Social The Delphic Oracle - Know Thyself: P&S Social Ampitheatre of Doom

[ebola?]

Mr. Bungle

I'm into "Disco Volante"--Zorn + Patton is something else. . .

ebola

 

[psychedelicsoul]

I did DXM and marathoned this show in one sitting... I like how DXM just turns me into a zombie when I do it in lower dosages. I kinda fear higher dosages and am afraid of OD'ing.

I'm curious, how accurate is the DXM calculator? I feel to get a 3rd or 4th plateu trip I'd be taking a whole bunch and could OD... Anyone ever OD, how much did you take. I wanna feel reassured that higher dosages aren't that dangerous.

 

[ebola?]

I'm curious, how accurate is the DXM calculator?

Not very, as responses to dissociatives can be pretty idiosyncratic (particularly if we include atypical metabolizers).

Anyone ever OD, how much did you take.

They can't tell you because they're dead.
No, DXM has a pretty wide therapeutic index, so physiological overdose tends to occur at (well)over 2 gm. (assuming that you're not a poor metabolizer). However, at the 4th plateau and above, it's very useful to have a trip sitter who makes sure that you don't aspirate on vomit.

ebola

 

[psychedelicsoul]

They can't tell you because they're dead.
No, DXM has a pretty wide therapeutic index, so physiological overdose tends to occur at (well)over 2 gm. (assuming that you're not a poor metabolizer). However, at the 4th plateau and above, it's very useful to have a trip sitter who makes sure that you don't aspirate on vomit.

ebola

Not every overdose results in death. I was wondering if a whole 8 oz bottle of robotussin is bad for you.

Also, I've done acid, mixed with spice. As well as 4-8 oz of DXM mixed with spice. I've done even crazier things I don't remember... DXM, weed, alcohol, and acid together... And I've never needed a trip sitter

 

[pharmakos]

i've gone as high as 2.2grams of DXM and lived to tell the tale

i had a tolerance though. but even with my tolerance it was incredibly intense. not for the faint of heart.

 

[swilow]

^Nice name change

 

[pharmakos]

Pharmākos, in Greek religion, a human scapegoat used in certain state rituals. In Athens, for example, a man and a woman who were considered ugly were selected as scapegoats each year. At the festival of the Thargelia in May or June, they were feasted, led round the town, beaten with green twigs, and driven out or killed with stones. The practice in Colophon, on the coast of Asia Minor (the part of modern Turkey that lies in Asia) was described by the 6th-century-bc poet Hipponax (fragments 5–11). An especially ugly man was honoured by the community with a feast of figs, barley soup, and cheese. Then he was whipped with fig branches, with care that he was hit seven times on his phallus, before being driven out of town. (Medieval sources said that the Colophonian pharmākos was burned and his ashes scattered in the sea.) The custom was meant to rid the place annually of ill luck.

The 5th-century Athenian practice of ostracism has been described as a rationalized and democratic form of the custom. The biblical practice of driving the scapegoat from the community, described in Leviticus 16, gave a name to this widespread custom, which was said by the French intellectual René Girard to explain the basis of all human societies.

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A pharmakós (Greek: φαρμακός, plural pharmakoi) in Ancient Greek religion was the ritualistic sacrifice or exile of a human scapegoat or victim.

A slave, a cripple or a criminal was chosen and expelled from the community at times of disaster (famine, invasion or plague) or at times of calendrical crisis. It was believed that this would bring about purification. On the first day of the Thargelia, a festival of Apollo at Athens, two men, the Pharmakoi, were led out as if to be sacrificed as an expiation.

Some scholia state that pharmakoi were actually sacrificed (thrown from a cliff or burned), but many modern scholars reject this, arguing that the earliest source for the pharmakos (the iambic satirist Hipponax) shows the pharmakoi being beaten and stoned, but not executed. A more plausible explanation would be that sometimes they were executed and sometimes not, depending on the attitude of the victim. For instance, a deliberate unrepentant murderer would most likely be put to death.[citation needed]

In Aesop in Delphi (1961), Anton Wiechers discussed the parallels between the legendary biography of Aesop (in which he is unjustly tried and executed by the Delphians) and the pharmakos ritual. For example, Aesop is grotesquely deformed, as was the pharmakoi in some traditions; and Aesop was thrown from a cliff, as was the pharmakoi in some traditions.

Gregory Nagy, in Best of the Achaeans (1979), compared Aesop’s pharmakos death to the “worst” of the Achaeans in the Iliad, Thersites. More recently, both Daniel Ogden, The Crooked Kings of Ancient Greece (1997) and Todd Compton, Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero (2006) examine poet pharmakoi. Compton surveys important poets who were exiled, executed or suffered unjust trials, either in history, legend or Greek or Indo-European myth.

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[1] The chain, pharmakeia-pharmakon-pharmakeus, appears several times in Plato's texts. A word not directly or literally used by Plato is pharmakos, which means 'scapegoat'. According to Derrida, that it is not used by Plato does not indicate that the word is necessarily absent. Certain forces of association unite the words that are 'actually present' in a text with all the other words in the lexical system, whether or not they appear as words in such discourse. The textual chain is not simply 'internal' to Plato's lexicon. One can say that all the 'pharmaceutical' words do actually make themselves present in the text. 'It is in the back room, in the shadows of the pharmacy, prior to the oppositions between conscious and unconscious, freedom and constraint, voluntary and involuntary, speech and language, that these textual 'operations' occur' (Dissemination, p.129). Derrida places the opposites, presence-absence and inside-outside, under great pressure. If the word pharmakos that Plato does not use still resonates within the text, then there can be no matter of a text being closed upon itself. What do 'absent' and 'present' mean when the outside is always already part of the inside, at work on the inside?

[2] In ancient Athens, the character and the ritual of the pharmakos had the task of expelling and shutting out the evil (out of the body and out of the city). The Athenians maintained several outcasts at the public expense. When plague, famine, drought or other calamities befell the city, they sacrificed some of the outcasts as a purification and a remedy. The pharmakos, the scapegoat, was led to the outside of the city and killed in order to purify the city's interior. The evil that had affected the inside of the city from the outside, was thus returned to the outside in order to protect the inside. But the representative of the outside (the pharmakos) was nonetheless kept in the very heart of the inside, the city. In order to be led out of the city, the scapegoat must have already been within the city. 'The ceremony of the pharmakos is thus played out on the boundary line between the inside and the outside, which it has as its function ceaselessly to trace and retrace' (Dissemination, p.133). At the same time, the pharmakos is on the borderl between sacred and cursed, '... beneficial insofar as he cures - and for that, venerated and cared for - harmful insofar as he incarnates the powers of evil - and for that, feared and treated with caution' (Dissemination, p.133). He is the benefactor who heals and he is the criminal who incarnates the powers of evil. The pharmakos is like a medicine in that he 'cures' the impurity of the city, but he is, at the same time, a poison, an evil. Pharmakos. Pharmakon. Undecidables. Both words carry within themselves more than one meaning. Conflicting meanings.

[3] Pharmakos does not only mean scapegoat. It is also synonymous for pharmakeus, or wizard, magician, poisoner. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates is often portrayed as a pharmakeus. Socrates is considered as one who knows how to perform magic with words. His words act as a pharmakon (as a remedy, or as a poison?) and permeate the soul of the listener. In Phaedrus, he fiercely objects to the ill effects of writing. He compares writing to a pharmakon, a drug, a poison: writing repeats without knowing. Socrates suggests a different pharmakon, a medicine: dialectics, the philosophical dialogue. This, he claims, can lead one to true knowledge, the truth of the eidos, that which is identical to itself, always the same as itself, invariable. This is the message of Socrates to the city of Athens. He acts as a magician (pharmakos) - Socrates himself speaks about a divine or supernatural voice that comes to him - and his most famous medicine (pharmakon) is speech, dialectics and dialogue that will lead to knowledge and truth.

But Socrates also becomes Athen's most famous 'other' pharmakos, the scapegoat. He becomes a stranger, even an enemy who does not speak the proper language of the other citizens. He is an other; not the absolute other, the barbarian, but the other (the outside) who is very near, who is already on the inside. According to several prominent Athenians, he was of bad moral and political influence. His constant criticism undermined the faith in democracy of many Athenians. In 399 BC, Socrates was charged with introducing new gods and corrupting the young and sentenced to death. Having accused him as a force of evil, Athens killed him to keep itself intact. Athens kills the pharmakos (both the magician and the scapegoat).

 

[ebola?]

Not every overdose results in death.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, but my point was that there's a wide gradient between optimal dosage and a proper physiological overdose, the far end of this gradient representing dangerously high dosages that are to be avoided as well.

I was wondering if a whole 8 oz bottle of robotussin is bad for you.

Oh, this is nowhere near an overdose. . .

And I've never needed a trip sitter

On a solid 4th plateau dosage, you won't know where your body is. If you vomit in such a situation sans sitter, things could end badly. . .

ebola

 

[psychedelicsoul]

Oh, this is nowhere near an overdose. . .

Yea, but are there ways to treat sickness.



On a solid 4th plateau dosage, you won't know where your body is. If you vomit in such a situation sans sitter, things could end badly. . .

I know... I've done a lot of spice. Personally when I did spice and DXM, I didn't vomit but I felt like I was on some DMT type shit. It wasn't a lot of DXM, but it was an insane trip and if my mind wasn't so fucked up, it would have scared me a lot.
I have gotten drunk and woke up next to vomit.
Sometimes I feel like I need a sitter for emotional support, but I don't have a girlfriend, and getting emotional during a bad trip with my male best friend sounds kinda gay to me.
So there's no way I'd have a trip sitter. If a trip makes me emotional I might say some shit I shouldn't or cry in front of another person, which I never wanna do.

 

[ebola?]

Sometimes I feel like I need a sitter for emotional support

Honestly, you might have trouble interacting with them or even maintaining awareness of their presence.

getting emotional during a bad trip with my male best friend sounds kinda gay to me.

Jesus, dude! Your level of sexual repression is actually leading to more generalized psychological maladjustment. Fear of intimacy is the chief obstacle to one's ability to forge meaningful, supportive relationships; in a lot of cases, getting 'kinda gay' is really healthy!

say some shit I shouldn't or cry in front of another person, which I never wanna do.

Look, a lot of the time, I'm also worried about 'saying the wrong shit' or crying (in front of anyone). But it is usually beneficial when you actually do. . .


ebola

 

[tantric]

in reply to ForEverAfter. perhaps we could ask a mod to move this to a better forum?

this is why i'm not like you, and why your experiences don't apply to me: low latent inhibition

As you grow, the mind learns to label objects and filter out extraneous information. This filtering process is called ‘latent inhibition’ – and it means that the conscious mind is only aware of a fraction of the data being processed by the brain. In some rare cases, the ability to filter incoming data is decreased. People with LLI (low latent inhibition) are incapable of seeing things in terms of labels.

They notice an awful lot more. Reality becomes more vivid and alive. Everyone has different levels of latent inhibition. It can become a problem if the inhibition process is radically decreased. LLI is not a disease. You do not suffer from it. It is a dysfunction that has both positive and negative sides.

For most people, reality is experienced piecemeal, since they concentrate on one task at the exclusion of other things. While typing on the computer, hearing diminishes, smell diminishes – the awareness is narrowed.

With LLI this is not the case at all. The input is constant. Your awareness does not fluctuate. It only oscillates between hyper-awareness and extreme-awareness – with the latter being something to be concerned about. LLI puts you in touch with the raw immediacy of reality.

The overwhelming sensory input means that you experience everything simultaneously: the humming of the computer, the flickering of the monitor, the feel of the clothing you wear, your emotions, the bird in your garden, the smell of coffee… Every minuscule detail happening around you is felt in its entirety.

This does not mean that you read every word and remember every facet…but you do see it, smell it, hear it, taste it and feel it. The information is absorbed, and your mind is sponge-like in its capacity to pick things up. You learn from them, and demonstrate new insights and understanding.

There are pros and cons to having LLI, as you will soon see:

Pros:

You notice more, hear more, smell more and feel more through tactile contact. Without any conscious effort, your mind is in possession of a broader intake of information.

Upon encountering any form of stimulus (that interests you), your mind automatically dismantles and explores its components.

You usually see through the lies and the deceptions that people use in everyday life. If you’ve watched the show Lie to Me, they would call you a “natural”.

When learning, you can often make instantaneous changes. Adaptation is easy.

Self-correction is easy because the underlying principle is more evident. Clearer.

You make connections and associations between seemingly unrelated material.

Comprehension is typically easy. You notice the non-verbal background information and this often provides a more comprehensive picture than what is being spoken.

There are exponential leaps of insight taking place all the time, with the background reasoning intact. Wave-upon-wave of permutations, options, variables and choices.

Creativity is a given. You see alternatives.

You notice things that other people miss

Leaps of logic are common. Instead of progressing A,B,C,D and onward, you skip from A to N to Z, accurately.

There is no talking voice in your head. No ‘chattering monkey’. The volume and complexity of the information at times drowns out conscious thought entirely.

You see the world more thoroughly.

Learning is not limited to defined periods of academic study. The assimilation of information is constant, ongoing and never static. There are no lulls or pauses. Everything offers a lesson.

Within the maelstrom of information there exists a place of calm and quietude. The eye of the storm. No verbalization exists. No internal narrative. Just presence. No sense of self to intrude of interrupt.

Cons:

Education is awkward. Schools are not set-up to cater with this condition. The way in which things are approached by schools seems piecemeal and incomplete.

Listening to other people talking/thinking aloud can be infuriating. They are at point A when you have reached point N or Z already.

It is difficult to write/type/speak quickly enough to articulate ideas and the breadth of the permutations involved. Verbalizing what takes place in your mind is impossible. Words render only a fraction of the entirety.

Tact is necessary since people lie constantly.

LLI makes driving a car difficult. Your brain notices countless dangers and variables, and you become overwhelmed and nervous. You are either a terrible driver, or an incredibly good one.

Hyper-vigilance can lead to anxiety, and sometimes OCD-like tendencies.

Illusions are not very effective. You see through things without wanting to. Conventions and traditions have no significance.

You do not value what other people value, and often feel truly unique/alone.

Filtering out the variables and honing your options to something workable can be very difficult. Every solution potentially harbors new problems, new variables and new concerns.

People may find you to be a little odd, unorthodox or a little intense.

You have a habit of saying things that do not fit the accepted norm of behavior. You often choose to disregard conventions because they serve no constructive purpose.

Background noise is a major problem. Noisy neighbors can cause serious stress.

So that is that, a nice summary of what it means to have LLI. It made my childhood, especially school, absolute hell (for example, I got along with adults much better than kids, and I could read at a college graduate level in 5th grade). I saw doctors constantly, and was diagnosed with everything under the sun, since little was known of LLI at the time (heck, little is still known).

-from LLI website

LLI manifests in me in a special way, in Dungeons and Dragons terms, i'm a druid, ie, a priest of nature. my mother was a talented horticulturist, my father an expert farmer. i have both gifts, and the synergy. as i write this, i'm looking at the aquarium i built recently, mostly from leftover junk. most aquariums are cages for fish. mine is a closed ecosystem. it is VIBRANT with life energy. i started from a jar of pondwater and slowly complexified the ecosystem over the months. there is no artificial filtration, chemical, mechanical or biological. it runs off light and water-movement. i feel the cycle in intuitively and i've balanced it so that very little outside input is required - i don't even do water changes. my garden is the same - it thrives. everything i put my touch into grows. mentally ill people can create great art, as can addicts, but they can't do this. i know, because i can't do it will addicted - it sucks that energy away.VIRIDITAS.

this has nothing to do with DXM - i created ecosystems before i ever tasted it. its my natural gift, but it's double edged, like all true gifts. i see cycles, webs of energy and dependence in everything. outside, in a fairly healthy area, it's bliss. inside a mass consumption market, it's like looking into hell. it *hurts*. walking through a shopping mall, where everything is designed to appeal and create calm, is like watching a avalanche or a trainwreck. VERY stressful. the same with groups of people who aren't aligned - people are like a firehoses of information in the face. i hate it and if at all possible, i won't go near it. i spent a large part of my early life desperately avoiding such things. it was usually called depression, even though when i was in a good space or alone, i was happy. now they want to say 'social anxiety' - also wrong. there's nothing wrong with me, people - it's y'all.

DXM is an anaesthetic. that's what it does for me. long before i every heard of LLI, i called being without DXM 'bare-brained', as in i went around like an open, raw nerve all the time. and it wasn't the trip that was the miracle, it was the afterglow the next few days. it was like a veil had been draped over all that raw seething self-destructive chaos that is modern society. i could go out and do shit - it wasn't pretty, but it didn't *hurt*. yet, at the same time, when i'm in a natural setting, i feel more love. it's not just beautiful, i care about it. i have empathy. and still, things like natural camouflage flat don't work on me. nothing in nature is hidden. i amazed my ecology profs with that bit - they came to rely on it on outtings, how i could find stuff.

with that veil, i'm not the recluse anymore, equipped with a super IQ and no way or will to put it to use. i go into society and show what i can do, and it's wonderful. i'm not healed, because while LLI is different, its not a disease that needs fixing, it just presents some challenges. no, not healed - augmented. made more capable. i went from being a person who simply could not hold down a steady job to getting into a phd program in a subject i'd never formally studied, and making it work. admittedly, i bit off more than i could chew there, but still, i make the job that lead to it and the program itself function beautifully for five years. and it wasn't a nightmare of stress, it was fun.

so, do you really think i'm going to give that up based on your opinions?

 

[psychedelicsoul]

Honestly, you might have trouble interacting with them or even maintaining awareness of their presence.

good point.

Jesus, dude! Your level of sexual repression is actually leading to more generalized psychological maladjustment. Fear of intimacy is the chief obstacle to one's ability to forge meaningful, supportive relationships; in a lot of cases, getting 'kinda gay' is really healthy!

I don't know, it just sounds like a really embarrassing ordeal. I mean... I believe in the golden rule. I don't want to be trip sitting someone and they get emotional and wanna hug me or something. Therefore, I don't want to do the same to someone else. It just sounds... really awkward. I prefer just doing it with a pillow.
When I'm around others, I tend to be more emotional, but when I'm alone, I can suppress emotions easierly.

 

[pharmakos]

psychedelicsoul, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

 

[psychedelicsoul]

psychedelicsoul, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

19
If I don't act my age it's because I've spend my whole childhood on drugs. I'm in the middle of a DXM trip now, and I'm doing some self-exploration. I feel naked. I feel like my mind is like an open network, like the internet. My mind feels sort of vast. I'm not sure how to describe it, but like the universe as it expands into eternity. I just feel like my mind is an endless void like that.
I think maybe we are a universe unto ourselves. Our mind is that universe. Our imagination is like the universe. I think the structure of our mind and that of the universe are similar. In that sense, there is a "muliverse", it's just a spectrum of broad perceptions strung across an abstract network. I feel like I'm moving deeper into that void. I feel like I've broken past my minds barriors and I'm going deeper within myself. I can see myself in an abstract way and examine my slowed down thoughts in greater detail.
It all feels so big, and I so small.

 

[psychedelicsoul]

Its our souls... All of our souls are a universe. Your conciounsess is a universe. We're all part of one universe. We are all one soul. The universe and everthing in it make up a single soul. That is a souln within another soul. In each soul there is a universe, in each unverse there are souls, in those souls there are universes...

Our imagination is just a viewfinder of the universe existing within us.

 

[ForEverAfter]

19
If I don't act my age

I would have guessed 18/19, based on how you've been acting.

I don't want to be trip sitting someone and they get emotional and wanna hug me or something.

The only reason I can see why this would bother you is if you're worried about feeling sexual attraction, so - for the thousandth time since I met you - I'm going to, yet again, assume that you're still gay/bisexual despite insisting that you've successfully tortured it out of yourself. I have never seen a remotely convincing case of anyone scaring themselves straight; you are far from the exception.

 

[psychedelicsoul]

The only reason I can see why this would bother you is if you're worried about feeling sexual attraction, so - for the thousandth time since I met you - I'm going to, yet again, assume that you're still gay/bisexual despite insisting that you've successfully tortured it out of yourself. I have never seen a remotely convincing case of anyone scaring themselves straight; you are far from the exception.

That's complete bullshit. I've never wanted to express my emotions so openly like that. It's just not in character of me. And yes I did fix myself. It's what makes me worthly of breathing, eating, and drinking.
And there's plenty of cases where people have changed their sexuality, we just choose not to believe them.
Listen, I honestly don't' give a damn what you think, I know the truth.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Lets not forget that there is a certain irony in using a dissociatives like DXM to access non-ordinary states. What do you value more, the anesthesia or the consciousness? If you anesthetize yourself so you can go deeper then there is no need for heroic doses. I discovered this with nitrous a long time ago. Dose and let the breathwork do the rest. I use breathwork to keep the focus because a) you replace thoughts with breathing b) you breath into sensations/feelings/condensed thought-forms to help them reveal themselves. I use breathwork with that intent. Give me access. Ease the barrier that keeps them locked away and let me breath into it. That is what I did. I don't like to discuss dosages much, but too much man, too much. I took too much. Lol

Psychedelicsoul, you are a sensitive person in spite of everything you say. The lengths to which you have gone to preserve contradictory ideas in a self-consistent framework is a testament to your power. If it works for you, good, I don't care to tell you otherwise. Are you trying to convince us though that yours is an easier path? You found healing in self-torture. People are gonna feel offended in a forum dedicated to harm reduction if you expose these views. All I can say is if you trust what is unfolding more organically the contradiction heals itself on its own, and it won't require so much effort. That's my experience at least. Yours is valid too, but consider the teenager at home struggling with their own sexuality and reading you words. If you loved them, would you still advocate your path to them, when the truth is that there are many truths.

 

[psychedelicsoul]

Lets not forget that there is a certain irony in using a dissociatives like DXM to access non-ordinary states. What do you value more, the anesthesia or the consciousness? If you anesthetize yourself so you can go deeper then there is no need for heroic doses. I discovered this with nitrous a long time ago. Dose and let the breathwork do the rest. I use breathwork to keep the focus because a) you replace thoughts with breathing b) you breath into sensations/feelings/condensed thought-forms to help them reveal themselves. I use breathwork with that intent. Give me access. Ease the barrier that keeps them locked away and let me breath into it. That is what I did. I don't like to discuss dosages much, but too much man, too much. I took too much. Lol

I disagree. I find more merit in deep thinking during trips than I do with simply being in a trance.

Psychedelicsoul, you are a sensitive person in spite of everything you say. The lengths to which you have gone to preserve contradictory ideas in a self-consistent framework is a testament to your power. If it works for you, good, I don't care to tell you otherwise. Are you trying to convince us though that yours is an easier path?

For me it was easier.

You found healing in self-torture. People are gonna feel offended in a forum dedicated to harm reduction if you expose these views. All I can say is if you trust what is unfolding more organically the contradiction heals itself on its own, and it won't require so much effort. That's my experience at least. Yours is valid too, but consider the teenager at home struggling with their own sexuality and reading you words. If you loved them, would you still advocate your path to them, when the truth is that there are many truths.

By all means yes. I would hands down recommend my methods to another teenager. If it doesn't work for them, then they'll give up. But if it does work for them, they'll be rewarded a greater sense of pride.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I find more merit in deep thinking during trips than I do with simply being in a trance.

To each their own. I'll respect your views. Enjoy and I will too. I'll just say that to me being is more powerful than thinking. I AM. Trance doesn't do it justice, though there are trances along the way too. Seeing past the trances is healing to me. I do my best thinking about it after the experience is over. Sometime you just gotta pour something into a container so it can grow before sharing it. Before then it's usually just ego talking. Speaking for my experience, not yours.