I feel pretty much the same after most drugs wear off. Some of them have a nice afterglow but I wouldn't say any made me a better person. Maybe some have made me psychotic.
Well stated! I often speak on them as being "catalysts of change, that one can choose to use if they so desire", but I also feel like a side effect of psychedelics is the drive to use them in this way, if that makes sense.
Love seeing PiHKAL brought up on BL, wish it happened more tbh. I can only speak on my own experience and those of who I know closely, but psychedelics have done a lot of harm reduction that I think we'd never notice. The amount of nights spent connecting with my fiance, or with close friends over LSD or psilocin instead of alcohol, oxycodone, or amphetamine, that alone must have reduced some capacity for harm. The amount of nerve damage that mushrooms have healed also cannot be overstated for me, I've been able to feel my hands and feet for almost 4 years now after a 7 year period of not being able to due to surgical issues. I learned more about myself and became a significantly less violent, hate-driven person as a result of ayahuasca, which I haven't touched now in a year or two, I don't feel a need to right now. Before then I was much more prone to ending conflicts with randos in the city I lived in through violence, after the brew I was more of the type to deescalate instead of brutalize if that makes sense.Honestly, I often have doubts if the way I engage with psychedelics really is all that positive. Yes, they facilitated some changes and I'm grateful for my experiences, but I wouldn't say they changed me entirely. They certainly helped me in a period of depression, however maybe I would have never dugged myself into this state without drugs (and psychedelics are the reason why I became interested in drugs in the first place). Where can I sign up for getting to know the results of my control group version?
Book Review: PiHKaL
I. PiHKAL (“Phenylethylamines I Have Known And Loved”), subtitled “A Chemical Love Story”, is the autobiography of Alexander and Ann Shulgin. Alexander Shulgin was a chemist…slatestarcodex.com
Regardless, I still like those compounds and will continue to use them
a good time to you then (not having been (and not being)) a pathetic bastard
I guess as a child I could see that people insulting others were in a conflicted state, and I learned not to believe them if they insulted me. Instead I would back off and wait for them to go away one way or another.a good time to you then (not having been (and not being)) a pathetic bastard
Ordinary people can change their entire identity because of an emotional experience. Send someone down dozens and dozens of hardcore trips and its bound to effect them.
I used to use the term "acid stained" to refer to to the way I would cultivate HPPD to try to feel like I'm on LSD all day every day. The term "cultivated HPPD" is what I settled on using though.
This is funny to read to me. I mean, the way you engage with the psychedelics, of course there is no doubt that you'd probably end up with HPPD, live with it, even enjoy it. But to "cultivate" it, that's a new one :D
I always say that if I could be on 150-400ug of LSD every single day, I absolutely would. Daily dosing 2C-B is as close as I could get, but it lacks the headspace effects that LSD has, which is really the biggest motivation for my desire to use LSD daily without tolerance, if such a thing were to ever be possible. It would be worthwhile to further specify the "cultivation" aspect of HPPD, but if I notice my HPPD starting to fade, I'll starting taking higher doses and at a higher frequency to get it to come back. Whatever the most recent 5-10 trips were are what "flavors" the HPPD. Doing phenethylamines will give the HPPD characteristics of those phenethylamines, lysergamides and tryptamines are much more similar to themselves than they are to phenethylamines but I can still distinguish the Lysergamide from Tryptamine "flavors" of HPPD, if that makes sense. Depression, focus, concentration, and overall happiness are all signficantly higher and my lifestyle overall excels with this whole cultivated HPPD thing, and I just try to keep the visuals absent enough to drive if I haven't consumed cannabis, but even a couple hits of a joint or a little bit of tincture throws me right back into a psychedelic headspace, which I absolutely adore. Having cannabis as a sort of triggering mechanism for this cultivated HPPD is integral in balancing it with life, in my opinion.