[aftoprokrustes]

As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry. One way to look at meditation (and, I hear, psychedelics) that fits my experience is that it has the potential effect of opening the range of "ways of looking", to change the way one builds the perceived world. What propulsed my meditation to a totally different level was to see it as a practice of actively engaging with other ways to perceive the world, and let those act on the psyche, rather than as some form of "mental gym". As I understand, what makes a psychedelic a psychedelic is that it propulses the user into a state where the workings of the mind is apparent (Psyche-delic, this which reveals (delic) the mind (psyche)), and new ways of perceiving are opened. If one considers depression as primarily a form of "negative filter" that turns all external objects as dull and uninteresting, it makes sense that psychedelics can help get out of it, and that a necessary condition for that is to actually consciously experience those transformations of perception.

Unfortunately, this means that the standard way of doing medicine research, with control group and placebo, is unlikely to ever be applicable to this area of research, and that a new epistemiology of medical research has to be developped for it. I find it super interesting.

(side note: if the idea of meditation as active engagement with "ways of looking" is intriguing you, I highly recommend looking up the teachings of Rob Burbea)

[triggerity]

I tried MDMA a while back and it was great.

On one side it showed me (after a long time) how you can be very empathic for all people around you and also reminded me or showed me how really good happiness feels.

And while the effects lasted a little bit for 1-2 weeks, it also is something I know I could do again if I like to.

This definitely gave me an additional/new viewpoint.

[atchoo]

I saw an amusing post a while back along the lines of: "I was a libertarian until I tried MDMA and realised other people had feelings too".

[ModernMech]

Indeed, I remember a while back there was a TikTok filter going around where it made old people look younger.

One of the people using it said it basically had cured her self-perception issues; she had been bullied for her looks as a child and internalized that she was ugly. But as an adult when she saw her younger face in the app, she realized immediately how the characterization of that face as ugly was just the perception of child bullies.

And it wasn't something that photographs could do for her -- it was the fact that it was her younger face superimposed on her current body, and that it was moving as she moved which gave her a new "way of looking" as you put it. In a sense, AI gave her a chemical-free trip.

[tasty_freeze]

There is a similar thing going on with one type of treatment for amputees that suffer from phantom pain in the missing limb. It uses a box and a mirror positioned such that the subject can see a reflection of their existing arm/hand but the mirror spatially locates it to where their missing arm/hand would be.

It isn't a sure-fire cure, but apparently it offers enough relief to enough sufferers.

https://mirrortherapy.com/how-does-mirror-therapy-relieve-ph...

[GreenWatermelon]

Depending on how I interpret what you wrote, I reach either a negative or positive conclusion.

To start with the negative:

She's basically fooling herself. She's avoiding the real problem of "not accepting herself for who she is, abd changing what can be changed"

IMO, The filtr only shows her a big lie, merely suppressing the pain, and not helping solve the real psychological problem.

On the positive hand, the filter allowed her to break a deeply-ingrained false belief about he past, which helps with one's healing journey.

The question is: does she believe her current looks are pretty?

[ModernMech]

Yeah I think there needs to be some serious research here to answer these questions.

[spiralx]

Yes, I've recently come to realise that ketamine allows me to slip into a meditative state as a result of its consciousness-suppressing anaesthesia. For someone such as myself with ADHD and aphantasia this is a revelation as normally I find myself unable to quiet my restless mind enough to get there. And explains why both my most profound epiphanies and my greatest changes of mindset have all involved ketamine in one way or another.

[hypercube33]

I look at it as shutting your computer off and plugging in a USB drive with repair software and wondering why nothing got fixed after you turned it back on. Aren't we just meat computers?

[spiralx]

We are many meat computers layered on top of each other and interconnecting, with consciousness being the newest and thinnest layer on top.

[logifail]

> As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry

The trip is (also) the chemistry!

[FollowingTheDao]

> The trip is (also) the chemistry!

Thank you! Yes, the trip is caused by activation of the HTR2A receptor. It is not magic. everything you experience is both affected by and affects the biology of the body.

You know, I have a fried, diagnosed with depression 15 years ago, tried everything, nothing worked. Know what they finally found her problem was? Familial (genetically caused) hypoglycemia.

We cannot even diagnose depression, it is still too subjective nad personalized. Stop looking for these one size fits all miracle cures and look at your own body.

[aftoprokrustes]

I think I see what you mean, in the sense that without the substance the trip does not exist. The distinction I was trying to make was between the subjective experience compared to potential brain changes induced by chemical reactions.

The "chemistry" side of the debate would be that the trip is a side effect of the substance modifying neurological pathways (or similar), but what is actually important are those physical modifications to the brain, not the experience.

The "trip" side of the debate would be that the only important thing is the experience, and that whether it is induced by drugs, fasting, meditation, prayer, video games, etc. does not matter that much.

Obviously, there is also the possibility that both sides are valid: the fact that the experience can be transformative in itself does not prevent the physical effect of the molecule on the brain to be beneficial as well. There is even the possibility that one of the two has a positive effect, while the other is rather negative.

[amelius]

Can we create a trip without drugs but e.g. using VR goggles only?

[aftoprokrustes]

There are people looking at "psychedelic game design", see e.g. https://anticiplay.medium.com/chocolate-covered-magic-mushro...

They are not looking at creating a "trippy" experience per se, but rather to generate an experience that produces a potential shift in the way to relate with the world

[taraparo]

The Lumenate app.

Or if you don't count oxygen as a drug: Breathwork (Holotropic Breathwork, Quantum Light Breathing, Shamanic Breathing, Rebirthing, etc.).

Never tried but I heard that multi-day retreats in complete darkness can also induce some kind of (visual) trips.

[ta988]

No because most of the trip is absolutely not about visuals (even more with Ketamine).

[LocalH]

Only if it's so immersive that it feels more real than reality. If you can at all tell that it's not "real", then it all falls apart.

[aftoprokrustes]

This might be true if what you want is to emulate the experience under actual psychedelic drugs; I do not think that this is necessary if your only aim is to create _transformative_ or _healing_ experiences.

One of the core concepts of Rob Burbea I mentionned above is the idea of "imaginal middle way", which, in short, consists in seeing mental images as "neither real nor not real", "simultanously discovered and created". Going deeper into that topic would require way too much text and time for a simple comment here, but I can tell from experience that this way to engage with imaginative faculties can have deep and long lasting effects. And the important aspect here is that, while engaging with the image, one is constantly balancing between reification (considereing the image, for instance of a divinity, as having independent reality) and disdain (considering the image as "just made up").

[sfpotter]

Thanks for sharing your very interesting experiences with meditation. Makes me want to have another go at it.

(FYI, you mean to use the word “propel” in place of “propulse” above… they aren’t synonymous, surprisingly.)

[FollowingTheDao]

Do it!

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

[sfpotter]

I've always been very interested in taoism, but never took it much further than reading the Tao Te Ching and a few other related things like The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet. This form of meditation seems exactly right for me. Do you have any recommendations for how to pursue it? Thanks.

[FollowingTheDao]

Just sit and watch.