Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley
wsj.comMy experience is that drugs, including prescription anti-depressants, when they work, make it easier to see that your thinking is more arbitrary than you realize. Having been seemingly locked-in to a particular perspective, taking a drug, and seeing things a different way, breaks the lock. Then you can't go back to your old thought patterns, not if you're honest with yourself. This effect is independent of the particular effects that occur while the drug is active in your system.
Not only can you not go back, you oftentimes find yourself frustrated with people who remain locked into arbitrary thinking. Hence the proselytizing by the psychonauts, free your head and all that.
I’m going to dissent from the rest of the commentators and propose that a priest, a friend, a parent, somatic therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, etc, is likely still a healthier approach than papering over social ignorance or pathologies with psychoactive drugs. Though, I don’t align at all with chemical interventions in these sorts of things so I’m in a minority.
I'm going to offer a counter point, in that all those solutions either require you to know where you want to go, or are entirely dependent on someone else's influence and opinions, as opposed to you having epiphanies from your own experiences and trains of thought.
Ibiza should really be the new Silicon Valley if this was true, anecdotally.
I think using chemicals like this can be a shortcut. Might be useful, might be dangerous.
I would venture further and say there are no shortcuts if you want to be successful and doing permanent and irreversible damage to yourself is not going to get you there. Success is rooted in persistence and consistency, not seeing hallucinations.
Way to moralize the issue.
No doubt, but the issue is that many just switch to other pointless thought patterns and look down on people with the "wrong" patterns.
A lot of people believe they found *the* objective truth while high, and because of that they turn arrogant afterward toward experiences/thoughts of others.
I've had friends who started acting like that, I once did myself, believing that they had found the one truth other people hadn't found, but since my friend group is generally honest and real with each other, we've helped them down from their arrogance.
However, I think it can be hard for people like CEOs, surrounded by sycophantic bootlickers, to realize that. They'll quickly be convinced by their own hubris.
This aligns with my experience and you've articulated well something that I've felt for years without being able to properly explain
nice insight BUT, "drugs" are vastly different. That statement is reminiscent of a mostly-sedentary adult "discovering" exercise. The followup is "just do exercise!!" .. points for the effort, but it is a single step, not a journey.
"drugs" are an extension of "food" and "breathing" .. what ? everyone agrees that you have to eat, and people do.. yet the details of eating, and what you eat, are massively varied.. too varied to make meaningful generalizations on a text forum. Similarly, when you ingest "stuff" there are complicated interactions that happen without consciously knowing it.. the edge of those interactions are what you are calling "drugs"
Lastly, some of the old herbal drugs were awful, and we are evolving past those.. but, some of the new synthesized drugs are more awful.. some of them are being used by millions right now.
Thus “teacher” plants, medicines, substances.
What a bunch of corporate nonsense...
it seems that many people in the west always try to find the _magic pill_, something you can swallow and forget, but in reality what's need to change is the way of living. You cannot expect working 16 hours a day, being stressed whole day, take acid on the weekend and make it go away.
in addition this article is evil, since psychedelics are not for everyone, it requires a specific state of mind to actually benefit and learn from them in the long run.
I am an avid user (LSD), was an abuser, I had lost 4 friends to crazy...
also, Ketamine is not a psychedelic and is bad for you in non small usages.
Ketamine is a psychedelic, just not a "classical" one that operates the same receptors as LSD/mushrooms. Or rather, whether or not it is a psychedelic is a semantic argument, and it still makes you hallucinate. MDMA is another "non-classical" psychedelic.
Me personally, and many others don't count ketamine and both MDMA as psychedelics, because there is no _mind manifestation_.
LSD, DMT, psylocibyn, salvia, mescaline, and probably more, these are psychedelics.
Not quite sure what you mean by "mind manifestation"? MDMA has significant impacts on your emotional and mental state, and also causes strong audiovisual hallucinations, disorientation and loss of self. What extra experiential effects would you ascribe to a classic psychedelic that aren't found in non-psychedelics?
Generally there's either the experiential (e.g. do you hallucinate?) definition, which regards MDMA, THC etc as psychedelics or the receptor-based definition, which excludes them.
hallucinations are different from mind manifestation which occur from using psychedelia.
you can hallucinate as bat shit crazy from alcohol, does it mean it's a psychedelic? you can "hallucinate" in deep states of meditation, does it mean you took something?
I think that the notion that MDMA is psychedelia, is something which sprang up quite recently.
when I mean mind manifestation are the visions, patterns, realization, interventions, strong sensory "signals" you are getting by taking a decent amount under the correct circumstances.
personally, I don't like to speak about this subject, "this is psy and this is not psy", to each is own, but I strongly disagree about the term.
in any case, if it does good for a person, it does not matter what it is... it's just a problem confusing the two, since these are different groups with totally different outcomes.
edit, comment:
you will never see a full blown circus with upside down clowns juggling skulls and candy going on unicycles on a short pink white stripes roller coaster showing you the finger but in the other hand are very happy you are there, when using either MDMA or Ketamine.
I call the place shpongle land, been there several times, always happy to be back.
Ketamine is a dissociative not a psychedelic in any sense. "visions" on Ketamine are more akin to sensory deprivation tanks than to LSD.
I find traditional psychedelics to be far too powerful for myself. I have an issue with letting go, and ego-death is not a fun experience for me. It would be great if I learned to let go, and "go with the flow," but my anxiety just doesn't allow me to do this.
I have found lower doses of THC <= 5mg allows me to self reflect on my current situation, and gives me a sort of "vacation" from my normal way of thinking, without completely blowing away my sense of reality. For a few hours I can meditate to music, tap into a more creative artistic side with painting, and leave the stress of the day behind me. The next day I wake up recharged with a better way of thinking about my day. Of course, THC is a mild psychedelic, but I don't get the extreme paranoia or anxiety of complete ego dissolution. I have not tried microdosing, but perhaps that could have a more lasting effect. The last thing I want is to need medication just to perform at work. I have generalized anxiety disorder, and the THC seems to help in all aspects of that anxiety, not just work related.
Since getting into weed, it's surprised me how little the anxiety-inducing effects of psychedelics are brought up. I tried smoking non-medicinal weed for the first time recently and was not prepared for the massive panic attack that I had when taking what would be considered a typical dose of THC (10mg). Psychedelics cause a very different kind of loss of control from what you get on alcohol that my mind just does not seem capable of handling.
I've probed other people about the anxiety and fear I experienced, and have since learned that it's actually a fairly common feeling that even experienced users get. However, it's just considered part of the trip and requires experience to understand how to manage it. I wish I could reach a tolerance level that would allow me to have a more reliably enjoyable psychedelic experience, because I feel like I'm missing out on something that so many others seem to get positive results from.
I'm definitely not suggesting that you continue to use it if you aren't getting good results. With that said, I would try taking at least a 1:1 dose of CBD with it, as well as starting at a very small THC dosage. You can always take more, but never less. When I used larger dosages, I had full blown panic attacks that mimicked the type I had on large doses of LSD. I enjoy using edibles from a legit shop, because I can tell exactly how many milligrams are in each one. I will commonly take a 5mg edible and divide it into thirds, and may take two thirds over the course of 5 to 6 hours.
Okay, let me see if I can explain it this way.
Thoughts are nothing but a chemical reaction happening in your brain.
Some thoughts (That are worth having IMO) are impossible to have without a chemical catalyst.
Without certain chemicals, you can't have certain thoughts.
You can't just 'think of anything you want' because you are bound by the laws of chemistry playing out in your brain, and, to go one step further: you can't even control the thoughts you will have next.
Chemistry is what's running the show.
> Without certain chemicals, you can't have certain thoughts.
Well put and true -- just like machines let us do certain things we couldn't do without them (either extending or repairing our body/mind), the same for chemicals. But I don't agree that this obviously follows:
> Chemistry is what's running the show.
It all depends on what you define as the show. I would prefer to think of the show as something that takes place outside of my head and, even assuming it is reducible to chemistry/physics, it's part of a system way to complex for us to understand with mechanical models and necessitates some sort of framework where each individual is an end unto themselves.
Drugs can go a long way to recreate the sensations similar to sympathy and possibly even jumpstart it, but they can't actually create the intellectual side of the link that creates real living relationship in the real world. Having the tools to decouple the feelings from the meat of the relationship could be a powerful tool in the right hands, but applied by misguided people it will make things worse.
... to put it another way, it seems like the elite and the most poor are both using more drugs. But instead of solidarity it seems there's even more of a disconnect.
> It all depends on what you define as the show
The show is the experience of being.
> I would prefer to think of the show as something that takes place outside of my head
All of your experiences occur in that brain meat-space, your vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, temperature, etc... all of that (experience of) is occurring in your head. We hope it is coordinated with some objective physical reality. There is no guarantee of that.
to quote C.S.Lewis ``` If minds are wholly dependent on brains and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. ```
I don't see that the article offers anything new that wasn't already discussed in the countless articles that were written in the past two years. Are there any decent studies yet about microdosing that show that there's any effect beyond placebo?
Here we have an interview with "a former sales and marketing consultant" who "doesn’t have a medical degree and said he learned to dose through experience". Oof. I'm still clicking on every new article about psychedelics as I had some very positive experiences and would love to see scientific progress, but these fluff articles are a letdown, every time.
I have a problem with portraying drugs as magic pills of wisdom. Like with every substance there are always many shades of grey. Not to mention placebo effect.
Alexander Shulgin had it right I think:
>The most compelling insight of that day was that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. Everything I had recognized came from the depths of my memory and my psyche. I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability.
Reminds me of Neem Karoli Baba incident: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_pfMKXE0UFo&pp=ygUUbmVlbSBrYXJ...
The experience many authors have of unlocking deep wisdom from drugs seems genuine, in the sense that they are not lying about it, but any actual wisdom involved is hard to find. I wait for the day when the common 60's literature scene of the protagonist doing mushrooms and having his mind blown is mocked by all.
Eh wisdom is experiential and a lot of it sounds mundane and even cliche when stated straightforwardly.
"We're all interconnected," "live life in the moment," etc are boring and cliche we've all heard them a lot. But they are also profound & wise and you could spend hours thinking on their details and consequences and how to apply them to your life.
The wisdom is the experience of doing it, not saying or hearing the words. Psychedelics can give people insight into that experienced value and grow a resolve to apply them to their lives.
This is something I come back to frequently in my life. It's like that moment when something your parents told you over and over again as a child suddenly makes sense.
I think the distinction is process vs initiative. You can teach people processes easily, but only experience can generate the initiative that conjures the process in the moments it is useful or necessary. Experience is what integrates the process into the person.
I'm not sure I would describe either of those phrases as being particularly wise. The first is a basic observation that might lead you to noticing things like 7 degrees of separation, the other is advice that helps some people and not others. When I really think wisdom, I think of a lesson that gets burned into the mind, of not repeating a mistake.
You are experiencing exactly the phenomenon the previous poster was describing. Because you did not have the experiences that produced theses cliched phrases, they seem mundane and not wise to you. Once you do have these experiences, you will go "Ooooh, that is what they meant!". Had this experience hundreds of times. You may need some psychedelics.
Sounds like you should do some mushrooms then my friend.
He had to take mushrooms to change his neuro-circuitry! What an ape!
> “Cuddle puddles,” which feature groups of people embracing and showing platonic affection, have become standard fare.
This has nothing to do with drug use and was just randomly thrown into the article.
… more like Adderall and Vyvanse.
A major theme appears to be the transformative effect these substances can have on our perspectives and patterns of thought. However, it's crucial to remember that these are not magical cure-alls and their effects can vary greatly. Also, an ego-centric belief that one has discovered a profound 'truth' while high can lead to arrogance. Moreover, the risks associated with these substances shouldn't be overlooked, and the potential for misuse is real. Lastly, the need for rigorous scientific studies on the effects and efficacy of microdosing is apparent. It's fascinating, yet we must tread with caution.
Simply trying it won't transform you into Elon Musk or Steve Jobs! Instead, focus on diligent work, regular exercise, and nurturing grand dreams.
It's not the drugs that make the person, the person uses the drugs because of who the person is
Those who seek novelty, explore reality and enjoy seeing the world through different perspectives use drugs to obtain all that.
This creates a false correlation wherein people believe the drugs cause enlightenment when in fact the person simply used the drugs to ease or induce the process.