[CannonSlugs]

I've never tried Ketamine but I have tried shrooms, LSD, and DMT. I have never found the effects be to lasting though, regardless of dose. After one or two days I'm always back to baseline.

I've wondered if a similar thing can be how much people are affected by things like Virtual Reality. After the initial five minute first try I never could get very immersed in VR (more than a regular 2D game). I could never feel any fear of height or anything for instance, it didn't grab me.

I've wondered a while if that is a correlation that spans other people. If the people who get blown away by VR would also have large lasting effects of psychedelics, and vice versa.

[junon]

Have not tried DMT but have the three others. K is... weird. It's totally different from shrooms and LSD. With those, you can kind of steer your trip. With K, it steers you a bit.

Someone I'm very close to was also addicted, using it for emotional suppression. They're luckily off of it and in therapy but it can get nasty. Fair warning.

[brotchie]

Have done both clinical Ketamine and Psilocybin therapy.

Ketamine was very interesting. Proper completely dissociative "K-hole" experience. I feel like it helped with Anxiety, but I can't pinpoint "why" from an introspective perspective.

Psilocybin on the other hand. Was a hero dose, and I'm a changed person afterwards.

Could feel the "layers" of my identity being stripped off, almost regression to a more child-like state. Very interesting experience. Had strong synesthesia: sounds would produce colors, colors would produce tastes, fun experience.

Near the peak of the experience I had these strong recurring auditory hallucination of my mothers says all these random words from my youth, these were accompanied by strong feeling of anxiety. After a lot of post-experience integration and reflection I realized that my mothers anxiety about the world was effectively "programmed" into my brain during my upbringing. e.g. Generationally transmitted anxiety.

Therapy always talks about childhood trauma, etc, but actually experiencing it was another level, and really helped me on my journey to being a less anxious person.

Before the Psilocybin experience, I suffered from existential depression: what's the point of living if the sun is going to explode in ~x billion years. Towards the peak of the experience everything was super chaotic, I felt like I was being transported into different realities (e.g. realities with different laws of physics, or different space time geometries). This was hugely anxiety inducing and would otherwise be called a "bad trip." I felt "lost" in this sea of all different realities.

As I was coming down from the peak and started to reintegrate, I had a strong distinct sense of "coming back" to our current reality. It felt like finding a safe tropical island in a sea of chaos: e.g. our currently reality is a safe space and point of stability in a sea of chaos and uninviting realities.

I was truly, deeply, grateful to be able to return to the familiar and it made me really really deeply appreciate myself and the blessing that our reality is to us.

Post the experience I also acquired the ability to observe my emotions from a third person perspective. e.g. rather than feeling "angry" I could tag the emotion "angry" and react accordingly, almost as if I gained ring 0 access to my brain when I previously only have ring 1 access.

All-in-all probably the most profound and healing experience of my life.

  1. Deeply felt and understood my anxiety was generationally passed on from my mother's anxiety,
  2. Eliminated my existential depression, giving me a deep appreciation for the beauty of our reality,
  3. Gave me ring 0 access to my emotions making me a much more stable, calm person.

[ycdavidsmith]

Beautiful description of your experiences. The psilocybin experience sounds like it was guided by a professional? was it and if so, how did you find that person?

[bjt12345]

These skills can come from studying ACT though.

[psytrancefan]

I think it probably correlates with low openness. If you are low in openness, I could see psychedelics having long lasting effects on a person's personality. I have never found the effects to be lasting at all either but my openness is already at 11. If anything, I probably need less.

I wouldn't do Ketamine because I know for a certain type of person, they instantly fall in love with "spiritual heroin". I know almost for certain I am that type of person.

[carabiner]

I think for some forms of treatment-resistant depression, no "rapid" treatment can work because the depression has caused physical atrophy, mostly in the hippocampus, over many years. Various studies have shown this atrophy, both in MRI and cadaver studies. So the tissue loss might take years to recover unless we discover some new neurogenic compound (RIP NSI-189). Ketamine, SAINT TMS might still work for other depression though.

[willy_k]

The brain doesn’t necessarily need the same exact hardware to do the same function, but in adults if it’s lost they will probably not regain the function without intervention. Neuroplasticity-inducing substances may very well enable the brain to create new connections and rebuild functionality even if the physical neuronal mass does not recover.

This paper suggests as much: “Conversely, chemogenetic activation of ABINs without any change in neuron numbers mimics both the cellular and the behavioral effects of ketamine, indicating that increased activity of ABINs is sufficient for rapid antidepressant effects.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30386-5

[Obscurity4340]

You should try DXM for an interesting "baby ketamine" experience. Just get the pure Robotussin gelcaps, I wouldn't do less than 2 bottles and actually thats generally a good place to start for a decent 2nd plateau trip without getting into the more crazy upper echelon dissociative effects and experience

[itronitron]

2 bottles of gelcaps? that seems ill-advised

[Obscurity4340]

Its seems crazy right? I mean I guess you can start with one but its best used a bit stronger than that and for a purpose like resetting when you'vr been in a bit of a rut.

Be sure to keep something around to catch any vomit, personally I've almost never not vomited once when it starts to kick in. Have music and media to consume

[konfusinomicon]

ehh it wont(ymmv?) kill ya but it sure will rock your world that is certain. truly ill-advised would be to take 60-100mg of benedryl with them, that will shatter reality itself

[Obscurity4340]

That would likely ruin it. Deliriants are hell in pills

[briHass]

As a teen, DXM was a frequent escape. I always liked the 'afterglow', which seemed to lift my mood for a week or afterwards. When I saw the studies come out about ketamine years later, it all made sense.

However, I introduced it to my peer group back then and in college, and there were some that seemed to be slow metabolizers of DXM. Ketamine is shorter in duration and lacks (minimizes) many of the worst aspects of DXM like body nausea/body load.

[Obscurity4340]

It has a good resetting effect for sure

[throwing_away]

That's probably too much to be casually recommending on the internet, but this is a real therapy now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextromethorphan/bupropion

[giraffe_lady]

Mix with sprite, pour it over some ice, and add a couple of your favorite jolly ranchers. That's the start of a good weekend.

[Obscurity4340]

You're thinking of codeine (purple drank). DXM is different

[giraffe_lady]

Oh true sorry I hope that didn't undermine your recommendation of recreational megadoses of OTC medication.

[Obscurity4340]

I genuinely can't tell if there's some spice in your comment here haha

[RomanPushkin]

Also, try Amanita Muscaria microdosing that has legal and different active alkaloid (muscimol, not psilocybin), look for the new "Microdosing with Amanita Muscaria" book.

[ericjmorey]

Have you been seeing a therapist about your "baseline" state? What do they say about prescriptions for you?

[CannonSlugs]

Maybe I should have clarified, I don't have any diagnoses and don't consider myself depressed in the layman usage of the word. The baseline I'm talking about is whatever you call the regular Joe state.

Since I anticipate some people might go "so what lasting effects did you expect?" I guess I'm thinking more about all the amazing stories you read everywhere about psychedelics. Even in movies and media it's usually presented as something that transforms you in one way or another. I've never quite found that to exist.

[RomanPushkin]

> tried Ketamine but I have tried shrooms, LSD, and DMT... After one or two days I'm always back to baseline

You did it wrong. You need to micro-dose psilocybe shrooms over the course of ~30 days.

[onemoresoop]

There’s not only one way that works for all. Glad microdosing works for you