that since the pool of potential pharmacological combinations is practicality endless, there may come a time when as a whole their functional similarities will matter more than their mechanistic differences.... Perhaps, anyway.
So, because I have that mindset, I again understand what you're trying to do here, and I would be happy to see these things discussed more openly in the community as well. I just think there's a little tidying up to do with the currently listed psychological effects before branching out to new ones, beginners will already have a hard enough time grasping the already very well-understood effects as it is.
Also, I am sorry if you were offended by anything I said, but I believe that what you said in your second post is a bit of an overreaction. You were "brought to the stand to defend"? Please. You asked for criticism, and I, one person, gave it to you, while everyone before me just applauded. If you want criticism you need be willing to accept the good and the bad, and if you want responsibility for making a site a good resource you need to be able to take that criticism and work with it regardless of whether or not the reported problem is your fault. Your site, yes, YOUR site, not some kind insult, just the objective truth with you as the stated "Community and Lead Content Developer at PsychonautWiki", has a problem with overepresenting concepts like ego loss, as you have already agreed with yourself. My criticism is that it needs to fixed before adding these kinds of changes if you want to be taken seriously. Take it or leave it.
First of all, I want to reiterate that my problem was not with the concept of the disconnective effects themselves, and that I totally understand what you're trying to say with them. I have experienced the kinds of effects you're talking about on psychedelics before, I get it. The problem I had was not that you were trying to introduce this concept, but that I felt that you were doing it in a way that wad incongruent with the current progress of the site's articles.
This is why I bring up the ego death. The topic of just what ego death is and how should be defined on these pages and such is its own complicated topic, let's hold off on that for the moment.... For now the memory suppression label is fine for the sake of discussion. So, as you say you can indeed so, these effects are listed relatively indiscriminately among the different psychedelic pages. I will confess that it's been a while since I looked very thoroughly at too many of them myself, but as I recall I felt that certain things like empathy were accurately categorized with the substances they were likely to occur with, but other things like the memory suppression and delusions were listed pretty much all over the place with no further descriptions. I was perfectly fine with this as is because as you say they were generic pages and I thought that was obvious, it was just a basic blueprint of psychedelic effects made to allow for the generation of a lot of pages for later editing. However, for that reason I do also believe that that later editing needs to come before trying to experiment with too many new concepts.
That's all I really meant by tying up loose ends, I have no problems with the site in general or the typical page layouts. Basically what it comes down to is just that while I do recognize that certain psychedelics seem more likely to cause this sort of dissociation and should be noted for it, it seemed very odd to me to introduce this concept with that level of organization while still leaving other more intricate differences between the psychological effects of psychedelics less explored than they need to be. I feel that it could be misleading in some circumstances, for instance, my experience with large doses of 2C-I have led me to believe that the type of dissociation you describe with it is FAR more likely than any significant memory suppression. Now, that may be higher than the doses in your "typical" range, in fact I took it all the way up to 90 mg to get these effects really prevalent, but nonetheless, the fact that I could take it that high (and I'm far from the only one who ever has) and experience this form of disconnectivity but not memory suppression/ego loss makes me feel that if either of these effects deserves to be listed on its page it's the former, whereas with this current system only the latter would be displayed instead.
I hope that makes sense, that's really all that concerned me. Really, my belief is that probably it would be best to list ego loss (or however you want to call it) and disconnectivity effects as potential effects of all psychedelics somewhere nice and visible, and then just make a specific note also for the ones significantly more likely than most to cause either. But I really haven't thought too deeply into it, that's just what comes to mind....
Personally, to divulge my own opinion a little bit, I actually think we're starting to reach a point where it might be a valid time to have a discussion about the extent to which psychedelics and dissociatives actually do overlap. A lot of the science seems to suggest that they have very similar effects on cortical neuron activity, brain wave generation, complex sensory processing, and just recently MEG signal diversity. In addition, it seems to me like the more drugs we try, the more we find both more "dissociating" psychedelics like ETH-LAD, DPT, and 2C-P and more "psychedelic" dissociatives like those with a PCE base. I think it's worth considering that since the pool of potential pharmacological combinations is practicality endless, there may come a time when as a whole their functional similarities will matter more than their mechanistic differences.... Perhaps, anyway.
So, because I have that mindset, I again understand what you're trying to do here, and I would be happy to see these things discussed more openly in the community as well. I just think there's a little tidying up to do with the currently listed psychological effects before branching out to new ones, beginners will already have a hard enough time grasping the already very well-understood effects as it is.
Also, I am sorry if you were offended by anything I said, but I believe that what you said in your second post is a bit of an overreaction. You were "brought to the stand to defend"? Please. You asked for criticism, and I, one person, gave it to you, while everyone before me just applauded. If you want criticism you need be willing to accept the good and the bad, and if you want responsibility for making a site a good resource you need to be able to take that criticism and work with it regardless of whether or not the reported problem is your fault. Your site, yes, YOUR site, not some kind insult, just the objective truth with you as the stated "Community and Lead Content Developer at PsychonautWiki", has a problem with overepresenting concepts like ego loss, as you have already agreed with yourself. My criticism is that it needs to fixed before adding these kinds of changes if you want to be taken seriously. Take it or leave it.
pupnik
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2013
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- 2,674
secondary psychedelic effects may or may not span the range of
sedation
dissociation
fixation
excitation etc.
but the primary effect in my opinion relates to dose dependent "time dilation" or extension for any type of sensation, idea, or other mental form.
sedation
dissociation
fixation
excitation etc.
but the primary effect in my opinion relates to dose dependent "time dilation" or extension for any type of sensation, idea, or other mental form.
ClarityPSY
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2017
- Messages
- 24
Hey Kaleida, thank you for taking the time to engage with me on this issue. I apologize for the incredibly lengthy posts that are difficult to keep track of. Now that I have sort of introduced myself and my motivations for being here, I will do my best to keep future posts from being so lengthy or try to cover too much ground at once. Thank you for your patience.
First off, I'd just like to say that I do agree with you when you say my second post was an overreaction. Looking back on it, pupnik happened to hit a sore-spot of mine by accusing "me of not saying much... but I do like x thing you said" which just felt a little needlessly backhanded to me. I was just trying to do my best to convey the restraints we are working under, to hopefully try to communicate issues with our site that can a) potentially be fixed at the root level like retooling the framework, b) finding workarounds without modifying the framework or c) acknowledging that this is just not something we can realistically address given what we know about how diversity and trends with the people who interact with the site currently (i.e. balancing the harm reduction aspects of it with potential developments in psychonautic inquiry).
Just to be clear, I was not really offended by what you said. I believe they were valid points and even agreed to them (if you'll notice I even modified the page in response to the some of the feedback you gave, which I hope you'll find is a fairer characterization of ETH-LAD. I definitely think it's an improvement at least!). What did kind of frustrate me though was what I perceived to be "slights on the messenger", so it were. I came into this place with a single substance page I had written for the site in order to gain feedback as to whether this actually represents a reasonable new direction in thinking about how to best present this information, or whether I am just totally off base.
I was not really expecting to be met with a reply asking me to defend the entirety of the site itself (which I'd like to note I am only a part of, and started contributing to 6-7 months ago) and that I should be redirecting all my energies to fixing all the old problems with it first before playing around with these experimental changes. I felt like this precluded the possibility that I was trying to use the experimental nature of this page to use as a vector to spark discussion around the very issue you are suggesting we need to pay attention to, and that is precisely our "ego death" construct. I thought this would be a better and less obnoxious approach than just barging in to make a new thread about what Bluelight thinks about another site's model and definition of ego death (because I very much do value Bluelight's collective expertise and opinions).
As for tidying up our old pages, well, this is exactly what I am in the process of doing now (see all of our "classical" psychedelic pages for instance! Maybe this is where my frustration is coming from. We are kind of sorely understaffed in the content department.). But before I can go about reversing the process of, as you say "parading around 'ego death'" I need an alternative construct to replace it with. Because, unfortunately, half of our userbase interacts with the site via some mobile platform, and while they can pull up the effects due to the way semantic wikimedia is set up (which is a limiting factor in itself) the text descriptions next to them are basically immaterial for the people that need them the least. So what to do in this case with a substance like 2C-I? It does not typically elicit "ego loss" type experiences within the average dose range but surely it can in a number of cases, and I think from a HR perspective it is important that people be ready for that, even if it does kind of lump it in with some radically different substances like 5-MeO-DMT or DPT. But only a fraction of our base will actually go through these descriptions, so I am not sure what the utility is in going to each page that lists it and saying and providing a custom text description.
Hence, from a future proofing perspective, I wanted to think of ways we can modify our effects index so the information can be displayed as such. Some ideas I had were to give all if not most serotonergic psychedelics the memory suppression and ego loss effects and then have like a color-coded badge next to them denoting level of intensity or likelihood. Another way to do it would be to split Memory Suppression into its four subcomponents (partial and total, short and long), so that it would either have 2 of each partial and total short and long term memory suppression and use that as a rough gauge to show our users just how ego-dissolving a substance actually is. So maybe something like 2C-C will have Memory Suppression with one or two sublistings (partial short term suppression and partial long term suppression) while AL-LAD might have Memory suppression that has three sublistings for three variants of memory suppression and a real ego-crusher like 5-MeO-DMT we could list Memory suppression, all 4 memory disruption subcomponents underneath, and the 5th: and final as "Ego loss"?
Alternatively I was thinking to swap out Memory suppression as a master category in favor of Ego suppression, and then list varying subcomponents depending on how DNM/ego disruptive the substance is, with the fifth and final subcomponent being total ego-loss. Either of these would give us more flexibility in displaying relative component prominence than the text description system we use now. Do either of these seem reasonable to you? (Note I'm not even sure if they can be implemented) I welcome alternative models if any of you have any ideas. If that can't work, I am thinking of maybe even just do an arbitrary "Identity continuum disruption" leveling system and start applying that, but I have some reservations against that as well.
All that being said, I hope this shows that I honestly don't think I'm jumping the gun here. I just feel the criticism I received was not necessarily constructive, and I was curious as to why. Though in hindsight I can see why one would think I was misprioritizing my time by not going back and filling in each ego loss effect listing with a text description. You don't like "ego death"? Cool, I think that word is lame and misleading. Do you think "Ego loss", or maybe some other term is preferable? Is it just the nomenclature you object to, or the way it is actually described and formalized on the site? I am open to all suggestions, really. That is why I am here after all, to gain feedback and input from the community about how we can make our site a more precise, nuanced, and rigorous while at the same time retaining accessibility as a harm-reduction resource. If anything, all I am objecting to is criticism that many of our pages need far more work (I would actually retract a significant number of them, but I wasn't around when they were published) have in fact actually spent dozens of hours just redoing our classical psychedelic page the past month, and this ETH-LAD page was just me taking a break from all that.
So yes, I do get your point and will make sure to reflect on it but at the same time I just couldn't help but feel I was being received a bit uncharitably for no discernible reason -- if I am not all that welcome here, again I would just like to know this straight up. I have plenty of issues with the site as it is too, you know. So if you don't think our site has enough substance, I sincerely welcome proposals to address it. Like I would love if we got some more feedback on our effects index, whether it is missing anything, is not logically consistent, whether it is structured optimally. I am entirely cool with setting aside "psychedelic dissociation" for now if y'all were willing to give me some feedback on what you clearly view as problematic or a weakpoint of the site as it is. Just please consider the possibility that the only reason something might not have been fixed is due to resource, time or technical constraints.
In any case, thanks again for your input. I don't mean to come off as so defensive or accusatory. I guess I just feel uncomfortable as to whether these convos are okay to have here, or if the community here would rather not have an extensive dialogue aboout improving the content of another site (which I can totally understand, even though I want to consider us as part of the same community).
Cheers
pupnik
Bluelighter
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- Dec 24, 2013
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^- should probably be in it's own thread as the discussion now seriously diverges from the eth lad theme into motivation methods and purpose of a wiki that has a much wider focus than eth lad.
walls of text being quoted in fulsome word jousting fashion should naturally be sequestered into their own thread.
keep us informed of interesting snippets as they come up in related themes by all means.
walls of text being quoted in fulsome word jousting fashion should naturally be sequestered into their own thread.
keep us informed of interesting snippets as they come up in related themes by all means.
MSK
Bluelighter
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- Apr 15, 2015
- Messages
- 651
yeah guys, find yourselves a motel if you are going to be so passionate about the wiki xDDD
about eth-lad I found it very clear headed and grounded to the floor at 100-500ug doses, no dissociation to talk about. Visuals are extremely intense and different from LSD though, that would be what it makes it so special and different: clear head + intense visuals
about eth-lad I found it very clear headed and grounded to the floor at 100-500ug doses, no dissociation to talk about. Visuals are extremely intense and different from LSD though, that would be what it makes it so special and different: clear head + intense visuals
ClarityPSY
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2017
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- 24
Hello everyone, I just realized I unintentionally derailed the thread. Sorry about that. We can end this conversation here. Thank you for all the feedback.
Bigazznugz
Bluelighter
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- Feb 11, 2013
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- 887
Anyone else heard of reports that eth lad combinations are apparently dangerous? Especially when mixed with poppers? It's on Reddit btw.
Apparently this is not a good drug to do combos on.....
Apparently this is not a good drug to do combos on.....
Solipsis
Bluelight Crew
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- Mar 12, 2007
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- 15,509
The interaction is with vasodilators especially, not vasoconstrictors like lysergamides. Drugs are always a very slight bit contraindicated but I don't think poppers and lysergamides are particularly contraindicated.
Poppers could cause retinal damage (in particular if you have the wrong brand, cause poppers are chemically a family - organic nitrites - not one single chemical like most drugs, and various brands may sell different nitrites) and you definitely shouldn't let it on your skin or drink the stuff, but are otherwise not that harmful compared to most other drugs.
I have only tried it once or twice but I thought it just sucked and was hardly worth investigating further... I don't think I was any high on forehand, but it gave me a sort of whack to my head after which I felt reeling (for example I felt like I was seeing stars like I was concussed), I had to throw up which looked multi-colored like blotchy candies... then that was about it for one try. Various drugs have given me that feeling like a 'whack to my head' but usually it was milder or more flash/kick like with much more of a long-during and grand upside that would make the small whack worth it. Not just getting whacked as fun as that sounds as a phrase.
Poppers could cause retinal damage (in particular if you have the wrong brand, cause poppers are chemically a family - organic nitrites - not one single chemical like most drugs, and various brands may sell different nitrites) and you definitely shouldn't let it on your skin or drink the stuff, but are otherwise not that harmful compared to most other drugs.
I have only tried it once or twice but I thought it just sucked and was hardly worth investigating further... I don't think I was any high on forehand, but it gave me a sort of whack to my head after which I felt reeling (for example I felt like I was seeing stars like I was concussed), I had to throw up which looked multi-colored like blotchy candies... then that was about it for one try. Various drugs have given me that feeling like a 'whack to my head' but usually it was milder or more flash/kick like with much more of a long-during and grand upside that would make the small whack worth it. Not just getting whacked as fun as that sounds as a phrase.
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Bigazznugz
Bluelighter
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- Feb 11, 2013
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- 887
I was referencing this article. PSA: The ETH-LAD page has been updated to include important safety-related information on the potentially concerning adverse physical effects produced by this substance. Please tread carefully with this one. Combinations and/or high doses of this compound are highly ill-advised! • r/psychonautwiki
https://www.reddit.com/r/researchch..._the_ethlad_page_has_been_updated_to_include/
https://www.reddit.com/r/researchch..._the_ethlad_page_has_been_updated_to_include/
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- Feb 8, 2006
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- 65,043
I wonder if this was based on one or a few users reporting harrowing experiences? Psychedelics, as we all know, can produce very strong changes in consciousness, especially in combinations, and panic/anxiety can cause a wide array of perceived (but not necessarily real) physical effects. I have met people who are convinced beyond a doubt that they almost died from mushrooms (or even weed), but in fact they just had a very difficult experience. But they're quick to point the finger at the substance rather than consider that it could have been a result of anxiety in a heavily altered state.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but I'd like to see some evidence besides some dude(s) on reddit.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but I'd like to see some evidence besides some dude(s) on reddit.