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Comment by smk_ | Hacker News Reader

Among the people I've talked to that has taken psilocybin, it seems common to believe in nonsense such as reincarnation. That's why I'll never take it, it seems as if you lose grip with reality.

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I never took any drugs until my mid 50s. Part of the motivation was to experience this spirituality that others report that I've never experienced. I'm a cautious person by nature, so I did a series of stepped doses, spaced a few weeks apart, of various lysergimides and tryptamines. In short: LSD was quite interesting and not at all spiritual for me. 4-aco-dmt (a close relative to psilocybin) was entirely different: much more dreamy, confusing, and it gave me a brief taste of that spiritual feeling. All in all, over a couple years, I did about 20 experiments, and have done only small doses twice in the past two years. I'm not sure if I'll do either again, as I probably have found all I care to see from them.

Experiencing things first-hand has only reinforced my prior beliefs in a material world. If a simple, small molecule can to drastically change your mood and perception, it seems all the more clear that there is no magic. On the flip side, people who were prone to believe in the woo experience the same things I did, but because of their prior framing found confirmation of their own prior beliefs as well.

I don't think you have anything to fear should the opportunity present itself to you.

The main benefit for me was this: I'm very good, too good, at compartmentalizing my emotions. My wife suffers from anxiety and depression. Having experienced hours-long states where my emotions ran loose that my intellect was unable to reign in, I can now empathize, and not just sympathize, a bit with my wife's experiences.

Thank you for sharing! A related experience I had was when I took LSD and smoked weed for the first time. At the time weed would sometimes give me paranoid thoughts (I've only smoked about a dozen times at this point) - and the LSD exacerbated the effects. I had almost an hour of severe paranoia, but as time went on I realized how irrational it was (and discovered useful a strategy of "make a prediction, and if it doesn't happen, stop being afraid - rather than keep thinking the scary thing is just behind the next corner").

The takeaway for me was similar to yours: a better empathy for people who may (without psychedelics) have a higher tendency to be worried/anxious. A realization that despite all the rational thoughts you can have, the fears can persist (as they are irrational - and continue to have force even when the rational side of the brain insists so).

Since then I've been continuing to enjoy both drugs separately and together - now-a-days it's mostly bliss and joy. I particularly recommend LSD & MDMA -- candy flipping ;)

But the thing is, only just because we can't prove it now, doesn't mean it's false. You sound like the people who would have believed that the earth is center of the universe in the middle aged. And most people thought that, even "scientist". So you would have been perfectly right to believe it. You would not sound crazy. But yet wrong. What i want to tell you, don't be ignorant and don't form opinions on stuff you don't understand. Try it in lower dose. Imagine sober real life like folders browsing back and forth. But on shrooms (or LSD, DMT etc) it's like viewing a whole folder tree. You are able to make connections to thoughts you never would have connected in real life, because they are not directly related. So called "Ahh" moments. I will never give up drugs because of that greater understanding of own knowledge. Remember, knowing is not understanding. Such drugs allow you to truly understand. And as a side note, i had the same view as you when I was young. Now i know that i just was ignorant. In the end of the day, fuck what others say. You need to think for yourself and understand the world for yourself !

Sorry you have such a reference class. I think the "lose grip with reality" is only temporary - the next day (and even earlier) you have memories of what went on, but your mind is back to "normal". I've had numerous psychedelic experiences (blissful, terrifying, etc) with both LSD and mushrooms, and none have fundamentally changed what I think about the world (believing the general scientific consensus about atoms, etc).

What drugs like this can do is make you more empathetic and understanding, less rigid/dogmatic. I strongly recommend people (with no history of mental problems) try low-dose psychedelics (after careful research, with a great set and setting, and a trip-sitter) and then consider standard-dose psychedelic amounts.

I'm a psychonaut, so I enjoy weird states of mind as experiences. I feel like there is a lot to learn from having had them. An excellent book you could read on this topic is How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan.

https://www.amazon.com/How-to-Change-Your-Mind-audiobook/dp/...

I’m grew up in a Buddhist family.I flip between agnostic and at times atheism. Science is my compass.

I’d be curious to know how much you understood the background of the beliefs held by the people you’ve talked to.

If I had similar thoughts about the idea of reincarnation after a trip. Am I a nonsensical person?

It sounded like your aversion is to mystical thinking or spiritual thoughts?

let me know if I’m too off base here.

I've taken it multiple times. Science is still the basis for my beliefs. I know I'm n=1, but I'm also a counter example.

Meh. People have all sorts of beliefs about the afterlife. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Unless you know somebody who came back from the dead and reported on it?

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