<story><title>Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the &apos;new science&apos; of psychedelics</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/15/611225541/reluctant-psychonaut-michael-pollan-embraces-the-new-science-of-psychedelics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>taneq</author><text>I find this very interesting because I had precisely the opposite reaction once when I tried psylocibin. Despite being pretty solidly materialist and agnostic, I&amp;#x27;d always held a bit of a soft spot for Cartesian duelism and a bit of a &amp;quot;but it&amp;#x27;d be cool if...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What I didn&amp;#x27;t expect was that the effects wouldn&amp;#x27;t just &amp;quot;feel real&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;be convincing&amp;quot;, they &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; real. Subjectively, it wasn&amp;#x27;t inside my head, it was the actual world that changed. The fact that a small amount of psychoactive substance could fundamentally alter my perceived reality put the final nail in the coffin for any possibility that my mind was generated by something outside my own skull.</text></item><item><author>Jedi72</author><text>Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I&amp;#x27;m a man of science, but the feeling&amp;#x2F;perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I&amp;#x27;ve gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a material universe, to someone who deep down thinks there may be a God, and I may actually have to face some kind of hell for some kind of sins I may unknowingly commit in this life. I don&amp;#x27;t consider this a spiritual awakening or something profound - it&amp;#x27;s more like I put a crack in my sanity that I can never completely fix.&lt;p&gt;These drugs are extremely powerful. They can potentially destroy healthy minds. I support more research and even, in time, legalisation - but I am sharing the story so others may take away the point that when you start hacking with your brains firmware, you should be EXTREMELY careful you dont accidentally brick it.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For clarity purposes, this wasn&amp;#x27;t my first time doing LSD and it wasn&amp;#x27;t a huge dose. Nobody understands exactly how these drugs work, maybe this was a 1&amp;#x2F;1000 event. But it happened - and I don&amp;#x27;t do drugs any more.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cmrdporcupine</author><text>Yep, the arbitrariness and oddity of the experiences cemented materialism for me.&lt;p&gt;Something an acquaintance in the old Atari users group I was a part of in the 80s&amp;#x2F;90s said to me (when I was a teenager, saying &amp;quot;acid could be neat to try&amp;quot;) stuck with me.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You know how if you drop some screws or something on video circuitry of the PCB of your computer and the display gets all scrambled? That&amp;#x27;s analogous to what LSD is doing to your brain.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The patterns displayed across the TV after doing that might be really cool. But it&amp;#x27;s a profound mistake to assume meaning in them.  In fact it&amp;#x27;d be very difficult to work backwards from what&amp;#x27;s on the screen to how the video circuitry works.</text></comment>
<story><title>Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the &apos;new science&apos; of psychedelics</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/15/611225541/reluctant-psychonaut-michael-pollan-embraces-the-new-science-of-psychedelics</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>taneq</author><text>I find this very interesting because I had precisely the opposite reaction once when I tried psylocibin. Despite being pretty solidly materialist and agnostic, I&amp;#x27;d always held a bit of a soft spot for Cartesian duelism and a bit of a &amp;quot;but it&amp;#x27;d be cool if...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What I didn&amp;#x27;t expect was that the effects wouldn&amp;#x27;t just &amp;quot;feel real&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;be convincing&amp;quot;, they &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; real. Subjectively, it wasn&amp;#x27;t inside my head, it was the actual world that changed. The fact that a small amount of psychoactive substance could fundamentally alter my perceived reality put the final nail in the coffin for any possibility that my mind was generated by something outside my own skull.</text></item><item><author>Jedi72</author><text>Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I&amp;#x27;m a man of science, but the feeling&amp;#x2F;perception was so real, my entire world view was shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I&amp;#x27;ve gone from someone who 100% believed in evolution and a material universe, to someone who deep down thinks there may be a God, and I may actually have to face some kind of hell for some kind of sins I may unknowingly commit in this life. I don&amp;#x27;t consider this a spiritual awakening or something profound - it&amp;#x27;s more like I put a crack in my sanity that I can never completely fix.&lt;p&gt;These drugs are extremely powerful. They can potentially destroy healthy minds. I support more research and even, in time, legalisation - but I am sharing the story so others may take away the point that when you start hacking with your brains firmware, you should be EXTREMELY careful you dont accidentally brick it.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For clarity purposes, this wasn&amp;#x27;t my first time doing LSD and it wasn&amp;#x27;t a huge dose. Nobody understands exactly how these drugs work, maybe this was a 1&amp;#x2F;1000 event. But it happened - and I don&amp;#x27;t do drugs any more.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>therein</author><text>Yup, when I consumed some `golden teacher` and started perceiving the people around me in `The Simpsons Cartoon Style` rendered in realtime with perfect realism replacing my reality, I was sold on that being a very real possibility as well.&lt;p&gt;And music... It takes a whole other dimension. Calling it `high def` doesn&amp;#x27;t do it any justice. Experiencing music aside, it feels as though you live the music you are hearing. It is hard to explain. It also becomes your reality.</text></comment>