catalogueing(sp? lol) psychoactives relative to effects/subjective 'feelings'

[Jabberwocky]

catalogueing psychoactives relative to effects/subjective 'feelings'

are there any "go-to" guides/articles to relate specific types and/or compounds to specific "emotions"/feelings/effects?

Am well-aware of stupid-basic stuff like experience/trip reports. I mean any 'proper' undertakings that try to go above/beyond. ie, the idea of trying to bridge emotions/feelings w/ subjective feelings/inducements of specific compounds. I'm sure most anyone reading this gets what i mean.


edit: i'm posting this here, instead of BDD/etc, for the reason that i'm not familiar w/ too many concerted efforts here, outside of MAPS/etc. and figure this is better spot to look.

 

[sekio]

short answer: no. different drugs effect different people in different ways depending on genetics, personality, set, dose, and setting.

if what you mean is "taking MDMA makes you happy! and taking opiates makes you sleepy! and taking LSD makes you hallucinate!", all you can do is make broad generalizations, and no you cannot eaily make associations between emotions and drugs. aside from SAR guesswork.

long answer: Wikipedia, Erowid, or books like the Merck index/ US Pharmacopeia.

and by the way you don't need 3 humongous unrelated images.

 

[Jabberwocky]

fair enough; and fwiw, forgot to have mentioned p/tihkal, both have a place here in some respects

 

[bob_arctor]

This article might be of interest to the discussion;
http://search.arxiv.org:8081/paper.jsp?r=1206.0312&qid=1357484583653mix_nCnN_-643094903&qs=erowid

Psychedelic drugs facilitate profound changes in consciousness and have potential to provide insights into the nature of human mental processes and their relation to brain physiology. Yet published scientific literature reflects a very limited understanding of the effects of these drugs, especially for newer synthetic compounds. The number of clinical trials and range of drugs formally studied is dwarfed by the number of written descriptions of the many drugs taken by people. Analysis of these descriptions using machine-learning techniques can provide a framework for learning about these drug use experiences.

Methods: We collected 1000 reports of 10 drugs from the drug information website Erowid.org and formed a term-document frequency matrix. Using variable selection and a random-forest classifier, we identified a subset of words that differentiated between drugs. Results: A random forest using a subset of 110 predictor variables classified with accuracy comparable to a random forest using the full set of 3934 predictors.

Our estimated accuracy was 51.1%, which compares favorably to the 10% expected from chance. Reports of MDMA had the highest accuracy at 86.9%; those describing DPT had the lowest at 20.1%. Hierarchical clustering suggested similarities between certain drugs, such as DMT and Salvia divinorum. Conclusion: Machine-learning techniques can reveal consistencies in descriptions of drug use experiences that vary by drug class. This may be useful for developing hypotheses about the pharmacology and toxicity of new and poorly characterized drugs.

 

[SerotonergicHaze]

That is a bloody interesting article. Nice find (And nice user name)

Ultimately though drugs are categorized by their effects, the subjective effect of a drug and its chemical interaction with the organism are ultimately the same phenomena. The single phenomena can be described in two terms: in terms of the brain and physical world (neuroscience, biochemistry, geometry) and the mind and mental world (emotion, spirituality, hedonism, cognition. Currently, we are not very good at bridging these two disciplines as so currently see them as discrete

The idea of grouping a drug by its subjective effect implies that all drugs produce the same effect on all people. Drugs alter your consciousness, they don't provide consciousness in a pill and fundamentally everyone's consciousness is unique. We can describe the effects a drug will have on all people, but only in very vague and amorphous terms like if they are 'uppers' or 'downers' or 'trips' or 'dissociatives'. I remember some wise words from Shulgin in PiHKAL, he was talking about his first and magnificent Mescaline trip, and how it changed his life, and allowed him to relive faded memories in perfect detail. He asked, how could my memories be contained on this simple little molecule, this small vial of powder

Ultimately, a drug changes the unique and everchanging chemical system that makes up your consciousness, and just is the case normally, your consciousness is not predictable.

Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, and if this sort of mind/brain philosophy stuff isn't ADD material. To put my point into a single sentence, a drug will more or less affect everyone's receptors identically, the effect this will have overall on the person's consciousness will be a unique experience. Hitting the receptor is the effect of the drug, your brain is doing the rest, the drug is merely a key

Now, in terms of categorization. I suppose you could also categorize drugs on their effect on vital signs, 'uppers' and 'downers', effects on homeostasis at a cellular level, 'stressers' or 'protectors', and important in the context of addiction, their reinforcing/aversive effects 'want' 'do not want', and lastly their effect on cognition and level of awareness, drugs like LSD, small doses of Amphetamine, some sativas verses something like a general anesthetic, DXM, or Alcohol.

The psychoactive effect of a drug is two very different things, the effect on behavior and the subjective effect on consciousness.

If you categorized a drug by its propensity to make you type long essay like forum posts on Bluelight, the combination of dexamphetamine and cannabis will be a winner

 

[Jabberwocky]

agreed, but we're able to discuss the psychoactive effects of, say, hydrocodone or alprazolam, to very satisfactory levels IMO- am glad to see that link in prior post to the 1k reports analyzed, gg check that out now thnx :]

 

[Lab-Test Monkey]

That is a bloody interesting article. Nice find (And nice user name)

Ultimately though drugs are categorized by their effects, the subjective effect of a drug and its chemical interaction with the organism are ultimately the same phenomena. The single phenomena can be described in two terms: in terms of the brain and physical world (neuroscience, biochemistry, geometry) and the mind and mental world (emotion, spirituality, hedonism, cognition. Currently, we are not very good at bridging these two disciplines as so currently see them as discrete

The idea of grouping a drug by its subjective effect implies that all drugs produce the same effect on all people. Drugs alter your consciousness, they don't provide consciousness in a pill and fundamentally everyone's consciousness is unique. We can describe the effects a drug will have on all people, but only in very vague and amorphous terms like if they are 'uppers' or 'downers' or 'trips' or 'dissociatives'. I remember some wise words from Shulgin in PiHKAL, he was talking about his first and magnificent Mescaline trip, and how it changed his life, and allowed him to relive faded memories in perfect detail. He asked, how could my memories be contained on this simple little molecule, this small vial of powder

Ultimately, a drug changes the unique and everchanging chemical system that makes up your consciousness, and just is the case normally, your consciousness is not predictable.

Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, and if this sort of mind/brain philosophy stuff isn't ADD material. To put my point into a single sentence, a drug will more or less affect everyone's receptors identically, the effect this will have overall on the person's consciousness will be a unique experience. Hitting the receptor is the effect of the drug, your brain is doing the rest, the drug is merely a key

Now, in terms of categorization. I suppose you could also categorize drugs on their effect on vital signs, 'uppers' and 'downers', effects on homeostasis at a cellular level, 'stressers' or 'protectors', and important in the context of addiction, their reinforcing/aversive effects 'want' 'do not want', and lastly their effect on cognition and level of awareness, drugs like LSD, small doses of Amphetamine, some sativas verses something like a general anesthetic, DXM, or Alcohol.

The psychoactive effect of a drug is two very different things, the effect on behavior and the subjective effect on consciousness.

If you categorized a drug by its propensity to make you type long essay like forum posts on Bluelight, the combination of dexamphetamine and cannabis will be a winner

That is level 14 cross-paradigmatic thinking per the: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_Hierarchical_Complexity), I'm starting to wonder/consider to what degree this level of thinking is stimulated and/or aided by use of psychedelics (primarily rather than other psychoactive drugs, though I am just starting to re-look at Nootropics and may try some myself).

Also consider that there may be even higher levels of thinking, I suppose when you start coss-field thinking then that is level 15, the highest level in absolute/unfathomable terms would be complete consideration of the universal whole. Surely above humans at this stage but with the invention of quantum computing and other technologies much is possible.

This is exciting stuff and I believe may branch out into new fields.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^have been re-looking into noots for a bit myself, have been p.footing on pulling the trigger on piracetam+agpc for a couple weeks now lol.

 

[Hah]

are there any "go-to" guides/articles to relate specific types and/or compounds to specific "emotions"/feelings/effects?

check this interview, cool stuff !

Organs of the Mind with Thomas Ray, Ph.D.

http://www.podfeed.net/episode/Organs+of+the+Mind+with+Thomas+Ray+Ph.D./3651142

or

http://entheogenic.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-27T15_51_53-07_00

cheers.

 

[Lab-Test Monkey]

I apologise if this is too much off the particular topic and I should have started another thread.

I have just considered that one of the higher levels of thinking (and of course you focus on different levels dependent of time and resource constraints) but one would perhaps eventually start cross-paradox thinking.

The human brain is like a quantum computer (quantum computing at a basic concept it can be 0 or 1 or a state in-between at the same time).

Humans are in a constant state of flux as we learn more and this changes over time, knowledge/last proven answer can be thought of as 0, the opposite or fallacy/last disproved answer can be thought of as 1 with psychedelics promoting that higher order thinking to consider the more states in between as complex variables.

We can go deeper/higher though and say that maybe all possible states of flux/knowing exist independent of time if only as a concept to distinguish from the current state.

Another paradox concepts are both equally illuminating and constraining when desiring the absolute big picture and

The absolute big picture is all and nothing and every possible permutation inbetween.

Is this how the big bang started from nothing?

Is the big bang but part of a larger sequence?

Will these wonderings turn me into that fellow from the movie Pi (www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/)

 

[Jabberwocky]

lol yes, that reads more like p&s stuff but no worries, ppl can still add mopre specific stuff here so no harm no foul ;P

 

[ebola?]

Nice article Mr. Robert Arctor!
...
Yeah. I dunno. Neurology/biochem is so rough and new that it's hard to gain analytical traction on the issue. I'll leave the topic open and in here though...it's getting interesting.

ebola

 

[sekio]

(quantum computing at a basic concept it can be 0 or 1 or a state in-between at the same time).

Physics nitpick: this is a gross oversimplification. A "qubit" in a quantum computer is *always* 1 or 0 when it is measured out. As wiki explains...

Shor's period-finding algorithm relies heavily on the ability of a quantum computer to be in many states simultaneously. Physicists call this behavior a "superposition" of states. To compute the period of a function f, we evaluate the function at all points simultaneously.

Quantum physics does not allow us to access all this information directly, though. A measurement will yield only one of all possible values, destroying all others. If not for the no cloning theorem, we could first measure f(x) without measuring x, and then make a few copies of the resulting state (which is a superposition of states all having the same f(x)). Measuring x on these states would provide different x values which give the same f(x), leading to the period. Because we cannot make exact copies of a quantum state, this method does not work. Therefore we have to carefully transform the superposition to another state that will return the correct answer with high probability.

If you want to get into "the structure of mind", I strongly suggest you go read Douglas Hofstadter's "I Am A Strange Loop", and Marvin Minksy's "The Emotion Machine". It is less likely that the brain is any sort of quantum computer and more likely it is a chaotic, highly-structured highly-parallel processor that can rewrite its own microcode.

Given the array of tools some laboratories have, we can do crude affinity/efficacy tests on cloned primate or murine receptors, "mimicking" how compounds would interact in the brain, and seeing what happens. But even this is just guessing in the end. Not everyone has the same receptors, and sometimes changing one amino acid in a protien is enough to render it radically different in terms of function. Also you have to account for drug absorbtion/distribution (Do you inject it, producing a rapid peak and bypassing metabolism? Or do you eat it, producing a longer onset? Is the drug even absorbed at all if you eat it? Does the drug cross the BBB well, or does it all end up in your fat?) as well as metabolism and excretion (Is the drug active on its own, or is it a prodrug? What enzymes or systems break the compound down, and to what? What is the fate of the metabolites? Do gut bacteria metabolise the compound? Are any of the metabolites toxic?). Together with set and setting, individual variances can account for humongous portions of the drug experience.

 

[Lab-Test Monkey]

Thank you for the information Sekio, I will read those recommendations as soon as I can, hopefully they can aid in me in changing my own microcode.

 

[hollywood_cole]

thanks for making that nitpick, sekio. as a long-time computer-nerd/programmer with a big (but untrained) interest in consciousness and drugs and the brain, i always cringe a little when i read something like "the human brain is like a quantum computer" (no offense lab-test monkey, you see this sort of thing a lot because it's catchy, but seems wrong for the reasons sekio stated).

that said, while i agree with the complaint from a lot of the above posters that you can't give blanket descriptions for the subjective effects of a given chemical, i think you can give some general guidance on what reactions they commonly evoke. one term i like is "tasting notes" (coined by someone to whom i was trying to give a description of a couple of couple of "RCs" since i was using other more well known substances as points of comparison). for instance, i don't have quite the same reaction to MDMA that most people do (i like it, i'm not quite as in love with it as many, i roll less intensely than most people from a given dose, but i also tend to not get the blues in the days after dosing). but i generally get a similar enough reaction that subjective reports i had heard and read before trying it were useful in giving me some idea of what to expect. i agree that it's probably not possible (or maybe just not practical currently) to get as structured and formal of a handle on the subjective effects of a drug as you might get when describing something more measurable like receptor affinity. but i do think you can get something that's got more structure and formality than an unstructured prose trip report, while still being truthful and useful.

i really need to read "i am a strange loop" (i've had it sitting in my to-read pile for years, and i loved godel escher bach).

 

[bob_arctor]

Nice article Mr. Robert Arctor!
...
Yeah. I dunno. Neurology/biochem is so rough and new that it's hard to gain analytical traction on the issue. I'll leave the topic open and in here though...it's getting interesting.

ebola

Thanks ebola, I think it's a very nice take on multidisciplinary triangulation of hypotheses using qualitative / quantitative methods, as well as presenting a fascinating overall match between receptor affinities and linguistic articulations of subjective experiences. Like you say, understanding neurology/biochem systems is hard when we're still far from any concrete models, and it is clear that we have to combine different approaches and methods to get at it... (I've mostly studied linguistics, so I find it exciting when this kind of research shows up... sure helps my puny attempts at trying to come to grips with basic neuropharmacology by making some exciting cross-connections)

This paper is kind of related, but not as interesting/complex - but surely a part of getting there
http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/FSS/FSS12/paper/viewFile/5573/5848

side note: It would be interesting to study trip reports from different types of drug fora (as we all know, there is a spectrum from 4chan:y to more "serious" sites were the expected form of communication is almost like a language for specific purposes), then identifying how the drugs or classes of drugs described differ in terms of lexical/syntactical/text structural patterns... do different types of "users" (hypothesizing that the different types of fora are frequented by people whose use and purpose for using drugs differ from each other) have different subjective experiences, and how might these divergences correspond to drug receptor affinities etc.). Taking it to another level would be to repeat this process for sites based in different countries, and then [insert translation theory corpus linguistic methodologies here], giving result X