[dymk]

It being scary is kind of the point. Or rather, if you’re going to do LSD, you need to be in the mindset that 1) this is temporary, and you’ll feel fine tomorrow, and 2) the experience you’re about to have will be extraordinarily novel and impossible to fully describe, even after having experienced it. It’s an intense hallucinogenic, and is the most potent mind altering substance that we know of. It’s also one of the safer ones, if you’ve done your research and aren’t predisposed to a certain category of mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety).

Knowing that it’s temporary is the best tether to this world that keeps me from having a bad trip, if it feels like that could happen. As others have said, an LSD trip is going to take you places you might not expect to end up. Meditation can be good preparation leading up to a trip.

LSD is one of those chemicals that gives you a glimpse at what it’s like to process the world with a completely different category of consciousness.

[ForTheKidz]

Microdosing (or rather 1/4-1/10th a normal dose) works quite well. You get much of the mental flexibility without serious disorientation and serious physical reaction (jitteriness and nausea, which is also why I avoid shrooms—too physical).

It's also worth noting LSD is quite pleasant on the come down. You're just very comfortable and calm. Typically self-soothing through the angst of the first half of the trip is straightforward. Also a great reason to be in good mental health before hand.... if you're not prepared to face something you've been avoiding or deluding yourself through, LSD is a very, very bad choice.

[johnisgood]

> (jitteriness and nausea, which is also why I avoid shrooms—too physical

Try psilacetin. It is shrooms without the shroom matter, meaning there is no nausea at all.

[dymk]

It's not only the chitin that causes nausea/cramping/stomach upset. It's also the binding of the triptamine of your choice that you just flooded your body with to the many serotonin receptors in your gut. Techniques like lemon-tek or other filtering methods to remove chitin can help at reducing nausea, but it's only one factor.

[uwagar]

a category of consciousness AI cant reach.

[pineaux]

It's an interesting thought. I have had a similar thought about AI and consciousness while tripping. But there are many pros and cons that just end up in speculation. Which is interesting but not very productive?

[erikerikson]

On what basis are you comparing?

[ForTheKidz]

what basis would you recommend? Given the rate that chatbots engaging in making stuff up you can't just ask them. At least as humans we can take the substance ourselves to verify there's something happening. I think there will always be an insurmountable barrier to deciding if computers can be conscious, at least in our lifetimes. We're not even sure other humans experience similar consciousness.

[erikerikson]

I didn't make the claim and have no interest in defending or building it.

FWIW I appreciate the epistemic humility.

[coffeebeqn]

Wouldn’t we be able to give AI all kinds of random bytes and code eventually to make them “trip”? Much easier then engineering novel psychedelics

[erikerikson]

I suppose we could simulate tripping in that fashion but it would seem easier to affect a distributed activation function or other parameter to the simulation.

Not sure why you're asking me.