Wierd stuff when tripping

[FrogWarrior]

I can personally attest to this contact high being real. I do not know how, but like many of you have already said on this thread; the human brain is a powerful powerful thing. All that these trillions of substances do is trigger our brain. Truely an amazing thing that this all exists

These kinda weird things happen much more often with family members and close friends. Nikola Tesla had a theory on this, he had a vision of his an angel with the face of his grandmother hovering above him when he was lying in bed, the next day he found out his granny had died. His theory is that the brain is kinda like a radio transmitter/receiver and two minds can communicate when they're tuned into each other.

 

[spacejunk]

^ this made me think of Tesla also.
Things that seem unbelievable, delusional or absolute nonsense to people in a specific context can gain credibility, acceptance and become "normality" in another. The incredible - and ultimately rather tragic - life story of Nikola Tesla is pretty classic example of this in my opinion.
He also reportedly visualised (much like a psychedelic experience, from how i read it) a lot of his most astounding work, such as Alternating Current.
A literal visionary, and one with plenty of solid evidence to back up many of his radical thoughts that were put into production.
It's a bit off topic, but there is a lot about Tesla that seems more than a little 'psychedelic' - the idea that a substance imbibed by one individual could have psychoactivity in another - especially close (physically and or emotionally - does not seem outside the realms of possibility, considering the gaps that still exist in human understanding of certain neurological functions and the actions of particular drugs.

 

[Xorkoth]

^ the instance that springs to mind for me was turning up to a rehearsal studio to practice with my band, having just eaten about 50 grams of fresh p.cubensis.
I didnt act out of character; I usually rock up to rehearsal stoned or go out for a joint halfway through or whatever.
My bandmates at that time did not use psychedelics with any regularity (if at all). The signs to them would not have been obvious - I was playing it cool, set up my equipment and started playing.
I didnt say much - nothing to give myself away, or to create an atmosphere of 'psillyness' or trippy behaviour.
I've played in bands for years - I just set up and did what I always do.
No silly grins or confused fumbling - i behaved as deliberately coherent as I could manage; and as an experienced tripper, and long-time working musician, this was no problem. I'd just caught a cab there, and the process of making small talk to the cabbie and negotiating paying the fare had loosened me up somewhat in regards to "acting straight"

Throughout the rehearsal, every member of the band (except me) displayed classic signs of psychedelic behaviour.
The bass player commented "I can't stop laughing" when nothing was particularly funny, the drummer was clowning around and mentioned that he couldn't feel his hands, while the singer spent an inordinate time making strange noises through the PA and getting tangled in the mic cable.
I was the most "sober" person in the room, yet I was tripling pretty fucking hard.
It was a really strange sensation, and not one I put down to suggestion (none of these people had taken mushrooms, or knew that I had dosed before rehearsal) or my own warped perception.
The rehearsal room scenario was very familiar - a weekly occurance - and the way my friends behaved was extremely out of character, very reminiscent of a bunch of trippers - and I just sat back and watched.
It was quite surreal, and not the only time I've experienced so-called 'contact highs' - just an example that stands out to me.

I can think of instances where sober people have been swept up in the excitable hysteria of tripping friends, but this was no such occasion. It was a fucking trip, but not in a way I couldn't "get my head around" or that caused confusion.
It was just extremely interesting - and remains so to this day.

The "magic" of psychedelics? You bet! Until scientific studies into such occurrences are able to be undertaken in objective scenarios, I'm happy to ponder on the great mystery of this one.
Placebo is a powerful thing - but lacking any form of suggestion that a substance has been taken, I don't see how it can account for contact highs. There is beauty in such mysteries, to me anyway.

This reminds me SO MUCH of one of my other most extreme cases of some sort of "contact high". I used to sing in this church choir (my wife was the pianist, this was in 2006 or 2007), and I would often trip Saturday night, stay up very late, and go in to church the next day. Well, one Saturday I had a +4 experience, I was on DOC, AMT, and 4-AcO-DMT, and I took some ketamine to come down/sleep/trip more before I went to bed. The next morning I was positively glowing with inspiration and joy, it felt as if it was coming off of me in waves. I got to church, and the choir, entirely made up of old people except for me, acted very strangely all morning. This one old man was usually VERY slow and low-energy, he'd shamble down the hall very slowly with his head down and not really talk to anyone, I always got the sense he could barely function anymore. Well, when he arrived, he sat down behind me, and I didn't really take note particularly. All of a sudden a started feeling this rhythmic tapping on my shoulder. I turned around and it was him, with a big silly grin on his face and he said "hi!". Then he JUMPED up out of his chair and RAN out of the room, turned down the hall, and then popped his head back into the doorframe and started giggling and turned and ran down the hall to the bathroom. As more choir members started arriving, they got to talking and hanging out and I started listening to their conversations. Several times groups would descending into bouts of hysterical laughter so intense they had tears running down their faces, and nothing was that funny. We barely got a chance to rehearse before going out to the service because things were so unorganized, and one of the members turned to walk down the wrong hall when we were lining up to go into the service. During the service, the minister at one point had to stop and say "well there is really something in the air today isn't there?" because he kept forgetting what he was saying and the whole congregation was acting so silly. I kept mentally checking myself because the whole thing seemed so unlikely and I wanted to make sure I wasn't being subjected to delusions. My wife and I both talked about that day for months, she also thought it was incredibly odd (and seeing as how I never told her about my psychedelic experiences until years later when that whole double life came crashing down, she wouldn't have been able to make that connection).

I wanted to reiterate that I am not trying to make any claims about these experiences as out of the realm of science. I also believe it has something to do with normal human "group mind" social behaviors and mechanisms. But I think it's amazing what it reveals is possible between humans in terms of mental and emotional connection.

 

[pmoseman]

It just sounds like you're mis-attributing.Your music group are all acting strange, but it has nothing to do with you tripping.

 

[spacejunk]

Well, one Saturday I had a +4 experience, I was on DOC, AMT, and 4-AcO-DMT, and I took some ketamine to come down/sleep/trip more before I went to bed.

Ha! Love this sentence!
That is amazing, and it is examples like this that convince me that this is not just some new age hippie bullshit / delusion / whatever dismissive shit the person above me wrote (they are on my ignore list for being such a negative thread spoiler).

I can understand people's unwillingness to accept that things like this are possible.
Before some of my experiences - particularly with DMT, shrooms and closely related tryptamines, I was fairly sceptical of most "difficult to explain" phenomena.
DMT in particular opened me up to all kinds of possibilities - that the human mind is capable of experiencing such profoundly unusual things under its influence, that "reality", "perception" and the nature of thought and experience are likely a lot more complicated than I had notions of entertaining before.

Xorkoth, I think the correlations in both of our anecdotes; eliciting highly uncharacteristic (yet typically "tripper") behaviours from people around us - people who are both unaware of our intoxicated states at the time - and who have possibly never taken a trip in their lives (or ability to identify someone on psychedelics) puts a really interesting correlation and common twist on the idea of a contact high.
Fascinating! This is a really interesting thread.

 

[tryptamine-tripper]

there is no such thing as a contact high. it was in your head mate. anyone that tells you they have given a contact high, guess what? it was in there head as well.

sorry to disappoint.

You know what else is all in your head? When you trip after taking the drugs. That's exactly what any hallucinogenic trip is, is "in your head".

 

[pmoseman]

You know what else is all in your head? When you trip after taking the drugs. That's exactly what any hallucinogenic trip is, is "in your head".

Actually, this has already been said.

 

[Xorkoth]

It just sounds like you're mis-attributing.Your music group are all acting strange, but it has nothing to do with you tripping.

Not necessarily, however I spent years with these people and it was an awfully big coincidence. Furthermore if it was my only example I would not put so much in it. So is it your opinion that one cannot influence the mental states of others through one's own mental state, however that mechanism happens (disregard discussion of how, I am interested but not focusing on that right now)?

Ha! Love this sentence!
That is amazing, and it is examples like this that convince me that this is not just some new age hippie bullshit / delusion / whatever dismissive shit the person above me wrote (they are on my ignore list for being such a negative thread spoiler).

I can understand people's unwillingness to accept that things like this are possible.
Before some of my experiences - particularly with DMT, shrooms and closely related tryptamines, I was fairly sceptical of most "difficult to explain" phenomena.
DMT in particular opened me up to all kinds of possibilities - that the human mind is capable of experiencing such profoundly unusual things under its influence, that "reality", "perception" and the nature of thought and experience are likely a lot more complicated than I had notions of entertaining before.

Xorkoth, I think the correlations in both of our anecdotes; eliciting highly uncharacteristic (yet typically "tripper") behaviours from people around us - people who are both unaware of our intoxicated states at the time - and who have possibly never taken a trip in their lives (or ability to identify someone on psychedelics) puts a really interesting correlation and common twist on the idea of a contact high.
Fascinating! This is a really interesting thread.

Thank you for that. I feel I am putting myself on the line just a bit by describing my experiences in this thread, however they happened and it's a fascinating topic to me, so I'm sharing. I don't mind if people don't believe it's possible, hell, like I said, before it happened to me repeatedly I wouldn't have believed it either. The universe is a mysterious place with a tremendous amount that we do not know or understand... there are many documented occurrences that we still have no idea how to explain. To believe that we know it all is short-sighted at best. So you can ignore the experiences I am communicating, or write them off as tricks of my mind (though how you can do that with such certainty without being me is quite dismissive), but they happened and I took great care in many cases to verify the reality of them later on (by asking those I perceived as affected, after the experience). For example in the case of my choir group, the next week I asked a few of them if they noticed anything last week (that was how I asked it) and the people I asked all told me that something strange was definitely in the air that day. So unless you think I'm inventing that, I fail to see how you can deny that something happened out of the ordinary, unprompted, that people other than myself also noticed. I make no claims as to HOW this happened... I am not claiming "magic". However, it was something.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

I have been in many situations tripping (without telling anyone) and found those around me showing the classic signs of psychedelic intoxication

I think we have to question the ability of a tripping person to accurately determine the normality of other people's behavior.

 

[pmoseman]

I am not the one who is being dismissive. I have experienced this and have particularly good insight into the subject. I am no novice. I even reexperienced this today briefly after talking about it with you. This sensation is along the lines of megalomania. It seems to fit with what you and others experienced without assuming a previously unknown force of nature.

Our mind creates our reality. If we choose to focus on rainbows, we see rainbows. Do you think your subconscious is removed?

Normal people are able to have religious (or whatever you like to call them) experiences without psychedelics. You are able to be around these people without telling them you are on drugs.

You are seeing it in people, you are not putting it there.

I am still interested in discussing this further, and clearly there more has been presented here than this effect alone can explain. But I am a believer in explanation and nothing slips between the cracks of definition. We can figure out what's going on.

*****

Your question is asking if one's own state of mind can affect another's state of mind?

I think people expect their prayers to be answered and can see that they have, in very imaginative ways.

I think it is convenient to blame other people for our own misfortune, due to their own evil thoughts.

The simple fact is that I am lucky. I forget to bring by uniform to work and neglect to do my homework and it turns out class was cancelled or they updated the uniforms. Whatever it is. I just call it luck.

I keep random junk in my car, not because I am crazy, but because when I need something I know having some sort of materials on hand will help things work out. Having people around somehow makes my emotions work our as well. So to answer your question, yes.

People are always amazed when I am able to bust out the "one" thing they needed out of my pocket. Toothbrush, size 2023 battery, a photograph of the Eiffel Tower. I am a regular Uri Geller.

My time predications are often more accurate than the watch of a passerby. Be amazed. But my abilities do not depend on magical forces, but rather on intelligence in finding and believing that there is always a solution. I understand the limitations of the mind and persevere. So they are not real limitations, just excuses.

At the same time, I lose my own keys and while looking for those, I lose my cell phone.

Sometimes there is no luck, and then it sucks, but we tend to ignore that crap and focus on positive outcomes. I suggest keeping a year-long journal; otherwise, you will never realize how much (evidence) you forget.

 

[spacejunk]

I think we have to question the ability of a tripping person to accurately determine the normality of other people's behavior.

I mentioned this point in one of my above posts - you are quite right in that it is subjective (and in no way scientific) but rather than trying to convince anyone, I personally was recounting my own experience for the sake of discussion as it is both a documented (though "unproven") occurrence and a fascinating topic.
I'm not particularly interested in eliminating all of the potential flaws in the idea that contact highs are real or possible, because I have encountered such things enough times to accept their possibility.

Yes, psychedelics can and do dramatically alter your perception, calling into question the reliability of the observer in this instance.
Having said that, I consider my own contribution to this discussion more of a "yes, this had happened to me too" rather than "yes, it is unquestionably real because I have also perceived such things happening".
Empirical evidence is quite sufficient for me, in this case, as I had enough trust in my judgement to be able to separate delusional mindstates from merely those of heightened perception.

And I'll say it again - were it not a repeated experience for me personally, I would be extremely sceptical about the possibility of contact highs.
If someone wants to hack through the jungles of red tape necessary to do a scientifically sound study on this, i would enthusiastically volunteer to be a test subject. Until that time, I'm quite happy to muse about the subject with other people that are interested.
I'm not trying to offer any kind of objective proof; to do so would be wildly ignorant.
I share with you a mere anecdote, not scientific data or objective analysis.

 

[pmoseman]

...trust in my judgement to be able to separate delusional mindstates....
would be wildly ignorant.

(without permission) photographer: Todd Baginski

 

[spacejunk]

^ nothing like a childish misquote to demonstrate your sincere contribution to a discussion.

 

[Folley]

Have you ever done something completely normal on psychedelics? That shit is WEIRD.

 

[Xorkoth]

...trust in my judgement to be able to separate delusional mindstates....
would be wildly ignorant.

(without permission) photographer: Todd Baginski

You are truly an enigma to me.

 

[Folley]

Just because you've talked about something before doesn't mean everything that can be said on the subject has been said. New information is available every second, to ignore something that has been brought up previously only serves to slow change and progress.

 

[pmoseman]

Claiming to know one is having a delusion contradicts the meaning of the word. Nobody gets that?

I simply could not leave it alone, please continue.

 

[spacejunk]

^Having - present tense; different from "had a delusion" - which is well within the grasp of most people's mind to distinguish.
You seriously don't think people are aware of having previously been delusional, in a state of psychedelic intoxication?

This is the same point I was addressing in the post you responded to - the unreliable nature of the tripper-as-observer.
I was myself responding to a Never Knows Best who was able to articulate the potential issue here politely and constructively.

If I were still tripping - and manically convinced of the contact highs I'd spread far and wide - then sure; my judgement would be questionable at best.
But as I am now sober, having had years to reflect on the incident I recounted; having similarly spoken to the individuals involved (who confirmed they "felt weird" without explanation), and because I am more or less of sound mind (I do not have hallucinations, disturbances of my perception of reality or delusional thought patterns ever pointed out to me by others - I am as rational and logically inclined as any sober person who occasionally uses psychedelic drugs) I am able to say with a reasonable degree of certainty that what I observed was not a figment of my heightened imagination.

Considering your constant negativity I don't know why I respond to your posts, pmoseman. Or indeed why I read your posts at all.
I don't throw around allegations of trolling around lightly - but your attitude serves to derail practically every thread you post in. I don't know what your agenda is in posting so prolifically and in such a contrary manner, but it is frustrating as hell.
Mission achieved, I suppose?

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

I'm not particularly interested in eliminating all of the potential flaws in the idea that contact highs are real or possible, because I have encountered such things enough times to accept their possibility.

I'm still trying to figure out what they are, it seems to me like a number of discrete phenomena are being conflated.

I don't need to engage with your story in particular, so no worries there. (nor did I mean to implicate any one story)

was able to articulate the potential issue here politely and constructively.

I can be like that sometimes. Its on-and-off.

 

[perpetualdawn]

have you ever done something completely normal on psychedelics? That shit is weird.

win^