

Artist Takes Every Drug Known to Man, Draws Self Portraits After Each Use - ilamont
http://cultso.com/artist-takes-every-drug-known-to-man-draws-self-portraits-after-each-use/

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niels_olson
Primary care doc here. I have seen quite a few of these drugs started in
acutely psychotic patients, post-operative trauma patients, chronic pain
patients, etc, etc. These portraits strike me more as visual expressions of
the preconceptions a layperson has about a variety of meds. People come in
with all sorts of preconceptions about what they're going to get out of a
prescription. Part of my job is getting them from where their preconceptions
are to where they need to be.

Have I taken all these drugs? No. I've taken a few ambien on trans-Pacific
flights, I've had some opioids after surgery. I've dealt with patients taking
them or seeking them. Some were sick. Some of them, really sick. Some are
20-year-old grocery store cashiers with low cut shirts and miniskirts, all
dolled up, trying to score some xanax on a Saturday for the next rave, pissed
when I disappoint them.

My favorite is cephalexin. It's an antibiotic. Most of the side effects are
associated with the molecular biology of bactericide. That one verges on pure
farce.

Another one that makes my spidy-sense go off is the wild divergence between
representations in response to opioids. They're just not that different,
especially when compared to the differences with other classes psychotropics
in the set.

If some random stranger came up to me on the street and said they had a plan
like this, I'd probably say "It's a free country. If you're asking for medical
advice, come to my clinic."

If my kids came to me with this plan I'd probably say "You are taking non-zero
risks with your one-and-only brain, liver, body in general, and you will learn
nothing the world doesn't already know. If anything, you'll cloud the picture.
I strongly urge you to avoid drugs unless they are medically indicated.

"If you want to get high, come to Del Mar with me on Sunday at 8 am and we can
swim with the dolphins. Or run to the top of Black Mountain or run from the
Noe Valley to the top of Twin Peaks. Or go rock climbing, or ride a bicycle
from Ramona to Borrego Springs and we can stop for apple pie in Santa Ysabel.
These drugs are a pale comparison."

~~~
CoffeeDregs
Have you actually done any of the drugs Saunders did? If you had, you wouldn't
write:

    
    
        "[R]ide a bicycle from Ramona to Borrego Springs and we can stop for apple pie
         in Santa Ysabel.  These drugs are a pale comparison."
    

I'm all for some early morning bike riding and... well, I'm paleo, so kinda
oppose the apple pie thing... but I have no idea how you can suggest that:
getting away with the wife for the weekend at a spa... with some Ecstasy... is
a "pale comparison" to some early morning bike riding...

    
    
        ... you will learn nothing the world doesn't already know.
    

The world doesn't know what's going on in my head (or why was Wil Wheaton's
post on depression so highly regarded?). Drugs [used 1-2 times per year] have
helped me understand what's going on in my head. Therefore, I have learned
something the world doesn't know and your statement is false. [Of course, you
could argue that drugs only confused me into thinking I knew myself better,
but... meh.]

    
    
        If anything, you'll cloud the picture.
    

My drug use has done anything but cloud the picture. Unfortunately, I did know
people (particularly in college) for whom picture clouding occurred.

~~~
niels_olson
It's a free country. If you're asking for medical advice, you are welcome to
come to my clinic.

> Have you actually done any of the drugs Saunders did?

Please re-read my post.

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polemic
" _Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage. I am still
conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time. I only take drugs
that are given to me"_

Fuck. That.

Damaging your one-and-only brain for the sake of "profoundly affecting [your]
perception of the self" is such trite BS.

I've known people who took drugs claiming similar reasons: a deeper
understanding of the universe, a connection with nature, etc. All an illusion,
all false, and utterly banal to anyone unfortunate enough to be on the
receiving end of any new "revelations".

Hey, some drugs are _fun_. Just know the effects for what they are.

~~~
CoffeeDregs
Fuck. That. Sense. Of. Certainty. [And you oughta get smarter, drug using
friends...]

As a lifetime computer user, I had an undeveloped sense of the value of human
interaction. A few rounds of Ecstasy with friends showed me that there was
something deeper to be explored. Did I know that the experience was due to the
drug? Of course. Did experiencing that closer human connection, even if
transient, make me a better person? I think so.

Also, as a lifetime computer user, I live in a world of certainty: 1+1=2;
algorithms work the same way every time; my computers only do what I tell them
to do [har har] and don't talk back. A few rounds of mushrooms shook away that
blinding certainty. It turns out that I can see vastly more shades of green
than I knew, that what you think of as depth perception is but a shade of what
I saw then, that your visual center can be seriously and awesomely tricked,
that you can close your eyes and spend hours watching Escher-like images
unfold and evolve. Does it matter that I've seen a shade of green that you
probably haven't? Not directly. Does it matter that I'm not blinded by
certainty as you are? Definitely.

Obviously, I'm not advocating Mr. Saunders' methods, but there's more nuance
in this discussion than your comment reflects.

~~~
polemic
Just to be clear: what makes me furious is the idea that someone would harm
themselves in such a way, and yet continue down that path in a misguided
journey of self-discovery (or whatever).

I've had some very similar experiences to yourself and I'm not against using
drugs, per se.

But. When you say stuff like "what you think of as depth perception is but a
shade of what I saw then", or "I've seen a shade of green that you probably
haven't", you cannot separate what you actually perceived, and what your brain
thinks it perceived. Exactly so: I'm either a great singer when I'm drunk, or
I _think_ I'm a great singer when I'm drunk.

Using drugs safely can be a lot of fun. But I take all of those experiences
(including my own) with large tablespoons of salt.

EDIT:

Feel like I should add another point. Perception is everything. Your stone-
cold-sober perception is just one possible state. It's the best we have, but I
still barely trust it.

The biggest revelations for me, have always come from hard science. Quantum
physics blows my mind, cosmology blows my mind, heck I did a degree in Physics
because I was fascinated. I've _never_ beat the lasting awe for _reality_ ,
with anything that, for all I know, is utterly fake.

~~~
Evbn
Re salt: Bath salt is one of the drugs in the Saunders project. :-)

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unclefester
Same content, non-cached from the artist's site:
<http://bryanlewissaunders.org/drugs/>

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adaria
1up for Witkacy! The Polish artist created a portrait firm in 1925 with a
motto Motto: "The customer must be satisfied. Misunderstandings are ruled
out". It operated according to a set of strict rules: "On arrival at the S.I.
Witkiewicz Portrait Painting Firm, their portrait will be drawn according to
the strict rules of the firm which they will read in advance". One of the
offerings was drawing under influence, the influence (from coffee to peyote)
dutifully noted on the portrait in chemical symbols.

<http://witkiewiczfringe.wordpress.com/about> describes Witkacy's enterprise
well, lined to what looks like a happening reconstructing it. I'm not certain
that the rules are original but they sound so and are fun to read either way:
[http://witkiewiczfringe.wordpress.com/the-rules-of-the-s-
i-w...](http://witkiewiczfringe.wordpress.com/the-rules-of-the-s-i-witkiewicz-
portrait-painting-firm/)

~~~
brini
Thanks for the link to the rules! I wasn't aware of those.

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CoffeeDregs
Perhaps OT, but, if you're interested in this stuff, a fascinating, non-
visual, academic/scientific-anecdotal [?!] treatment of similar stuff is in
the wonderful PIHKAL:
[http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal.sht...](http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal.shtml)

How can you not love a drug report like (for DOB): This was a complex, but a
very good day. It involved making a large pot of chicken-vegetable soup, and
listening to H.L., my favorite Saturday morning fundamentalist Christian radio
preacher, bless Tim.

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andrewflnr
It seems like we might have learned more from fewer drugs repeated more times,
so we'd have an idea of what features were trends and which were random
variation. Not that I think it was a good idea to start with. I wonder if any
of those hospital portraits resulted from this project.

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brini
If you find this sort of thing interesting, you might investigate Witkacy[1]
if you haven't already.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ignacy_Witkiewi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ignacy_Witkiewicz)

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Void_
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://cultso.com/artist-
takes-every-drug-known-to-man-draws-self-portraits-after-each-use/)

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acorbin91
I didn't see LSD...

