Psychedelics

[dannyfc]

Currently microdosing LSD (as wanky as that sounds) to help try and alleviate longterm chronic depression. So far so good, albeit nothing to write home about, and its got me curious about taking a full trip so interested to know other people's experiences and or guidance.

I've dabbled in most substances, predominantly stims and ketamine, but always erred on the side of caution with psychs. I'm a highly strung / anxious sort of person so always had the impression I'd spiral into an abyss if I tried them.

Thoughts?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Never done lsd or shrooms but had good times on 2c-whatevers.

I keep meaning to try dmt. I think you can get disposible vapes which seems a good starter for 10.

[Keebleman]

Investigate, but be careful.   Always have someone with you who understands the substance and its effects and who can help you if you're having a bad time.  Let 'Set and setting' be your motto: the right mindset and the right environment.

Here's a thread on the subject that I started a couple of years ago.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=72183.0

[itsfredtitmus]

I'd say no, don't trip if you're the depressed/anxious type, esp with no experience and no shaman mate around that you trust with your life. Irregardless of if I've had a good time or not (the line between 'bad trip' vs 'good trip' is a lot more slim than I was told, even if I only go on a bad one for 1/5 of the trip the thinking I was stuck in tends to stay with me afterwards) even supposedly friendly psychedelics like 2cb tend to set me back a few months and erase a lot of progress made with medication/treatment

Plus why ruin something you're having good results with? Microdose to your hearts content!

Booze helps every time but always feel like it's making it pointless surely, may as well just be smoking weed at a certain level of drunkenness

[itsfredtitmus]

What's microdosing actually like? is it purely just fiddling around with your receptors like if you were to take an ssri and it works itself out? because i'd love to try that

[dannyfc]

I'd say no, don't trip if you're the depressed/anxious type, esp with no experience and no shaman mate around that you trust with your life. Irregardless of if I've had a good time or not (the line between 'bad trip' vs 'good trip' is a lot more slim than I was told, even if I only go on a bad one for 1/5 of the trip the thinking I was stuck in tends to stay with me afterwards) and even supposedly friendly psychedelics like 2cb set me back a few months and erase a lot of progress made with medication/treatment

Is it much different from K-Holing?

My idea was to have a mid low dose shrooms rather than diving into a heroic dose of LSD. Nice dark room with music to voyage, with some benzos handy if I get uneasy. You think it'd be too much?

I do feel better than I have been but still rankled by inhibitions which I feel like are holding me back. Maybe I'm being idealistic but there at least seems to be some cursory science around potential benefits to treatment resistant depression. Worth a go no?

[dannyfc]

What's microdosing actually like? is it purely just fiddling around with your receptors like if you were to take an ssri and it works itself out? because i'd love to try that

Yeah the idea is essentially you dose low enough not to notice any tangible effects, so it works subconsciously on your brain chemistry or w.e.

It's a bit woo science and there's no studies proving its efficacy, just loads of anecdotal experiences which may well be placebo.

I'm only a week or so in. Feeling more optimistic, but also sorted my diet and exercising plenty so it's hard to pin it on just that.

[ZoyzaSorris]

I bought up a large stock of 1p-lsd (breaks down into lsd in your system and is functionally identical to the original) when it was still legal to do so, just before May banned everything. I sometimes do a bit of micro-dosing - anything from 3-4ug where as described above it's almost completely imperceptible, up through 6-8 where you can definitely notice an extra energy and focus, and ability to break out of ingrained thought patterns and habits and be more 'present', and all the way up to about 12-15 where all of the above apply but you start to experience the first gentle intrusions of a more psychedelic mindset appearing (this can make these higher 'microdoses' a bit less 'functional' whereas on the lower ones I find they actually make for a very productive days work, but can be valuable just for enjoying a good day off in nature or doing something creative).

It's hard to get clinically significant proof of things like effectiveness against depression even for pharmaceuticals that have enormous amounts of money riding on them, but my personal view with such things is that if they have a very plausible scientifically grounded mode of action (lsd/dmt/psilocybin obviously actually works in terms of doing 'something') and the risk is low - which in terms of microdosing is about as low as it can be - with lsd you are taking in the order of 1-10 millionths of a gram of active material - then it is worth experimenting with if you think you might benefit.

As for full doses I tried it a few times as a youngster and had some unpleasant experiences in amongst those (partially being young and inexperienced and not ready for such intense mindfuckery didn't help) and I have no plans to ever repeat the experience again. It can be really positive too though and some people love it but yeah not for me.

I'd agree that mushrooms are the way forward for a full psychedelic dose - not least because they are a much shorter experience, a few hours, rather than the 8-12 for lsd which is just too long especially if it starts to turn into a challenging experience, and when you add in the fact that your sense of time can be heavily distorted and extended it can start to feel like an eternity. Not good. LSD is also quite physically stimulating which can make it more prone to edginess whereas mushrooms are much more sedating in larger doses which lends itself more to settling into a drifting contemplative inner world that facilitates the more gentle and useful side of psychedelics. Last thing you want to be doing is gritting your teeth fighting it, you just need to let yourself drift into a dreamlike mind state and go with it.

Also mushrooms can be very enjoyable in lower doses between a microdose and a full psychedelic dose, where you can still fully operate socially and have a good old giggle, I think, whereas that isn't really true of lsd.

I'd still treat a higher dose of mushrooms with care, if you have issues with anxiety etc - it's much easier to ride out the length of a mushroom dose if it's challenging but can still be a bit discombobulating. I'd try a few lower doses and work up rathe than plunge into anything.

Alternatively DMT is probably safest option for a full psychedelic blast, because it is so short and you just don't really have time to have a bad one or get too freaked out because it's over by the time you are starting to properly process it.

[bgmnts]

Currently microdosing LSD (as wanky as that sounds) to help try and alleviate longterm chronic depression. So far so good, albeit nothing to write home about, and its got me curious about taking a full trip so interested to know other people's experiences and or guidance.

I've dabbled in most substances, predominantly stims and ketamine, but always erred on the side of caution with psychs. I'm a highly strung / anxious sort of person so always had the impression I'd spiral into an abyss if I tried them.

Thoughts?

I'd say taking any mind altering substance for medical reasons sounds dangerous as fuck as you never know what you're going to end up doing. I suppose just stay hydrated and make sure you have someone with you?

[willbo]

Can you buy a trip with a shaman? I was imagining it being like an escort/sex advert. "shaman dude £XX for two hours I will provide the trip and guide you through it" or something

[flotemysost]

I was utterly fascinated by a discrete drink-mat-sized patch of grass that appeared to be teeming with Magic Eye/TV static type texture after half an eccy recently and wouldn't shut up about it, so I suspect I fall into the "should steer well clear of actual psychedelics, for the love of god" camp.

Someone I know microdoses with LSD now and then - apparently it helps with focus and creativity at work (they're a programmer). I can imagine this is a popular practice in the tech world, though I do wonder how many have fucked up the dosage and seen lines of code snaking out the screen and dancing like the Pink Elephants sequence in Dumbo. 

[The Crumb]

Can you buy a trip with a shaman? I was imagining it being like an escort/sex advert. "shaman dude £XX for two hours I will provide the trip and guide you through it" or something

You can certainly buy very expensive retreats that offer just that. I'd imagine in the golden age of Craigslist you could have found anyone offering anything you cared to imagine, although I'm not sure entrusting your wellbeing to an internet stranger would be the most relaxing set or setting.


For OP, can only echo that it would be a very good idea to find a trip sitter if you're interested.  Don't know much about LSD, but with mushrooms you can easily experiment with mild active doses before jumping fully in. On the supply side, I can advocate growing your own mushrooms. It's fun and fairly easy, and could set you up with microdoses for years to come. Also gives you decent consistency in strength if you're looking to build up dosing.

[Kankurette]

Used to do shrooms, would not do them now, though a friend does them and they've helped her somewhat.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was utterly fascinated by a discrete drink-mat-sized patch of grass that appeared to be teeming with Magic Eye/TV static type texture after half an eccy recently and wouldn't shut up about it, so I suspect I fall into the "should steer well clear of actual psychedelics, for the love of god" camp.

I once did a load of mdma at a warehouse rave and started tripping and thinking I was in a plush club, I went to sit on a stool to roll a cig and got a pair of hands planted into my arse because the stool was actually a woman sat on the floor. I'd like to say I had the gallantry to apologise properly but I just mumbled "sorry, thought you were a stool" and disappeared into the darkness and rolled my cig in a different corner.

[maett]

In short I'd say give a full trip a swerve, too.
I took around 140-200 LSD trips in late teens early 20s. I was a happy go lucky young chap, but had 1 bad trip that was set off by feeling I was wearing too much brown. I wouldn't dream of dropping a tab now, it's 30 odd years later and there's too many things I know I'd be thinking about that could easily put me in a shit spot. Parents mortality etc. If, as you say, you are an anxious/highly strung person then I think your impression of spiraling into an abyss would be pretty spot on. At some point I found no matter how stimulating the surroundings were I would always start to self-reflect.

[dannyfc]

Cheers chaps, on reflection sounds best to leave be then.

[madhair60]

I took acid at a CaB meet and had a full on sobbing breakdown while Kittens made fun of me. Legendary night

[Pink Gregory]

Much the same as the OP, I like the idea of making the old noodle go places but I feel like it'd be more likely to make all of this worse.  Struggling coming off the SSRIs in January as it is.  Also I've literally never had anything other the booze so I'm probably a bit vulnerable up there.

[SpiderChrist]

Much the same as the OP, I like the idea of making the old noodle go places but I feel like it'd be more likely to make all of this worse.  Struggling coming off the SSRIs in January as it is.  Also I've literally never had anything other the booze so I'm probably a bit vulnerable up there.

I used to love shrooms and acid but I'm such a big ball of anxiety nowadays I daren't go near 'em. Will do MDMA now and again, but only when with trusted mates, y'know, just in case.

[Memorex MP3]

I was utterly fascinated by a discrete drink-mat-sized patch of grass that appeared to be teeming with Magic Eye/TV static type texture after half an eccy recently and wouldn't shut up about it, so I suspect I fall into the "should steer well clear of actual psychedelics, for the love of god" camp.

Someone I know microdoses with LSD now and then - apparently it helps with focus and creativity at work (they're a programmer). I can imagine this is a popular practice in the tech world, though I do wonder how many have fucked up the dosage and seen lines of code snaking out the screen and dancing like the Pink Elephants sequence in Dumbo. 

There was some ceo guy at a startup who fucked up micro dosing before a meeting with VCs. Iirc he had never done any psychedelics before too

[Brundle-Fly]

Did acid quite a few times in the early nineties and always had fantastic experiences. HOWEVER, I do feel I 'danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight' each time, so swiftly decided to shake hands with LSD and bid my farewell.

Mind you, I loved it when you could buy shrooms in Camden market in the early 00s but I think them being reclassified as an A drug probably did my bonce a favour in the long term.

Approach with caution.

[Ray Travez]

Don't know much about LSD,

Don't know drug pharmacology

[Bence Fekete]

The ne plus ultra of the psychedelic experience is smoking DMT on acid. I cannot see how you can have a more interesting experience in your lifetime.

Much is made of the mysterious 'machine elves' but really that's just a fancy way of saying everything you're looking at is alive and polymorphing into objects and shapes and cosmic personalities that defy artistic categorisation. Everything seems impeccably designed and hyper 'real' in the sense of almost unnatural clarity and brightness. And all dancing with a spirit, a sort of xenocentric chic finesse, that melts your creativity heart with curiosity heat death. This is not hyperbole. Well.. it is. But it's apt. It's like being let in on the biggest secret in the galaxy in 5 seconds. Woosh. It's that fast.

I've said before, but my first time breaking through i couldn't stop crying. Just genuine fucking tears of wonder streaming out in the most joyous, innocent way imaginable. A feeling I hadn't felt since very early childhood and probably never will again. Maybe there are other ways to get there in life like having kids and being a profound git and stuff, Idk. But it's up there. It has to be.

Some smart people say it's still all just brain juice but, nah, within a few seconds of being in that realm (fully conscious, fully 'aware' of mind v reality and able to analyse the experience from within the experience) anyone with a healthy degree of self-awareness would realise how nebulous that thinking really is. As I'm trying to convey, what separates dmt (on acid) from every other psych exp - beyond the intensity of the visuals - is that everything has such deep, rich, ironic character, that completely defies the expectations of your own imagination let alone what you ever thought could be seen on a hallucinogen. There is this consistent internal logic to it; a specificity in design and execution that suggests centuries of backstory, as if genuinely from a different world; and a seamless and bizarre visual narrative swishing it all along that you can barely keep up with - although you're quite sure its all operating on a level way above your own intelligence. Or, at the very least, anything your own piffling jelly could subconsciously direct from behind the curtain of your perception. It feels very much like the drug itself is alive and communicating. An invasion. You prepare for it like you're going to physically meet an alien. It's not that it's difficult to retain what it's showing you in the moment per se, but that it shows you so much so quickly you will never be able to keep up. You resign yourself to snippets, like a fantastic dream.

I don't buy that these visions are merely the stimulated pyrotechnics of our own flaming braincells. I cannot rationalise the sense of connectivity and abundant, free-wheelin' complexity of the experience with the simple effortless flooding of neurotransmitters. If it is - if there is a boring sciencey deconstruction available to us at some point in the future - then it still exposes that there's something much more profound going on behind the patina of our perception than we are ever acknowledging as a species. There cannot be a boring answer to DMT.

The trip itself is fearless btw, although taking off is a matter of willpower. The hard part comes years after when you realise your life has peaked. Or that you know just seeing one piece of whatever the fuck that was would've been worth the price of a shorter lifespan, or a less great career or whatever. It completely rewrites your expectations of what's possible to experience and expect out of life. What life is. Or of how much we have yet to discover about nature and our silly little role in it.

Now, here's Tom with the weather

[Mister Six]

How different is it from DMT without the LSD?

[kittens]

I took acid at a CaB meet and had a full on sobbing breakdown while Kittens made fun of me. Legendary night

i was being your shaman. by pwning you. i was guiding you to ego pwnage.

[madhair60]

you said "this ain't butter?!" and it was so funny in that moment I crossed over from laughs to gut-wrenching sobs. It was definitely some mystical pwnage

[JaDanketies]

I think smoking salvia extract on acid is comparably out-of-this-world to smoking DMT on acid, but I have admittedly never smoked DMT on acid. I should get a pen because last time I had it it was fucking tricky to blast off. Anyone got experience with a DMT pen? Some guy in a Facebook group said he talked to a guy who made one and he didn't know shit about extraction so he was worried.

For OP, I have no idea how taking acid changes the adult brain because I have never been friends or close with an adult that wasn't already an absolute fiend when it came to substances so I've never seen it. I do think it's nice though, it gives you a change in perspective for a day and sometimes I tell myself it's helpful, like filofaxing the brain. And perhaps the first time you feel 'ego death' could be a damascene moment for some people, I don't think it counts as a damascene moment if you keep doing it over and over again and started doing it as a teenager though

[Bence Fekete]

How different is it from DMT without the LSD?

I would define it like this: all my memorable, breathtaking breakthrough experiences were usually on acid, and it was only then that I recognised the famous McKenna description: a.k.a. 'machine elves kicking down your door and jumping in and out of your body eyes wide open fuck wow mindgasm' type experience. It was only after that particular trip that I thought 'nah, that HAS to be it'.

We're not talking about a lot of acid either, to be clear, like 100ug or something is fine. I think it's working on a few levels:

1) it's much easier to blast off on acid. Paradoxical, but on acid I never feel nervous. It already feels like i'm half-way there already. So the mind is pre-relaxed and open.
2) you need much less DMT, so reaching breakthrough levels is physically easier
3) the synergy. Objects/visions are more crystalline, smooth and realistic. If solo DMT is a bungee into hyperspace then DMT + LSD is full teleportation, eyes wide open, holy fuck I'm like totally there man. A rocket boost, essentially.

None of which is to suggest you can't breakthrough without it or a hundred other ways. The trouble with DMT is there's about 10 different levels to it and most people just get to about a 6 or 7 and because that's still the hardest they've ever tripped they presume that's all she wrote. Whereas the mindblown, entity contact mad hatter tea party stuff all happens in the upper quadrant. It's one of those drugs you have to really push and find your personal sweet spot but even if you go too far, the infamous 'hyperslap', it's not really that bad. A point I'd always resisted making historically because it sounds like egomaniac drug narcissism. But it is accurate and after speaking to people through the years I think too many are missing the peak. 

Plus different purities matter too. The stuff that brought me aliens on tap was fine, powdery pure white and clearly produced under lab conditions whereas your standard homebrew/street yellow 'jungle' stuff is about 2/3x weaker. And then your issue becomes getting it all in before your lungs give up.

[Bence Fekete]

I think smoking salvia extract on acid is comparably out-of-this-world to smoking DMT on acid.

Potentially. I always just feel pure dread on Salvia so I personally wouldn't dream of mixing but I've heard people have reached visual intensities that sound comparable.

i think with most psychedelics if you take enough you can get to hallucinatory levels that replace reality almost entirely but I've only ever found that consistent, playful and charming/welcoming personality on dmt. It's definitely the 'safest' psychedelic imo.

[Keebleman]

I think smoking salvia extract on acid is comparably out-of-this-world to smoking DMT on acid

I misread that as 'saliva'.  What do you extract from it, I wondered, and how do you get it to light?