/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12208708
>2
Before someone dismisses this I would rather lodge the opposite complaint: that this can be said of anything. A good walk can qualify as consciousness research. What exactly is interesting about these fMRI scans? How are you learning about something other than the drug itself?

>>12208742
>Also consistent with previous psilocybin research (9), a significant relationship was found between decreased PCC alpha power and ego-dissolution. Moreover, an especially strong relationship was found between PH-RSC decoupling and ego-dissolution (see also ref. 10). Thus, in the same way the neurobiology of psychedelic-induced visual hallucinations can inform on the neurobiology of visual processing, so the neurobiology of psychedelic-induced ego-dissolution can inform on the neurobiology of the “self” or “ego” (37), and the present results extend our understanding in this regard, implying that the preservation of DMN integrity, PH-RSC communication, and regular oscillatory rhythms within the PCC may be important for the maintenance of one’s sense of self or ego.

It may help locate more parts of the brain, or map the relationship between certain parts of the brain, essential for consciousness.

It's important to note that these benefits were observed under the guidance of doctors and medical experts. Taking these substances alone can result in adverse effects.

>>12208708
How do you avoid becoming a maniac who believes Bigfoot taught the FBI how to hunt and kill Annunaki?

>>12208780
>it's only medicine when you buy it from the government and use it how we want you to use it
fuck that, I've known too many doctors who don't know what they're doing. Anyone can replicate psychedelic experiences in their own home, the dosages and instructions are not at all complex.

>>12209083
Big agree. I hate how people treat doctors as though they are all-knowing demi gods when theyre just making a guess based on extremely limited information

>>12208742
We're learning about brain's reaction to this drugs, and we know it works by activating pathways that already exist in brain, therefore we learn about naturally existing pathways in brain.

Also it would be wroth it even if just drug did it in vaccum in head if we didn't have brains, because effects are wonderful.

>>12208742
Reverse engineering

Taking a psychedelic or anything that scrambles perception, is like fuzzing a program to determine its underlying code. By seeing how it falls apart you can begin to understand how it fits together.

>>12208780
Yes. Their illegality is propagated by ignorance about what they actually do, which leads to damaging experiences that are used as a reason/excuse to keep them illegal.

>>12209211
This desu

I havent heard of any bad trips that werent coupled with either misinformation (omg the shrooms/LSD I took went bad or this or that, im gonna be tripping forever!), lack of due diligence(oh fuck I didnt test my shit and I think its nbome, oh god im gonna die im dying oh no), or the user was already mentally unstable

>>12209193
>>12209207
These are correct answers but technically they have little to do with consciousness research, and more so with information processing. The consciousness is the phenomenon that is experiencing the result of that information processing. We already know so much (and there is still yet more to know) about the relationship of the structure of V1 and the conscious experience of objects vs experience of (geometric) visual hallucinations. (pic related, psychedelics cause neural networks related to early stages of visual processing to feed-forward redundant data and also start to produce visual stimuli in the absence of input.

But, we know next to nothing about the nature of consciousness. What IS consciousness? Does it have a limit/bandwidth? Is consciousness produced by the brain, or a cosmic phenomenon no different than gravity that is attracted to the brain due to its structure/certain structures? Psychedelics can help shed light on questions like these in ways that no technology or research method currently can.

>>12209249
I am such a dumb asshole, forgot to add the pic.

>>12209249
Im not convinced
Deepdream may be similar in structure and output but similar only. The things I've seen on acid I've yet to see how they emerge from any neural network. Neural networks don't make shipibo patterns.

>>12209325
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/109e/1420777c0dd44197c376594df3bbf2c902ba.pdf

https://www.math.uh.edu/~dynamics/reprints/papers/nc.pdf

>>12209193
>Also it would be wroth it even if just drug did it in vaccum in head if we didn't have brains, because effects are wonderful.
Certainly didn't mean to sound opposed to it.

>>12209052
Who says that isn't how it is?

would anybody be interested in talking about their psychedelic experiences, methods, tips, blah blah blah?

this thread looks kind of pretentious, but I always go to /x/ to talk about this stuff openly and they're pants-on-head retarded about it. first post is always someone telling me to respect the goddess, hoping to find something a little more middle-ground

>>12211793
I am 25 years old and experimented a lot with MDMA, shrooms and acid.
From my personal experience, I can say that they have taken me to mystical places of my consciousness. They changed my perception of the world and general consciousness of myself.
I really believe that they can help people with mental issues. It has been two years since my last acid trip and I don’t miss it. Somehow I think of psychedelics as a very effective way to reflect on my past experiences and learn from the mistakes I made in life. Right now I am very happy with my life and do not feel the need to have more of these experiences, but I do wish that the general public would accept such substances more.

So far I tried (over the span of 3-4 years)

2C-B
2C-I
2CE
2C-C
2C-D
2C-P
DOM

LSD
AL-LAD
LSZ

Psylocybin
4-HO-MET
4-HO-MiPT
5-HO-DMT (Bufotenin)
5-MeO-DMT
4-AcO-DMT
DMT
DiPT
aMT


MXE
Ketamine
Nitrous oxide
3-MeO-PCP

Amphetamine
Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, Focalin)
2-FMA
MDMA
MDA
Methylone

Weed
Tobacco
Salvia (50x extract)
Hash
Opium


Ask me anything
Alcohol
GHB/GBL

Have it but never took it:
Etizolam
Mescaline HCL

>>12211879
Puked only once (slight mdma overdose)
and only had one negative experience (aMT + LSD on a hike and we smoked weed - what a stupid idea)

>>12211879
I've done LSD 3 times and had a ton of fun but the sheet length of the experience is exhausting and every time I wished it was over sooner. Recommend me something that doesn't last as long but otherwise gives a similar experience.

>>12211903
AL-LAD is exactly what you just described, but it's a bit more superficial and less "spiritual"/archaic becuase of the lack of receptor binding affnity to the specific receptor that is associated with spiritual thoughts/patterns etc

It's basically like a 4 hour party-LSD atleast in the 150ug dose range.

Mushrooms are also shorter but the onset can be very intense, once the "wave" passed it feels like en enhanced afterglow and not a true plateau of a high. I'd redommend 4-AcO-DMT instead of organic mushrooms anyway in a non-spiritual setting because they can make you puke while 4-AcO-DMT feels much "cleaner" (a bit like psilocin droplets)

But imo AL-LAD > 4-AcO-DMT because Lysergamines are fucking ecstatic.

>>12211914
fun fact, my first and only AL-LAD order was 25 tabs from a british lab, on the fucking CLEAR NET. And not only was it 100% legal, they made a mistake and sent me 50 instead. Kek.

>>12211889
Only times I've heard of LSD trips going south (on any dose) were after weed was smoked

>>12211925
absolutely. Combination of LSD+the stimulant effect of aMT which dried me up + hiking on a hot day and only having 1L of water with me made me super paranoid.
We smoked strong strains of weed and although we did have some tolerance it definitely felt "dirty" and left is with dry mouths which paired with THCs psychoctive effects left us paranoid.!
The downward spiral part of the trip lasted 2 hours and it was a life lesson for me. Im very happy how it played out because I learned many things like not to combine 2 full doses of different drugs, not to smoke weed on plateaus of trips and ofc to prepare accordingly(water, hiking route etc)
And I learned to order water in restaurants even with the strongest visuals and derealization because suddenly everyone was speaking spanish...on a fucking swiss mountain, and I'm not kidding you they actually were speaking spanish.

>>12211925
And on the other hand when complications arise small-medium doses of alcohol might help. But at this point you might wanna consider if you take a benzo and kill the trip altogether or numb the trip a bit with alcohol.

This is the third psychedelics thread I killed by posting my list and ama, what is wrong, is no one at all interested in research chemicals here?

>>12211879
not asking "where to buy" or anything retarded like that, but generally just how the fuck are you in touch with the right people? I started with shrooms in quarantine and have just done that, lsd, trying to get mescalin, and thank god was finally able to get my hands on probably the only g of dmt I'll ever find. I am quickly becoming an enthusiast, but asking around with shrooms growers and stuff I have no clue where to start to find obscure shit like nbom and 2-c.

and since you're offering info, what's your favorite? I've heard mescalin is a bit like mixing mdma with shrooms without the nausea, which is good since I'm a bit put off from mdma after the last time when I think some bad shit gave me an ulcer or something.

>>12211879
>>12212488
I guess I should have specified, what's your favorite for an overall "psychedelic" experience? I like the strong continuous visuals of lsd-25, but length is a little long. shrooms I think I am developing too strong of a resistance too and I get very few visuals without taking strong nausea inducing doses. dmt is wonderful sometimes but I have a few negative experiences where I keep imagining a "trickster" type entity doing irritating retarded shit like reversing time and it's pissing me off, so I likely won't do it again for a while.

>>12208708
>>12209237
There's no such thing as a bad trip.
That's not to say you can't have a nightmarishly bad time on a psychedelic, but the common notion of a 'bad trip' indicating an adverse pharmacological reaction isn't real for most common psychedelics.

How you characterize any particular trip depends entirely on your state of mind and your surroundings going into the experience. The mere idea that you can have a decidedly 'bad trip' spawn from otherwise positive set and setting creates preemptive expectations that can lead people to have negative experiences, and it needs to be done away with.

do you guys have any reference to the actual science of psychedelics? I would be interested in learning how the chemical compounds bind to stuff in your brain, I hear stoners talk about this stuff all the time and would like to learn a little bit about it

>>12212561
I get what you're saying, especially that you can unintentionally prime someone to have a bad time by perpetuating the idea of a bad trip, but wtf do you think a "bad trip" is. A nightmarishly bad time is a bad trip.

>>12211879

Why would you try all those phenethylamines but not mescaline itself? It's like the grandfather of all "research chemicals"

>>12208742
Psychedelics provide a meaningless experience that won’t help your life at all. They give you access to religious or mystical experiences. You are all supposed to be atheists yet you value these experiences no different than a religious person which to me is hilarious. All they do is make your senses more sensitive. It’s cool and entertaining, sure, but they aren’t the solution to your problems unless those problems are related to math or technology.

>>12212955
Even a nightmarishly bad time is some product of underlying brain processes that are revealed through psychedelics. No matter how pleasant or unpleasant an experience, it always has some kind of beneficial insight.

>>12212994
>Psychedelics provide a meaningless experience that won’t help your life at all.

Psychedelics rout intrinsic brain activity through sensory processing systems. Psychedelics will help anyone's life a great deal who suffers from behavioural or mental problems that stem from brain processes they are unaware of, which they can deal with (either counteract, compensate for in lifestyle/thinkstyle or to embrace) through gaining awareness and understanding of their mental underpinnings.

>All they do is make your senses more sensitive.

How do you explain ego death?

>>12212994
So you completely disregard the increase in introspection as amplified senses, not only reductionist to a dishonest level, but in an arrogantly display of superiority over recent findings in research. Look at our rising star. kek

>>12212803
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/17/4853

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1755-5949.2008.00059.x

>>12209052
psychologists believe in all of that

Curious non-user here. What I want to know is this:

Is there any evidence of external sources? Let me explain...

Many users report experiences where they strongly believe the are encountering external entities. Such as machine elves, aliens, fairies, tricksters, mystical beings, some benign, some mischievous. They also report extraordinary environments where incredulous things happen, such as time flowing backwards or becoming immensely prolonged, or their spatial existence being reduced to one dimension, their body rolling up into a sheet and then flowing over some bizarre alien landscape.

Apart from the very bizarre nature of some experience many reports share strong similarities, even among people who have had no contact with each other and who share different cultural backgrounds.

We can safely assume that these experiences occur entirely within the user's mind, or else at least some of the experiences are occurring externally. That is to say the user becomes aware and can interact with an external environment, or plane or existence, which we are normally not aware of, or perhaps we can not enter unless we have used these substances.

Now the skeptic within me can discount much of what is reported and find plausible reasons to explain these phenomena. What I find highly suspect is there has been no verifiable incident, afaik, where a user has obtained some knowledge in their altered state and then come back to prove that knowledge in their normal state. No independent verification, and therefore no science.
>LSD has played a role in the discovery of the structure of DNA and PCR. Etc.
I dont doubt that mind altering substances can heighten creative ability, and thus provided them with a novel method of looking at a problem, but I do doubt any insight was revealed to the user by an external entity.

TLDR. I thinks its all in the mind, but I am open to considering other possibilities. In fact it would be awesome if someone could present evidence of that.

>>12209052
How else would the FBI have learned how to do that?

>>12211925
I swear the weed nowadays has some bad shit in it. It's been bred in such a way that the chemicals are all out of balance or something because at this stage I honestly think even LSD is less anxiety inducing than weed

I have never done enough psychadelics to hallucinate, but I've heard plenty of stories from people who have. I'm interested in the stories of group shared hallucinations, and archetypes across cultures such as machine elves. I believe it's a similar phenomena to sleep paralysis hallucinations, where the same archetypes are present in hallucinations across cultures and time, with only minor differences. Are there any studies or writings into the contents of hallucinations, group shared hallucinations, that sort of thing?

>>12213693
>>12213510

There look, what did I tell you? Machine elves again.

Now, are these little beasties present in so many experiences because a hallucination by an early adopter did the cultural rounds, people heard the story, and now many users are already primed to experience machine elves, expect to see them, so their minds oblige?

Or do these jokers represent an independent entity which outside our minds? Verifiable evidence please. This is a science board.

>>12213714
>>12213510
Good posts, I'm the guy you're responding too and I'm looking for the same answers. As much as believing in memetic entities living in the substrate of all human consciousness appeals to me, my rational side wants nothing more than to figure out exactly what is going on on the chemical/psychological side. I don't like the argument that "we're all wired the same so we experience the same things on drugs", because the hallucinations present in sleep paralysis (and so I assume psychedelics, based on what I've heard) are so particularly specific in their archetypes.

Personally I haven't seen any proof of external sources other than, again, the same stories coming out of different cultures in different locations across different times. A little off topic, I also like to believe there may be some kind of connection between experiences of holiness such as in the bible and mind-altering substances, but that's just me speculating with no real sources or research.

>>12208708
Psychfag here. I've partaken and soberly studied these. They're not good for you. They create epiphany-like experiences but continued use will fry you out. I would recommend use that doesn't exceed once or twice a year.

>>12213816
>They create epiphany-like experiences
Like what exactly? And of what practical or spiritual value are they?

Why the hell do psychonauts always talk in such vague terms? Just for once I would like to read a detailed, impartial and scientifically orientated "trip report". Instead of the usual meme level vagueness of "everything is interconnected, man!" written by someone who sounds like they dropped out of high school at an early age.

>>12213739
>the same stories coming out of different cultures in different locations across different times

This is the major reason why I can not entirely dismiss the possibility of an external explanation, although my own bias leans towards the line you are investigating, the chemical/psychological side

>>12211793
I got a blowjob while peaking

Cool shit, they looked gorgeous

>>12214183
What were their names?

>>12208708
Okey, could we move on to which tryptamines helps best with what kind of symptoms of neurological serotolessness trouble?

I suggest differencial diagnosing using mushrooms and then getting realization trough LSD and then something like 4-ho-met to get clear fealings to most of the problems with rigid behaviour that cannot be changed without help.

>>12212488
Hippies, generally they're not too criminal or violent and have connections.
But yeah I got all of these through other means, I kind of mentioned it in another post

>my favourite
depends , it's all very situational, but I'm a huge fan of 4-AcO-DMT, AL-LAD, MDMA, 2C-B but also MXE.
Don't do nBOMe , it's like nto even worth the risk there are tons of cleaner highs than that without the side effect of possible death.

Never took mescaline but I doubt it's anything like MDMA, also it lasts way longer than both those drugs. I imagine it's more like 2C stuff since it's a phenetylamine. 2C's are acid-ish with an electric body feel to them. (generally, but every 2C is different)

>my favourite psychedelic
Hmm good question. I guess for introspection it's mushrooms but I prefer 4-AcO-DMT (it basically is a psilocin-prodrug, slightly different because 4-AcO-DMT is psychoactive itself ) because of the "cleaner" body effects like no nausea and/or stomache discomfort.


>>12212978
Mescaline is rare af, or atleast the synthetic mescaline I have is, and mescaline is extremely responsive to cross-tolerance which led me to putting it on the side until I feel "ready" for it, I haven't taken anything for 2 years now (except acid once) and I might actually look into it next spring.

>>12212994
Is spirituality and atheism mutually exclusive? I agree with you that it is "meaningless", but it can give you a different perspective, it's up to you to give it meaning. And I also like psychedelics just for the sheer hedonistic aspect of it.
And no it's not only the senses, it completely changes your way of thinking, you become "hyper associative" every thought flows instantly into the lnext logical step without inhibition and often this leads to you seeing and maybe even understanding "systems"/circuits/cycles/concepts of certain life aspects.

>>12213510
>Many users report experiences where they strongly believe the are encountering external entities.

I never went fully overboard with DMT so I enver experienced that. That does remain a mistery yes, I presume to properly study it you would have to find people who never even heard of those "machine elves".

>We can safely assume that these experiences occur entirely within the user's mind, or else at least some of the experiences are occurring externally. That is to say the user becomes aware and can interact with an external environment, or plane or existence, which we are normally not aware of, or perhaps we can not enter unless we have used these substances.

Absolutely just like with dreams, there is no external input its decomposition, regurgitation, recycling of known information.
What DMT maybe does to the people that all experience similar things is maybe "decompose" our psychological construct of reality, let me give you an example because this all sound super vague and vagueness and relativity is basically what I hate the most about these kind of talks.
Imagine a baby seeing a human being for the first time, it will perceive it on various layers or levels, visually, auditory, tactily(?) etc Those layers of perception are constructed by building what is perceived reality. For the visual part for example the baby would first see the eyes and the head and separate that part from the body and the limbs and so on, now Imagine a interference (in this case DMT) in the processing of such information, we all go through these same processes of reality-constructing(speculation) and maybe DMT is acting/interfering on that (psychological) level and thats why people see similar stuff, because it decomposes the very fabric of reality processing which is the same for every ("normal") human being.

>>12213601
Yes that's a proven fact, because weed is illegal the growers make it stronger (higher in THC) and with the increase in THC there is a decrease in CBD that goes along with it, CBD has neuroleptic properties that keep the THC from making you schizophjrenic, there is also clinical data on this correlation and even some causal and mechanistic propositions if I'm not mistaken.

>>12213693
Again, like in my last post, I think humans think like DNA is built, with the universally same building blocks, if you decompose and recompose with those building blocks you often end up with the same results. Especially because we're talking about perception and processing of reality on the most essential level without "noise".
>>12214005
I would dismiss it in favour of a "we all have the same core of thought processing" theory.

>>12214839
>Okey, could we move on to which tryptamines helps best with what kind of symptoms of neurological serotolessness trouble?
sorry, what?
>4-HO-MET
Colourfilter with mood improvement, almost no introspection, more hedonistic than any other psych I've taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWTT4778IIQ

Some statistics on reports about the elves stuff.

>>12214961
Good video, this is exactly the line of research I'm looking for. I'm gonna go read some of her works after I get off work. Your justification here
>>12214946
>I think humans think like DNA is built, with the universally same building blocks, if you decompose and recompose with those building blocks you often end up with the same results. Especially because we're talking about perception and processing of reality on the most essential level without "noise".
makes sense, I'm just not satisfied with leaving it at that. I want to know exactly what chemicals create what reaction, what stimuli affect hallucinations, that kind of thing, which it seems Ms. Lyke has wondered as well.

>>12215316
yeah well we could look into that but science on psychedelics is heavily restricted pretty much all around the world, thanks to antiquated politics.

>>12213510
Easy to prove or disprove

Just ask the entities to factor a number or otherwise do some calculation you cannot possibly do yourself mentally and you cannot poasibly have memorized an answer for

>>12215878
I'd bet those entities do what they want just the same way you can't really control a dream unless you're about to wake up and call it "lucid" kek

>>12209237
Not so sure. I grew mushrooms and it seems like the effect was different every time, depending on the mushroom, now you might say that there’s no way to control for mood/mushroom, however, I tried pickling them and ALL the pickled mushrooms provided very anxious trips. And I did them with my girlfriend and we generally had the same experience, including one time when we both had terrible trips. Again, one could argue that we were together and therefore sharing our mood, but I got the distinct impressions that the differences were a result of the mushrooms, not what we were bringing into it. I would almost go so far as to say the shrooms had personalities, and just like people, some were more fun than others. BTw I did not find this to be the case w LSD, which generally provided a more homogeneous experience each time—and also, for me, was less anxiety provoking.