i get that psychedelics like mdma have been proven to help with depression and other issues, but i just dont know about lsd. i always felt like i had less control on it and my mind could more easily go places i didnt want it to go. it can get pretty dark and im not sure its a good thing for people with depression or other issues. that "sudden, dramatic personality change" the article talks about can go either way and ive seen it go really bad. i know someone who probably already had schizophrenic tendencies have a bad trip and they were never the same after that. i had a handful of negative experiences on lsd and none on mushrooms ever. even when i took a "heroic dose" (5+ grams) of mushrooms, i still felt in control of myself and my surroundings...that wasnt always the case on lsd. i know others who say the opposite, but in my experience lsd was the only one that produced bad trips. mushrooms never let me down! lsd also causes a weird type of "hangover" that takes a day or two to come out of...knotted up stomach and brain not quite feeling synced up...never had those feelings after taking mushrooms. mushrooms can be very spiritual - lsd just seems dirty to me now.
It's also good for camping with friends and communing with nature... or so my research from the 80's and 90's indicate.
in the last 15 years ive only taken mushrooms 3 times - twice at big bend and once at lost maples...they were the three best psychedelic experiences of my life. ill never trip in an urban environment again - they should be done in nature, far away from anyone who is not also tripping. i took acid and went to astroworld a couple times in the early 90's too. that was before i heard bill hicks, or i would have known better...
My findings confirmed! I also took a trip or two at astroworld in the early 90's one of which ended up with me and a buddy smoking a joint in the upper deck of the astrodome during an astros game.
My understanding is that these studies are using very, very small amounts of LSD, and under supervision. I agree that it isn't for everyone. Far from it, and caution folks, if they do use it, to do it in a "safe" place. Don't travel, don't get in a car, don't walk around a busy urban area. Do things like Big Bend, Lost Maples, the beach, the woods. As you suggest (and you are talking about mushrooms, but the same advice applies to LSD, in my opinion), find some Nature and enjoy. A "bad trip" isn't something made up, but rather a real possibility. In fact, my suggestion would be to pass on Acid altogether. Stay away from it, because it impacts people in different ways, and how it effects one person doesn't mean it'll effect you the same way. I read an article from the San Francisco Examiner in the mid-'60's about it, and wanted to check it out because it sounded like something out of science fiction, and I was really into SF at the time (still am). The author was a reporter who decided to see what the fuss was about, and he certainly made it sound like a trip (no pun intended). I had a better understanding much later of what he meant when I delved into it, but never found quite the experience he found, as much as I tried. Mushrooms are much different. We used to go to Addicks and fill up a kitchen garbage bag full of them. You would look and look, and then, suddenly, they were everywhere. It was always like that, wherever we found them. They were nowhere, and then they were everywhere. Now there is nothing but buildings and parking lots and homes where we once went to hunt them. Times change, but the need for caution doesn't. Don't trust science (sorry, B-Bob!), not in this case. Trust Nature.
Of this whole thread, the only truly terrifying part to me is imagining tripping hard while at Astroworld. WTF.
So true. Tripping on acid and coming face to face with Marvel McFey would be too much for some people.
However, attending bullfights on acid can be very beneficial. At least according to this noted psychologist:
Yeah the only way would be microdosing. Otherwise, you better have everything right in your mind... i can't even imagine tripping on depression. I've never not just filled up on them, like fresh off the mounds until I'm literally full, then get trapped in a creek bed or something for the next 12 hours.
Heavy, large dose psilocybin trips make me feel great for up to a week following them (in addition to being amazing themselves). For that whole week the world becomes crystal clear...I feel like I am seeing everything with the un-jaded eyes of a child. Anxiety and negative emotions are majorly reduced. I wish I could benefit from microdosing the way others apparently do. It sometimes boosts my mood, but even the microest of doses makes me tired enough to offset any benefit. I’d like to try microdosing with lsd, though.
Most of the psychedelics have a very long refractory period - really 2 or so weeks to be back to 100% effectiveness. Several hundred µg of LSD a day or two after having taken several hundred µg of LSD basically results in blood pressure spike, muscle relaxation, a little bit of stimulation, and not much else. In fact, now that I think about it, the general physical/mental effects are a whole lot like the first day of taking an SSRI before you spool up to the full effects - basically a serotonin flood. Maybe micro dosing doesn't saturate the serotonin receptors in the brain, but you couldn't "macro-dose" on a daily basis. It just doesn't work. I understand that some of the super short half-life psychedelics like DMT that you can re-dose repeatedly, but the side effect there would be having to listen to Joe Rogan drone on for several hours about how awesome and life changing it was for him.
My own research back in the day didn't involve faping (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but did involve a lot of sex on mushrooms. I highly recommend it, if someone is going to use mushrooms anyway.
