[zelon88]

As someone who's done most of the substances listed in the article; none of this matters.

First of all, you can't take 16 people with the drug-taking profiles listed and reliably account for their drug and alcohol intake. 100% of their sample came into the lab as drug seeking individuals. Expecting them to only take drugs under your supervision is a fairy tale. Expecting them to tell the truth about their alcohol intake is also a fairy tale. I'm not trying to be incendiary, I am speaking from experience as a recovering alcoholic with 5 years sobriety.

Second of all, 10 day spacing between doses is insane, and dangerous. Having done this particular drug many times, I can tell you that it takes at least 2 days to feel "normal". And by that, I mean "as normal as you're ever going to feel." You see, LSD changes you... forever. Each time I took LSD I only ever "came down" 99.5%. That other 0.5% stays with you for years, if not forever. You never fully "come down" all the way. You're always just a little "less" than you were before.

Thirdly; this particular drug is not just mind altering, it is life altering. It unlocks things in your mind that permanently change your perception. I don't know anyone who's taken this drug who disagrees with this statement. This permanent altering of your consciousness is literally the thing you pay for and hope to receive.

Honestly science will probably never get LSD right. In order to do so the scientists would need to experience LSD first hand, several times before they could reasonably ever begin planning such an experiment. "You just don't know what you don't know."

[cess11]

"Thirdly; this particular drug is not just mind altering, it is life altering."

Why do you think that? In my experience most people that have used LSD changed little in their lives because of it. Looking back at the sixties, a lot of the people who dosed heavily then went on to work for the man or otherwise become very ordinary citizens.

[zelon88]

That's true, and those people probably went on to live happier, more full, more wholesome lives than if they had never taken LSD.

The first time I took LSD it unlocked a level of thinking that I was not capable of before. For example, other people's perspectives. I fell down such a deep rabbit hole of contemplating other people's feelings and perspectives that I could literally (in that moment) FEEL other people's feelings. Obviously that is the drugs talking, and it didn't really happen like that. But in the same way that I really did see the wood grain in my coffee table bubbling like a witches cauldron, I also really did have a deep, meaningful, impactful thinking session about other people's perspective.

So when you "come down" you kind of get to keep that fullness of appreciation. The need to now consider other people is there, and your brain is fully aware how important it is now. The experience of appreciating things deeply stays with you somehow.

[neom]

You don't believe there are people out there who can feel other peoples feelings without drugs?

[zelon88]

I can't tell if this is ad hominem or not. Obviously empathy exists, but this is a much, much different level of empathy.

I think that if someone has experienced this drug they would have had the permanent, noticable shift in thinking and perception that I described. That shift would have precluded them from thinking someone without first hand experience could relate. I could sit here trying to explain the experience for hours what experience could do for them in 10 minutes.

[neom]

I am talking about feeling other peoples feelings, you walk into a room and someone in that room feels your feeling literally as if it was theirs. Not empathy. I presume you are either unaware this is a thing or, don't believe this is a thing? It's typically one of the two. Some people have it strongly, some people don't seem to have it at all. Emotional Contagion is a good book although I don't think that is what it is, there is also this but I also don't think this is what it is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15217330/ - I have know one person who has what you described happening to a high enough degree she struggles in public, although you'd never really be able to tell except she is a bit "odd" I guess.

[cess11]

Why do you think that?

What you're describing is one small part of becoming an adult, to start thinking about other people and caring about how they see the world. How old were you at the time? Did you grow up in an environment where your gender/class/whatever is taught to keep feelings hidden in public? Is there some other reason you weren't taught as a kid that it is important to be considerate and caring?

Such experiences can be quite deceptive, you know. One of my first LSD dealers thought he was being empathetic while tripping but he actually just ruminated on his own views and reinforced his own misconceptions about other people. The experience also gave him a feeling of superiority dressed up as self-perceived wisdom. At raves I met other people affected in the same way, and I found them rather insufferable. MDMA as well as other 5-HT2a-agonists can have a similar effect unless paired with therapeutic activities and careful self-reflection.

[luckydata]

I just disagree with the "little less" statement. Your experience of dependence maybe colors your language, I would use different but not less, as my psychedelics experiences have taught me so much about myself I don't feel diminished in any way after having them.

[pessimizer]

> this particular drug is not just mind altering, it is life altering. It unlocks things in your mind that permanently change your perception.

I agree, but to 100x less of a degree than learning French, or becoming very good at chess.

One thing we need to pay attention to is the degree to which this chemical, and this class of chemicals, have been romanticized by the culture. Especially because these drugs make you more suggestible, expectations picked up from social lore can dominate one's subjective experience, and the memory of it.

[zelon88]

The psychadelic effects of this particular drug is so overwhelmingly, convincingly powerful that it's hard for me to imagine anyone who actually took it describing it as "romanticized". Words cannot accurately describe how convincingly powerful the visual hallucinations are. None of the T-shirts or album covers do the actual experience justice.

To your point about expectations; Related story: One time me and my friends got some and we were supposed to wait for a friend to get out of work before we all took it together. We couldn't wait, and passed around the tin foil containing the stuff and we each took our hits. I was last, I bought 2 hits and there were 2 tabs on the foil. So I took both of them and threw the empty foil away. 20 minutes later someone comes to me looking for the foil, because it supposably still contained 2 tabs for my friend who was on his way. It turns out that I accidentally took the 2 hits that I bought AND the 2 hits that my friend bought (the 2 tabs in the foil represented 4 hits total). I still had his tab on my tongue, so I removed it and put it back in the foil. It was totally cooked. When my friend came over, we didn't tell him and he took the his empty tabs and insisted all night that he was tripping sack, sometimes embarrassingly so. Meanwhile I was rocked out of my gourd.