Foreigner
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2009
- Messages
- 8,297
This topic is going to weave science, philosophy, sprituality, and a lot of other things together. So bear with me.
I'll preface this by saying this topic is probably going to be purely subjective since I can't seem to find any concrete proof that LSD alters brain structure or causes any detectable physical damage. If there are scientists/researchers/profesionals on these boards who can say otherwise, I would really love to hear what you have to say because it might add more concrete aspects to the discussion. I'll also add that I am a medical professional trained in observation, inquiry, and empirical evaluation with a lot of personal experience with psychedelics.
I have a friend who does LSD in excess of 1000ug on a monthly basis, if not twice monthly. In fairness to him, he has a rapid metabolism so these higher doses are probably not the equivalent to someone with a slower metabolism doing them. He also does them as a form of migraine prevention since his migraines last for 3-4 days and he is physically debilitated for much of that time. This treatment seems to work for him, and I have verified that ergot derivatives have indeed been used for migraines.
I've accompanied this friend a handful of times in these very high-dose LSD trips. They were riveting, unfolding, and cosmic learning experiences. They have changed my life forever and I am very grateful for these experiences. Eventually though, I had a psychotic break because of this, and I no longer follow my friend down this deep rabbit hole. My friend, however, has been doing this for years, and that's what brings me to this thread.
My friend exhibits a lot of memory loss, makes gradios claims about other dimensions and overlaying/parallel realities, claims contact with beings from other dimensions, and even has waking visions about these things. I have brought up the possibility of acid flashbacks but he insists they are not. The thing is, on such high doses of LSD I have also had contact with other beings. I don't claim to know whether they were real or imagined - at this point it makes no difference - but at the time it FELT real, and divine. It's hard for me to cross-examine my friend because we both have a lot of shared experiences in that department. However, unlike him, I find such high doses of LSD extremely catabolic and it takes me days to recover from the initial trip, but then a couple of months to feel like I'm really back on the ground again. (I'm assuming this is because of extreme neurotransmitter activity?)
So... I open this discussion to all kinds of angles... scientific, spiritual, psychological, etc. I want to know if such high doses are brain damaging or at least permanently brain altering, and if they can cause long term psychotic disorders or at least a permanent delusional perception of reality. I know this question gets asked often, but we're talking high doses here -- at least 1000ug, but often more. Is it possible to be an "LSD burnout" from this?
Second question is, is it useful to interrogate the new perceptions that LSD opens up if we cannot even determine whether or not they are real? For instance, I have seen human auras since birth and I know this to be "real" because I have met other aura readers and we have observed identical phenomena in realtime together, and also because the auras have practical applications (i.e. human health, social situations) that are identical across many experiments. Yet, to some who can't see auras, or empiricists, I could be crazy. So, similarly, if a group of people do high dose LSD trips together and experience similar phenomena across many trips (or even outside of trips), are they qualitatively delusional, or is the idea of "delusion" merely based on societal norms?
I ask all this because sometimes I am very worried about my friend because of the things he says, but at the same time I know how powerfully transformative and vivid LSD can be -- can I really be the authority on what is real and what is not? I know in psychiatric fields, pathology is generally ascribed to dysfunction, i.e. a lot of people hear voices but they only receive a medical diagnosis if they can no longer function in the world due to those voices. My friend is pretty functional, but I still have a hard time judging how "sane" he is sometimes.
Thoughts on this?
I'll preface this by saying this topic is probably going to be purely subjective since I can't seem to find any concrete proof that LSD alters brain structure or causes any detectable physical damage. If there are scientists/researchers/profesionals on these boards who can say otherwise, I would really love to hear what you have to say because it might add more concrete aspects to the discussion. I'll also add that I am a medical professional trained in observation, inquiry, and empirical evaluation with a lot of personal experience with psychedelics.
I have a friend who does LSD in excess of 1000ug on a monthly basis, if not twice monthly. In fairness to him, he has a rapid metabolism so these higher doses are probably not the equivalent to someone with a slower metabolism doing them. He also does them as a form of migraine prevention since his migraines last for 3-4 days and he is physically debilitated for much of that time. This treatment seems to work for him, and I have verified that ergot derivatives have indeed been used for migraines.
I've accompanied this friend a handful of times in these very high-dose LSD trips. They were riveting, unfolding, and cosmic learning experiences. They have changed my life forever and I am very grateful for these experiences. Eventually though, I had a psychotic break because of this, and I no longer follow my friend down this deep rabbit hole. My friend, however, has been doing this for years, and that's what brings me to this thread.
My friend exhibits a lot of memory loss, makes gradios claims about other dimensions and overlaying/parallel realities, claims contact with beings from other dimensions, and even has waking visions about these things. I have brought up the possibility of acid flashbacks but he insists they are not. The thing is, on such high doses of LSD I have also had contact with other beings. I don't claim to know whether they were real or imagined - at this point it makes no difference - but at the time it FELT real, and divine. It's hard for me to cross-examine my friend because we both have a lot of shared experiences in that department. However, unlike him, I find such high doses of LSD extremely catabolic and it takes me days to recover from the initial trip, but then a couple of months to feel like I'm really back on the ground again. (I'm assuming this is because of extreme neurotransmitter activity?)
So... I open this discussion to all kinds of angles... scientific, spiritual, psychological, etc. I want to know if such high doses are brain damaging or at least permanently brain altering, and if they can cause long term psychotic disorders or at least a permanent delusional perception of reality. I know this question gets asked often, but we're talking high doses here -- at least 1000ug, but often more. Is it possible to be an "LSD burnout" from this?
Second question is, is it useful to interrogate the new perceptions that LSD opens up if we cannot even determine whether or not they are real? For instance, I have seen human auras since birth and I know this to be "real" because I have met other aura readers and we have observed identical phenomena in realtime together, and also because the auras have practical applications (i.e. human health, social situations) that are identical across many experiments. Yet, to some who can't see auras, or empiricists, I could be crazy. So, similarly, if a group of people do high dose LSD trips together and experience similar phenomena across many trips (or even outside of trips), are they qualitatively delusional, or is the idea of "delusion" merely based on societal norms?
I ask all this because sometimes I am very worried about my friend because of the things he says, but at the same time I know how powerfully transformative and vivid LSD can be -- can I really be the authority on what is real and what is not? I know in psychiatric fields, pathology is generally ascribed to dysfunction, i.e. a lot of people hear voices but they only receive a medical diagnosis if they can no longer function in the world due to those voices. My friend is pretty functional, but I still have a hard time judging how "sane" he is sometimes.
Thoughts on this?
It's his process for evaluating these experiences after the fact that determines whether they can be successfully integrated over time, or will ultimately turn into a spritual crisis that he can't handle.
