Thoughts about trying LSD

[pmoseman]

I would not accept Erowid as a source if they simply reinforce false assurances that LSD will not hurt someone, which you know it will, by attributing events to fear of the drug, organic diseases, weak personality, setting, etc. without a strong scientific basis.

LSD is a toxic substance and it does get into your brain. Whatever that means to you. To say it causes no physical harm is clearly false; it leaves people with a visual impairment.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

^Sure thing man. I don't know what you've been taking. The rest of us will keep on taking safe, real LSD.

I've been a dick and side tracked this thread. OP, you sound super interested in LSD. If I were you, I'd take the opportunity to try it. For thousands of people worldwide it has been a source of spiritual aid. It won't physically harm you. If pmoseman is referring to HPPD, some of us have that. It is not debilitating, and really doesn't bother most people. It's simply our minds playing tricks on us; not permanent damage from the drug. I described it to my sister, who has never done any drugs, and she says she has some of the effects of HPPD; the mind is a powerful thing. I think LSD is a valuable tool, and if you feel inclined to do it, more power to ya. The one thing pmoseman has right is that you should do lots of research. Don't just take our opinions. The only reason I've gotten so upset is because this guy is trying to tell you LSD will harm your body; it might make you freak out, as said prior, hell it might leave you traumatized the same way a car accident might (if you have a terrible time), but it wont leave any permanent effect on the body. I don't know how else to get that through.

Sorry about the argument I created.....I just thought it would be good to get personal experiences from people who might have some experience with the drug.

It's not your fault, the two of us are apparently incompatible because of opposing world views. There are a number of experience reports here and on erwoid, and reading those instead of our argument will give you a better idea of what you're in for. I probably over emphasized the positives of LSD, and pmoseman probably over emphasized the propaganda and negatives of LSD. Neither of us can decide for you.

Good luck, and like I said in my first post, I hope LSD helps you in your life as much as it has helped me and many others!

P.S.: Again, if it's bitter, it's a spitter! No need to risk your life for a high. Anything bitter isn't LSD and could actually harm you depending on what it may be.

 

[somnilicious]

I am not advising you to take LSD but I would say that it is probably the only drug I do not regret taking. I was a terrible introvert in high school and LSD allowed me to see the universality and collectiveness of life. I felt a lot more secure about my position in the world and I was no longer afraid of peer perception. I asserted my self and started to seek social interaction, which made me more confident. My grades actually improved and I made a lot of friends. I am not saying this is typical or a definitive trait of LSD or that I would not have eventually opened up without the drug.

A positive and negative consequence of my LSD experience was that I was more open to new experiences, which became my downfall. Although I gained the aforementioned positives I eventually experienced a very negative consequence. Years after LSD me and a friend wanted to trip again so we traversed the usual drug channels but were unable to find it. We were however offered a before unheard of drug called ecstasy. This was back in the 90's and not many people knew much about MDMA. I jumped right in with wild abandon. I fell in love with the drug and abused it to the extreme.

I became severally depressed and moody. My girlfriend of three years couldn't handle my personality change and broke up with me. In my weakened state I was unable to process and handle the shock of losing her. I would constantly cry and have horrible panic attacks. This eventually led to my long love(now hate) affair with heroin. I spiraled down over a period of a few years and loathed my self and what I had become. I was no longer able to look into the eyes of other people and thus became a hermetic introvert once again. I am now, after a decade of despair, starting to regain myself. So in a twisted roundabout way LSD did eventually lead me to end up becoming a junkie with a needle in his arm. This was my subjective experience take it for what it is.

 

[DOB]

^Sure thing man. I don't know what you've been taking. The rest of us will keep on taking safe, real LSD.

amen brother

 

[pmoseman]

HPPD, some of us have that. It is not debilitating, and really doesn't bother most people.

Dismissing a rare or common adverse reaction that does not affect most users is flagrantly dishonest.

This does not make the reaction insignificant or misdiagnosed.

HPPD is defined as debilitating. Noticing a few of the symptoms and saying it caused you no problem, by the very definition of the word, means neither you or your sister experienced HPPD.

 

[elucidator]

HPPD is defined as debilitating. Noticing a few of the symptoms and saying it caused you no problem, by the very definition of the word, means neither you or your sister experienced HPPD.

For one thing, your definition linked above is mixed up between HPPD and flashbacks (2 completely different things) , another is that it does not mention anything about it being debilitating.
Just that you found HPPD debilitating does not mean everyone would. I sure don't.
I have found the majority of your points to be flagrantly embellished, and I would like to ask you to please stop spreading misinformation about psychedelics.

To the OP , do your own research, and do what feels right for you.

 

[treezy z]

2 things:
1. if you're mentally stable you'll have a good time on lsd
2. if you're worried about going insane (which you are) you might feel like you're going insane.

 

[pmoseman]

For one thing, your definition linked above is mixed up between HPPD and flashbacks (2 completely different things) , another is that it does not mention anything about it being debilitating.
Just that you found HPPD debilitating does not mean everyone would. I sure don't.
I have found the majority of your points to be flagrantly embellished, and I would like to ask you to please stop spreading misinformation about psychedelics.

To the OP , do your own research, and do what feels right for you.

That is the diagnostic manual which, as the name implies, gets used by doctors to make evaluations. If you had HPPD then you were debilitated (use a dictionary for clarification).

 

[perpetualdawn]

^ Have you read DSM-5 pmoseman? I haven't and something tells me you haven't either. You're speaking with a lot of authority on something that your tone suggests you don't know that much about.

 

[imull]

Okay....I have a few more questions that I can't seem to find on the internet. What do you DO while on the drug? Do you tend to move around a lot, or stay in one place for most of the time? Also, what is your vision like? Is your field of vision very obscured by hallucinations, or can you see and perceive everything easily?

 

[treezy z]

^don't go out in public, have good music to listen to, you can see things but they're distorted (not blurred just wavy and shit) unless you do a lot. you might want a xanax bar or something when you're done tripping just cuz it keeps you stimulated for a while after.

 

[imull]

I plan on listening to music the whole time. I'm really excited about how that will be!

 

[pmoseman]

^ Have you read DSM-5 pmoseman? I haven't and something tells me you haven't either. You're speaking with a lot of authority on something that your tone suggests you don't know that much about.

Tyson Hesse

 

[pmoseman]

Okay....I have a few more questions that I can't seem to find on the internet. What do you DO while on the drug? Do you tend to move around a lot, or stay in one place for most of the time? Also, what is your vision like? Is your field of vision very obscured by hallucinations, or can you see and perceive everything easily?

What is vision like?
Your vision field be a wavy mess and hallucinations or ordinary. Depending on if you provoke what you are looking at or how much drug you have taken. The Illusionator makes good videos with black and white hypno-discs that are basically perfect LSD samples. With LSD these objects warp and morph indefinitely and without the disc. It makes you uncertain whether something is really moving.

What do you do?
You tend to move around a lot or stay in one place for most of the time. Things look different, so you tend to stare at ordinary objects for no apparent reason and could do so for hours. You can do most anything you would do otherwise but you probably won't be able to focus and keep track like you normally do. You could start walking along touching fence posts and be doing that for hours. Your own thoughts tend to be more in control of your perception (a staircase might seem impossible to climb or it might seem to be very small). You lose the superego.

Hallucinations?
Magic-Eye Inc makes images where you can see real 3-D images pop out of an incoherent 2-D image. These are hallucinations. Hallucinations are things you can tell are not real, yet they seem to be more real than anything else at that time. You imagine these things. Try reading over a text a few times in a row. Unless you are some sort of savant, you will see that every time you read it, you missed something. Now imagine everytime you read it the words change completely.

Perception?
There are many ways to interpret things and trippers tend to interpret things any way that suits their chain of linear thinking. Ideas become extrapolated to derive extraordinary meanings and connections. A sense of calm arrives as bigger ideas come at a rapid pace and worries just seem silly. Ideas may seem completely right and it becomes difficult to be convinced otherwise by rational explanations and evidence. Gaps of time can be completely forgotten and the experience may not be easy to recall after coming down.

The Superego

The last component of personality to develop is the superego. The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society--our sense of right and wrong. The superego provides guidelines for making judgments. According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five.

There are two parts of the superego:

The ego ideal includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value and accomplishment.

The conscience includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments or feelings of guilt and remorse.

The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather that upon realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

So if you can recall what life was like for you before the age of 5 (and you can if you really try) you might understand how perception can change. You can also manage, with a great deal of effort probably, to empathize with how other people perceive reality and realize it is nothing at all like you think.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

Okay....I have a few more questions that I can't seem to find on the internet. What do you DO while on the drug? Do you tend to move around a lot, or stay in one place for most of the time? Also, what is your vision like? Is your field of vision very obscured by hallucinations, or can you see and perceive everything easily?

When I've done LSD, it has mostly been in a cell block like dorm at my university, we would run all over the dorm, for god knows how many hours, but mostly stay inside our room. The visuals are nothing like movies make them out to be, I'd call it distortions rather than hallucinations. You don't see things that aren't there, in my experience. It wouldn't be safe to drive, but the visuals do not impair your vision of say, where you're walking, who you're talking to, etc.

Basically, the visuals aren't extreme in most cases. It's the destruction of the ego that is the main component of LSD. You're concept of self will be obliterated. Things like your name will have no meaning. It's really indescribable. Someone who has never achieved ego loss cannot know what it is, you simply have to experience it. It can be both a great and terrifying feeling, knowing that the universe is so large and you're just a tiny speck in it. I remember my first time, it seemed as if my roommates and I could communicate with very few words, knowing what was going to be said, but also knowing that it could not be put into words. When you lose yourself, it can be.... Well, jeeees... It's... It's inexplicable. It's like experiencing the whole range of human emotions, plus more you never knew existed, all at once. And it feels amazing in my book. Happiness isn't the word, because no word can describe it.

So if you can recall what life was like for you before the age of 5 (and you can if you really try) you might understand how perception can change. You can also manage, with a great deal of effort probably, to empathize with how other people perceive reality and realize it is nothing at all like you think.

This explains it well. Great explanation. It's basically like having a child like outlook to everything; you have no prejudices, everything is new and awe inspiring, any concepts you have now will not be brought along with you after your ego dissolves.

Also, if no one mentioned it, time can essentially cease to exist. The 4th dimension has no meaning in a world where the self does not exist.

 

[rujex]

Did you find that on Wikipedia, Bluelight, or an online news story?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis

Had a couple of trips with persons whom had some minor psych problems. When i barely had any visiuals they had full blown hallucinations from the same dose. Not that they had a bad trip as such but it was lot more demanding for them to deal with trip. They had no lasting effects, but still it was way to much for them and they never wanted to do it again.

 

[AcidTrippin]

I would not accept Erowid as a source if they simply reinforce false assurances that LSD will not hurt someone, which you know it will, by attributing events to fear of the drug, organic diseases, weak personality, setting, etc. without a strong scientific basis.

LSD is a toxic substance and it does get into your brain. Whatever that means to you. To say it causes no physical harm is clearly false; it leaves people with a visual impairment.

Clearly you've never had a doctor in the US either...and I'm not even from there and can say that.

 

[pmoseman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance-induced_psychosis

From Wikipedia:
"Drugs whose use, abuse, or withdrawal are implicated in psychosis include the following:
....
(LSD and others)
...."

This says nothing about predisposition.

Follow the sources, best advise ever, the source of the source will often be something out of context or misunderstood.

Look into the case for the popular LSD psychosis myth (ie LSD only harms the ill). It had arisen from the fact that LSD studies before 1960 involved psychiatric patients.

It is plain that the incidence of psychosis among psychiatric patients was higher than other studies of normal participants; however, consider the follow-up of hospitalized psychiatric patients compared with voluntary normal participants. Knowing that if you become psychotic you are not compelled to voluntarily seek treatment, while pre-hospitalized meant being evaluated constantly.

Also, being a psychiatric patient did not mean you were predisposed to psychosis.

Granted, LSD probably does trigger mental disorder events for people with schizophrenia etc. but it in no way requires a disorder.

Erowid will deny the LSD culpable risk by citing for example Vardy 1983 or Tsuang 1982, but if you actually read these and understand them, what they actually found was that drug-induced psychosis was distinguishable from schizophrenia and that drug abusers (DA) and drug abusers with psychosis (DAP) shared clinical features and family history (no difference). They also found the risk of suicide was the same and the short-term psychosis should be treated with anti-psychotic medicine, ie a true psychosis. Also there wasa correlation between alcohol parents and LSD induced psychosis, we'll get back to that later.

What you will find, as with Malmberg 1998 is that the odds of predicting vulnerability are not good. How could anyone, especially in people from studies conducted before 1960, predict if they had been predisposed? It makes no sense.

I would guess that finding children of alcoholics prevalent among LSD psychotics indicated children of alcoholics are simply prone to abusing drugs, and that abusing LSD is giving them psychosis.

 

[pmoseman]

Clearly you've never had a doctor in the US either...and I'm not even from there and can say that.

I do not understand.

 

[Xorkoth]

It's true that LSD can cause negative reactions in some people. However so can any traumatic experience in life. People go fight in a war and come back with severe PTSD. I myself have tripped way more times than I should have including on LSD, and I have no visual impairment, no emotional issues from it, nor any other negative effects, other than at various times I have felt that it made things more difficult for me due to becoming distanced from consensus reality. I don't think it's fair to say that LSD is a toxic substance that causes damage. It is, however, fair to say that LSD is a powerful experience that is not without potential dangers, due to the dangers that any traumatic experience can cause in a person, given that it is possible for LSD (and other psychedelics) to cause a traumatic experience.