
Ask HN: What do you think of psychedelics? - bvaldivielso
I often see disagreement when talking about them, but what does the hacker culture think about psychedelics?<p>I mean psychedelics as recreative drugs, of course.
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eruditely
Took LSD once. I detailed my car and took my grandmother grocery shopping.
Need to try it again before I comment.

Shrooms was cool, if not dark. It really helps you explore the depths of your
mind. The first time I did it I had this utterly serene feeling of happiness
when I was sitting in a meadow in Palo Alto with a friend. The serene at peace
feeling is similar to ecstasy, but different. I would definitely do either for
induced insight if I felt it was necessary.

People really freak out when they hear about experiences about psychedelics
such as "The walls were breathing", but in reality it's relatively mild... if
you keep it at a low dose. I used to perceive it with fear like many people,
but after doing it, it's like

"I actually wouldn't mind if the walls were breathing at times". It's as mild
as a revolving door or a fan blowing on you. I kept my doses to regular levels
though.

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izolate
I would think the hacker culture has no opinion on them. Individuals do.

Personally, I find in them instrumental in exploring the inner workings of my
brain and body. I see them as tools that expand consciousness and help achieve
new perspectives on life.

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lastofus
I took a small dose of mushrooms in the woods awhile back. Definitely one of
the best and most memorable experiences of my life.

I would do it again no question.

YMMV though...

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eip
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my
life. LSD shows you that there’s﻿ another side to the coin, and you can’t
remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what
was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things
back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I
could.” ― Steve Jobs

“Jobs had begun to drop acid by then, and he turned Brennan on to it as well,
in a wheat field just outside Sunnyvale. "It was great," he recalled. "I had
been listening to a lot of Bach. All of a sudden the whole field was playing
Bach. It was the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point. I felt
like the conductor of this symphony with Bach coming through the wheat.” ―
Walter Isaacson

"I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and
it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that
people think it's so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply,
even the guy that invented it, what is it? Because they're afraid that there's
more to reality than they have confronted. That there are doors that they're
afraid to go in, and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we
go in we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a
little out of their control." \--Ken Kesey

"'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment.
Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the
specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end.
'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize,
materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an
elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or
unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's
singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my
explanations of this sequence of personal development were often
misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.'"
\--Tim Leary

Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related
hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails
dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account
the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence
our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to
date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its
profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure
drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with
them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. Wrong and
inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child. \--Dr. Albert
Hofmann

Woz and I very much liked Bob Dylan's poetry, and we spent a lot of time
thinking about a lot of that stuff. This was California. You could get LSD
fresh made from Stanford. You could sleep on the beach at night with your
girlfriend. California has a sense of experimentation and a sense of
openness—openness to new possibilities. \--Steve Jobs

PLAYBOY: Ever take LSD? GATES: My errant youth ended a long time ago. PLAYBOY:
What does that mean? GATES: That means there were things I did under the age
of 25 that I ended up not doing subsequently. PLAYBOY: One LSD story involved
you staring at a table and thinking the corner was going to plunge into your
eye. GATES: [Smiles] PLAYBOY: Ah, a glimmer of recognition. GATES: That was on
the other side of that boundary. The young mind can deal with certain kinds of
gooping around that I don't think at this age I could. I don't think you're as
capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your
body as you get older. However, I never missed a day of work.

Thinking differently--or learning to Think Different, as a Jobs slogan has it
--is a hallmark of the acid experience. "When I'm on LSD and hearing something
that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state
where I've stopped thinking and started knowing," Kevin Herbert told Wired
magazine at a symposium commemorating Hofmann's one hundredth birthday.
Herbert, an early employee of Cisco Systems who successfully banned drug
testing of technologists at the company, reportedly "solved his toughest
technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead."

“I really feel like Mike Judge has never been to Burning Man, which is Silicon
Valley,” opined Musk. “If you haven’t been, you just don’t get it. You could
take the craziest L.A. party and multiply it by a thousand, and it doesn’t
even get fucking close to what’s in Silicon Valley. The show didn’t have any
of that.”

“If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the
right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of
Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.” ― Terence McKenna

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that
you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because
they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour
and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that
everything you know is wrong.” ― Terence McKenna

“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your
responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be
useful to you is your own understanding.” ― Terence McKenna

~~~
JoeAltmaier
So, paranoia, delusions and chromosomal damage are just part of the
'openness'?

Seriously, I can imagine your mind gets altered by sticking a wrench in it
(LSD) and stirring. I can imagine it might convince you that everything you
know is wrong. But you'd be wrong - all I learned is, if you screw with your
mind, you start thinking goofy things.

~~~
eip
The possibility of lasting mental and emotional trauma is very real when using
any of the seratonin analogues. The same possibilities exist without their use
as well.

But I think you are mistaken about chromosomal damage.

