The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

(http://i.imgur.com/fo860Tg.png)

1) http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Mystical-Experiences-Occasioned-by-the-Hallucinogen-Psilocybin-Lead-to-Increases-in-the-Personality-Domain-of-Openness.pdf (http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Mystical-Experiences-Occasioned-by-the-Hallucinogen-Psilocybin-Lead-to-Increases-in-the-Personality-Domain-of-Openness.pdf)

2) http://www.drtomascp.com/uploads/HungryMind_PPS_2011.pdf (http://www.drtomascp.com/uploads/HungryMind_PPS_2011.pdf)

Quite possibly, though I wouldn't want to overdo it.

Psychopharmacology has been hamstrung by the premature classification of a variety of things as useless.

Can you help me to write a wikipedia article about intellectual curiosity? Apparently there wasn't any article about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Intellectual_curiosity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Intellectual_curiosity)

I'm not that impressed with Psylocybin, which i tried a couple of times. Sure it leads to some new insights, but the effects are not always permanent. I'm more fan of methoxetamine, which makes you look at the world in a less biased view.

I have never tried methoxetamine, but it seems to be a dissociative drug (NMDA receptor antagonist), like Ketamine and PCP. These drugs are more toxic and addictive than 5-HT2A receptor agonists, like psilocybin and LSD.

I like Ibogaine more than magic mushrooms, but it is also more toxic (dangerous) than magic mushrooms. I like magic mushrooms because they aren't additive, have a low toxicity and are easy for people to grow. LSD might be a better choice, but it is difficult for people to make. Mescaline is also an interesting drug, but the cacti grow very slowly, unlike mushrooms. There is also much more research on psilocybin than on other psychedelics (http://www.citypaper.com/news/features/bcp-032917-feature-psychedelics-20170328-25-story.html (http://www.citypaper.com/news/features/bcp-032917-feature-psychedelics-20170328-25-story.html)),  

I think the magic mushrooms are nice in the moment itself but after that there's little left of it. Methoxetamine is indeed a dissociative but not very well comparable with ketamine, since it's more of a spiritual experience which makes you distill things to their core values instead of just feeling weird ;).

You know - magic mushrooms can also make you hallucinations like from the nightmare and make you mad.

I don't know about the "make you mad" part, but they can certainly give you a "bad trip". I agree that kids and teenagers probably shouldn't be exposed to such experiences, but I don't necessarily think adults shouldn't be exposed to such experiences. Exposing adults to a bit of fear, might be a good thing.  For example, many people seem to think that having Donald Trump as a president is lots of fun. But it isn't necessarily funny for people dying from lack of health insurance, and it won't be funny for any of us if he starts a nuclear war.  I think "bad trips" aren't necessarily so bad, since they might make us take life a bit more seriously. And a mushroom induced "bad trip" doesn't even come close to an ibogaine induced bad trip, since you can actually die from ibogaine, and it lasts 3 times longer.  Why are western Europeans and Americans such pussies compared to the Bwiti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bwiti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bwiti)), in Gabon?

Because I don't like to meddle with my brainchemistry at all.

Going to be a bit hard, considering that there are molecules that interact with the nervous system in many types of food. For example caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline just to mention a few.

For adults that have attended a Montessorian type of education, psychedelics might not be necessary. It is mostly beneficial for people that have attended a traditional type of education which destroyed their intellectual curiosity. In such a case, psychedelics might reignite the flame of intellectual curiosity, or reawake a desire for learning.

a lot of stuff can do that. set and setting is what they say, to prevent this :)

and some people will do that :). do you know the drug in 'limitless' ? It will probably be related to MXE, which greatly improves memory.

Here is a new diagram, with the "missing link" from Cristine H. Legare's (http://www.cristinelegare.com/) research , which gives even more credence to this theory:

(https://image.ibb.co/gjgQHv/meaning_of_life.png)

http://www.archania.org/magic_mushrooms_and_mysterious_phenomena.html (http://www.archania.org/magic_mushrooms_and_mysterious_phenomena.html)

It is interesting to notice, that the step from "intellectual curiosity" to "intellectual growth", is basically my whole education article.

The meaning of life is that there is a dragon on your fridge trying to eat you when you reach for the orange juice in it?

That sounds much more like something you would experience on scopolamine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscine) . This is also what I hate about the way people often talk about drugs. We are very well aware of that we shouldn't generalize people. That is politically incorrect! But people generalize drugs all the time, although they interact with completely different receptor-systems in the body. Psilocybin and scopolamin are as different as cats and dogs. Yeah, they are all animals, but all animals are not the same. Nor are all drugs the same.

So the french guy who jumped out of a hotel in holland after consuming magic mushrooms and thinking he could fly was really high on scopolamine? Thanks for the explanation, you just helped the dutch govt who illegalized the selling of said mushrooms by showing their mistake :).
Have you consumed these mushrooms ever? Or truffles, as the legally sold product is called in holland now? (which is basically fungus living underground with the same active ingredients as the mushrooms).
If you want, I could point you in the direction of magic mushrooms growth kits. These are legal still. Most psylocybin-active products are heavy on the visuals, not so much on the psychic effect.

Ehh... if he died, how do you know he jumped out of the window because he thought he could fly? Maybe he was a mentally disturbed person that wanted to commit suicide. Maybe we should start to blame alcohol for all the suicides that occur while people are intoxicated with alcoholic beverages?  In your country, there are MUCH MORE deaths related to alcoholic beverages, than to magic mushrooms.

With psychedelics, it is a general tendency for people to blame the drugs for any malevolent behavior that might occur. But with alcoholic beverages, we usually blame the individuals.

Maybe this, maybe that. You think that we are a bunch of dumbasses that don't do any forensic research and hear witnesses after someone dies in such a way?

The fact is, quite a lot of people experience bad trips during their trips. Which is no problem to control once you have the right mindset and setting and someone watching you. But it is still something to consider.
That's why I asked for your personal experience. Could you share it with us?

I don't know if there were any witnesses. With lots of suicides there aren't any witnesses. And even if there were witnesses, people cannot necessarily be trusted, especially if they were intoxicated themselves. I don't think anybody really knows what goes on inside  the head of another person.

And even if he "thought he could fly", and that's why he jumped out of the window, I would put 95% of the blame on the individual. In that case,  he probably had psychotic / schizophrenic tendencies in his normal state of being.


Sure. I have had lots of good and bad trips when I was younger. But I don't necessarily think I have ever lost so much touch with reality that I believed I could jump out of a window. Bad trips are usually much more about seeing "bad things" that you kinda are used to ignore in your normal state of being. For example, my friends are assholes to me, but I ignore that in my normal state of being to protect my psychological well-being. While high on magic mushrooms, I might realize what assholes they are, and that might give me a very bad feeling. You kinda remove psychological filters with 5-HT2A receptor agonists (especially mushrooms).

I actually remember once when I ate magic mushrooms while I was together with my parents (they didn't know). I remember that I felt extremely sad, because for the first time I realized what an unhappy marriage they had. I had always ignored that before.

I agree.. But how dumb can you be if you think that I am talking out of my ass here and haven't read the related news articles and research back then. I don't agree with the ban at all. But when you disregard what happened you are putting people in danger.


Sure. I have had lots of good and bad trips when I was younger. But I don't necessarily think I have ever lost so much touch with reality, that I believed I could jump out of a window. Bad trips are usually much more about seeing "bad things" that you kinda are used to ignore in your normal state of being. For example, my friends are assholes to me, but I ignore that in my normal state of being to protect my psychological well-being. While high on magic mushrooms, I might realize what assholes they are, and that might give me a very bad feeling.

[/quote]

I have never had any bad trip with it as well. But I understand that people who are more control freaks than I have had really bad experiences with it, some of my friends as well.
About bad trips with psylocybin:



Source: http://www.psypost.org/2016/08/study-bad-trips-from-magic-mushrooms-often-result-in-an-improved-sense-of-personal-well-being-44684

So yeah, if you're a tourist you really should watch out doing drugs in a country that is more liberal. Get yourself educated.
Finally the whole reason I agitate against your suggestion is that I don't think the risk is worth the reward. If you're looking for a mystical experience with way less risk for bad trips you should try something else like LSD or MXE, or even MDMA.

You don't think that if people have very strong psychological filters, they might benefit even more from removing those filters? I mean, a coworker of my wife is often treated really badly by her friends, but she is a very positive person and kinda ignores it. Still, wouldn't it maybe be better for her to get some new friends? But as long as she ignores how badly they are treating her, she doesn't necessarily try to get herself new friends.

I think this is very common. When we "ignore" something with our psychological filters, it actually harms us in the long run.

I'm just saying that research has shown that psylocybin is more likely to cause bad trips and more likely to have people put themselves in a harmful situation than other drugs.
But by all means, make another graph about it so your own personal opinion becomes more scientific?

I know they are more likely to give people bad trips than most other drugs, but I don't necessarily think that is bad for people in the long run. Compared to MDMA for example, I also think they give people MUCH MORE introspective insight.


From the article you linked to:

As already said a small percentage of those bad trips result in the person putting himself in harmful situations, as research has shown.


From the article you linked to:

[/quote]

As said, that reward is not worth the risk when a small percentage has put himself in harmful situations due to it.

You need to multiply the probability of putting others/self at risk during a bad trip, with the probability of having a bad trip in the first place. Say for example if the probability of having a bad trip is 20%, and of the people having a bad trip around 2% put themselves/others at risk, then it is 0.2 * 0.02 = 0.004, or 0.4% probability.

So you compare this risk to the risk of putting self/others at risk in other aspects of life, for example with alcohol intoxication, driving a car, using a boat, riding a horse, etc. You will find that we are doing tons of other things which are much more likely of putting self/others at risk.

We cannot necessarily ban all things which have some probability of putting self/others at risk. That would at least create an extremely boring society, where the population would be rather overprotected and dumb.

Also, the probability of having a bad trip in the first place, can be reduced a lot by: 1) ensuring that you are not taking too much, 2) being in a place where you feel comfortable, 3) having a stable psychology.

What do you mean by 'for example if'. Did you start this thread by not reading the heavily available scientific research about it and get acquainted with the actual percentages in those studies?
Why do that? Spending an hour on google saves a lot of harm for people acting upon your advice..

So what? Do you think all studies arrive at the same percentages? Then you are in for a surprise. Most studies on recreational drugs, pharmaceuticals, or nutrition arrive at different likelihoods and percentages. That is one of the reasons why we had that entire other thread about nutrition.

Also, the likelihood of having a bad trip probably also varies a lot  between countries and cultures. For example, maybe the French people have a higher likelihood than you guys, for getting a bad trip.

1) By taking less you just get some close eyed visuals, nothing more. The mystic experience you talk about is then never there.
2) Agreed
3) People with stable psychology don't really experience much positive effects as much as people who need a 'rewiring of the brain' to feel happy again.

About MXE. It does the rewiring way better. Whereas psylocybin and mdma make you relativate more easily (and be more understanding about people/problems from the past) MXE makes all those problems less important in your head, with permanent effects. And it also greatly improves your memory and especially if you have a creative job it could help you become more open minded to things you would normally not think of. Qua negative effects it gives quite heavy auditory hallucinations, if that is not your thing. But if you are a musician it really could help in writing better music, since you're better able to distinguish different instruments in existing songs and judge how they relate. Another negative is that it really amplifies the effects of alcohol to an unhealthy situation. So never combine it with alcohol.
2CB (c, d, e, f, getting stronger and with longer trips as they go) has those effects as well along with heavy visuals. You know the effect when you smell something you are reminded of the place where you smelled it? Or when you hear music you are reminded of the time when it was your favorite s ong? 2CB really heightens those effects, though the visuals are hard to handle for some people. Both chemicals are very hard to dose by the way so take care where you get it and get a good scale and test a small amount before you take more.

The people I know who have had such a mystical experience (most of them on LSD and MXE and MDMA, never on mushrooms) are generally more open minded and less stubborn in such discussions.

Not exactly. I have probably used magic mushrooms more than 100 times, and I have only had very bad experiences at very high doses. I have had plenty of insightful introspective experiences at "moderately high" doses.  I think bad experiences also often are related to physical discomfort. For example, if you get very nauseous from the way you consume mushrooms, it might increase the likelihood of a bad experience. There are things you can mix the mushrooms with, to make yourself less nauseous.

I also feel like I got very little insight from the bad trips I had at very high doses. So very high dosages should probably be avoided completely.

The nausea really comes from the way it acts on your digestive system (the same way serotonin does this), and is only present with most people 15 minutes to 45 minutes after consuming. After puking or enduring the nausea it gets a lot better.

Okay, but if you for example grain the mushrooms and mix them in a dough, it will be released much slower in your stomach, because it takes time for your stomach to dissolve the dough. Then you will probably avoid nausea altogether.

true, but like spacecake this could lead to overdosing since the effect takes too long to kick in :)

Doesn't take so long if you haven't eaten anything, and I think it takes longer with marijuana anyhow, since it is a less polar molecule. I remember once buying some chocolate cakes with marijuana after eating a dinner in Amsterdam. I thought they had fooled me, because I didn't start to get high before in the middle of the night, several hours after.

When mixing it in a dough and eating it on an empty stomach, you should start feeling the effects after 30-40 minutes. But not like when you make a tea, and get all the effects almost at once. It comes much more gradually of course.

I have used MDMA many times when I was in high school. I had a girlfriend who liked that we used it before we had sex. Never had any spiritual experiences that were even remotely comparable to those on mushrooms though.

If you can get it up while under that influence I applaud your potence :)

Another thing, I am not necessarily saying that mushrooms are better to give "mystical experiences" than those drugs. I actually like Ibogaine more than mushrooms. Maybe also Mescaline. Never tried MXE and LSD. And of course they could also give you "mystical experiences" .  I also think different people feel differently about different drugs. So maybe for you MXE is indeed best to give you mystical experiences, but not necessarily for me. The important thing it just that we get mystical experiences somehow I guess. Doesn't need to be from mushrooms, even if I know that they will give people mystical experiences.

The main reason why I advocate for mushrooms, is because they have a low toxicity, and because I have lots of experiences with them. But I am not claiming that they necessarily are the best drug to give you mystical experiences. That could very well be MXE.

Here. I made this just for you:

(https://image.ibb.co/n7HcFF/meaning_of_life.png)

However, I do not guarantee for the safety of all these drugs. Several people have for example died from Ibogaine. I think mushrooms and LSD have the lowest toxicities, while Ibogaine has one of the highest.

I think nobody ever died from LSD. Some people (20) died from MXE of which 8 have died from it alone. As said it doesn't combine well with alcohol.
It was actually created quite recently by a guy with an amputated limb who experienced heavy phantom pains, and developed the chemical which really helps against it.
I guess since it's a dissociative, with the most notable effect when you consume it for the first time, being that you experience your hands not being yours anymore, it could also make you dissociate from that amputated limb.
He regrets right now making that after the first death occured. But right now people are researching using small amounts of it to cure depression, for which it works remarkably. It changes something in the working of your brain that makes you let go of things and worry less more easily.

Ok, but wouldn't it maybe be best for people that worry a lot then, and have problems letting go? For example my wife. I almost never worry, and let things go almost too easily.

Absolutely! But that you can use it to let go of things also makes it more addictive. You run the risk of taking it after a bad day, to more easily solve that thing in your head.

Yes, this is kinda why I have been a little skeptical about MXE. All NMDA receptor antagonist are anesthetics, and probably therefore a little bit addictive. I also don't quite understand how it can make your memory better. The NMDA receptor is definitely involved in memory, but I thought NMDA receptor agonists (the opposite type of drugs) were used to get better memory, not NMDA receptor antagonist like ketamine and methoxetamine. To help you "let go", also doesn't sound like something that would make your memory better.

Anyhow. Classification of these drugs as either agonists or antagonist might be somewhat misleading. There are often subtypes of receptors and drugs often interact with multiple receptors. So it could very well be that methoxetamine makes your memory better. It is just the opposite of what our current theoretical understanding of NMDA receptor would say. But there is A LOT we don't know about how the brain works. So, since I have never tried methoxetamine, I am going to believe you since you have actually tried it.

Actually, I have a theory of why you might be getting better memory now:

And about letting go. Here is a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeARhinr7rY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeARhinr7rY) (maybe something people could listen to, while they are in the period for letting go).

(https://image.ibb.co/hSBtNv/methoxetamine.png)

When you use methoxetamine to block NMDA receptors, the body might start producing more glutamate. After most of the  methoxetamine has been cleansed from your body, you might still have a surplus of glutamate, which gives you better memory. Be aware though that having an excess of glutamate in your system can be neurotoxic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity)). So getting better memory might come at a price. It might actually kill your neurons.

I think the addiction will be more psychological instead of fysiological ;).

Here is a modified version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

(https://image.ibb.co/eg5QUk/modified_maslow_hierarchy.jpg)

http://www.archania.org/magic_mushrooms_and_the_passion_for_mystery.html (http://www.archania.org/magic_mushrooms_and_the_passion_for_mystery.html)

This also makes me think of games full of mysteries (Star Control 2 for example), compared to MMORPG's where the focus mostly is upon character development (self-actualization). That should also make it pretty clear why I am writing in this forum, and not in a forum for an MMORPG. Most of you probably feel a great passion for mysteries, since you were so interested in Star Control 2.

EDIT: I just realized that there are numerous of problems with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have now created a completely new version, where I have also changed on the lower levels. The need for community should be very low... just above the need for survival. Humans are group animals. We cannot function properly without community. We wouldn't even have language without community. Also. The "need for community" tends to take precedence over the "need for procreation" among group animals, since it isn't necessarily imperative for all members of a community to participate in procreation. However, there is often tension between the "need for procreation" and the "need for community". Sigmund Freud wrote extensively about this.

(https://image.ibb.co/naM5VQ/modified_maslow_hierarchy.jpg)

I decided to call it "passion for mystery", rather than "need for mystery". Here is a song I like about passion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYiNNlfYAMw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYiNNlfYAMw)

https://www.inverse.com/article/37400-magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-reset-depression (https://www.inverse.com/article/37400-magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-reset-depression)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7)