☮ Social ☮ PD Social: Cross-dimensional chatter. Now featuring mesphereomeantoliopeme.

[helium-4]

Mind mentioning the phenomenon? Currently watching TV, so can't throw it on right this sec

 

[TheAppleCore]

The first half of LSD trips are very lucid, euphoric, insightful, and generally positive. Then, around the 4 hour mark, things become dark and twisted, and symptoms resembling mild paranoid-schizophrenic psychosis tend to arise.

Supposedly because after around 4 hours, LSD has been primarily broken down by your body into another psychoactive metabolite. You're no longer experiencing the direct effects of LSD, but the effects of a metabolite that has its own neuropharmacology, and acts more as a true psychotomimetic rather than a psychedelic.

Only a fraction of LSD users report this, however -- the other portion presumably, due to individual variance in metabolic pathways, don't produce the psychotomimetic metabolite. These are the users that report a clean, positive trip for the entire 8-10 hours of intoxication.

 

[PepperSocks]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Soli. I'm going through something similar; I've always been kinda agoraphobic in my present location. I haven't left my apartment for days and haven't left my room except to get food and use the bathroom.
I need to do grocery shopping tomorrow, so I'll have to bite the bullet.

I too find myself thinking that a cancer diagnosis wouldn't bother me. That passive suicide thing is quite apparent. I got bloodwork done last week and they said they'd get back to me in a couple days; it's been more than a couple days. It may be something 'good' and they're waiting to call me in for face to face news breaking.

The pregabalin isn't exactly fixing my problems in any hurry that's for sure. I'm down to 5mg diazepam a day but I find I still crave it, along with some alcohol.

I'm supposed to be job hunting and my family thinks that's what I'm currently doing but I just can't bring myself to type up a cover letter, resume, and start searching through job postings; I'd much rather just sit around getting high watching TV.

Sleep schedule is FUBAR as well, it's a sad state of affairs. You're not in it alone man.

TAC, I know what you mean about the latter half of a trip, not just LSD. It gets more anxious, depressive and sketchy. It doesn't happen all the time but it's a common enough phenomenon to me, I take it as a general 'comedown' feeling; that's what it is afterall, coming from a wonderful place back to your shitty old life; those bad thoughts start flooding in like a tidal wave.

 

[TheAppleCore]

TAC, I know what you mean about the latter half of a trip, not just LSD. It gets more anxious, depressive and sketchy. It doesn't happen all the time but it's a common enough phenomenon to me, I take it as a general 'comedown' feeling; that's what it is afterall, coming from a wonderful place back to your shitty old life; those bad thoughts start flooding in like a tidal wave.

I notice this with LSD and phenethylamines, in general. However, tryptamines work in reverse for me, with the come-up being rough and anxious, and the comedown being generally very smooth and positive, ending in an afterglow that leaves me feeling even better than baseline sobriety. I much prefer the latter to the former -- if psychedelics have to be biphasic, I'd rather end the trip with a cherry on top, so to speak. Which is one reason I love tryptamines so much.

Also, about coming back to your shitty old life -- I find this to be one of the most valuable feelings psychedelics have given me. If I take a psychedelic drug, and realize that I'm dreading the return to sobriety, I take this as a sign that I'm not living my life the way I should be. If I'm living my life with passion, energy and love, then I'm actually *excited* to return to sobriety from tripping, to jump back on board.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

Maybe it's just my stoner memory but I seem to remember people saying they were eating JWH/AM compounds with no activity, and they had to mix it into vodka or something for it to actually take effect. I always thought that sounded like complete rubbish, I take it I was right.

I found jwh-018 and -073 to be completely ineffective orally when taken undissolved. GBL worked great as a solvent.

@Never: Just season 1 of the first TV series. Not the remake ones either, I only got into FMA recently

They're both pretty decent, the movie sucked (I think they made a second movie, I don't really care). I'm currently watching only things that are currently airing: Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna (a woman named fujiko mine), Uchuu Kyoudai (space brothers), Gakkatsu, Sakamichi no Apollon (kids on the slope), and Eureka Seven AO. A busy season for me.

Chalk it up to situational tolerance perhaps, but drinking outside on nice sunny day is delightful. Ended up splitting my booze in three and staggering use, sobering up between, was interesting.


Now to brew me some relaxing tea, it has like chamomile, skullcap, valerian, passion flower, catnip, peppermint, and strawberry leaves. Good stuff (bought in store, did not blend it myself).


I wish I could say something useful for you guys dealing with benzo issues, but I'm not experienced in the matter. What is it with us PDers (especially staff) having issues with GABAergics? I hope I learn from your experience and don't end up in a bad place with benzos though, which is something that I still fear as possible.


P.S. Y'all still need to brainstorm some ideas for the next social title! We're only 3-ish pages away from it.

 

[yucatanboy2]

Stupid insomnia. I am up on a monday night. Wtf. I decided to smoke a bowl and do some reading.

 

[Roger&Me]

TAC, I know what you mean about the latter half of a trip, not just LSD. It gets more anxious, depressive and sketchy.

Yeah, there's a body of strong evidence suggesting that the second half of an LSD trip is driven by different neurochemical processes than the first half. The "first temporal phase" is characterized by partial agonism at an assortment of 5-HT receptor subtypes; whereas the "second temporal phase" (i.e., when things tend to get sketchy after the peak) is characterized by D1 and D2 partial agonism. LSD has an exceptionally rich pharmacology, as it hits a whole slew of GPCRs and a couple ion channels as well; pharmacologically, its really quite different from other psychedelics -- especially the phenethylamines.

For some further reading, check out: "Further evidence that the delayed temporal dopaminergic effects of LSD are mediated by a mechanism different than the first temporal phase of action" by Marona-Lewicka & Nichols [Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 87 (2007) 453–461]

 

[Cyanoide]

Best of luck with the benzo withdrawal Solipsis, I've tried it two times and failed both times. Probably due to starting tapering too fast when it didn't feel too bad in the beginning only to be followed by a severe backlash.

Now I'm going through SSRI withdrwal from escitalopram and this is definitely one of the worst WD's I've been going through (I've been on and off SSRI's for some 7-8 years now). Brain zaps all the time, some so powerful I actually hear a kind of electric buzz in my ears followed by a tinnitus-like ringing in my ears and vertigo. I sleep like shit, if I even get sleep, sweat profusely, feel miserable and horribly anxious in the morning (it eases quite a bit a few hours after awakening, I don't what it is but when I wake in the morning the anxiety and nervousness is almost unbearable. It's when you stop using SSRI's you realize how much they mess with your brain. Hopefully I'll never have to use them again. For some reason though mirtazapine gives me no bad symptoms when quitting it, no brain zaps or depression. All other AD's are more or less horrible.

I think benzo WD is inevitable at some point again. It's just that it's very hard when you have to go to work and be fully functional. Not that I'm fully functional now either. Have lost my appetite and have to force down some food, which in turn makes me nauseated. For benzo withdrawal there's at least some very effective relief (e.g. pregabalin), for SSRI withdrawal I've never find any relief other than meditating (effective only as long as I meditate though, but it completely eliminates all brain zaps) and resting. Brain zaps can easily be eliminated by other drugs but they return even more powerful, it's just very detrimental to take other drugs when your brain is trying to find a balance. If even there would be some motivation for anything it would help, but no, nothing is interesting, I don't even wan't to listen to music.

Edit: I've never tried beta blockers (propranolol) for anxiety during SSRI WD. Might give it a try.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

Hmm, I'm considering trying out rhodiola rosea. Perhaps something like that would be helpful to me.

 

[Cyanoide]

Woke up today feeling much better, but now for some reason I mostly feel very lethargic and I'm yawning constantly (exactly how I feel when I start taking SSRI's, go figure).

I'm a bit worried about my insomnia though, I had to take 25 mg quetiapine last night to get sleep. Usually melatonin is enough but it just makes me yawning now, doesn't help with sleep really.

 

[Roger&Me]

Just spent my tax return on a nice sack of stinky hydroponic nuggetry. :D

I love having lots of nug around because it allows me to chief like I want to. I never have enough money to consume the amount of nug I would like to consume (I choose not to grow my own for legality purposes, I draw the line at misdemeanor-level shenanigans these days). Budgeting out bud is probably the only thing in life that makes me feel like a damn slave or something, like WTF, its a plant and it should be worth pennies. But due to legal status, it worth half the price of gold (seriously, just about exactly half).

That shines interesting light on the psychology underlying economics, though: gold is a valuable material that has -literally- countless applications (electronics, catalysis, advanced materials, etc etc etc), and all weed does is get you high... there's clearly several orders of magnitude difference in the usefulness of gold versus cannabis. And yet human beings consider cannabis to be half the value of gold. :D Why? Because we're not fucking automatons driven only by the prospect of producing usable goods and services. At the end of the day, its not worth much if you can't lay back and relax. I think getting high in some way is important to many, if not most people; not just on cannabis, but psychoactive compounds and experiences in general, the specific drug or activity (e.g. meditation, yoga, "holotropic" woo woo etc) is actually not that important. If human beings don't have those unusual experiences to serve as juxtaposition to the daily grind, what the hell is life? What the hell are we?

Haha, anyways I'm just high on this really nice Trainwreck sativa and ranting. :D But I do think the persistent framework of interdependent tropes and memes that we term "western society" really has some peculiarly obvious omissions. Like any form of culture, which is ultimately a form of programming uploaded to the human biocomputer, it has blindspots that are taken for granted because they're built into the actual architecture of the program, and are not obvious in the same way as lower order executive processes. You could call them something like "meta processes", to signify that they are of higher order and serve to control the functionality of other, lower order processes that result in observable outcomes.

An interesting facet of human psychology is that its in some sense self-correcting. One can, and frequently does, analyze the usefulness and accuracy of their cultural programming when confronted with a disparate mode. Then, through contemplative functions like cognitive dissonance, the disparate mode is somehow incorporated into the functionality of the existing framework. This in itself is noteworthy. However, even more noteworthy is the fact that one can, with mindfulness, direct the incorporation of the disparate mode into existing processes in a way that actually improves the overall functionality of the system.

If we could built computers that did that, I think we'd have to hang a banner that said "WE WELCOME OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS".

 

[sn23]

"WE WELCOME OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS".

In a way we're already slaves of the machines, robots and computers we have invented haha How many publications do you actually order in print form and isn't it neat to have online databases to get information quickly?
Instead of working on a lab report I just broke out the last pieces of herb and am having such a nice time listening to that Grateful Dead concert you linked some time ago. Nice stuff to enjoy with a high

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ @Roger -- Nice post, man. I'm detecting a bit of Terence McKenna flavor in that philosophical soliloquy. :D

I agree with you, when you say that "getting high" in some way is an essential facet of human psychology. I had a really interesting flash of insight on that 4-AcO-DMT trip I was going to write about, in which I realized that altered states of consciousness are the driving force for *everything* that *anyone* ever does. I firmly believe this, now -- it makes perfect sense. Ultimately, the motivation for all human activity stems from the attempt to either avoid pain, or cultivate pleasure. This can be conceptualized as the drive to best approximate a certain altered state of consciousness, in which pain is entirely absent and pleasure is maximized. During my trip, I deemed this state of consciousness the "wobbly nothingness" -- wobbly, because for some reason I visualized intense pleasure as "wobbling" in the mind, and nothingness, because of the absence of pain.

Ever since I realized that the attempt to seek the "wobbly nothingness" was my inevitable and eternal intention, I've been able to more successfully approach it. This has resulted in a slightly more healthy and responsible lifestyle, and I certainly hope that I continue down this positive path.

 

[Roger&Me]

^ @Roger -- Nice post, man. I'm detecting a bit of Terence McKenna flavor in that philosophical soliloquy. :D

Well yeah, now that I re-read that it seems "society as cultural programming" is classical McKenna -- I guess that's a sort of implicit meme in my own consciousness. :D I politely shrug off the other 99% of the stuff that came out of the guy's mouth though, but I love him nonetheless. He was a true bard. I think he was too quick to yield to a magical belief system though, and sadly, I think much of it was rooted, at least subconsciously, in his failure to achieve success in academia. Perhaps juxtaposed with the relative success of his brother Dennis; I don't know, just some random speculation.

I also think the guy did too many drugs. Psychedelics are one of those things... its best to do them, and be in awe of them and let them inspire you, and then just put them away for a while and return to them later. Otherwise you risk what McKenna termed "The Implications"; which he noted Shulgin seemed remarkably resistant to. And I think its because Shulgin actually did not trip that often; he rarely consumed the same compound again after exploring the +++ territory one or two times. He instead moved on to the next intellectual endeavor, which may or may not have entailed consuming a new material. He didn't allow the drugs themselves to become the focus; perhaps McKenna should have heeded the warnings of the machine elves when they instructed him "Do not give way to astonishment!". Unfortunately, he did give way to astonishment, and his 90's "bow down before the mushroom gods" rave videos speak for themselves.

Honestly, he probably could have been successful in legitimate circles if he had conducted himself differently. But perhaps it was for the best he remained a rebel, who knows.

 

[helium-4]

I completely agree with you, I would have enjoyed his work if he conducted himself differently.

 

[helium-4]

omg I about died laughing when I started watching the last south park, Mr. Garrison lecturing on a Game of Thrones for class, haha.

honestly that was the only good part of the episode. Everything else was honestly kinda lame

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

Ultimately, the motivation for all human activity stems from the attempt to either avoid pain, or cultivate pleasure

I think that is an awfully reductionist premise, and completely untrue. I've been over it before though, so rather than go on about it again, you REALLY can't think of a single instance where a person would act for motivations other than that? That the joys and sorrows that result are incidental and not considered at all in the evaluation? I'd be shocked if you answered no.

Honestly, he probably could have been successful in legitimate circles if he had conducted himself differently.

Look what the system is doing to you! The persons and institutions collectively granted the status of legitimate bearers of knowledge are not intrinsically worthy of this status, or especially a monopoly on it. Why should social ambition be considered such a lofty goal, and if it is, why the hell are any of us violating social mores?

McKenna did what he did because he believed in it. So let us take from him the things that we find valuable, and leave those we do not. Let the tares grow with the wheat and separate them after the harvest (incidentally, started Genesis today. There is much begating, but overall pretty cool).

So made some pizza, wheat dough (premade) stuff, olive oil, shredded mixed cheeze, fresh mozerella, artichoke hearts, onion, mushrooms, and some fresh avocado thrown on while eating (and some spices to taste). Mmmmm...haven't made my own pizza in a very long time (2010, perhaps).

 

[Roger&Me]

Look what the system is doing to you!

LOL, did you not read my sentence right after that :D

And now that I look at my post I guess I should have further clarified: its not that I somehow find McKenna's lack of professional ambition to be revolting or something. I think he was a really smart guy and could have been influential to other smart people as well, especially those in established positions. Unfortunately this was never a reality for McKenna because his work was never known outside of a couple fringe circles. Gaining acceptance in the academic community was an early goal of McKenna's, and its only after he failed to achieve that goal that he started to get really weird, and essentially disappeared to Esalen's creepy Waco-esque compound to lick his wounds and hawk nonsense ideas to people that wouldn't subject them to any type of reasonable scrutiny. I mean that's just blatantly lazy stewardship of one's own ideas, and is basically what relegated him to obscurity.

And, btw, if you let the weeds grow with the wheat then everybody ends up with ergot poisoning. (a little clavine related humor to get me going this morning :D ).

 

[pharmakos]

hawk nonsense ideas to people that wouldn't subject them to any type of reasonable scrutiny.

thats how i've felt about just about everything i've read/heard from terrence... too much wild brainstorming, not enough filtering.... his earlier stuff is less wacky?

 

[Roger&Me]

his earlier stuff is less wacky?

Yeah, he was a legitimate ethnobotanist on par if not exceeding his brother; he's one of the primary reasons the traditional formulation of ayahuasca incorporating B. caapi and psychotria species is known to modern science. He also had a great deal of historical expertise regarding the later alchemists, a subject which is considered esoteric even by academic standards. I think he could have done some influential multidisciplinary work.