/lit/ - Literature

>>19190279
i enjoyed pharmakopeia immensely. it's not exactly what you're looking for but i'd recommend it nonetheless
i once read the psychedelic experience in preparation for an acid trip. i had taken cid maybe like 20 times at that point so i knew what i was doing, but i was hoping to get a bit more introspective with this one. prepared for this trip more thoroughly than any other in my life, i did everything i could possibly think of, and kept that book in mind the entire time. worst fucking trip of my life. hours of unrelenting mental torture, uncontrollable thought loops, just curled up in a ball on the floor trying to wait it out. i've had dozens of more trips since and never had anything remotely close to that bad, in spite of being way more irresponsible about it. can't recommend it

>>19190379
Do you think anticipating a trip makes it more likely to go bad?

>>19190458
I think it can. That's not to say to ignore conventional wisdom about set and setting. But personally, I kinda need a trip to be a "fuck it" moment for it to work. Some of my best trips have just been the result of being bored at home

Castaneda

>>19190279
The Rose of Paracelsus

>>19190533
Are his books fiction or not?

PiHKAL and TIHKAL by the Shulgins
basically: chemist discovers and synthesizes a bunch of research chems for the first time then gives trip reports on them

>>19190629
I've seen you post about psychs several times lately, how much experience do you have with this stuff?

>>19190632
just regular recreational stuff. i don't do it a whole lot. maybe once every 6 months or something like that. i also used to browse erowid a lot

>>19190643
Ever had any particularly meaningful and insightful trips?

>>19190645
nope lol
it's all just for fun and a little thrill

>>19190279
What do you guys think the implications of psyches are? For me I think they pretty much confirmed idealistic monism.

>>19190697
Hard to say, whatever it is I don't think we can fully grasp it while we're still in this mode of existence

>>19190379
Sounds like an amazing trip. Deep insight into the brain's machinery.

This is why very few proper psychonauts frequently use psychedelics. When you take what you're seeing/thinking seriously, it can be pretty goddamn shocking and unpleasant.

>>19190720
"Bad Trips' are just psyches showing your shitty mindset to yourself, that much I'm positive of.
>>19190709
I've vaped DMT before but then I started to hear 'voices' and it freaked me out so I just stopped.
Now that I think about it was probably just noise from outside but the drug enhanced my perception byt I was too spooked to continue.
Anyway next time I smoke DMT I'll just be making it myself.

With LSD, and I've taken copious amounts of it dozens of times, I've always felt 'at home'. I never had a really negative experience on it. In fact acid is probably the only thing which keeps me sane on this world.

>>19190730
How different is LSD from shrooms?

>>19190279
More like varieties of Schizophrenic experience, how bout dat?

>>19190754
Nta but they're completely different. Barely comparable

>>19190759
Different in what sense specifically?

>>19190763
LSD has been described as being in the driver's seat, while shrooms in the passenger seat.

>>19190765
So LSD is much more controllable?

>>19190770
more like, feels less like you just have food poisoning

>>19190770
It depends if you're a good driver or not. It's the more intense of the two.

>>19190779
kek the nausea isn't that bad

>>19190781
still, it's kind of the experience in general
maybe pure psilocybin is different

>>19190765
That's a great analogy. On shrooms I assume an almost complete passivity and just let it happen, like it's some kind of show being put on for me by another person
I can never retain that kind of passivity on acid

>>19190730
>next time I smoke DMT I'll just be making it myself.
Apparently this changes the experience.
Same with chewing salvia vs smoking it, or making your own shrooms grow as opposed to buying them

Bump

>>19190794
>it's kind of the experience in general
what do you mean? shrooms are earthy but not feverous, it's not datura

>>19192051
I WILL NOT ASSIMILATE TOT HE FUNGUS I WILL NOT ASSIMILATE TO THE FUNGUS I WILL NOT ASSMILATE TO THE FUNGUS NO

>>19192185
w-what

>>19192559
v_v

>>19192185
you know this is probably more /x/ than /lit/ but i watched that new fungus documentary on netflix. i thought it was going to be about fungi and cool science facts and shit but it was really just a bait and switch to talk about how doing shrooms cured my anxiety/terminal cancer/speech impediment/whatever.

and then i had a new idea i've wanted to share. i saw the main guy who's a big mushroom enthusiast and after he had a crazy trip he could talk right and found a wife and so he's like this big spokesperson for the mushrooms.

a big element of the documentary is that the thousands and thousands of miles of mycelium connecting all plant and animal life at all stages is functionally "the digestive system of the biosphere".

we also already know that the human GI Tract has as many neurons as a kitten's brain, and the mycelium has been observed to send signals and communicate with other sections of itself/other mycelia.

so what if when you do shrooms and that substance latches into your brain that's just the way the mushroom deity reaches into your brain to control you? when you do shrooms and you see god or talk to god, you're not actually talking to the cosmic god, but the local god of this biosphere, the mushroom king. takes hold of you and reclaims you as his own agent among the humans, fixes your speech impediment and compels you to speak on behalf of the mycelium. like a devil or something.

It's like a hostile SCP that is wrapped all throughout the earth... but it's as valid as any lesser deity could possibly be. Since the mycelium is critically functional to all life on earth, everything you do to further your self and human life may as well be in service of him too, since the mushroom king explicitly possesses our specific heartbeat of creation.

I know this isn't perfect prose but I think there may be some merit in considering how real fungal assimilation actually is. I have not done shrooms and I am hesitant to accept the mushroom king as my theory understands him.

>>19192717
*shits all over the mushroom king’s shit*

>>19192778
>being pro-climate change to pwn the mushroom king
>rapes the earth with nuclear holocaust
>fungus eats the radiation and rebuilds it anyway

>>19192717
Christ is more powerful and more loving than any mushroom.

>>19190279
deep Ayahuasca and San Pedro experiences ruined all psychedelic literature for me

>>19193078
Why?

>>19190279
Mysticism a study and anthropology by f.c. happold

>>19193558
Not that anon but writing about psychedelics never really gets to the core of what it’s really *like* to trip or what it *really* feels like. The best you can get with writing/lectures is explaining effects and help/advice in regards to avoiding a bad outcome (although the real ultimate advice is just pure acceptance). This can be good but often becomes shallow once someone has come to the deep end of exploration in the field (has actually taken the rite of high dose dmt/shrooms or mescaline). Psychedelic literature can be fun and interesting but if you want to get to the bottom of understanding things focusing on psych authors is surface level. One should study philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, literature in totality etc. I mean, I feel like McKenna would have similar advice (he seems to be the most honest of the “gurus” [enough not to want to be one at least]). I mean, he recommended people to read Finnegans Wake. Reading gurus and spiritualists can be fun and interesting but you shouldn’t take someone like Leary, Ram Dass or even McKenna too seriously and you always need to take a grain of salt with it.

Henri michaux - a miserable miracle

Nobody has mentioned Pollan. I haven't read any of his psychedelic books, but I enjoyed his style in some of his other stuff. Has everyone here already read How to Change Your Mind and This Is Your Mind on Plants? Or do you all consider him too much of a lefty globohomo pseud to take seriously?

>>19190279
Andrés Gómez Emilsson Is worth reading. He's working on mathematically formalizing aspects of psychedelic experiences.

https://qualiacomputing.com/

>>19193558
basically what this anon >>19193758 says
I used to read Castaneda during HS, McKenna and others in college then in 2018 I assisted to this Ayahuasca ceremony (and San Pedro 3 days later) and after some time I just lose interest in psychedelic lit. My interest in Buddhism and "future" thinking has grown though.
I still read datura and salvia accounts for the lulz

>>19193999
is he WORTH reading? Really? why? what about it? And what do you mean reading?

The dude is a (self)-glorified stoner. Don´t try to tell me otherwise, and the fact that it´s being allowed to be evangelized under the wing of universities feels uncanny. I have started to become increasingly sensitive to the type of faux upbeatness used to cover up often wicked cores of issues.

>>19190379
i feel like its generally unwise to plan trips
its more of a do it if the time is right type thing, and it's nearly impossible to know whether or not it is until you're in the moment

>>19190765
hilarious analogy, but apt
shrooms are heavy, slow, and beautiful, whereas acid is light, fast, and beautiful

>>19190561
>>19190629
These 3 are great. However, Shulgins work is I think, slightly more on the technical side, I don't know if you're looking for chemical formulas.

For example half of the book is "To a solution of .25 g LAH in 25 Ml refluxing THF, well stirred and under He, there was added a solution of 0.3 g 1-(2,6-dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-nitropropene in 5 mL dry THF)
and so on so forth. But again if you're already looking for this type of stuff you might enjoy it immensely. I did.

desu I don't think there is a single really good book on this. A lot of them cross the line into stoner goofball territory. No literature will ever capture what vaping up the dmt you extracted in your kitchen actually feels like. Adding on to that, I've actually stopped using it and the other stronger stuff. The shrooms are much more pleasant.

>>19194535
The natural/artificial dichotomy is also palpable