The Big & Dandy Natural vs. Chemical / Synthetic Psychedelics Thread
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Interesting how a single session can be so intense it creates a lasting state dependant conditioned response. I was blissing out on aMT and DPT last spring in a state park and had strong bruxia and teeth chatter from the aMT. I was also swallowing constantly because I couldn't stop drooling in pleasure. Now when I get near orgasm sometimes my teeth begin lightly chattering and I start swallowing! It can be stopped, but if I just relax it'll start on its own. I recently reinforced the response by doing the same combo during the peak of fall color. The girlfriend has grown accustom to it, but it was kind of weird at first.MattPsy said:
MattPsy
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Haha, yeah, it's awesome! I try to deliberately do this - set up neural connections by creating associative links between concepts. It's a powerful self-improvement method. In few states other than the psychedelic mindset is this capability so easily accessible. 
Morninggloryseed
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Ditto.
egor said:I prefer the far more refined measurement of dose provided by synthetics. Natural psychoactive are good too, but variations in potency make proper dosing a bit of a bitch at times![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
PsyGhost
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egor said:I prefer the far more refined measurement of dose provided by synthetics. Natural psychoactive are good too, but variations in potency make proper dosing a bit of a bitch at times
In principle maybe, but that doesn't happen often. For me anyways. The change in potency of a blotter or ecstasy tablet can vary as much as the potency of marijuana or mushrooms.
i sometimes get the thought to only consume organic psychoactives such as weed, mushrooms, peyote and a variety of other plants that i have not yet experienced, but its only a thought, cause i haven't done all the chemicals i wanna try yet. maybe one day i'll decide to go with naturals ones, but not now or anytime soon i believe. i Enjoy Ecstasy too much to wanna give up chemicals.
butane
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The (lack of) distinction between natural and synthetic
This was originally a divulging from the original topic in a post I made in the LSA thread, but it got big enough that it just didn't fit and warranted its own thread, so it may seem a bit out of context. Anyway, here goes.
In my opinion, synthetic psychedelics are no different from naturally occurring ones; the only distinction being that a man made them instead of a plant. Is not man a part of nature? Often times in art classes you will hear "art" defined as "man imitating nature," and, to me as a chemist, my chemistry is most certainly art. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have experienced the spirit of the plant/fungus while tripping on it, and I believe the same applies to synthetics.
I've had the exact same drug from different suppliers, with the exact same potency by weight and visual consistency, and, being a chemist, I removed all non-alkaloid impurities so I'm fairly certain impurities played no part. Having experimented with a vast array of psychedelics by now, I could tell that they were the same, but something was different, consistently, from one supplier over the other. On one, I felt nothing but good vibes, everything a psychedelic should be. On the other, I felt nausea and frequently vomited where I never had before, and there was an anxiety not present with the first. I shared the drugs with some of my friends, and without even mentioning it to them they noticed it too. I have no explanation for this.
I often wonder if the intent of the chemist (and probably the distributors) has any bearing on the effect of the drug. I mean, if you're a psychedelic evangelist who simply believes that everyone should be able to have the psychedelic experience if they wish, is that not better than someone motivated only by profit? While this is most certainly not a logical explanation, neither is the experience of a plant spirit logical. The first time I tasted a chemical of my own making, it was an experience beyond explanation. I thanked the cacti for their inspiration, Shulgin for his sheer brilliance and creativity, and the universe for simply being, making it all possible.
It seems to me I had a few more thoughts on the matter but I've run out of steam. I'll probably come back with them later. Until then, what do you guys think?
This was originally a divulging from the original topic in a post I made in the LSA thread, but it got big enough that it just didn't fit and warranted its own thread, so it may seem a bit out of context. Anyway, here goes.
In my opinion, synthetic psychedelics are no different from naturally occurring ones; the only distinction being that a man made them instead of a plant. Is not man a part of nature? Often times in art classes you will hear "art" defined as "man imitating nature," and, to me as a chemist, my chemistry is most certainly art. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have experienced the spirit of the plant/fungus while tripping on it, and I believe the same applies to synthetics.
I've had the exact same drug from different suppliers, with the exact same potency by weight and visual consistency, and, being a chemist, I removed all non-alkaloid impurities so I'm fairly certain impurities played no part. Having experimented with a vast array of psychedelics by now, I could tell that they were the same, but something was different, consistently, from one supplier over the other. On one, I felt nothing but good vibes, everything a psychedelic should be. On the other, I felt nausea and frequently vomited where I never had before, and there was an anxiety not present with the first. I shared the drugs with some of my friends, and without even mentioning it to them they noticed it too. I have no explanation for this.
I often wonder if the intent of the chemist (and probably the distributors) has any bearing on the effect of the drug. I mean, if you're a psychedelic evangelist who simply believes that everyone should be able to have the psychedelic experience if they wish, is that not better than someone motivated only by profit? While this is most certainly not a logical explanation, neither is the experience of a plant spirit logical. The first time I tasted a chemical of my own making, it was an experience beyond explanation. I thanked the cacti for their inspiration, Shulgin for his sheer brilliance and creativity, and the universe for simply being, making it all possible.
It seems to me I had a few more thoughts on the matter but I've run out of steam. I'll probably come back with them later. Until then, what do you guys think?
ninjadanslarbretabar
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how about dmt created by men inside a lab vs dmt created inside your brain ?
i dont see a difference
but psychedelics experience are influence by your own subjective believe about them
so everything changes everything
i dont see a difference
but psychedelics experience are influence by your own subjective believe about them
so everything changes everything
The trouble is when you take the drug you think is from the bad supplier you automatically start telling yourself in the back of your mind "this is from the bad supplier" and the rest takes care of itself.
I've often thought this with batches of mushrooms - that I've had a "bad batch" that isn't as strong as the other or isn't as "visual" and then one day by mistake I took some from the "bad batch" but thought it was from the "good batch" and had the greatest, most visual trip of my life. All from the supposed "bad batch".
Owsley used to have fun with this - when he mixed a batch of acid he'd mix some of it with blue food dye, some with red food dye and some with green food dye and then start hearing reports back saying the green was righteously mellow, the blue was spacey but the red gave bummers.
I've often thought this with batches of mushrooms - that I've had a "bad batch" that isn't as strong as the other or isn't as "visual" and then one day by mistake I took some from the "bad batch" but thought it was from the "good batch" and had the greatest, most visual trip of my life. All from the supposed "bad batch".
Owsley used to have fun with this - when he mixed a batch of acid he'd mix some of it with blue food dye, some with red food dye and some with green food dye and then start hearing reports back saying the green was righteously mellow, the blue was spacey but the red gave bummers.
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Well, I see A difference...
Lets say that something sythetic has to be created by human hands. Yes human hands are natural, but we are talking about the substance created. It is synthetic. It makes no difference, except in a semantic discussion.
Someone will bring up the point of mushrooms converting such as DPT to 4-HO-DPT as an argument that there is no difference between the natural and synthetic psychedelics, except that the DPT itself is a man-made compound.
Ultimately, as I said, it doesn't really matter, except on an aesthetic level.
Strangely, I think its odd that psilocybin feels so significantly different to actual mushrooms...I attribute it to the prescence of baeocystin and norbaeocystin, but that would mean they are very very very very potent substances.
Inteersting discussion thats happened twenty million times. Still, we'll give it another crack, I think I've changed my opinions that many times too.
Lets say that something sythetic has to be created by human hands. Yes human hands are natural, but we are talking about the substance created. It is synthetic. It makes no difference, except in a semantic discussion.
Someone will bring up the point of mushrooms converting such as DPT to 4-HO-DPT as an argument that there is no difference between the natural and synthetic psychedelics, except that the DPT itself is a man-made compound.
Ultimately, as I said, it doesn't really matter, except on an aesthetic level.
Strangely, I think its odd that psilocybin feels so significantly different to actual mushrooms...I attribute it to the prescence of baeocystin and norbaeocystin, but that would mean they are very very very very potent substances.
Inteersting discussion thats happened twenty million times. Still, we'll give it another crack, I think I've changed my opinions that many times too.
I didn't think psilocybin was different to mushrooms - when Wasson gave Maria Sabina those lab-made psilocybin tablets she said "the spirit of the mushroom" was in them and that she could give mushroom ceremonies all year round with the tablets.
donvliet
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IMO anything that exists, and anything that ever will exist, is per definition natural. Nature contains all possibilities for matter and energy to combine in any way that it can. So for me the question of natural vs synthetic is meaningless.
I also agree with Ismene that expectation has a significant influence on the outcome of a trip. When you decide that a certain batch is weak, bad, impure, speedy, good, strong or whatever, you're programming your mind to make that come true. Most of the time we don't actually know what the dose of a certain drug is, how pure it is etc. So unless the substance was lab tested you shouldn't make assumptions too quickly.
I also agree with Ismene that expectation has a significant influence on the outcome of a trip. When you decide that a certain batch is weak, bad, impure, speedy, good, strong or whatever, you're programming your mind to make that come true. Most of the time we don't actually know what the dose of a certain drug is, how pure it is etc. So unless the substance was lab tested you shouldn't make assumptions too quickly.
roygbiv
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I think with natural substances, you can't really claim that they are more "pure" or "well intended" or "reliable" than synthetic ones. After all, they are just drugs, that happen to grow in the natural world. The definition of a drug is "A chemical compound or substance that can alter the structure and function of the body". The many various groups of psychoactives can be classified according to their effects on parts of the brain. Natural and synthetic drugs are both designed to do the same thing. Any differences occurring between them, I believe to be purely subjective.
Nature, by its own definition, is NOT perfect. It never willl be.
For example, since when have two cannabis sativa plants ever contained the same amount of THC? Rarely. That's why so many different strains exist. It's the same for psilocybin and magic mushrooms. The QUANTITIES of the particular chemical may be different, but logically it would seem that the perceived effects would not.
All in all, I have never had consistent results with either synthetic or natural substances.
Nature, by its own definition, is NOT perfect. It never willl be.
For example, since when have two cannabis sativa plants ever contained the same amount of THC? Rarely. That's why so many different strains exist. It's the same for psilocybin and magic mushrooms. The QUANTITIES of the particular chemical may be different, but logically it would seem that the perceived effects would not.
All in all, I have never had consistent results with either synthetic or natural substances.
All in all, I have never had consistent results with either synthetic or natural substances.
The question is also whether the psychedelic experience itself can ever happen to somebody in a consistent manner.
For example, if you had exactly the same dose of LSD from exactly the same batch and you took it 50 different times would you really have 50 experiences exactly the same?
The question is also whether the psychedelic experience itself can ever happen to somebody in a consistent manner.
For example, if you had exactly the same dose of LSD from exactly the same batch and you took it 50 different times would you really have 50 experiences exactly the same?
Carsick
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Indeed, and while intellectually I don't distinguish based on the source of chems, I'd rather come up on a dose of mescaline while looking out over my cactus garden than looking at lab equipment. How's about you?ninjadanslarbretabar said:
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Ismene said:
I found 4-HO-DMT to be quite different from mushrooms, as did almost everyone I know who's tried it. Of course, mushrooms contain more tryptamines than just 4-HO-DMT, including 4-PO-DMT, so that makes sense. Some people say that psilocybin (4-PO-DMT) is the same as psilocin (4-HO-DMT), but I say that's a ridiculous assumption to make. 4-AcO-DMT, another ester of psilocin, is certainly a different chemical than 4-HO-DMT, so why shouldn't 4-PO-DMT likewise we somewhat different?
Of course, each individual experience is going to be different, even with the exact same substance. But when you've used a chemical many times, you start to notice characteristics that remain constant throughout. And when you've used 2 different chemicals that are very closely related (such as 4-HO-DMT and 4-AcO-DMT) each many times, you begin to be able to clearly distinguish between them.