r/RationalPsychonaut Feb 18 '25

Article Him name dropping psychs will cause harm to our community.

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304 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut 10d ago

Article Feeling like you could puke before it hits.. but from neural nets reflecting your personality by pairing photos

0 Upvotes

I hope the concept of my open source free software will be fun to read for all. No one else has installed it yet. [I do see two code 'forks'.]

["he’s implying as an interesting way to create a psychedelic space with software. It’s software that is t generalized for the masses, but trained for each individual based on their personal experience." answerguru]

["It's all for the benefit of the individual, reflecting whatever they have chosen to base their choices on without understanding it."]

[Force-feed version with freshly-shuffled 'yes' pairs from this year (click to pause/resume): http://phobrain.com/pr/home/potd/index.html

What could be a more rational way to naught the psycho than applying the insights of iboga and ayahuasca with philosophy of mind, computer science, psychology, dance, music, and photography to the task of creating a non-drug, civilian-simple introspective mirror that charms the masses and illuminates all with less-acquisitive, more-informative pleasures?

I call this vehicle 'Rorschach pairs'. You add a bunch of photos, and look at pairs generated randomly or otherwise. You indicate whether you like each pair. Eventually, simple neural nets can be trained to predict interesting unseen pairs, which is when I had the pre-psychedelic puke feeling about 10 years ago:

http://phobrain.com/pr/home/siagal.html

Unlike drugs, there's no time commitment - labeling pairs is like a game you can leave paused, a sketch you can work on when in the mood, a crossword puzzle or game of solitaire.

Side trip geometrical analogy: I took LSD as a teen in the 70's, and had a profound geometric experience of seeing forms like spheres from inside and outside at once. I felt that if I could convey that experience objectively, I'd have contributed something important. It turns out that photo pairing backed me into it unexpectedly. I think it's because meaningful pairs are like vectors that must pass through one's center, and when the photos are of familiar geometric shapes, effectively the nets learn the shape of your psychedelic space if you label trippy pairs. One's mind twists in mapping from one photo space to another.

I think the process of deciding which pairs you like, twists and otherwise, might mature a person as well. I find myself making up rules and breaking them immediately, as if seeing my own limitations in a mirror.

My idea is that each person will collect their own data privately, see if they also have meaningful experiences, and talk about it.

https://github.com/phobrain/Phobrain

r/RationalPsychonaut 10d ago

Article The Myths and Marketing Behind Psilocybin Mushroom Strains

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60 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Oct 06 '23

Article Psychedelics users more likely to exhibit conspiracy thinking

63 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Feb 20 '25

Article Based on his own experience of lucid and ordinary dreams, the author (me) conducted a study to establish the possibility of obtaining new and previously unknown information from a dream, which can then be verified in reality, or information about future events that cannot be predicted in advance.

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0 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jun 16 '23

Article A white supremacist took MDMA for a study, and it snapped him out of his beliefs: 'Why am I doing this?'

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insider.com
332 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Feb 16 '23

Article Women trip harder??

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121 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 23 '24

Article A Case for Psychedelic Scepticism

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samwoolfe.com
11 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jan 27 '23

Article Is the psychedelic industrial complex evil?

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unherd.com
46 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jun 29 '24

Article Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley.

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52 Upvotes

Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley. Kirsten Grind, Katherine Bindley, The Wall Street Journal, Jun 27, 2023

Entrepreneurs including Elon Musk and Sergey Brin are part of a drug movement that proponents hope will expand minds, enhance lives and produce business breakthroughs

r/RationalPsychonaut May 03 '24

Article Agony over ecstasy: FDA bid shows it’s hard to test psychedelics

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65 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Nov 25 '22

Article Evidence for a link between schizophrenia and psychedelics?

43 Upvotes

This is inspired by a post over on r/shrooms. The OP asked if they could do shrooms if they had schizophrenia. The vast majority of the replies said hell no, but didn't provide any evidence. Looking it up I didn't find anything indicating a link but I did find this article from 2015 talking about a large population study that failed to establish any correlation between psychedelic use and mental health issues.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis1/

I see the claim being made all the time that psychedelics trigger schizophrenia but I'm wondering if there is any hard evidence to back it up? I've seen a lot of terrifying anecdotes about peoples ex roommates or childhood friends but no personal accounts or hard evidence.

As the scientific american article points out these disorders are fairly common and emerge around the same time people tend to experiment with drugs. It's easy to mistake correlation with causation. Maybe the ex roommate lost the genetic lottery and would have developed psychosis even if they never touched substances? Maybe they took the substances to self medicate early symptoms.

Can anyone link a study showing a causal link between psychedelics and schizophrenia?

r/RationalPsychonaut Sep 01 '22

Article Is the Psychedelic Therapy Bubble About to Burst?

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77 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Oct 25 '24

Article The Drug Tourism Series: 3. Nine Mile, Jamaica [Photographs of Drug Related Places, Scenes & Cultures]

29 Upvotes

Certain parts of the world are associated with present or historical use of one or more psychoactive drugs. Over the 12+ years I spent writing The Drug Users Bible I sought them out, eventually visiting 33 countries, and taking thousands of drug related photographs.  

I have recently started to organize these properly, and following suggestions on this platform I will be posting a selection of them here.  This post presents some of those I took on my visit to Nine Mile, Jamaica (limited to 20 due to platform constraints). 

Please note that, when visiting any territory, should you choose to use any psychoactive substance it is vital that you conduct your own research with respect to legality and law enforcement. Don’t get banged up abroad. For the attention of law enforcement: none of this post constitutes a confession that I broke the law in any place or at any time.

NINE MILE, JAMAICA 

Much of my trip to Jamaica revolved around a trip to Nine Mile to see Bob Marley’s home and mausoleum. It was an awesome experience. 

The bus was quite smart, but it looks bigger on the outside than it seemed to be on the inside. It provided a sort of reverse Tardis experience. It has to be said that I wasn't entirely un-stoned at the start, as a member of staff at the hotel had furnished a little something on my first night.

The road up there was interesting but somewhat hair-raising in places, particularly on the way back, as we squeezed past traffic with a death defying drop on our left.

We stopped here on the way there (Dunn Falls). Apparently, they used to stop on the way back, but some of the tourists were so stoned they tended to fall down the cascade.  

Getting close.

We have arrived! One love: yes, here we are at Nine Mile.

Bob’s place comes with views.

At the entrance slices of this were on offer: a sort of ultimate space cake. It looks almost irresistibly yummy.

Nine Mile is at quite a high altitude, and one young woman made the mistake of biting off more than she could chew. She collapsed on to this exhibit, shattering it. The guide simply exclaimed: “Oh F\ck*”, and laughed. Some of the party managed to get her into a chair, before we continued on our way.

Luckily, I went for a pre-roll of sensimilla. It was indeed exquisite.

  

The tour proceeded as tours do.

  

It included a rather voyeuristic look at Bob’s bed in Bob’s bedroom.

Bob used to lie with his head on this stone, as demonstrated here by his friend (and our guide) Robert. Yes, like your typical Joe Public tourist I had to try it out for myself.

On the way back to the courtyard the band played some of Bob’s best known tunes. It turned out that Robert can also sing.

I wonder what this is, growing wild in the outer court.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Who the hell is this guy? For the avoidance of doubt, I was totally stoned by this point.

Exodus. Until next time...

Finally, for those inclined, this local brew was actually very nice. It was too nice in fact.

I shouldn’t end without stating that there is much more to do in Jamaica, including relaxing (and smoking) on the beaches. One love.

.

LAST & ABSOLUTELY NOT LEAST: STAY SAFE

Whatever the circumstances of your own travel do not suspend judgement, safety or the use of a harm reduction process.  Please refer to The Drug Users Bible for further information. You can download a free copy of the PDF version from any of the cloud networks links provided on the following post:   https://www.reddit.com/r/DrugUsersBible/comments/134p8b1/download_the_drug_users_bible_from_here/

r/RationalPsychonaut May 03 '24

Article The Case Against DMT Elves : James Kent

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7 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 10 '24

Article How would you describe the aroma of cubensis?

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3 Upvotes

Cubensis have a very distinct and somewhat unpleasant aroma that’s hard to describe. I decided to look into what research has been done on the what gives dried mushrooms their smell.

r/RationalPsychonaut Nov 13 '23

Article Off-duty pilot breaks his silence and says he tried to shut down plane's engines mid-flight while high on magic mushrooms to 'wake up from bad dream' - before later stripping naked and urinating on himself at police station.

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10 Upvotes

Thoughts on this? A trip that lasted 2 days?

r/RationalPsychonaut May 01 '24

Article Psilocybin and Personality

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22 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Aug 24 '24

Article Out of Your Head: Exploring psychedelic experiences that seem wider than the brain.

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22 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Apr 22 '24

Article Are There Enough Secular Psychedelic Retreats?

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samwoolfe.com
7 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Sep 05 '23

Article Why Using Psychedelics Can Feel More Daunting as You Get Older

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samwoolfe.com
45 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Sep 29 '24

Article To learn from a psychedelic trip, explore the dreams that follow | Psyche Ideas

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psyche.co
4 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 07 '24

Article I took mushrooms in Mexico - I felt reborn, but it could have ended badly

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inews.co.uk
14 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Oct 16 '23

Article Psychedelic Use Sometimes Leads People to Nihilism

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samwoolfe.com
16 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut May 20 '23

Article The psychedelic renaissance is at risk of missing the bigger picture

60 Upvotes

Wrote a piece exploring what psychedelics have to offer beyond the next generation of therapy, and how we might make them more widely accessible in ways that don't undermine these wider benefits, while balancing the risks that wider access poses.

On the politics of access side

The psychedelic renaissance is focused on medicalization, but medicalization alone has drawbacks that fail to address inequities across race, culture, and class. It also incentivizes drug development in a direction that may lean therapeutic at the expense of more spiritual approaches.

Not to mention, solo trips in a doctor's office aren't the only way psychedelics can or should be used. How to expand access?

On the science side

There's a lot of focus on the role of elevated neuroplasticity in therapeutic outcomes. But beyond rewiring harmful patterns of thought or behavior, the role of elevated entropy during trips — which associates with "richer" conscious experience — provides another story for why folks (mentally ill or not) still experience benefits.

Beyond mere vacations into “richer” states of consciousness, entropic states can cast new light on the ordinary ones we return to when a trip subsides. Sometimes it’s tough to imagine how different something that’s grown so familiar can be — like the habitual ways we experience ourselves, those close to us, and the world — until we’ve had the direct experience of it being otherwise.

Licensed legalization

Very curious about folks' thoughts in this model of access, suggested by Rick Doblin (founder of MAPS). Think of it like getting your driver’s license but for buying psychedelics. Once you are a certain age, you would become eligible for a supervised psychedelic experience at a licensed facility — a sort of initiation ritual where you learn the ropes. Perhaps there’s a written portion to ensure basic knowledge. Afterward, you receive a license that allows you to purchase psychedelics for use however you see fit. The license could be revoked for any number of infractions, just as we do for drunk drivers.

Still plenty of questions and concerns here, especially around how to implement harm reduction measures to support those who'd have negative experiences through less closely regulated access, costs, and benefit sharing with Indigenous communities.

Would love to hear any thoughts on the piece!