This thread has taken a welcome turn! Absolutely brilliant stories from Noxy - well written too. I've never heard of machine elves either, but now I'm going to look into them.

I've never taken psychedelics before and like Wookie I've spent most of my life thinking that they would be a nightmare for me personally but now I'm not sure whether that's just a potentially self fulfilling prophecy. The older I get, the more interested in them I'm getting.

Yep the similarity in visions across so many different people and cultures is quite interesting. It could possibly be explained by commonalities in our physiology, who knows.
Wasnt there a particular case from a tribe in the Amazon I think, where they told of visions of serpents that took the shape of the DNA helix? Far as I can remember that same tribe also learned about the healing factors/usefulness of plants whilst tripping. Cant remember where I heard that one.

superflyninja wrote:

Wasnt there a particular case from a tribe in the Amazon I think, where they told of visions of serpents that took the shape of the DNA helix?

The double helix isn’t unique to DNA. It occurs in nature all over the place and could be spotted anywhere. The ivy in my garden twists itself up into a double helix, for example.

In a similar vein, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy was put forward as an explainer for quite a few "alien abduction experiences":  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy
Reading about the many, many ways the brain can "go wrong" is fascinating - including ways those experiences can be induced through drugs etc.

I believe I had a few occurrences of "macropsia" when ill with a fever as a kid - where all sense of proportion went out of whack while falling asleep/waking up/partially dreaming, and sizes of the bed were huge etc. (or maybe they were weird dreams, it's hard to tell in that partial conscious state):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macropsia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome

And then there's other induced brain states like Persinger's "God Helmet" - where magnetic fields were used to stimulate the temporal lobe and some user reported all kinds of "presence" and near-religious experiences. Unfortunately it seems it's been hard to replicate and the results seem to point more at the suggestibility of the participants than anything else (which in itself is illuminating, I suppose)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_religion

Psychopharmacology
Some scientists working in the field hypothesize that the basis of spiritual experience arises in neurological physiology. Speculative suggestions have been made that an increase of N,N-dimethyltryptamine levels in the pineal gland contribute to spiritual experiences.[31][32] Scientific studies confirming this have yet to be published. It has also been suggested that stimulation of the temporal lobe by psychoactive ingredients of 'Magic Mushrooms' mimics religious experiences.[33] This hypothesis has found laboratory validation with respect to psilocybin.[34][35]

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

Digging into brain area functions and how different bits of it "going wrong" can lead to all sorts of effects has always been a rabbithole for me.

This is rather good -

superflyninja wrote:

Wish Noxy, I just can't imagine hallucinating like that. That time I got spiked with something, yeah the wall seemed to be slick with oil, shapes moving behind it and something.ess speaking to me but...it was sorta still grounded in reality. I knew where I was. That stuff you describe is just so out there. What is your thinking of what you have seen? Is it just all from within your mind?

Okay so this might be a long, meandering post; the likes of which i’m not very good at, but i will try. 

For as long as i can remember i have been a skeptic, almost to the point where a nihilistic outlook on life was somewhat inevitable. My family are the hippy, spiritual type, while my school tried its best to instill Christian beliefs, and yet none of these ideas resonated with me in the slightest. I couldn’t shake the feeling it was all just an ideological comfort blanket. If i could have chosen to believe that there was more life- and wholeheartedly believed it- i would have done, but i just couldn’t. Not even close

And so grappling with existential angst, especially from ages 10-13-ish, was a cause of many a sleepless night. I really cried about it a lot, but didn’t know how to articulate or express what it was that i found so unsettling about life itself. I think it was the concept of death, which bothered me so deeply that i couldn’t allow my dwelling sadness to focus in on it specifically; it was too hard a concept to face, and yet the awareness that i was only ignoring it lingered in my mind. I remember my parents visiting me in my room at night trying to calm me down. At first they thought i might be gay, and i’m grateful of them being so supportive of this, even though i wasn’t. Eventually i did find ways to express what was bothering me so deeply, but unfortunately- as i suspected- this just brought the existential anxiety forward in my mind, allowing it to take up even more space than it had before. 

A bit like mourning, it’s just  one of those things you learn to live with, and by the time i reached my mid/late teens i had come to terms with the pointlessness of everything, and tried to ignore any philosophical contradictions that arose from me applying my own meaning to life, where actually there probably was none. Deep down i kinda knew it was all pointless/bollocks, but i guess one has to find a coping mechanism, and for me this was it.

From then onwards the act of rolling my eyes or raising one eyebrow has been my default response to anything that steps beyond what is demonstrably provable (with political ideology being the one exception). But then i discovered DMT. I have done far more than my fair share of psychedelics, but this one really is something else entirely. One way i have described it previously is that with other psycehedlics, like LSD, 2cb, 4ac0 or shrooms, it feels as though a veil of confusion and distorted perspective is being layered upon one’s senses. But with DMT it’s different, as in many ways it feels as though the veil is being lifted; as if you are suddenly perceiving more reality,  with a level of unimaginable clarity and spontaneous wisdom that has been lent to you for just a few fleeting moments. It’s so powerful and feels so true that it can really make you question things, even a deeply held nihilism one has fought hard to accept or cope with. 

When i type out my trips I can describe the most shocking, traumatic or beautiful experiences ive had; but only the ones that can be compartmentalised and committed to memory, because they involve the tangible shapes, ideas and emotions that we all can relate to or identify. What i cannot do, and what i dont think anyone has ever done, is articulate those experiences that go further and deeper. I cannot, for example, remember the new colours i have seen, nor the impossible shapes that unfolded before me. And i cannot even begin to recall even a fraction of the baffling existential concepts and realisations that engulf and overwhelm one’s consciousness, instilling both fear and wonder. You see these things, you feel them, whether you want to or not.

But the limitations of the mind simply don’t allow such abstract sights or concepts to come back with you. They remain in that place, whatever/wherever it is, and the only way to see them again is to go back, although it’s no guarantee you will be given a similar ride. But on those occasions where you are treated to a repeat journey, it’s so often accompanied with a bizarre familiarity that is so hard to put into words. It's as if someone is smiling at you, nodding. 'welcome back' it says, without ever even actually saying it. 'now you see'. Some part of the recurrent emotions you feel in these moments remind me of when I was a child. It reminds me of the expression which would adorn my parents' faces as they eagerly watched me opening a Christmas present, revelling in my joy and soaking it up themselves. 

But I digress. It's easy to fall into describing the surface level stuff. Sadly all i can remember from the most profound experiences are what it felt like to try and remember them in the immediate aftermath, when there was still a residue of a residue of their existence, and though the shock and awe of even those moments can never be held onto or recalled in any tiny fraction of its beauty, the knowledge that it happened, and especially those moments where it definitely happened- is something that lasts, even if it fades over time. 

So where does this leave me now? I would never describe myself as spiritual. Actually i find most other people who are into this stuff fucking annoying. I guess i have a spirituality, my own, stripped of all the window dressing/hollow language that normally accompanies the term. I can’t describe it, and i guess i don’t need to. But if i were to try i would say that my certain belief in the pointlessness of everything has been gauged out, and in its place just lies questions. Questions i can never answer; questions that are even hard to think about. But I know that the supposedly grounded, rational, real world answers to these questions, or explanations or what i’ve experienced, don’t seem feasible. This reality where im existing now, typing this out, feels less real than that other place, and so accepting the prevailing wisdom of here doesn’t seem to make sense. It feels inferior. Either way, this newfound existential uncertainty isn’t something i chose to buy into. Rather it was imposed upon me. So I guess it’s fortunate that i quite like it.

Brilliant posts Noxy.

equinox_code wrote:

superflyninja wrote:

Wish Noxy, I just can't imagine hallucinating like that. That time I got spiked with something, yeah the wall seemed to be slick with oil, shapes moving behind it and something.ess speaking to me but...it was sorta still grounded in reality. I knew where I was. That stuff you describe is just so out there. What is your thinking of what you have seen? Is it just all from within your mind?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling it was all just an ideological comfort blanket. If i could have chosen to believe that there was more life- and wholeheartedly believed it- i would have done, but i just couldn’t. Not even close And so grappling with existential angst, especially from ages 10-13-ish, was a cause of many a sleepless night. I really cried about it a lot, but didn’t know how to articulate or express what it was that i found so unsettling about life itself. I think it was the concept of death, which bothered me so deeply that i couldn’t allow my dwelling sadness to focus in on it specifically; it was too hard a concept to face, and yet the awareness that i was only ignoring it lingered in my mind.

Jesus you described me in that bit. I had the exact same thing when I was around that age. It was so bad I found it difficult to look at the stars because they reminded me how pointless, short and futile our ant lives are. I still get the occasional sudden flashback to that way of thinking even today, I never was able to tell any family or friends though.
The rest of the post was superbly written also thanks for that. Makes me very tempted! Id not have a clue where to get any stuff though. Do you experience any after effects? Like a hallucinogenic hangover?

All that said, and much as I love these experiences, I would never touch salvia. Even if I could change the past, so that I had done it already and simply knew it felt like without having to ever live in the moment where it happens, I would definitely decline.

I know people who have said they never felt the same after smoking that stuff. And not in a good way. As if they had to piece their entire brain back together over a course of months. 

If anyone's bored it can be interesting to dig out some of the many trip reports that can be found online for that stuff. Spontaneously turning into a doorstop and then existing that way- trapped and claustrophobic- for what feels like a thousand years is def not my idea of fun./ Happy nick survived it!

I also wouldn't touch 5meo dmt in the foreseeable, nor datura. The vid nick posted is a good watch. I never experienced a deleriant and I'm not sure I'd want to.

I don't know if this is real or not, but it really gives me the shivers. really the stuff of nightmares

Like I said, you can smoke salvia in a joint and just get a floppy, melty feel but you still know what's going on and why. The trip I mentioned before was the first time I'd done it, I was the first of my group of three to try it, no idea about dosage, so packed a fat bong with the stuff and roasted the hell out of it. Came on in seconds and yeah, instant transportation to a different reality with no idea I'd taken anything, I was just in this world. It was quite alarming as during the trip I believed I was in this world with things melting into each other, faces laughing, all sorts of bad, weird things, and that was me. Forever.

Apparently my two other mates there were stood over me going, "how is it? You alright Nick?"

I snapped out of it instantly and it lasts for less than a minute. I did a full bong of it a few other times and didn't have a 'bad' a trip, still completely in a different place but without the sinister edge. One time I found myself on a street staring down the road, all the houses were green with red tops, everything looked plastic. I snapped out of it and I was staring into an opened cupboard that had a box of cornflakes in, which I assume was what I saw as the green/red houses.

After each one I felt a great catharsis, felt refreshed mentally, but I was never keen to do another straight away. I remember the second time I did a full dose, the taste of the stuff, I thought, "oh fuck, here we go".

All bought legally in a bong shop, along with fresh magic mushrooms (which you could buy over the counter legally). Ice Nine in Nottingham. I think you can still buy salvia legally? Crazy.

@noxy I've seen that vid before, I'm 50/50 on whether it's real or not but listening to Datura stories I can believe it. I wouldn't touch that stuff at all.

Hey, I used to shop in Ice Nine too. Standard goth tat shop, but bigger than most.

Bet I wouldn’t recognise a single shop in Hockley any more.

Ditto

This is not going to end well