[nota_bene]

This leads to the question "How can we get rid of social anxiety?":

Other human beings are a subset of your environment. So you may ask "How can I improve my perception of my environment?". This is (only) 1 of the many benefits of the experience you live through when you ingest the substance LSD: Handled the right way, you can experience the most awe inspiring moment of your life, you can not just see beauty, but live it, be immersed by it and be a part of it. You're likely to ask yourself over and over "why was this hidden from me all those years?". You can literally feel your entire environment in a very positive, magic and vibrant way (hint: find yourself an isolated place in nature that you like and listen to your favorite music). And part of this feeling is very likely to stay with you, after the experience. It may be subtle, but a very subtle positive change in the way you feel and perceive your environment can change your thoughts dramatically and therefor your general behavior. You can become very positive.

This is why it's completely wrong for humanity to keep this substance illegal. This substance can lead to a whole new appreciation for our Planet, the Universe and for the human beings around us.

(Of course, "follow the money" seems to apply here as well, when I think how this molecule seems to be able to replace heavy side-effect ridden anti-depressant therapies which are of course one gigantic cash cow for the pharma industry.)

Note: It is absolutely mandatory to educate oneself about the substance as much as possible beforehand and to prepare one's experience by respecting all the rules that apply (and: there are a couple of medical conditions which make the substance very risky for you, should you suffer from one of them knowingly or unknowingly).

[jwdunne]

I remember when I first took it. I got a profound feeling of "oh, I get it now" about the universe - that ultimately we are all connect, as one.

Afterwards, I couldn't work out what it was. For many years, 5 or so to be exact, I've worked backwards from there with much though, research into religion and spirituality, meditation and mindfulness. This also includes several other doses of LSD between then.

The last dose was profound and shared with my soulmate. We lay on our bed, with soothing, space-like/new age/dreamscape music in the background, this was a perfect soundtrack for the experience. The feeling of closeness was immense. Everything melted away, it was as if we had direct access to each other's minds and emotions as though there was no body to separate us. I remember crying genuine, gushing tears of joy at the overwhelming sense of love for her. I don't see anything metaphysical about it but that last experience offered insight into the realisation during my first time and is also an event I look back on positively.

From what I've worked out, I explain the realisation that we are all connected as one like this:

The universe is a beautiful, immense whole composed of vast celestial bodies and ourselves, as part of that. Everything we see on earth is the universe. What is most interestng and profound is the idea that we are a part of the universe than can observe itself in it's wonderful entirety. From this, you realise the folly of violence, wars and how our world currently works. By hurting others of allowing them to get hurt, we are hurting ourselves.

From my study of religions, I can fit this idea in quite well. This includes new thought, Buddhism and even Christianity. With Christianity in particular, seeing Jesus as someone who got this but had to explain it in terms of the framework of understanding of his day masked sense. It also shows how modern Christianity has moved far and away from this idea.

I don't really share this as it's an untestable and perhaps laughable idea but it has bed a profound spiritual journey for me that has provided a lot of inner value.

[nota_bene]

I don't practice religion anymore, but understand 100% of your experience and fully agree (before my experience, this would have been some sort of "ridiculous new age blah blah" to me).

[jwdunne]

That is exactly why I don't share it. It's next to impossible to understand without the experience and deep thought and resserch, before and after. Although I'm in no way religious, I do have an interest in studying them as a intellectual activity, even before my experience, so I had seen ideas from many religions from history.

[Retra]

The objection is, for all those experiences, you can't actually do anything that you couldn't have done without them. The things you are saying are not untrue, but they're fairly trivial, and your emotional attachment to them doesn't actually change how important they are.

To others, it comes off as another kind of immature selfishness. Like obsessively doting on a lover. It's not a bad thing, but it's not going to transfer to others, and you can't expect others to tolerate it when there are important things to do.

[dwiel]

I don't think the lessons from these experiences are really meant to transfer like that, they are so personal. That doesn't make them trivial though, just hard to communicate.

[jwdunne]

I think that is quite a negative response to a benign comment. Your response sums up why I don't share it often - I simply do not wish to preach.

I also think you have assumed a bit too much about me and how I treat other people. I said I don't share it. That does not mean I have tried and failed. I have shared my experiences with close family members. I have never preached and never will.

The emotional connection and understanding connected to these ideas are exactly what makes them important. To dismiss emotional insights as unimportant is to make emotion a second-class citizen in a world that is actually driven in a big way by emotion.

For example, the phrase "the dog is running across the main road" is a trivial fact when you see a dog run across a main road. If you're the owner, the emotions are what differentiate it from mere triviality. For the owner, the panic of their dog running across a road off leash is not emotionally trivial.

Back to my comment, I merely stated that the emotional value of these ideas is hard to convey without such experiences.

I'd beg to differ about the abilities enabled by my experiences. For one, I can relate to them ok an emotional level, which I cannot have done before. Second, it is clear to me that this particular journey has encouraged exploration and insight into my thoughts and emotions on a deep level. Before hand, I would not have bothered.

Could I have achieved this with a different set of experiences? It's probably. Does that discount the emotional value of those experiences to me? No.

What you are doing is trying to discount the emotional value I place on my own experiences, which is all I have talked about plus the difficulty of discussing the emotional insights from my experiences with those who haven't had them. There isn't really anything to object there.

[Retra]

>To dismiss emotional insights as unimportant is to make emotion a second-class citizen in a world that is actually driven in a big way by emotion.

Maybe you should first demonstrate that that the world should be driven by emotion before you object to that kind of dismissal.

>What you are doing is trying to discount the emotional value I place on my own experiences

No, I'm explaining why other people don't value your experiences. Just because you have an emotional experience doesn't mean anybody else is obligated to respect that. They have an obligation to make good decisions. If you want people to listen, you have an obligation to demonstrate that taking LSD is a good decision, not simply that you felt good about it.

[nota_bene]

> That is exactly why I don't share it.

I think the best way to handle this dilemma is to try to sense which of your friends and family members are most open-minded and to start with those. (Personally, I feel like once you've experienced it, it becomes some sort of responsibility to create awareness about it, because the benefit for everybody is just to big to keep quiet.)

[jwdunne]

This is something I do amongst very close friends and family. It's still difficult without making their eyes gloss over but I do think that this insight could bring major positive changes to them and even the world as a whole.

[selimthegrim]

What would it fix about the world?

[eli_gottlieb]

And what do you have to say to those of us who feel overwhelming love for our significant others, or who understand the basic nature of causality and how it relates to human life, without taking drugs?

[dave_sullivan]

I've never taken LSD but have taken mushrooms several times. I've heard the nature of the hallucinations are different.

A memorable moment: I'm walking on the beach (in real life) and the sand is bubbling up with skeletons (clear as day). Then I look at this huge cliff wall to my left (the cliff wall is real), and a huge totem pole head emerges from the cliff face (as part of the cliff, it is the cliff).

This totem pole head then proceeds to tell me that it's seen millennia of people walk along this beach and the universe is very old and etc. And I look up (and it was really sunset) to a crazy universe explosion of activity in the sky. This went on for another few hours. In the end, I'm left with this feeling of connectedness and awe that I can kind of hold on to.

Logically, I learned nothing new. I got a feeling based on... my self's inner interpretation of a unique drug enduced brain state? I'm not sure I could get there without drugs, the brain is unable to produce the proper chemical composition and set of signals unaided.

Now to be fair, I didn't go home that night, sit down, and produce a treatise on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But I certainly don't regret it either.

[slfnflctd]

> I'm not sure I could get there without drugs

This is the biggest issue, to me.

I've heard some fantastic claims about meditation, but it seems to require a lot of work (and even then doesn't 'work' for everyone)-- also, it's never going to be exactly like the experience of ecstasy, shrooms, LSD, various herbs, etcetera.

Each of the more mind-altering substances has a unique way of interacting with the brain, and I wouldn't trade my experiences with them for anything. They're one of the greatest things I value in life, honestly, as I'm not entirely sure I understood what being fully alive even really meant until after they crossed my path.

[selimthegrim]

> I'm not entirely sure I understood what being fully alive even really meant until after they crossed my path

I don't want to pry, but what makes you say this?

[jwdunne]

That firstly it's fantastic that you have such a great relationship. I felt this way before the experience too. Love is a wonderful thing.

I'm not saying that my love got my partner is because of taking drugs. It just allowed us to express it in a novel way.

I'm not saying that you should take drugs, especially not for marital purposes. LSD has the unfortunate effect of turning negative emotions and creating a nasty experience out of them.

The love already needs to be there to experience what we experienced. That and a whole lot of trust, in the very least.

[WalterSear]

That one doesn't diminish that other, and that only people who have experienced both are in a position to compare the too.

Furthermore, and with absolute respect, the majority of people who have expressed similar views to me were doing so because they were afraid of drugs, whether or not they professed of that, rather than due to having any specially inherent depth of experience.

[mercer]

My view on this is that if one can find these kinds of meaning and understanding without using any drugs, so much the better. Drugs, for both good and bad, can provide shortcuts (in the broadest sense).

Personally I am a bit suspicious of shortcuts, in general. If I had to choose between drug use on the one hand and meditation and other approaches to 'enlightenment' (in an admittedly vague, broad, rather personal sense), I'd choose the latter any day.

But with my limited experience of the former, I consider it quite valuable, albeit sometimes risky.

EDIT: to name one example. I remember reading about a guy who had severe trouble connecting with others and making friends. After using MDMA once, and having the 'forced' experience of loving everybody around him, it was as if this unlocked his ability to make and maintain friendships. My personal experiences are similar.

[lolive]

My belief is that most connections ends with a disconnection. Any discourse that focuses on the connection and does not detail the question of the disconnection is, imho, missing the point completely.

[humanrebar]

> With Christianity in particular, seeing Jesus as someone who got this but had to explain it in terms of the framework of understanding of his day masked sense. It also shows how modern Christianity has moved far and away from this idea.

It's a poetic thought, but why should your personal take on Jesus's philosophy be given more weight than the Bible's?

[jwdunne]

Entirely in relation to my own experiences, which naturally hold more weight than the Bible.

I'm not trying to say that my personal view should be everybody's view or the canonical view. I'm just giving an example of how my view was shaped by certain experiences. I also highly value opinions on my experiences and views - it allows me to see things from alternate perspectives.

Sorry if I wasn't clear!

[humanrebar]

Yeah, that does clear things up a bit.

It sounds like you're interested in Christian philosophy about The Universe and Everything. It is believed that the apostle John wrote his gospel as an answer to questions revolving around the nature of Christ and His theology.

It's a little dense, but read up a bit on the concept of "logos" in Greek philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

Then read John 1 (at least to verse 18), substituting "the Word" with "logos", as that was the word used in the original Greek: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=...

It's clear reading John in the context of contemporary Greek philosophy that God is the point of everything, including everything in the universe. With all that in mind, the Biblical view is that if you want to know about the nature of the universe, ask Him. God likes to work in personal spiritual experiences and He might choose to talk to you through one. Also read through the Bible (again?), but not like you'd read a novel. Read through it like you're trying to find out about its Author... the way you'd try to understand Churchill or Lincoln by reading their writing and letters.

Keep at it!

[javajosh]

The Buddhists approach this a little bit differently, and it's not as easy as taking a pill, but I think it has it's own special benefits. And that's meditation. Not just any meditation, but Vipassana, which is simply being aware of sensations and equanimous with them, allowing all verbal thought to subside.

The mind races here and there, you have terrible (and wonderful) fantasies, you think about the future (personally, I love imagining giving lectures). The mind rebels, sometimes very strongly indeed and in all kinds of ways, against the act of simply observing the breath (or any other single object). Eventually, if you stick with it, something good may happen, and the experience will stick with you for a lifetime - and you can protect that experience with daily meditation.

[hacker_9]

Yes. This. I used to have social anxiety for seemingly no reason - my mind would just constantly repeat negative emotions/events that happened in the day, or the week before or the month before or the year before, constantly. It was pretty crushing and I thought that 'well this my life now forever' and it was extremely bleak and depressing.

I tried meditation as an experiment after reading about how it helped people - and from day one I was hooked. As soon as I realized it was possible to 'slow' the mind and take control of your thoughts it was like an epiphany. Realising that all this stuff that was making me anxious was just made up stuff in my head, and meditation gave me the power to observe these thoughts as if they were not a part of me, has completely changed my life.

It's quite amazing to be in a situation where people are looking at you (social groups, doing presentations etc) and have zero anxiety - instead you're just one with your mind and feel so relaxed and natural about the whole thing. I recommend it to anyone has suffered anxiety and can't find a way out.

[KurtMueller]

Can you talk a little bit about the before and after and how much, if any, it had on the type and quality of your relationships?

[nota_bene]

I fully agree, this is the "other window" I know of (I would say though that it is a different window, it adds something different, neither better nor worse).

And it physiologically rewires your brain - for the better, as you can read here: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to...

[mistermann]

Do you think using psychedelics might be a reasonable substitution for meditation? Not that it is guaranteed, but that under the right circumstances with the right person it could achieve the same results.

[gress]

No. Psychedelics can be a useful way to get some of the insight that meditation can also provide, but meditation practice over a sustained period changes the brain, so that more positive states of mind are available all (or at least more of) the time.

[mistermann]

Does it physically change it, or does it kind of rewire the way you think?

[gress]

Both

[drzaiusapelord]

This is my thinking as well. Everytime I hear the "make all drugs legal now" people make their various fantastic arguments it reminds me of the kids I grew up with, who mostly did about the same amount of drugs as each other. Half of them recovered and the other half more or less became burn-outs. I don't think we remotely understand how LSD use affects us, especially non-neurotypicals and those with mental illness or sub-clininical issues. The latter group developed this hard to quantify attitude, like this dead look in their eyes that never really went away and is matched by just a real lack of creative thinking and motivation - both of which they had before drug use. I think drugs are much more dangerous than we think, even pot, for at least certain demographics; especially young people who are still developing. Yeah, 30+ year old guys don't have much to worry about, but there is rational and non-biased research showing this and I fully believe my friends have been victim of liberal drug attitudes. I believe Duke university found a 70% IQ drop for regular pot smokers compared to their peers by age 35 and other studies have found lowered executive function, increased risk of mental illness, and a messed up reward processing system.

I'm certainly not advocating for the status quo, but if things like pot, shrooms, or MDMA or even LSD become legal, there needs to be strict age and dosage limitations. The idea that they're a "fix all" is dangerous and disingenuous to me. Maybe in a clinical and controlled setting there could be realistic positive outcomes, but certainly not in a recreational one.

Meditation is safer but takes more effort than eating blotter paper. As a long time meditator, its raised my quality of life significantly. Sadly, when I try to sell this onto some of the people mentioned above I get nods of approval and then a "Let me get high first before I try it," comment which pretty much invalidates whatever benefits you can get. To them, drugs only make things better, in fact, life is kinda terrible sober. Not to mention, I've never had a 'bad trip' or paranoia or anything negative with meditation. Its incredible that we have this simple tool available to us at all times, but dismiss it because its weird or because people think they can take a shortcut to retraining their minds with drugs. Hint: you can't. Everything worthwhile takes some level of labor. Instant fixes don't really exist.

Sometimes I wonder if baby boomer drug liberalism has cost us a few Einsteins and Newtons. Or what wonderful things John Lilly or Tim Leary, both men who I consider near-genius level, would have come up with if they didn't go down the burn-out path. Its a scary thought. The entire boomer drug experiment didn't pan out, did it? By the time Leary and Lilly were in their prime years, they became obsessive weirdos going on about trans-dimensional aliens and such and morphing into empty-suited but profitable celebrity caricatures. What a waste of two fine minds.

[KurtMueller]

Can you talk a bit about how meditation has impacted your life?

[drzaiusapelord]

The mental changes are pretty subtle. I think I'm more focused and daydream less. I also feel that I have less of a temper and handle the negative parts of life better. My fight or flight response is harder to kick off now, so things like social anxiety are better managed.

From a philosophical perspective I have absorbed some Eastern concepts that I probably wouldn't have without exposure to mediation and the various Eastern philosophies and religions that influence it. I pretty much accept that life is unsatisfactory in general, so I try to not beat myself up when I realize I'm, say, doing worse than my peers financially or whatever. I also stopped believing in the myth of progress, that humanity is on this course to utopia. I'm at peace with things being cyclical - the rise of liberal democracy is temporary and dictatorial autocracy will once again take over, then back again, etc. Today might be good but tomorrow might be bad. Everything is temporary really and there's no permanent fix to anything. I will die someday and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, etc.

The above attitudes really have been the only things to significantly help my depression. I think being at peace with some of this stuff and having realistic expectations in life goes a long way towards good mental health.

[s_kilk]

> This leads to the question "How can we get rid of social anxiety?"

Same way our forebearers did: drink.

[jqm]

The problem with drugs as a means to enlightenment is the resulting confusion. People often start thinking all kinds of things that just aren't so and believing they have it all figured out. Not to mention the method starts getting more attention than the results. That's not to say you can't get some insight from drugs... you can, but the danger and the cost very often comes to outweigh the benefits.

I'm not discouraging psychedelics a few times in life... they do quickly break through habitual patterns of thinking exposing a deeper reality, but I wouldn't encourage their use either. I don't think they are the answer.

What I would recommend is a couple of hours in a sensory deprivation tank from time to time. I personally have gotten a lot out of these sessions and believe it to be a much more "truthful" method of self exploration. Do at least two hours in a session. At the end of hour one the mind is still letting go... at least in my experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank

[danharaj]

We could organize society so that it isn't based on adversarial relationships of domination and ownership. Anxiety is not misplaced: social relationships in a system where everyone is trying to assert their superiority to you and trying to fleece you of your material possessions, the pain of social interaction can be high.

[throwaway1967]

The problems with LSD:

1 - it's incredibly hard to produce.

2 - it's incredibly hard to ensure something is pure LSD.

Those problems are not there for psilocybe mushrooms, for which the LD50 has never been found (read: it's totally safe).

[zecg]

Microdosing with psychedelics, is there anything it can't do?