The teenager caught her erstwhile-depressed mother humming, talking about the blue sky, making banana-strawberry smoothies, and offering to braid the daughter’s hair.
Waldman has a new memoir: "A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life."
From the NYT article:
The idea behind microdosing is to take regular “sub-perceptual” doses of hallucinogens (in the case of LSD, about 10 micrograms, roughly one-tenth of a standard recreational dose) once every four days. The levels ingested are intended to be too small to inspire Technicolor hallucinations, but large enough to enhance a sense of mental flow.No hallucinations? I'm out. I'm not in the market for enhanced mental flow — or a mere sense thereof. Do you lack "mental flow"?
Anyway, the stuff is illegal. And, by the way, Waldman is/was a lawyer. She went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama. And she worked as a public defender, so she has an enhanced sense of the reality of criminal prosecution. How does she get to be an out-and-proud LSD user?
The problem, however, was procuring the LSD. Initial, furtive inquiries among New Age friends in Berkeley proved fruitless.Well, good luck to her — with the depression and the teenage kids who know she's "on acid" and the memoir and the government and maintaining the supply after she's drink-me'd all that's in the tiny cobalt-blue bottle.
Then, unexpectedly, a mysterious friend of a friend reached out — a man who said he was a professor who was nearing the end of his life and no longer had use for his remaining LSD. A short time later, a brown-paper package arrived from “Lewis Carroll.” It contained a tiny cobalt-blue bottle.
If we could all get access to microdosing, what would stop us from moving above the "sub-perceptual" level. How can the government deny us perception?
The NYT tells us that the microdose — 10 microgram — is "roughly one-tenth of a standard recreational dose." I found a Reddit discussion detailing the steps up to and beyond that standard. I'm linking to it not as medical information to be relied upon, but to get you to think about the perceptions the government denies us. Excerpts:
60 mics... Lights are brighter, colors are slightly enhanced and some after imaging and trails....I love the "all different cultures." I think this means that your blank white wall looks like a moving version of one of those Indian bedspreads you used to buy at Pier 1.
90 mics- Bright colors, surfaces start to move, warp or breathe slightly.... You start to think more.... continual distractive thought patterns...
110 mics... "Ripples" over laying your field of vision. Patterns from all different cultures seen on walls, surfaces, faces etc...
200 mics... Beautiful colors are everywhere... Life changing, spiritual experiences or realization can happen....I had to look up "Mandelbrots." I found this:
400 mics... Time distortions and moments of eternity...
500 mics... objects morphing into other objects... Destruction or multiple splitting of the ego. (Things start talking to you, or you find that you are feeling contradictory things simultaneously)... Time becomes meaningless.... Your vision is almost completely enveloped by fractal patterns, and if you were to stare at some pavement or something, it looks like you can see to the end of eternity. Miles and miles of visual depth. There are many subtypes of these: Mandelbrots, spirals, wave interference patterns, etc....
You can stop that video whenever you like. Imagine being forced to watch it for hours. And yet, is it not worse to be forced not to watch it, if that's what you'd like to see?
Back to the upping doses:
1000 mics... You basically cant see anything but visuals, your mind as a whole is infinitely connected with its self and your external environment.... It would scare most people shitless....
1500 mics... You can no longer really see your own hand in front of your face. Your cognition and vision are both bathed in the same light.... You will loose [sic] your ego, but you will meet many organizers of human cognition in this egoless place. They are much smarter than human beings. "they" *are self conscious neurology. They are the mathematicians behind consciousness and even the visuals themselves. Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to function in the normal way. Total loss of ego. Merging with space, other objects, or the universe. The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. The earlier levels are relatively easy to explain in terms of measureable changes in perception and thought patterns. This level is different in that the actual universe within which things are normally perceived, ceases to exist! Satorienlightenment (and other such labels).
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131 comments:
It also causes lifelong disruptions to your brain chemistry. There's a reason this stuff is illegal.
The rule of law has never bothered Obama and most of his Harvard Law classmates. The law is just a construct to manipulate while in power and a way to make money because, well, they are Harvard Law.
Does this explain something about Gov. Jerry Brown?
"the actual universe within which things are normally perceived, ceases to exist!"
The same thing happens if your bullshit detectors quit working.
At one point in my medical school experience, back in the 60s, half the second year class was taking LSD. The Dean asked me to come in to talk about what to do about it (I was student body president). He told me about his talk with one using student who told him he would go to the beach and the waves would talk to him. The Dean said he told the student that those hallucinations could be powerful. The student replied, "Oh no, They were really talking to me." At the time he had not used LSD for days.
Several members of that class never finished or never practiced.
She was really looking for the dose where Trump stops becoming President.
Wouldn't a "sense of enhanced mental flow" be just different words for a hallucination?
In the days of my youth, I found that a full hit of acid, and the ego dispersion that accompanied it, was not really all that much "fun". Now, a half hit of acid, just up to the point of reality distortion, made for a fine night on the town.
This doesn't sound crazy to me. A friend takes psilocybin mushrooms to treat cluster headaches and she reports amazing success, where standard migraine and other meds (which have their own risks) failed miserably. It's not enough to want her to disrobe and listen to the Grateful Dead, just makes the headaches go away. She feels like she has her life back after decades of debilitating headaches.
So of course it's illegal.
Willie Nelson kind of changed my perspective. His choice of drug, in which he makes it through life, and which life would be less than worthwhile, is no less valid then the trillion dollar approved drug industry. Why should prozac at $83 a pill be good, and some ditch weed for a buck be bad?
I do remember George Harrison talking about LSD. He said all the positive things about it, were wiped out when he saw it under a microscope. He said it turned him off. He didn't want that shit swimming around in his brain. It might kill him, which it did, as his brain died before his body did.
By the way, in case you didn't see the pictures, Carrie Fisher's ashes were buried in a large ceramic prozac pill. I think it was used by the drug salesmen to give to doctors to put in their office, and they would get paid a finders fee for new patients.
Abbie Hoffmann medicated his bipolar disorder with cocaine and LSD. He went on to commit suicide......She, however, will probably discover the right dose and go on to live happily ever after and, as an extra added bonus, achieve spiritual fulfillment.
I love the "all different cultures." I think this means that your blank white wall looks like a moving version of one of those Indian bedspreads you used to buy at Pier 1.
Reason #763 why, while she will never be a conservative, Althouse will never be an authentic liberal.
F.D.A. Agrees to New Trials for Ecstasy as Relief for PTSD Patients
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a small nonprofit created in 1985 to advocate the legal medical use of MDMA, LSD, marijuana and other banned drugs, sponsored six Phase 2 studies treating a total of 130 PTSD patients with the stimulant. It will also fund the Phase 3 research, which will include at least 230 patients...
After three doses of MDMA administered under a psychiatrist’s guidance, the patients reported a 56 percent decrease of severity of symptoms on average, one study found. By the end of the study, two-thirds no longer met the criteria for having PTSD. Follow-up examinations found that improvements lasted more than a year after therapy...
Research has shown that the drug causes the brain to release a flood of hormones and neurotransmitters that evoke feelings of trust, love and well-being, while also muting fear and negative emotional memories that can be overpowering in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. Patients say the drug gave them heightened clarity and ability to address their problems...
The chemist Alexander Shulgin first realized the euphoria-inducing traits of MDMA in the 1970s, and introduced it to psychologists he knew. Under the nickname Adam, thousands of psychologists began to use it as an aid for therapy sessions. Some researchers at the time thought the drug could be helpful for anxiety disorders, including PTSD, but before formal clinical trails could start, Adam spread to dance clubs and college campuses under the name Ecstasy, and in 1985, the Drug Enforcement Administration made it a Schedule 1 drug, barring all legal use....
Sydney said... [hush][hide comment]
It also causes lifelong disruptions to your brain chemistry. There's a reason this stuff is illegal.
Not to mention jumping off tall buildings, believing you can fly.r, so the warnings were back in the day.
Abbie Hoffman committed suicide when he was put on Prozac. It is a common risk. One theory is that it takes somebody who is depressed and sort of inert, and makes them feel just good enough to take an action in their life. And as the Emperor was wont to say in Amedeus, "Well, there it is."
To be fair, bipolar and suicide go together like peanut butter and grape jelly, or to move the color wheel a fraction, pistachio ice cream and maraschino cherries.
At what dose do the tangerine trees and marmalade skies kick in?
The writer's style sort of reminds me of the imaginative, perhaps nonsensical, yet not without artistic merit, writings of Freud.
It's worth studying further but euphoria and hubris are closely related. Should you believe an Athenian who tells you all Athenians are liars? Should you believe an LSD user who tells you they've discovered the cure for dreariness?..........Those four young people who performed those execrable acts of torture on that poor guy were high on marijuana. Apparently, pot has other side effects besides munchies.....Psychotropic drugs by their very nature induce idiosyncratic reactions. You're throwing the dice when you indulge.
No thanks. Last acid trip for me was in 1972 at the Atlanta Pop Festival. Tasting musical notes and smelling colors - what a long strange trip that was. Enough for me. Done. However a couple of nice psilocybin mushroom caps for a low dose experience (Are You Experienced?) on a campout with a nice fire and good friends is very organic, colorful and humorous. Laughter is good. And since it's an organic experience it's three gentle hours up and three gentle hours down. None if that days long crispy burnt chemical feeling from acid. Maybe once every couple or three years...
The Harvard Psychedelic Club, about Leary and others at Harvard in the 60s is a great book (I may have read about it first on althouse). Interesting how Andrew Weil, then a student, blew the whistle on Leary and others when they got out of control. Had not know how sad a like Leary had lived before the LSD stuff started. Brief summary here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stuck/201001/the-acid-wars
Under the nickname Adam, thousands of psychologists began to use it as an aid for therapy sessions.
When I was a student back in the 60s, I interviewed a patient who was going to a psychiatrist who would give him a dose of acid and take one himself. The patient had a hallucination that he was a fetus in utero and assumed a fetal position. He then became quadraplegic. After he uncurled his body, the quadraplegia went away. He had an AV malformation in his spinal cord in the neck and was in the hospital to have it removed.
Pretty dramatic therapy.
I did discover Harvard Psychedelic Club here. Another reason I love this blog.
William: Should you believe an Athenian who tells you all Athenians are liars?
Minor nit: Cretan.
As pointed out in Foucault's Pendulum:
"One of Crete's own prophets has said it: 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons." — Titus 1:12
I agree with "tim in vermont"
Isaac Newton
The idea behind microdosing is to take regular “sub-perceptual” doses... The levels ingested are intended to be too small to inspire Technicolor hallucinations, but large enough to enhance a sense of mental flow.
Similarly, microdosing viagra is a great enhancement.
Michael K said...
The Dean asked me to come in to talk about what to do about it (I was student body president).
Apparently your super-powers weren't sufficient to keep the peasants on the straight and narrow.
The student replied, "Oh no, They were really talking to me." At the time he had not used LSD for days.
That would explain why he was speaking the past tense.
Several members of that class never finished or never practiced.
Holy smokes!! That's just like every other class!
Unlike worthless anecdotes...
Abstract
"A recent large population study of 130,000 adults in the United States failed to find evidence for a link between psychedelic use (lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin or mescaline) and mental health problems.
Using a new data set consisting of 135,095 randomly selected United States adults, including 19,299 psychedelic users, we examine the associations between psychedelic use and mental health. After adjusting for sociodemographics, other drug use and childhood depression, we found no significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and anxiety. We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems.
Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use; serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare. Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure." (no "flashbacks" either).
Feel free to provide evidence (the plural of anecdote is not data) to the contrary.
It also causes lifelong disruptions to your brain chemistry. There's a reason this stuff is illegal.
Yeah - Hey! If we can't regulate other people's brain chemistry then why even have laws in the first place?
The first order of business of the Trump Administration should be to get everyone to register their brain chemistry with HHS to see if their particular brain chemistry is legally safe and therefore permissible or not. Many defectives in society and we should be no less ruthless in rooting them out than Phillipp Bouhler and Karl Brandt were.
"If we could all get access to microdosing, what would stop us from moving above the "sub-perceptual" level. How can the government deny us perception?"
Obviously, it can't. After all, as our overlords have told us, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." What's mere perception compared to defining concepts, of the meaning of the universe no less?
And if the government can't regulate the pleasurable though possibly dangerous use of penises and anuses, apparently crucial to defining some people's concept of existence, why should it be able to regulate the pleasurable though possibly dangerous use of brains?
"Unlike worthless anecdotes..."
I have not figured out why you are so hostile but I respectfully decline to respond. You are certainly free to use all the acid you want to and it seems you have.
Back in the day there was a fre drug analysis provided so that people could get a handle on what they were ingesting versus what they were TOLD they were ingesting. There was a huge difference in chemical make up and dosage.
Of course the cops shut it down saying despite the good being done the lab was, technically in possession of illegal drugs.
Quite the leap of faith to assume the cobalt blue bottle contained the drug and dosage promised.
FWIW many of my art major friends in college stated that LSD freed their minds so that they would be able to produce the most amazing art the world has ever known. Still waiting.
Anyway, the stuff is illegal. And, by the way, Waldman is/was a lawyer. She went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama. And she worked as a public defender, so she has an enhanced sense of the reality of criminal prosecution. How does she get to be an out-and-proud LSD user?
Probably by hiding it in a place that the public safety fanatics of the DEA can't/wouldn't think to get to. I mean, perhaps you're a fan of a state in which the government could rummage through and uproot individual molecules of contraband out of the user's body. But I'm not sure the technology's there yet. Hopefully, someday!
Anyway, for those of us living in the real world, unvexed by other people's Lockean rights to their own brains and persons as they see fit, here's the legal rundown:
What Are the Federal Penalties for LSD Sale and Possession?
Like most illicit drugs, LSD use is typically not prosecuted in the federal criminal system. More common prosecutions are for the manufacture and trafficking of the drug.... etc. etc.
I'm sure if the right-wingers had their way it would be the other way around: Unlimited, unregulated trafficking and a hard-core police state for regulating individual use.
Ferdinande,
In social science research, the failure to find significant group differences can be due to a number of factors, including poor experimental design and/or analysis.
It is possible that psychedelic users do not have an increased risk of mental health problems, but that study is not evidence of your hypothesis. I will not recommend to my patients that they try a little LSD now and then.
I am concerned that functional people with mental health problems become seriously ill and dysfunctional when they use psychogenic drugs. The great majority of my colleagues share that concern, but I have not spent time looking at the research.
Small doses of opioids have a pleasant effect, too.
But oh no, we can't condone that because others can't control themselves and will take the whole bottle.
And all that is happening after ingesting the small doses or the large, is that certain receptors in your brain's neurons are more easily passing on a change in electrical potential.
Just like your ordinary, un-tripping experience of reality.
What always gets me is they think that the self isn't changing. It's the same you experiencing the trip that was driving home from the grocery store a few hours early, unstoned. What is the "thing" this trip is happening to? The writer says the ego is gone, but what he means is the ego thinks that the ego is gone. You want your ego to go away, take a nice, sound nap.
The Dean said he told the student that those hallucinations could be powerful. The student replied, "Oh no, They were really talking to me."
Who are we to tell him he was wrong. If his perception was the waves were talking to him, then they clearly were. Society probably owed him a grant or paid vacation time for his explorations.
In terms of the LSD,anyone who has suffered from depression, I think, can get the appeal of this, especially a low-level kind that isn't enough for regular anti-depressants. Exercise and sunshine are much better solutions, but require a kind of effort that the depression itself depresses.
Hey there! Any of you psycho-pharmaceutical police state fans watching Man in the High Castle? Great show.
One of the minor subplots I noticed was that in the Axis-run Pacific States, Ed McCarthy (DJ Qualls) and Robert Childan indulge in one of the few satisfying forms of escape available in that sort of a police state. They remind Frank Frink that it's legal under the Imperial Japanese authorities now occupying San Francisco.
On the other hand, when Juliana Crain defects to live in the Greater Reich now occupying New York State, her experience at customs involves a brutally intrusive medical exam rife with nonsensically irrelevant interrogations about fertility, Aryan heritage, state of "perfect" health, etc., etc., etc.
"Althouse" isn't a Japanese name by chance, is it?
Altered realities are always popular with those who can't cope with real reality. Having used LSD a few time back in my 'hippie' days, I can attest to its interesting effects, some of which seemed profound at the time. Fortunately, most of us grew up and realized that coping with reality and facing it head-on is part of our development as human beings.
"we can't condone that because others can't control themselves"
This pretty much describes the reason for almost all laws about everything.
Having met the woman I hope pills improve her personality.
Small doses of opioids have a pleasant effect, too.
But oh no, we can't condone that because others can't control themselves and will take the whole bottle.
Interestingly enough, small doses of endogenous opioid are actually released upon ingestion of ethanol (i.e. "alcohol").
No words on whether or not this effect is enhanced by drinking an entire wine box.
About 16 years ago I had some serious trauma after a bicycle accident. They put me on a morphine drip, post-surgery.
Friend, if you are ever in serious pain with no hope of recovery, have them plug you into a morphine drip.
Stupid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3736944/
You never know what will happen in an individual case, and treatment is rarely all that successful.
Having used LSD a few time back in my 'hippie' days, I can attest to its interesting effects, some of which seemed profound at the time. Fortunately, most of us grew up and realized that coping with reality and facing it head-on is part of our development as human beings.
Your copy of The State's Clean Bill of Psychological Health and Maturity should be arriving in the mail shortly, hopefully any day now. It will have your name on it and a countersignature attesting to such fitness by whomever Drumpf appoints to head up the HHS.
JAORE: Back in the day there was a fre drug analysis provided so that people could get a handle on what they were ingesting versus what they were TOLD they were ingesting. There was a huge difference in chemical make up and dosage.
On the hill, the stuff was laced with kerosene.
But yours was kitchen-clean.
— Steely Dan, "Kid Charlemagne"
Not being as liberal as "mockturtle" I can say that I never used LSD. And probably never would.
But it is my distinct impression as someone mildly interested in all related phenomena - psychological, medical, biochemical, etc. - that almost everyone who ever uses LSD does it in a very limited manner during a crucial time of development and abstains thereafter as a way of putting an experience they learned from and didn't regret behind them.
Some things are worth just doing once, if not never. Like visiting DisneyWorld. Climbing Everest. Voting for a Republican. Etc.
"'The Dean said he told the student that those hallucinations could be powerful. The student replied, "Oh no, They were really talking to me." Who are we to tell him he was wrong. ...."
We don't tell people with conventional religious beliefs that they are wrong, even when they say God speaks to them or they commune with God. To avoid discriminating between religions, govt should just accept assertions like this.
And remember that some longstanding traditional religious use psychedelic drugs.
It's possible that Waldman violated the Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses.
Someone may want to report her to the Aktion T4 program.
Having met the woman I hope pills improve her personality.
Reminds me of the Cosby bit about cocaine were he's told it 'intensifies your personality'.
'Yes, but what if you're an asshole?'
Good rassenhygiene begins with good receptor hygiene.
Revised NY Times Headline:
"Rich, bored, Berkeley Hills Housewife, age 52, Finds Temporary Solace in Small Acid Hit - Writes Book About it"
Coping with reality can be very tough, particularly as you age. Whether you need a glass of red wine, or a belt of Scotch, or, I guess, a small drop of LSD, isn't too controversial. You need something to cope. I get that.
Myself, I need jazz music,literature, long walks with my dog, scintillating political discussion, Church on occasion, and the love of my wife and kids.
What I don't need are Press Releases, masquerading as NY Times articles, benefitting rich, liberal, pretentious women, trying to sell their next book, jeez. No thanks, NY Times - I'll stick to the sports page, and have another Mimosa.
Strangely, I'm with mockturtle. I used acid once in college. (I was much more scared of the addicting powers of coke, and did half a line, and that was it. No more, ever. (I felt nothing from that half line BB TW))). I wanted to try it. I hallucinated - the dots moved in a ceiling pattern, and I could drink prodigous amounts of PG alcohol served at that frats party. Much more than I otherwise could have. I stayed up all night and suffered the next day, worried about getting back to my studies, and then that was it. I am curious to try mushrooms though. Mostly it was pot and booze in my youth. Nowadays out on the street though the pot just STANKS. It smells so gross and not at all appealing. I don't know what happened. Also, I don't want to smoke anything anymore because I have given up cigarettes as well.
The person at the beach thought the waves really were talking to him, that is 100% believable, and I bet he knows that waves don't have human voices. And it is common to lose a lot of fellow students in the medical sciences through attrition because it is hard. To the person who said acid killed George H because his brain died first. So if your brain goes first and you have done acid in your life, acid killed you?
Studies showed tobacco was safe. Years of studies. Studies led by Ronald Fisher the greatest statistician of the day. Everyone who smoked didn't get lung cancer. Not everyone was addicted. Smoking was cheap and people enjoyed it. Even now indigenous peoples are enjoying it.
These drugs, tobacco, LSD, Prozac, opioids, cocaine are a sort of Darwinian winnowing machine. There's a set of beliefs about freedom and becoming an artist associated with them and a reality of early and horrible deaths. Your choice, these days. But I think we should protect the children better
You left out marijuana.
Once the Master Race is established these curiosities will fall by the wayside anyway. The Master Race has no interest in altering its perfect psychology - and certainly not in a recreational manner, of course. Everything has a neat, orderly little purpose - right down to the most meager 5-HT2 receptor.
JAORE said...
Back in the day there was a fre drug analysis provided so that people could get a handle on what they were ingesting versus what they were TOLD they were ingesting. There was a huge difference in chemical make up and dosage.
Of course the cops shut it down saying despite the good being done the lab was, technically in possession of illegal drugs.
Quite the leap of faith to assume the cobalt blue bottle contained the drug and dosage promised.
FWIW many of my art major friends in college stated that LSD freed their minds so that they would be able to produce the most amazing art the world has ever known. Still waiting.
I was just re-reading my R. Crumb Handbook, and one of the things he talks about is how all of his most iconic characters, the ones most people are familiar with, came out of him during the few years he was doing a lot of LSD. It is still fun to go back and look at that stuff. He was/is really a great and creative artist (also a sick individual, but, whatever). The handbook is full of samples of his work.
"Lewis Wetzel said...
About 16 years ago I had some serious trauma after a bicycle accident. They put me on a morphine drip, post-surgery.
Friend, if you are ever in serious pain with no hope of recovery, have them plug you into a morphine drip. "
_______________________________________________________________________________
When Wilbur suffered from intermittent kidney stones, the moment of truth was when the stone would move from the kidney to the bladder. When this occurs, you will seek emergency aid.
After writhing on an ER gurney for an hour, while the attending staff ensures you are not a junkie, you receive a shot of morphine. In about 15 minutes, the world is transformed into a beautiful Eden of delight.
" And it is common to lose a lot of fellow students in the medical sciences through attrition because it is hard."
SC prided itself on selection before admission and to lose a significant part of a class was and is unusual.
Some medical schools use a pyramid system but that turns everyone into competitors and I doubt many, if any still use that system. It was more popular in the 50s and 60s. There is a book called "Boys in White " which described the U of Kansas school which had such a system. Two of my partners went there at the time.
"The person at the beach thought the waves really were talking to him, that is 100% believable, and I bet he knows that waves don't have human voices"
Total horseshit.
The Beach - at least in SoCal in the 70s - was a magical place, in and of itself. Didn't you all see Big Wednesday by John Milius? You have beautiful skies, your buddies on beach towels, laughter, smiling girls in bikinis, roaring blue waves, BBQ's, beer, surfboards, and football games on the sand. Reality was so good, you didn't need LSD or "talking" waves!
Commander Crankshaft is stoned!
Oh ok good for you and SC, then. Yes, chronic LSD use can result in losses. Camille Paglia talks a lot about all the missing great writers from her generation which she chalks up to drug use (but not alcohol use).
Another winebox, Lewis Wetzel!
Even as a member of the Master Race, I often find that it takes more effort than it should to suppress . . . foolish sentimentalism.
Would it be possible to hallucinate that you are NOT hallucinating? I bet it would seem very real!
Mushrooms, a couple of times. I can recommend it.
It really was pleasant, but as usual YMMV, and you are likely to be functionally disabled. Well, so you are after more than a bit of alcohol.
As for reality and perception and speaking with objects, and having them talk back, or perceiving that they have, where I come from thats not a bit unusual, and no drugs are required. The underlying folk animist religion is alive and well under the Catholicism. Out in the countryside folk still excuse themselves while passing by certain trees and rocks (say "tabi-tabi po" while passing under ancient balete trees and termite mounds and such, it is just prudent), and make offerings to them. And lots of people are sure they heard these things speak.
And after an hour of prayer in front of the flickering candles at a shrine to the virgin its not a bit odd to think she answered you.
Wilbur, how did Wilbur get kidney stones?
David Brooks is on acid. He just referred to the "International Tea Party Movement."
If you look at the medical literature from the time, when LSD was gaining popularity as a recreational drug, you will see concerns about the increase in psychiatric admissions due to its use. The physicians at the time lamented that they were probably going to lose the potential to fully research it as a useful drug because of all the harm it was doing on the street, but overall they convey a feeling that the harm they were seeing was not worth the risk of keeping it legal.
ESPN is on acid. They have GB at 70+%.
There are mushrooms and there are mushrooms. Some are good to eat, some will just kill you. Never touch a mushroom you do not know exactly what kind it is!
Nicotine is a powerfull stimulant. Dodgy horse trainers inject their horses with it to win races, and I imagine it is a "performance enhancing drug" that is forbidden for human athletes too. The efforts to outlaw tobacco is officially to prevent the damage to your lungs and other organs from inhaling or swallowing the oils and deleterious chemicals in the tobacco leaves other than the nicotine.
So, how come the insistence that smoking or chewing marijuana is harmless or even good for you?
The accompanying oils and chemicals are said to be even worse for you than those in tobacco.
This is a link that will make you trip balls so hard it ought be illegal.
It explains Kenny Rodgers all right though. You bet you fried chicken it does. Believe you me.
Blogger HT said..."ESPN is on acid. They have GB at 70+%."
400 mics... Time distortions and moments of eternity...Exaggerated regard of Green Bay defense.
Having used LSD a few time back in my 'hippie' days, I can attest to its interesting effects, some of which seemed profound at the time. Fortunately, most of us grew up and realized that coping with reality and facing it head-on is part of our development as human beings.
I believe that Mockturtle and I must be twins or something. My experiences back in my "hippie" days were generally pleasant, interesting, colorful, artistically inspiring, amusing and sometimes seemed to be profound. Most of the experiences were in the outdoors, in beautiful natural settings. Other trips were just tedious.
I would think that many people would be benefited by a mild experience that was being monitored by a non user.
I enjoyed acid quite a bit in my youth. The greatest deleterious effect was sprained cheeks from all the grinning.
"Does this explain something about Gov. Jerry Brown?"
Ha. Yes, but it doesn't explain all the Morons who voted for him.
Strangely, I'm with mockturtle.
Thanks for the backhanded compliment, HT. ;-D
'Commander Crankshaft'/R&B? makes a very important point, intentionally or not. When we used to smoke weed while simultaneously attempting a political maneuver, it was always a dismal failure [though it may not have seemed so at the time]. Getting stoned in not empowering--it is dis-empowering. To paraphrase Obama, the future does not belong to those whose brains are muddled. Whether we are quasi-'Nazis' trying to control the world, radical Progressives trying to stop it or freedom-loving Americans trying to save our country, we need to stay alert.
I never tried LSD. I never had enough confidence in my mental stability to play around with psychotic lesions in order to enhance a Saturday night. It might be that the people who self select for the LSD experience are more trusting in the benignity of their mental processes than most of us, and they might be correct in that evaluation. If so, that would explain why the LSD users suffered no long term effects.....I did fool around with liquor, pot, and amphetamines. Sometimes I had good experiences, and sometimes not so good. Drugs and booze are not dependable. Later on, I became a compulsive jogger. If you knock off a five mile run, you invariably feel exultant and on top of the world......Here's a subversive fact that the left is unwilling to acknowledge. Fitness and healthy eating can do more to improve your outlook and mood than drugs.
Laws do not apply to Progressives, Professor Althouse, I thought you knew that. Especially not laws that mean doing without something pleasant.
At some point we need to acknowledge that the US has lost the War on Drugs and figure out what to do about that.
Like other people, I'm astounded at this weird liberal attempt to (1) outlaw tobacco while (2) decriminalizing Pot, LSD, etc.
I also notice that Hard Liquor ads are shown on TV, while cigarette smoking ads are still banned. What's the justification for that?
The death rate for tobacco is low. Most smokers don't die of cancer. And a smoker who quits, will - in 20 years - have the same risk as a non-smoker. The fact is, you can smoke and drink in your 20s and 30s and as long as you quit before 40, your chances of dying are very small.
Like other people, I'm astounded at this weird liberal attempt to (1) outlaw tobacco while (2) decriminalizing Pot, LSD, etc.
I also notice that Hard Liquor ads are shown on TV, while cigarette smoking ads are still banned. What's the justification for that?
The death rate for tobacco is low. Most smokers don't die of cancer. And a smoker who quits, will - in 20 years - have the same risk as a non-smoker. The fact is, you can smoke and drink in your 20s and 30s and as long as you quit before 40, your chances of dying are very small.
"Does this explain something about Gov. Jerry Brown?"
Ha. Yes, but it doesn't explain all the Morons who voted for him.
Unless you have the gene, rocean.
Don't persistence and wiliness count for anything in predicting the winner of a football game? Little Manning is as tough as they come in the home stretch. I love that from one year to the next, we don't know if the Giants will be a super bowl winner or finish at the bottom of the conference! They are a tough team. And Beckham is stupendous. We are privileged just to watch him.
I have wondered for years whether a chain-gang treatment may work for depression, in many cases. Make people work themselves to exhaustion daily in the sun for a few weeks.
May also work for many cases of obesity.
The "make them" is the difficult bit of course.
I lost both my father, and recently, a dear friend to tobacco. But as long as you start as an adult, have at it. Just don't kid yourself.
"the waves would talk to him"
Decades ago, on a western rafting trip, mushroom tea, a small desert babbling brook was speaking to me. I stopped to try and figure out what it was saying. After a while it came to me. It was saying "This is what I am. This is what I am". Was it really speaking to me? Perhaps I was perceiving more than I could have otherwise and experiencing that the only way my brain could interpret it, as language. Doors of Perception indeed.
BTW, DBQ--I would be honored to be your twin.
"We don't tell people with conventional religious beliefs that they are wrong, even when they say God speaks to them or they commune with God."
Sure we do! I hear people saying Christianity is wrong all the time. Even the Bible is filled with people telling other people their religious beliefs are wrong. Jesus told people they were wrong. And he was crucified! Because other people said he was wrong.
We even tell people in our own religions that they're wrong on a number of issues. Try asking a Southern Baptist what they think about a Catholic's communion with God.
Telling people their conventional religious beliefs are wrong is a longstanding human tradition! In fact, telling other people they're wrong about any of their beliefs or experiences is part of human tradition. Everyone judges. But not everyone judges about everything, just the things they care about.
Not that I'm saying you're wrong...
Most people who haven't experienced clinical depression don't understand it. They tend to think that depression can be dispelled and overcome with willpower perhaps aided by physical and mental exertion, e.g. with hard work in the hot sun. They believe deep down that a person can somehow snap out of it.
They're wrong.
roughcoat says: They're wrong.
You're right. There is a strong genetic component, is seldom circumstantial and can usually be corrected chemically. Some, like my grandfather, require a series of ECT [electro-convulsive therapy] treatments. Clinical depression is not to be taken lightly.
Tobacco is what got George Harrison.
"Some, like my grandfather, require a series of ECT [electro-convulsive therapy] treatments. "
Yes, I had an aunt who had them although that was before the modern antidepressants. Still, it worked and she lived out her life doing well.
I have read an account by a psychiatrist who had them for depression.
Most people who haven't experienced clinical depression don't understand it
This is true. I don't understand it....and I understand that I don't understand it.
I've not known anyone with clinical depression so having no experience with it, the whole concept is a mystery to me. My personality and the way I deal with adversity, pain and illness, as I have been told by my doctors, is that I am very stoic. This can make it difficult for them to treat me because I tend to ignore and just plow onward.
While I want to treat people who are depressed and wallowing in their misery the way Cher handled it in Moonstruck...."Snap out of it!!!" /slap I know that isn't the way.
I really, really don't like drugs, but LSD has a very long history of being used on people with depression. Aldous Huxley used it when he was dying and thought very highly of it. It actually predates recreational use.
For the specific case of depression, anti depression drugs don't work on some people and can have terrible side effects. People safely use it in much higher concentrations than is being used here with no apparent ill effects (I'd argue that big personality changes should be seen as a side effect in a healthy person, but that's less of a concern with someone undergoing major depression).
HT said...
Wilbur, how did Wilbur get kidney stones?
Well, as I understand it, it has to do with not drinking enough water or other fluids to keep me properly hydrated, i.e., to flush out of the kidneys the minerals which coalesce into the stone. Twelve years ago I started drinking 3 liters of water a day, and haven't had a stone since.
I took LSD, mescaline and psilocybin when I was a teenager. Scared the Hell out of me, for hours on end. Not sure why I kept doing it. But I think I might like to try it again now, maybe in a smaller dose.
Did George Harrison actually think he could see LSD in a microscope? What was he on?
To be clear: using LSD to achieve a "flow state" strikes me as nothing more than drugging up on the job. But depression is pretty awful and the drugs can be, too (for some people they apparently work wonders, though).
In context, a drug that has some history of success and is basically impossible to OD on doesn't sound so bad.
LSD and similar mind altering substances are the likely cause of the twilight faith and Pro-Choice Church. Well, that, and secular motives including wealth, pleasure, leisure, democratic leverage, and control. Freedom from religion/morality is the opiate of the masses.
"A short time later, a brown-paper package arrived from 'Lewis Carroll.' It contained a tiny cobalt-blue bottle."
A Small Package of Value Will Come to You Shortly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiZraFRH1kU
Thanks Wilbur. Yes dehydration is the main causeI was just wondering if there wasn't some other risk factor involved. 3 L is a lot. I cant even manage that in the summer. In the winter, it's pathetic, but you've inspired me to do better.
1/10 is deci-
1/1000000 is micro-
Good comments above re depression from mockturtle, Michael K, and Dust Bunny Queen.
It is important to grasp that depression is largely a phenomenon of brain chemistry gone askew. Largely, but not entirely. It is eminently treatable, and with increasing effectiveness, with a combination of medication and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and, even better, Acceptance-Commitment Therapy (ACT), which grew out of CBT. Both CBT and ACT use mindfulness principles and techniques, and it is has been found that, properly applied, and in tandem with the right combination of medications, they will enable you to change your brain chemistry. In other words, it is possible to literally re-wire your brain via what might be called "directed" thinking. This is not a matter of conjecture, it is a proven fact. It does indeed require effort, which does indeed entail a certain degree of willpower. It isn't easy, but it can be highly effective in lessening the symptoms of depression and even eradicating it outright.
ECT can also be highly effective. Psychotherapy is ineffective and even harmful in treating depression.
When you think about it, it's odd that LSD has disappeared so completely from the modern drug scene. We're talking about someone who can't find LSD in Berkeley here!
I understand it's a tougher synthesis than crystal meth, but LSD would seem like the most smuggleable drug in the world. Is it just a niche product that the cartels don't bother with?
Someone commented that there is a reason LSD is illegal: It cause permanent damage to the brain.
Perhaps heavy use does, but according to Wikipedia:
Adverse effects
Addiction experts in psychiatry, chemistry, pharmacology, forensic science, epidemiology, and the police and legal services engaged in delphic analysis regarding 20 popular recreational drugs. LSD was ranked 14th in dependence, 15th in physical harm, and 13th in social harm.[31]
Of the 20 drugs ranked harm to individual and societal harm by David Nutt, LSD was third to last, approximately 10 times less harmful than alcohol. The most significant adverse effect was impairment of mental functioning while intoxicated.[32]
So much for the costly, destructive to the individual and society, WAR ON DRUGS.
This is surely a major reason that Obama recently pardoned so many people who were convicted of drug offenses. He may have more surprises in store before his term is officially over.
Acid was a little too intense for my tastes. Mushrooms, conversely, will always be a favorite!
Well if Wikipedia says so, you can take it to the bank!
LSD and similar mind altering substances are the likely cause of the twilight faith and Pro-Choice Church.
How reductionist of you. Quite the shallow explanation. Matthew Arnold had a far more profound, and poetic, grasp of the problem: "The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore / Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. / But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear / And naked shingles of the world."
The problem of faith is as old as faith itself. The use of mind-altering substances (traditionally for religious purposes) is of equal antiquity. It is neither the cause of any decline in faith in our time nor is it the cause of abortion.
If I recall correctly,
LSD stimulates serotonin, among other things. Anti-depressants typically seek to inhibit the loss of serotonin. Thus, the thought that LSD may alleviate depression.
Back in the day, we thought of a clever way to have a legal acid trip. Since bananas have a lot of serotonin, drying banana peels and smoking them would provide a similar experience to LSD. I can tell you personally that smoking banana peels gives you a monstrous headache, nothing else.
I may be off my rocker on this (no surprise) but it doesnt seem likely that an illness which has potential for such an impact on childbearing and child-raising, given that it tends to hit at puberty, would have survived adverse selection in early humans?
Could this be yet another unfortunate side effect, like obesity and diabetes, of too much civilization?
Francisco D said...
In social science research, the failure to find significant group differences can be due to a number of factors, including poor experimental design and/or analysis.
I well aware of the many problems with social research (and medical research, much of which is just as bad), but it still beats ghost stories about George Harrison and medical schools. If the design or analysis are poor, someone can publish to that effect.
buwaya said...
Could this be yet another unfortunate side effect, like obesity and diabetes, of too much civilization?
The same question(s) apply to homosexuality and other mental problems, and perhaps to the correlation between civilization and inflammatory diseases. I think the first guess should be a disease organism, or, perversely, a lack of parasites: Human helminth therapy to treat inflammatory disorders- where do we stand?
Roughcoat reports: In other words, it is possible to literally re-wire your brain via what might be called "directed" thinking.
I have a book [somewhere] by a noted neuro-psychiatric researcher [a friend of mine was a co-author, which is why I bought it] explaining how these processes work. He had used it specifically in cases of OCD, with good results. Yes, it IS possible to change brain chemistry through behaviors, something that the psychiatric community has suspected now for decades. Wish I could remember the name of the book and the author. I admit most of the content was way, way over my head.
"Well if Wikipedia says so, you can take it to the bank!"
Ditto some commenter on Althouse claiming LSD causes brain damage.
(comment edited for clarity)
buwaya @1:53 PM:
Not all mutations are adaptive. Some just occur, randomly, perhaps as a subset or result of another adaptive mutation.
Which, admittedly, may by just another way of saying that we don't recognize how an inexplicable mutation is adaptive. Perhaps depression has its purpose.
Or not. Just a random occurrence.
Depression is also as old as the species. Achilles was, arguably, clinically depressed, and although he was the product of a high civilization -- Mycenaean civilization -- it is difficult to argue that he was too civilized and, by extension, that his depression was a function of being civilized. Perhaps his depression, if you will, caused him to be grim and merciless on the battlefield, in which case it was indeed adaptive.
But the higher mammals, who have complex emotion lives, can also suffer from depression. Anyone who has ever raised dogs knows this, has seen it. And dogs are not civilized. Well, not entirely ...
Even aside from situational depression, there are different kinds of depression, and they each act and react differently. The depression side of bi-polar disorder is quite different from clinical depression. I have personal experience with such a bi-polar sufferer who sometimes descends into profoundly debilitating depressions and none of the medications can touch it. She has to cycle out, which she eventually always does.
mockturtle:
The author you might be referring to is Steven Hayes, who wrote "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy."
Russ Harris has also written insightfully on the subject.
I am an ACT success story. I "do" ACT in combination with medication to treat OCD and depression associated with OCD. The OCD is considerably diminished, to the point where it is hardly noticeable and no longer a problem, and the depression is totally gone.
It works. I worked hard to make it work, but it maybe that's as it should be.
Here it is: The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey Schwartz, MD.
Note: The book I cited above is not a general 'self-help' book but a highly technical scientific treatise. As I said, most of it was well outside my area of knowledge. But the gist of it was fascinating.
Roughcast: "I am an ACT success story."
Thank you for sharing your experience and congratulations.
Clinical Psychology would be a miserable field, if not for the success stories.
mockturtle:
Thanks. Not familiar with Jeffrey Schwartz. I'll check him out.
@Paddy
By "we," I meant the government.
Among other things acid is a cultural solvent and goes far to explain the abandonment of explicitly Western cultural values in favor of a "multi-cultural" vision society on the part of our "cultural" elites, starting with those who came of age in the Sixties. (I know because I was there in the thick of it and saw it happening first hand.)
Multiculturalism is to society what a multiple personality disorder is to the individual; it is incoherent, self-contradictory, and highly dysfunctional.
Recovery will be difficult, in my opinion, and can only begin in our leading universities once the Sixties generation retires from the scene.
Well, I've read the article, read all the comments, and can't identify with any of it. Grew up with two parents who smoked, and have horrid memories of long distance trips in a smoke filled car that made me nauseous. I have no clue why anyone would want to voluntarily fill their lungs with hot noxious gasses in small doses when they wouldn't run into a burning building and take a deep lungful of the same.
As far as getting high goes, I have no clue what that is. I just took an oxycodone for lower back pain, have 20 left. The prescription for 90 pills, take 1 tablet 3X a day as needed for pain, was filled in September 2015. When I take them, it either kills the pain I'm having, or it doesn't. No measurable effects otherwise. Doesn't even make me drowsy or sleepy, with one caveat to that. If I take one immediately before bed- with 9 MG melatonin, I'll fall asleep faster and sleep sounder then with the melatonin alone. I've been prescribed other painkillers from time to time, and they all have the same effect. Either they kill pain or they don't. No, "Wow! I really feel good!" moments.
Alcohol? Again, no idea what a buzz is. I drink once in a while. Enjoy a good merlot. Even been drunk a few times. When I get drunk, I know I'm drunk. I know I shouldn't drive or do anything complicated. I mean it's just obvious to me that I'm affected by it. Apparently it isn't to others. I know when I'm drunk, but I don't feel any different then I do when I'm sober. Don't feel smarter or more social or any of those other things I've read about. I feel my reflexes aren't what they should be. And my balance is off. And I know I'm not walking a straight line. My mind isn't fooled by alcohols effects, it knows it is being affected.
Never tried marijuana. For the same reasons as tobacco- lack of desire to inhale hot noxious gasses. been at gatherings where a lot of people were using. And listened to them all spout nonsense they were telling me was brilliant insights. Nothing like being the only straight in a room full of high people to convince you that there's no point in getting high.
Based on what I've seen in life, and what I've read here, I've not the slightest interest in trying out LSD, mushrooms, psilocybin, mescaline or any other mind altering substances. I've never seen any regular user who has been improved by their use. In fact, usually the opposite. If someone tells me that use of any of these things has given them great insight into the way the world works, I automatically discount everything they say after that.
I can't stop hearing Grace Slick singing 'White Rabbit' after reading this article.
White Rabbit _ Jefferson Starship
One Pill makes you smaller, one pill makes you taller...
Take the red pill ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
The idea that low doses of LSD might relieve depression is not surprising if you keep up with this stuff. Ketamine is used to start and maintain anesthesia for patients undergoing surgery, and it's also used for pain relief. It's effect is dissociative: you know the pain is still there but you're somehow disconnected from it. (This disconnection effect is evidently also why it's a fairly popular recreational drug.)
There have been several studies in the past few years showing that low doses of ketamine can rapidly alleviate moderate-to-severe depression. Similar fast-acting antidepressant effects have also been found for low doses of psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in some mushrooms.
This ties in nicely with the idea that depression is an overactive default mode network. The default mode network got its name when a researcher who was looking at FMRI's depicting how brain activity was affected by concentrating on mental tasks noticed that, to his surprise, the brain was actually more biochemically active when not concentrating on a task. The "default" state was actually busier than the concentration state.
When we're not concentrating on something, we daydream, make plans, review our lives, criticize ourselves and worry about stuff. If we get stuck in a rut of self-criticism and worry, we get depressed. I am no expert on this stuff, but from what I've read it seems that mild hallucinogenics or dissociatives shut down the default mode network for a time, allowing it to reboot. It may be that electro-convulsive therapy does something similar.
There are clinical trials of low-dose ketamine for depression going on now. This is not touchy-feely New Age crap, it's real science. There's a lot of stuff about how our brains actually work that we don't understand. But progress is being made.
@Harold -- I'd never claim that the mentioned substances provide any special insight into life, but rather a temporary escape from pressure and stress. Speaking only for myself -- as an unrepentant Type A -- tripping on mushrooms provides a lot of laughs. Nothing particularly deep, spiritual or nefarious about it. Just fun.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
@Paddy
By "we," I meant the government.
Just because you are getting a social security check each month, that does not mean you can say "L'état, C'est Moi."
BTW, my one regret in visiting London for a week is that I did not make it to Christ Church, Oxford to see the portrait of mathematics don Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ("Charles Lutwidge" reversed = "Lutwidge Charles", Latinized = "Ludovicus Carolus," re-Anglicized differently = "Lewis Carroll") hanging in the Great Hall.
I did, however, make it to Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing, I.J. "Jack" Good, et al. cracked the German Enigma cipher in WWII and put Turing's discovery of the foundations of digital computing and application of probability theory into very effective practice. If you're ever in the London area, this museum is not to be missed, although they missed an opportunity to call the build-your-own-route device you hang around your neck the "Touring Machine..."
Don't trust the nyt. They ran an article on the glories of adultery and abandoning ones spouse and kids. Everyone's happier now. Bull
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