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Comment by Fricken | Hacker News Reader

In my personal experience (not a lot, from my early 20s) the opposite can also be true.

I came down from that trip thinking everything I had previously believed, and had been taught, was a sham. For the rest of that summer I was worried about a great number of things.

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That is the desired effect. People with mental illness live in cycles that cause them illness and don't see how they're doing it to themselves. They're stuck, and can't see outside of themselves. Or if they do they lack the ability to care.

The effects of certain psychedelics are such that it can, if done therapeutically, "wake up" the individual to these behaviors and their ignorance of the reality around them.

This comes with it's own issues ofc, but they can become seemingly good issues to have.

> "wake up" the individual to these behaviors and their ignorance of the reality around them

It can also just make them not care about having "good" or "bad" behaviors as defined by an "external" source.

Many things we have grown up believing and have been taught are shams, insofar as they often are not based on actual thought or circumstances but rather are "common wisdom" (rules) passed down and reinforced with an unquestioning society.

Yeah like from example, from an atheist point of view (and I'm not an atheist) you could say all religions are a sham...

FWIW, I also think all religions are a sham but I do think something "above" exists, and yeah, that which exists allows suffering in this world, take it or leave it...

...which is one of the main atheist debating points like "but the children with cancer" and yeah I agree those children shouldn't go through that but I also acknowledge something "greater" exists, that, for better or worse, whether I like it or not, or anyone else for that matter, allows these children to exist and suffer...

...humankind does however self-inflict a lot of suffering...

> I came down from that trip thinking everything I had previously believed, and had been taught, was a sham.

Me too, except this gave me a tremendous feeling of freedom. Suddenly there were no constraints as I realised most of the barriers were invented and in my head. I was filled with awe, curiosity and love.

It's a bit personal, but if you don't mind me asking; was there a conclusion to your worry? And if so, what was it?

Everything?

Boy that really makes ya think. Kinda puts worrying about what other people think of you into perspective, huh? ;)

> In my personal experience (not a lot, from my early 20s) the opposite can also be true.

Such is the nature of street drugs. The odds of what you took actually being 100% pure real LSD is approximately zero, unless it was directly handed to you by a trained chemist. Much more likely an obscure cocktail of designer tryptamines.

Can you provide a source for this? This has not been my experience, nor have I heard this anywhere before, and I am quite involved in the psychedelic community.

How do you test your samples to know that this has not been your experience?

I don't know why the parent comment is being downvoted.

The source is using your brain and probability.

The ease of ordering research chemicals vs the difficulty of LSD synthesis.

I really doubt it.

I mean, I had LSD from a handful of different sources, as well as psilocibin, and the essential dimension to any of the psychedelics effects I experienced were very similar, and it was only in that one instance that it led to lasting feelings of anxiety.

I do not believe it was the drug itself that messed me up. It was the insights that the drug revealed to me that were the source of my anxieties.

I worked through that stuff, and maybe in the long run I'm better off for it. It's hard to say for certain. One way or the other, life goes on.

Amazing how strong sound logic and reason can continue to be

Sometimes people pass off research chemicals as LSD but the only real reason to do this is cost. It's not like LSD is wildly expensive. People might sell you bunk or under dosed tabs though

Yeah, LSD is very cheap to make. Research chemicals mostly only exist to skirt law enforcement.

Probably not, regardless testing kits are cheap and you can get them online

LSD is a uniquely potent psychedelic. Especially in the pre-research-chemicals-from-china era, you could be pretty damn confident you took LSD if you were tripping balls on less than a milligram.

A quarter of a milligram is enough to make most people have to ask themselves, "are these the right number of fingers for me to have?"

This can definitely put some things in perspective.

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