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People who just want to see pretty colors

L

listerbean

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 9, 2008
Messages
21
This is sort of a rant. I just don't understand those that trip solely for the perceptual effects. I dosed LSD with a friend the other night and started talking about society, life, and all that good stuff and he was just like, "shut up I don't want to hear that, I just want to laugh at stupid things on the TV".

Maybe it's just me, but once I'm tripping, it's almost as if the visuals are just a side effect that I have to put up with to experience the real mind-blowing effects of LSD or other psychedelics. When someone asks me what I see, it seems to be a stupid question. What I see doesn't matter-- it's what I feel and what I intuit. THAT is what matters.

And the whole TV thing. How can anyone watch TV while tripping balls? When I trip, I see the TV for what it is: a light projector that projects tiny pixels on a screen. Who wants to watch that stupid boxed-in psuedo-reality generator? Let's explore! Let's go outside! Let's... do anything but watch TV. What do you think?
 
this reminds me of a time I dosed with this girl I didn't really know, just me and her in her apartment, only to quickly realize (this will sound harsh) not the brightest bulb in the factory, and kept trying to put on cartoons...

I appreciate all aspects of the experience, including visuals and including admiring art or projections, but wow, cartoons? you're seriously gonna dose and watch Cartoon Network? come now...

that night was a real lesson... pay attention to who you take LSD with. don't want to be stuck with someone negative or irritating for twelve hours, tripping on LSD is a very intimate thing and you can be sucked into their head. what's good though is even though alot of people will take mushrooms, for example, with the intent of seeing pretty colors or "getting fucked up", quite a few of those will be forcibly shown that it is not really about that.
 
listerbean said:
This is sort of a rant. I just don't understand those that trip solely for the perceptual effects. I dosed LSD with a friend the other night and started talking about society, life, and all that good stuff and he was just like, "shut up I don't want to hear that, I just want to laugh at stupid things on the TV".

Maybe it's just me, but once I'm tripping, it's almost as if the visuals are just a side effect that I have to put up with to experience the real mind-blowing effects of LSD or other psychedelics. When someone asks me what I see, it seems to be a stupid question. What I see doesn't matter-- it's what I feel and what I intuit. THAT is what matters.

And the whole TV thing. How can anyone watch TV while tripping balls? When I trip, I see the TV for what it is: a light projector that projects tiny pixels on a screen. Who wants to watch that stupid boxed-in psuedo-reality generator? Let's explore! Let's go outside! Let's... do anything but watch TV. What do you think?
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I partly agree and partly disagree with you... Yes, it seems a shame to take psychedelics just for the sensory effects, and to ignore or not care for most of the cognitive effects.

But really, I don't see the sensory effects as mere side-effects; indeed, they're often quite inextricable from the cognitive effects for me (e.g. experiences of infinite recursion accompanying 2C-E-induced visual motion temporal distortions; and, while on DiPT, intense awareness and meditation on the auditory sensory-motor loop as every movement I made jostled molecules in the air, which in turn jostled hair cells in my ear and thence by electrical signals to my auditory cortex: this clearly bound up with DiPT's auditory equivalent of the 'pretty colours'). They (visuals and audials; or, to be inclusive of proprioceptive and thermoreceptive psychedelia etc, 'sensuals') are, at least, quite suitable fodder for psychedelic thinking.

As for TV, no I disagree... it's not just a stupid box that projects pixels. If that's how you see it on LSD, fair enough; but the pixels make patterns, often of some complexity, with the patterns sometimes doing and communicating things of potential interest. As with the cognitive effects, it seems a shame to ignore and avoid nature on psychedelics, but the products of human technology (telly, stereo, computer etc) can be as inspiring as any nature, in my view. Just different. ETA: Having said that, in practice on the peak of most reasonable doses of anything I will generally find myself lost in silence, ceilings, and lightbulbs, or blades of grass, bits of blue sky; nothing so complex in and of itself as, say, a television or an animal.

And I have to admit that I take DiPT primarily for its 'pretty sounds' (disclaimer: seems not all people find DiPT-sound pretty :D), although it's always a delight and an honour when the cognitive effects arrive (particularly with DiPT, as it happens, I've generally had less difficulty accepting the psychedelic mental state).

So, in summary, what you feel matters, what you think matters, what you see matters, what you hear matters: each of these modalities is capable of incredible richness alone, and of so much more in combination with each other. Cognition divorced from sensation is, I would contend, as impoverished as sensation divorced from cognition.

And: nature good, technology good too. Or rather: nature good, technology a particularly surprising and complex product of and part of nature. :)
 
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invert said:
So, in summary, what you feel matters, what you think matters, what you see matters, what you hear matters: each of these modalities is capable of incredible richness alone, and of so much more in combination with each other. Cognition divorced from sensation is, I would contend, as impoverished as sensation divorced from cognition.
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Good point. I suppose I did sound too polarized in the beginning post. I agree that our vision (for example) can be intimately tied up with what we are thinking. For example, I might see and ocean of color and wavy lines that intersect multiple objects (the grass, the trees, and the sky) and come to the thought, "everything is connected." This experience is much stronger with the visual affirming the cognitive and vice-versa. You bring a good point by recognizing that both extremes are bad for the psychedelic experience.

But I still can't get over my prejudice that real life is much better experienced on psychedelics than virtual life (TV, video games, internet, etc).:D
 
Each to their own....some people find introspective stuff to be twaddle; vice versa. To be honest, I'd rather laugh away then discuss the meaning of life- I spent my alone time for such things.
 
listerbean said:
Good point. I suppose I did sound too polarized in the beginning post. I agree that our vision (for example) can be intimately tied up with what we are thinking. For example, I might see and ocean of color and wavy lines that intersect multiple objects (the grass, the trees, and the sky) and come to the thought, "everything is connected." This experience is much stronger with the visual affirming the cognitive and vice-versa. You bring a good point by recognizing that both extremes are bad for the psychedelic experience.

But I still can't get over my prejudice that real life is much better experienced on psychedelics than virtual life (TV, video games, internet, etc).:D
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Would I be right in thinking it's the simpler aspects of nature that appeal on psychedelics to you? Or at least, the behaviourally simple aspects of nature (e.g. plants, minerals, animals you don't have to interact with.) If so, I think you may be comparing apples and oranges: the relatively simple beauties of nature and some of the most complex aspects of sensory/cognitive stimulation technology and artifice have to offer. Compare the appeal of remarkable piece of ceiling or rug, or the sound of music playing, to the sight of sky and grass or the sound of a bird, and you have a fairer comparison, perhaps. In my case, at least, I think it's more a matter of simple vs complex rather than natural vs artificial.
 
Well, I understand where you're coming from. But I do occasionally like to spend much of a trip watching TV... I love to analyze the state of our society through it. it can be very insightful. And sometimes it's nice to just laugh and get lost in the feelings. But I personally would certainly never want to do nothing but that, or to use it as a distraction.

But then, everyone has a right to use a chemical how they want to, I think, as long as they're not endangering or hurting others. It seems rather against the message you tend to get during those thoughts to judge someone because they don't share your aims in tripping. It is, however, certainly worth considering not tripping with such a person anymore, since all you'll really end up doing is cramping each others' styles. :)
 
The Simpsons or South Park on acid can be a phantasmagorical journey through space-time itself...
 
Xorketh said:
Well, I understand where you're coming from. But I do occasionally like to spend much of a trip watching TV... I love to analyze the state of our society through it. it can be very insightful. And sometimes it's nice to just laugh and get lost in the feelings. But I personally would certainly never want to do nothing but that, or to use it as a distraction.
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Completely agree. There have been times when I've almost felt guilty that I'll take acid just to get a new persperctive on things with no great planned spiritual element - a cheap night in, as it were. I also can get completely lost in television or whatever - not following a plot, more just using it as a springboard for ponderation. Also, acid is a lot of fun and, as tobala points out, watching a cartoon tripping can be as rewarding as spending a night in soul-searching sensory-deprivation.

I find acid goes with everything - the "deep" stuff just flows naturally whatever the initial inspiration is drawn from :).

Tobala: South Park on ketamine was a bit of a chore once - I got time-looped in a scene with Cartman. It was funny the first few hundred times and then started to wear a bit thin... Acid and tellybox - yes. Ketamine requires a bit more determination :D.
 
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Haha, well I really can't stand TV and haven't watched it in about 6 years (except for a few inadvertant seconds here and there). Advertisements can nearly make me physically ill.

There are always going to be clueless people having clueless trips. If it makes you feel any better, our couch potato friends are not contaminating any ethereal planes with their psychic junk, but rather are thrown into what my friends and I call "the playpen".

All the pretty colors you could ever want! If you're lucky, maybe you'll end up in an Alex Grey painting! Ooooooooh!

Just about everbody we meet these days, at festivals, etc., ends up in the playpen without even knowing it!

It's ok. Most plants and some chemicals have evolved filters or defense mechanisms to keep the rabble out. Sorry if that sounds elitist. But it's what I've learned from experience ( having been screened out by some filters several times myself). (Probably for my own good).

(Nothing against you TV watchers out there ;) )
 
Shambles: Well I never said the exercise was supposed to be easy...
 
I'm overly introspective while not tripping and I also don't like to limit myself in anyway. I don't find hefty doses of LSD enjoyable in a party atmosphere, but I do find myself connecting better and looking at social interaction, even apparently pointless social interaction, more positively.

That being said I'm not a big fan of people whom only take drugs to "get fucked up". Although I would guess a lot of those people put up a front that that is what they are doing. Even if that is their intent I think the drug can change that. Also it is pretty fucking pointless to get on a high-psychedelic-horse (although that does sound fun, "Whoa there, Nelly-sunshine! Whoaaaa!") I can understand your point. It is how I feel at most festivals when I'm not playing music. I just don't understand how people can feel that connected only bullshitting or existing shallowly. Even if intelligence is a construct there is something real that people understand or see as intelligence and that does separate people.

Peace,
PL
 
When I'm ready to go for the deep introspective journey I use the pretty colors to detach and disconnect. When I'm doing that I can't talk, and I like to dedicate portions of trips to that and sometimes I'm with people who need to do something the whole time because they're so hyper. I like to talk about life and reality on the come down while toking up.
 
"So, in summary, what you feel matters, what you think matters, what you see matters, what you hear matters: each of these modalities is capable of incredible richness alone, and of so much more in combination with each other. Cognition divorced from sensation is, I would contend, as impoverished as sensation divorced from cognition."

i agree with this i take psychs mainly for the visuals. but that doesnt mean i dont get any of the intropsective effects or any enrichment from the experience. if any thing it feels like the visuals have a correlation to the thoughts going through your head and that allows you to go further inside yourself. its all what your getting out of the visuals you see. some one could fee fractals infinitley increasing and decreasing dn be like "oooh preeeetty" or some one like myself could link that to the universe and how its infinitley growing and shrinking.

i remember one particular trip on mushrooms and 2ce where i had cevs and seen the said fractal it hought about how everything grows and shrinks infintley. like planets colonies/ societeys, people/animals, cells, atoms, protons, etc to planets solar systems galaxies, clusters, universes, dimensions. like where does it al end and begin
 
Ya just gotta say im one of the people who loooooove psycs for the visual. The mindfuck and general disscussions that go on durring a trip are normally wipped from my memory the next day, but all the actions and visuals that I saw remain. I like adventuring and stuff on psycs, but really I find it best to just sit back throw on some cartoons and play some games with friends while we all laugh at the different things we see.
 
Visual effects are a distraction for the most part; although I have to admit that at times they can be outright mesmerising. Still, the true psychedelic experience is mental...
 
There are many nice effects to psychedelics, beautyfull colors and patterns is one of those effects. But the deep, contemplating and philosophical side to psychedelic substances are more interestng than the visual part, imo.
 
I don't see why it even matters what people like to do on psychedelics as long as they aren't going out and doing retarded shit. If someone just wants to get really fucked up and look at the pretty colors, play video games, listen to music, etc and not try and experience the introspective side, I say fine.

They experience how they want to experience psychedelics, and I'll experience how I want to experience it.

You need to remember your mind doesn't equate to everyone else's.
 
I take psychedelics so I can trip.

If I wanted to see pretty colors I could just open a crayon box.
 
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