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Comment by gabuzome | Hacker News Reader

While the experience itself may resemble psychosis at times, lsd/mushrooms, when taken in a proper setting, will not turn you mentally unsound.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747247/ "21,967 respondents (13.4% weighted) reported lifetime psychedelic use. There were no significant associations between lifetime use of any psychedelics, lifetime use of specific psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote), or past year use of LSD and increased rate of any of the mental health outcomes. Rather, in several cases psychedelic use was associated with lower rate of mental health problems."

Now everyone agrees 16 yr olds shouldn't be abusing any psychoactive drugs while their brain is still developing, but don't ruin it for us adults, it is an important part of the human experience (though it isn't for everyone, since for psychedelics, expanding the way you view life is generally the end goal.)

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Granted, I haven't really taken any large doses, but for me psychoactives don't expand my perception in any way. They're just a really really fun thing to do a few times a year, when I have nothing else to do for 8 hours. I never experienced the spiritual element, or oneness with the universe, etc. Maybe I need to take more than 100ug.

I definitely feel it's a pity that it's illegal and so demonized, though. It's the most fun I've had with $4, and I unreservedly recommend it.

Or insist on actual LSD and not some cheap psychoactive passing as such?

Pretty sure it was LSD (and mushrooms once), I've bought from different people.

Saying that because I've seen people selling crap as LSD before -- especially in one-off encounters.

Ah, I buy from well-reviewed online vendors only.

LSD is hit or miss for that really deep trancendent experience. There is a lot of low quality acid that just feels speedy with some visual enhancement.

Try Ayahuasca. In my experience it is much more consistently mystical.

It's possible that people gravitate towards different drugs in a way that makes the users of any given drug a non-representative sample.

If I use myself as example. I don't use any psychedelics because I'm completely satisfied with my level of creativity. As a result it's possible that we completely lack data on how psychedelics mingle with naturally high creativity.

I also don't use weed, because it just simply makes me uncomfortable. That could be my brain protecting me from weed, as I may have strong tendency to go completely insane with prolonged use.

Those are just anecdotal speculations to illustrate a point. I'm not really claiming that they are any sort of facts.

>If I use myself as example. I don't use any psychedelics because I'm completely satisfied with my level of creativity. As a result it's possible that we completely lack data on how psychedelics mingle with naturally high creativity.

Given that tons of (already very creative) musicians, painters, writers, etc have tried and used them, I really doubt this...

You don't need to be creative to sing or play. You need to be creative to compose.

Do we actually know that many creative musicians, writers etc. were creative before using? I'd imagine it's really tricky to track down the starting dates of drug use. Or when someone started composing for that matter.

But yeah, that was just to illustrate the point anyhow. And the point is that people self select heavily on which drugs they use. So the user group of any drug is not representative sample.

Could you try them and let us know, instead of speculating what may or may not exist?

...and produce single anecdote. Boy I'm misunderstood here big time.

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