Comment by not_real_acct | Hacker News Reader

Comment by not_real_acct | Hacker News Reader

Everyone that I know hates my wife and I, because we're just so ridiculously happy with each other. It's just sickening, we're that super annoying couple that finish each other's sentences and act like teenagers in love, even though we've known each other for well over two decades.

I don't think I could have done it without LSD.

Here's what happened:

I was raised by a single mom and I just had NO IDEA how to talk to women whatsoever. On top of that, I was always the kid who'd spend all weekend squirreled away in his room writing code.

I never had any luck with girls, I honestly lost my virginity to a girl because I did her taxes. No joke, she basically felt bad for my nerdy self and threw me a bone because I did her taxes.

In some other timeline, I could've turned into an incel.

Instead, when I was 20, a coworker gave me some LSD one night and we went to a night club. On a normal night, I would've spent the whole night trying to 'pick up' girls. On that night, I just wanted to dance and have a good time.

And it stuck.

I stopped worrying about trying to find a GF.

I stopped stressing out about being lonely.

Practically overnight, I found myself going out and focusing on having a good time and just having fun. And the interesting thing about LSD is that I didn't have to do it every night. I did it one time and it changed how I viewed the world. It wasn't a crutch, it just re-arranged how I saw things.

Naturally, you know where this is going right? I met a great girl, and suddenly I wasn't nervous or self conscious or creepy, I was just like "hey let's go out and have a good time."

> And the interesting thing about LSD is that I didn't have to do it every night. I did it one time and it changed how I viewed the world. It wasn't a crutch, it just re-arranged how I saw things.

This is one of the most scary things I have read. What if you got lucky in that it was beneficial for you? For all we know it could have easily gone the other way where just that single dose on that single night could have permanently ruined your life. Persistent effects of drugs after a single use are a terrifying phenomenon.

Everything you experience is bound to be mind-altering in one way or another. We change constantly, and our past selves from 10 years ago are hardly the same person as our current selves. (In fact, the very notion that there is a 'self' is more artificial and murky than anything.) Why experience anything then, if the thought of changing is so terrifying?

Of course, that does not mean you should experience everything. I would stay away from acid if I had known schizophrenic antecedents in my family. But that's like with anything: be aware of risk factors, act accordingly. Don't eat too much sugar if you are diabetic, don't explore caves if you are claustrophobic, and so on.

>I would stay away from acid if I had known schizophrenic antecedents in my family. But that's like with anything: be aware of risk factors, act accordingly. Don't eat too much sugar if you are diabetic, don't explore caves if you are claustrophobic, and so on.

You're assuming everyone has the _ability_ to know that prior to discovering this

Well it's a good thing tons of research on the matter was once done in the past, before the reactionary US Government stuck it on schedule 1. Maybe you should educate yourself before you spread more fear-mongering nonsense. LSD doesn't ruin anyone's life.

If I put my cynic's hat on, they're especially terrifying to drug companies. If you take SSRI's and they work, you'll take SSRI's every day for the rest of your life. If you take LSD or MDMA or ketamine and it works, you're done after one dose.

Anecdotally, people who regularly took LSD seemed to get increasingly weird compared to those who only took it once or a small number of times (c.f. http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psychede...), so if anything, a persistent effect might turn into a compounding effect if you don't restrict yourself to a single use.

Also, there are cases (cf http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/06/06/hppd-and-the-specter-of...) of psychedelic drug users suffering persistent bad effects.

The interrelation between physiological and psychological mechanisms is still largely unknown, but what is known is that even normal human experience can sometimes have a persistent one-time psychological effect. The possibility of harnessing such an effect for therapeutic purposes is concerning, perhaps, but no more than any of the other mysterious mucking about we tend to do.

The first article is really anecdotal and there are a lot of other explanations, which the commenters talk about.

Also, the illegality of LSD makes it so regularly people use something else thinking it's LSD. Part of the bad problems (such as HPPD) related to LSD usage could be caused by something else. Could also explain why it seems mushrooms are safer.

But it could also be that hallucinogen usage make people weird, yeah. As you said, we don't really know yet. I'm curious and really hopeful.

> If you take LSD or MDMA or ketamine and it works, you're done after one dose.

Where is the proof for this outrageous statement? It certainly isn't true for ketamine's use in depression.

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