It's interesting to map out that our predictive tooling (from primal emotion to top executive function) is pretty good so that we appropriate the "right" amount of energy against constantly monitoring our surroundings. The higher we go the more energy it requires.

There's a weird relationship between coffee and sleep, or I make the leap to say any substance which have lasting effects on mood. It sort of offsets against the deeper primal moods and corollary activations. I argue that caffeine in this manner is pro higher-mental function through disrupting this summating sleep process (letting you naturally figure it out) and letting your brain attribute "= good mood" to it all. (humans are terrible at knowing how they felt at some point in time when the current is different).

Interestingly this can also be achieved while awake through meditation.

That's what the term 'yuppie' implied for a lot of people.

All these people from the late 1960's and 1970's that spoke about dropping out or how awesome it would be join a short lived commune and so on and so forth only to became intensely materialistic and image obsessed in their 30's.

Which then spoke to the idea that a lot of the 'ultra spiritual' stuff that hippie movement was involved in was nothing more then getting wasted and being fashionable. And when it was fashionable to be materialistic and image-obsessed they turned into that.

This may confuse people who associate hippies with anti-war movement, but the anti-war movement was largely a separate from the hippies.

>“Now you see here,” I said. “Everyone in this conversation is in favor of universal love and transcendent joy. But I’ve seen the way this works. Some college student gets his hands on some DMT, visits here, you guys tell him about universal love and transcendent joy, he wakes up, says that his life has been changed, suddenly he truly understands what really matters. But it never lasts. The next day he’s got to get up and go to work and so on, and the universal love lasts about five minutes until his boss starts yelling at him for writing his report in the wrong font, and before you know it twenty years later he’s some slimy lawyer who’s joking at a slimy lawyer party about the one time when he was in college and took some DMT and spent a whole week raving about transcendent joy, and all the other slimy lawyers laugh, and he laughs with them, and so much for whatever spiritual awakening you and your colleagues in LSD and peyote are trying to kindle in humanity. And if I accept your message of universal love and transcendent joy right now, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to me, and meanwhile human civilization is going to keep being stuck in greed and ignorance and misery. So how about you shut up about universal love and you factor my number for me so we can start figuring out a battle plan for giving humanity a real spiritual revolution?”

>“Universal love,” said the cactus person.

>“Transcendent joy,” said the big green bat.

It's good to be wary of cheap spirituality. Thanks for sharing your story. I've seen similar. It's that whole Steve Jobs taking LSD kinda thing, isn't it?

Or perhaps people who seek power and aren't afraid to take risks are the sort of people who end up trying ayahuasca.

We'd need more data about people who had ayahuasca to establish a link :-)

In their particular evolutionary ladder, how many stairs they jumped?

In the end the best way to understand this, is to understand what they tell you about themselves, how they were before and after the experience. It may not look much from your perspective, but it may be something better, from their point of view at least, then what was possible before..

I've been "joking" with my friends that I want to take a trip to Costa Rica to do Ayahuasca with them.

The "story" of how Ayahuasca came to be is quite fascinating: Ayahuasca, the drink, is actually comprised of two plant-based ingredients. One of the ingredients supplies the "DMT" portion, but the effects would last a very short time (something like 20 seconds to a couple minutes. My numbers might be off).

Then they stumbled on this second ingredient, which grows in a completely different area of the jungle, which prolongs the effects of the first ingredient (I'm guessing this is the MAOI portion, but I'm not 100% sure). Combining these two ingredients into the "Ayahuasca" we know today, the experience went from short 30-second trips to these 6-12 hour "sessions".

The most interesting part is that the shamans claim it was the "plants" or the "plant spirits" that told them to seek out the second ingredient and combine the two.

I make my own dried San Pedro powder to consume now. It's great. Two to six tea spoons of this stuff will give you more than 10 hours of dream state. Be sure to fast from the day before. Go out in nature if you can, it's great!

Im kind of shy to say this out loud here on HN with such a distinct crowd of people who really study those subjects, but given is more of a personal believe, i guess i can be forgiven if it sounds stupid or even a uninformed point of view.

All that being said, there are experienced groups, in Holland for example, that lead safe group Ayahuasca ceremonies, such as a long weekend with 2 ceremonies. Peru is an option but it's much more of a raw experience and less gentle to a western mindset.

In a ceremony I saw a woman drink ayahuasca just once and she had a much stronger trip that the rest of us, but this is uncommon.

Edit: This works when you smoke changa. I never tried it pure so I don't know how well that would work in a cig.

So last year someone told me about a shaman that comes to my city twice a year and that he conducts ayausca ceremonies. I thought what the heck, let me try it. So I paid the fee and drove out to the mountains to meetup with this shaman person. I did followed the diet that they recommended. Basically the weekend goes like this: on the Friday night at around 19:00, you drink some of the brew, it's black and weird and taste disgusting. Revolting actually. You then lay down and try to relax.. and after about 30 minutes your journey begins. I'm not going to ellaborate on that as it is ultra subjective and in a way very private, but what happens in the next few hours is life changing. He chants and sings, burns different plants (similar to smudge stick), play instruments (bells, drums, flutes, kalimba etc)... the most profound for me is that a highway of empathy gets opened up and you feel everything. I thought about my mom and I felt EVERYTHING that she has ever carried on her shoulders. It was deeply valuable. I also met my soul or inner god or true spirit. It was a childlike, pure and powerful being, sitting in a garden. I knew it was me because I was sitting where he/it was sitting. The amount love and power and purity and brightness that radiated from it was just beautiful. It had no age and lives outside of time (time is messed up in that place..), is indestructible and immortal. I'm stil agnostic but I now believe that I do have a soul and it is immortal in a way. I was also shown that we must propagate. Over and over, the concept of propagation showed up. I'm unmarried with no children (and never really wanted children), but it showed me I need to find my people (same race, culture, language, same mannerisms, someone that will aknowledge me - basically I need to find my equal mate) and propagate. That's all I want to share about the Friday night for now.

If you can sleep that night, you sleep. I did not close my eyes at all after the journey ended. I was to scared to stand up and walk back to the cabins. I just waited for the sun to come up to walk back to the cabins to take a shower. All the people there make some small talk. We were 8 poeple the first time I went. Nobody eats breakfast. Then at 09:00 on the Saturday morning the shaman gives everyone San Pedro cactus powder. It also tastes disgusting, but this experience was the best for me. After about an hour the effect come on. Then, for the next 16 hours or so you walk around in the fields/gardens at the resort. We are not allowed to speak to each other. Everything slows down. Time goes away. You are in a dream but awake. Throughout the Saturday you can ponder what happened the previous night. For I received lots of small truths about plants and foods and trees and stuff. Awesome experience. I did not vommit from the San Pedro, my body 100% accepts it. I made me feel like a timeless monk, just there to observe the tree.

At about 15:00 they serve some fruits. It is the most amazing taste to eat fruits while under the influence of San Pedro. Not only were you starving but you get to eat the fruits of nature and that in itself is a worthwile experience.

The night winds down and people go to sleep. I did not sleep that night either. I was too afraid of the dark like the previous night. The sunday morning I went home.

All in all, coming from a non-religious person, the experience was mind-bogling. It showed me where religions/spiritually possibly came from and it allowed me to peer behind the curtain a bit. I haven't explain above the full extent of the experience because it is very difficult to explain with human words what it's like. October last year I attented again and and had different experiences, example, for a few minutes when I laid stil, I could feel the electricity flowing through my body, I could feel my arms vibrate AND BEST OF ALL, I could hear everything vibrate. You know all that stuff they say about everything vibrates? I've experience it for about 10 minutes, and it was awesome.

Last year November I ate 5 grams of the Golden Teacher (a very good mushroom). I was home alone on a Friday night, so I ate it and had another mind bogling experience that night, followed by about 6 hours of CLEAR introspection. I could see my life in front of me and move pieces around as if it was my body/organs. Awesome night.

After the first session with Shaman person, that very next week I quit my theraphy cause I also saw how it was non-sense - it became a moaning session that convinced me that I'm solving my problems and moving forward, without actually making progress.

Would I recommend this stuff to anyone? Yes and NO!. You will not come out the same way afterwards and it is a one way ticket. You cannot unsee and unfeel any of it.I think about it EVERY DAY. I now eat much less meat, NO processed foods, are empathetic to the max, I do cold showers everyday. I bought small instuments (a Kalimba, Occarina and humming bowl). I burn incense a few times a week (and regularly smudges), listen to VERY different kinds of music now... basically it changed my life. I also drink camomile tea every night, with candle light (no artificial light) and play the kalimba while almost falling asleep.

Before all this I was most likely a very toxic, typical arrogant programmer type. Listened to metal all the time and ate fast foods all the time. I had a "I dont care" attitude about everything and everyone in life, including myself. All that has evaporated and it feels like that person was a different person. I also started respecting most religions, specifically buddhist and some indian philosophies. My tollerance for fundamentalist religions decreased a lot (basically christianity + islam), specifically when it comes to churches and "spiritual leader" (priests, rabi's etc). It all feels fake because it feels like I've seen/touched/felt the true religion (cannot actually call my experience that but it felt like the true reality).

Anyway I'm gonna stop writing now, I have some code to commit!

edit: english not my first language and the above was typed with haste.

edit 2: for interest sake, I was the youngest person there, both times. Was mostly people above 30 and 40, guys who are ultra successful and rich, not knowing what to do next with their lives. My purpose for going was just to try and understand consciousness better since I'm a programmer. I didnt know I was about to take the most powerful substance, and as my first psycedelic. I've decided I won't consume it again (it's too hardcore for me), but I will consume San Pedro again as my body seems to love it!

So we get someone who had a moderately intense psychedelic experience for the first time and it overwhelmed them. That person has heard a lot about the mind-expanding properties of psychedelics, and figures "hey, that must really profound. That must have been religious. That must have been a mystical experience."

And they go about their daily life enjoying the totally-real benefits of taking LSD here and there. They feel happy and sociable. They feel more appreciative about their life. Great.

but look....

sometimes... folks who have mystical experiences have a difficult time integrating that experience. They obsess over it. They attempt to repeat it, but fail because they discover that it is not repeatable. They change their priorities in accordance with their new knowledge, to the bafflement of their friends. They find themselves unable to relate to other people because their priorities have become so far-fucking-out. They seek out people who may have experienced something similar by immersing themselves in religious practices, befriending religious teachers, and devouring everything they can get their hands on.

and so on and so forth.

My only point is that psychedelic experiences can seem very important and religious in nature. How genuinely important that experience was tends to be reflected in the person's reaction to it.

It seems like an incorrect mischaracterization to say they are all fatally flawed throwaway papers, no?

It's a commonly used journal, and a reasonable impact factor of 4. It's not like this is a predatory journal or a complete bullshit journal.

Do you have more information on why you don't like SR?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports

This experience can be very challenging or disillusioning for many people. Integration of these experiences is a super important part of the process of using psychedelics to systematically level up your consciousness. That said, once you've used them to a level where you have moved past shadow work and into more realization work, these substances seem almost miraculous.

My favorite quote on this is by Terence McKenna: "People say, 'is there risk, to DMT? It sounds so intense. Is it dangerous?' The answer is yes, it's tremendously dangerous. The danger is the possibility of death by astonishment."

Mystical experiences change beliefs, ideology, and alter the way we interpret reality in the long-term. Whether or not those beliefs exist in the physical brain, is, I guess, an open question.

All that said, I'm not entirely convinced that mystical experiences are particularly beneficial. I suspect that the changes in beliefs they engender can indeed be malignant.

But then again, I also low-key suspect that LSD was popularized by the CIA among hippies in the 60s in order to destabilize and undermine the anti-war movement, replacing activism with pointless psychedelia and the search for ultimate reality, mannn.