LSD - Not what I expected?

[Black]

i have found the 'hallucinations' with lsd to always be (extreme) distortions of existing objects. i have seen huge ants all over the place or kangaroos hopping through a forest (in europe, not australia ), but i could trace the ants to some anise seed and the kangaroos were just distorted branches moving in the wind. so no true hallucinations when not going over the threshold where you are completely disconnected from reality for me.

 

[shores]

i hated the jaws of doom

 

[shores]

lol

 

[solistus]

Ismene: I, like many people, do not meditate particularly often and do not see things at any time other than on psychedelics. Other drugs, like cannabis, produce no visuals or distortions. LSD (at high doses only) is one of the few substances that has resulted in fully immersive visuals for me. It seems pretty silly to decide arbitrarily that one effect of a psychedelic is a placebo effect just because some random "drug celebs" didn't personally believe it was possible. Go to Trip Reports or Erowid and read through high dose LSD experiences; from the ones I've read, immersive visuals are not that rare. I, for one, am pretty hard-headed in regards to LSD and have never had particularly immersive visuals on less than 5 or so good hits of blotter. An average 1-2 hit trip for me is usually almost entirely non-visual, with brief periods of mild to moderate distortions and little more than enhanced colours/lights and slight breathing of flat surfaces most of the time. So, if you want to call the swirling patterns of entities and symbols appearing overlaid over the night sky and persisting after I walked inside (i.e., not distortions of clouds/stars/whatever) a placebo, you're welcome to, but I'm fairly sure it was the acid

 

[Xorkoth]

Ismene, simply put, you can't deny the experiences of others just because it hasn't been your experience. Why are you still arguing about this? It's never going to go anywhere.

Does it ever make you wonder when hardly anyone agrees with you? Could it be possible that you're not the authority on the subject?

 

[Don Luigi]

Ismene, simply put, you can't deny the experiences of others just because it hasn't been your experience.

That's one thing that really sickens my pish is when people do that to me. I have seen fully 3D, opaque creatures appear to me and interact with me to some degree and I've had a room fill up with translucent beings or ghosts from psychedelics. Both of those two things happened on the same trip, only 30mg oral of 2CB.

On acid I had my mental gremlins manifest themselves visually as entities of some sort. For example - I had recently quit smoking and one entity was enjoying cigarettes very much. On that same trip my guitar was without all of its strings and I couldn't play it - There was an entity sitting on a chair, playing guitar and enjoying it also.

The actual 'gremlins' that appeared were just ugly beings but along with them were the positive aspects of my mind manifested as fine figures. This is a recurring theme with me as the good that is visually represented in a trip is almost always accompanied by the ugly, seems just to be there as a contrast.

But yeah, these don't need high doses. For that acid trip all I took was around 100ug split in two doses about an hour apart.

 

[Don Luigi]

It's possible but I don't think it's got much to do with the LSD. Some people have vivid imaginations - that's why you often see psychedelic type imagery that was drawn by buddhists and hindus thousands of years ago. .

Didn't read this before, sorry.

But my reasoning to this is that the only reason why we think of it as psychedelic type imagery is because our minds have been heavily influenced by such cultures and the art work they've produced. Religious art is particularly influential to trips for me, especially Mayan type imagery.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, I had a vision on a combination of LSAs, Cannabis, Salvia and certain solvents of what I later determined to be most likely Shiva, even though I had never seen any Hindu avatars before let alone one of Shiva. But on the other hand, I may have seen them but not paid much attention to it, there's so many sub-conscious process going on.

 

[Ismene]

Ismene, simply put, you can't deny the experiences of others just because it hasn't been your experience.

I'm not denying their experience, I'm denying their interpretation of their experience.

Does it ever make you wonder when hardly anyone agrees with you?

I think quite a few people agree with me to be honest. And anyway I don't think agreeing is really what a drug messageboard is about - I state my opinion, someone else states theirs. If everyone agreed the board would die wouldn't it?

 

[Ismene]

But my reasoning to this is that the only reason why we think of it as psychedelic type imagery is because our minds have been heavily influenced by such cultures and the art work they've produced. Religious art is particularly influential to trips for me, especially Mayan type imagery.

True, true. The first time I took mushrooms I'd been reading Terence Mckenna for months on end before hand - guess what I saw....

....

INSECT CONCIOUSNESS!!

And I'd also been reading Maria Sabina so I saw the children of the four winds too.

 

[Xorkoth]

And anyway I don't think agreeing is really what a drug messageboard is about - I state my opinion, someone else states theirs. If everyone agreed the board would die wouldn't it?

That's true, but it's like every time one of these conversations happens, you just keep going... and going... and going... and you continually tell everyone who claims to have experiences contrary to yours that they're the victim of placebo, which is, frankly, rather insulting. It's fine to disagree - in fact it makes things interesting. But I think it's pretty presumptuous of you to presume that everyone who claims to have had immersive, 3D visuals is being fooled by placebo. And it's also pretty presumptuous of you to presume that the way you experience things is the "correct" way, and everyone else is wrong. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Ismene]

I don't think it's placebo, I think there's something else going on. My grandfather swears he's seen ghosts and I'd trust him with my life. But I still don't believe in ghosts. Is it insulting to my grandfather if I don't believe in ghosts? Am I denying his experience? I dunno.

you just keep going... and going... and going

Maybe it's a failing of mine X. In my defence I only go on if there's some interesting replies tho.

 

[Xorkoth]

Well, that was an interesting reply in itself. Thanks.

Anyway, my perception of you is that you're an arguer... or maybe a debater is a nicer way of saying it. It seems like you decide to argue, and then revise what it is you're arguing about partway through just to keep arguing. Is this a bad thing? No. But it can be frustrating. Nevertheless, I'm glad you're here.

 

[LSDreamer]

Heh, don't worry Ismene, I'm sort of the same. If anyone says anything at all about drugs that isn't exactly right I feel uncontrollably compelled to correct them and if they won't admit they weren't right I tend to argue about it to the ends of the earth.

 

[Ismene]

Yeah I'm not disrespecting anyone with this. My grandfather says he woke up one night, walked through to the living room and there was a child sat crying on the settee. The day after he found out a child had been murdered in the house years before.

I believe it happened but I still don't believe in ghosts.

Similarly I'm sure a minority of people see 3D visions of pink elephants when they've taken LSD. I believe it happens but I don't believe psychedelics have that effect.

 

[burn out]

Yeah I'm not disrespecting anyone with this. My grandfather says he woke up one night, walked through to the living room and there was a child sat crying on the settee. The day after he found out a child had been murdered in the house years before.

I believe it happened but I still don't believe in ghosts.

Similarly I'm sure a minority of people see 3D visions of pink elephants when they've taken LSD. I believe it happens but I don't believe psychedelics have that effect.

but why do you think what you believe is so important when you can't prove it?

this has simply turned into a correlation vs causality debate. you've given in that people do see things which quality as true hallucinations while under the influence of lsd. therefore, all you can argue now is that lsd wasn't the cause, which is rather pointless because it's impossible for you to prove lsd wasn't the cause just like it's impossible for the people who had the hallucinations to prove lsd was the cause. correlation does not equal causation. drugs and causation and causation in general is such a complex philosophical topic that it goes well what you're attempting to discuss here.

And the reason I mentioned placebo in my earlier post is because you have several times in this thread, and quite often do in your arguments, tell people that they are the victim of placebo.

 

[Ismene]

you've given in that people do see things which quality as true hallucinations while under the influence of lsd.

No, you've lost track of what was said. A hallucination is something you believe is real, I havn't heard anyone in this thread say that they believed what they were seeing was real and not simply the effects of the acid on their mind.

 

[burn out]

No, you've lost track of what was said. A hallucination is something you believe is real, I havn't heard anyone in this thread say that they believed what they were seeing was real and not simply the effects of the acid on their mind.

well that's not my fault that you haven't read the thread. here are a couple of examples:


Does anyone else lose the hallucination when they realize it's not real?

obviously he had to have thought it was real at one to point in order to realize that it wasn't.

another example:

sometimes its very hard to tell that its not real IMO. sometimes i forget that i even dosed at all. sometimes i forget my name, where i am, and why im there. but in the end i usually end up finding myself.

i dont think its a matter of whats real and whats not. its just a matter of what is happening and what you are experiencing.

 

[Xorkoth]

Semantics... I don't think anyone here was trying to say that they believed their 3D visuals were real, just that they have seen such things.

hal·lu·ci·na·tion
–noun
1. a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind, caused by various physical and mental disorders, or by reaction to certain toxic substances, and usually manifested as visual or auditory images.
2. the sensation caused by a hallucinatory condition or the object or scene visualized.
3. a false notion, belief, or impression; illusion; delusion.

Only the third point suggests that a hallucination requires a false belief.

And again I don't think anyone was suggesting the stereotypical ridiculousness of pink elephants, but more like apparent entities and things of that nature which seem to exist and move about the 3-dimensional world, as opposed to altered patterns on a 2D surface.

Anyway I don't mean to drag this out... I guess that, like you, I like to make my points clear.

 

[Ismene]

Semantics...

Semantics can be very important. Particularly in this case. That's why so many people in psychedelic history were desperate that LSD wasn't mislabelled a hallucinogen and tried to come up with a term like psychedelic or entheogen instead. The accepted medical understanding of the term hallucination is that it is real to the person experiencing it.

Only the third point suggests that a hallucination requires a false belief

That's not a medical dictionary tho. The medical understanding of the term hallucination implies a sense of reality:

Hallucination: A profound distortion in a person's perception of reality, typically accompanied by a powerful sense of reality

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=24171

No-one on LSD believes their hallucinations are real, they are aware they are under the influence of a drug.

A "hallucination" on LSD cannot be compared to the hallucinations of schizophrenics. They are completely different. I'm sure you can find lots of popular dictionaries that say otherwise but that's more to do with the result of 50 years of propaganda and demonisation than reality.

And again I don't think anyone was suggesting the stereotypical ridiculousness of pink elephants, but more like apparent entities and things of that nature which seem to exist and move about the 3-dimensional world, as opposed to altered patterns on a 2D surface.


Why is a pink elephant any more ridiculous than seeing an "entity"? Isn't a pink elephant an "entity"?

 

[Xorkoth]

What I'm saying is that the people who used the term hallucination in here were not suggesting your definition (or I don't think at least). Your definition of hallucination sounds more like the common definition of "delusion". So it is semantical because you are using the word in a different way than the others in here. I agree that such confusions in terminology are important to address but when you're arguing against people, you need to address what they mean by what they say rather than what someone else means by the same statements. I mean I don't see anywhere in this thread that anyone tried to compare an LSD hallucination with schizophrenia and I don't think anyone meant to. Which makes this argument meaningless (in my mind).