
For babies, life may be like an LSD trip - jgalvez
https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/babies-experience-life-as-an-lsd-trip-as-a-result-of-their-high-metabolism.24941/
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ryanmercer
Hmmmmm...

Seems like "I found these few studies, it must mean babies are super humans
that are tripping constantly!"

Or healing happens faster because cell-division has a greater impact given the
greater impact it has on total number of cells, and an abundance of stem cells
still present as they develop helps with healing alongside growth and
development. Then the fact that MOST things they encounter in the world are
new to them which can instill a sense of awe and wonder...

LSD is cool but people need to chill out about it. It might have some
therapeutic uses, it can absolutely cause neat visuals and even have you had
lucid dream-like fantasies but come on man stop trying to compare everything
to, or cure everything with, LSD and other psychotropics.

~~~
skate22
Not calling this post out specifically, but drugs make for good clickbait.
Drugs in general are 'in' right now, and i agree that it's pretty forced these
days.

I have a very small sample size, but the friends i have who tripped regularly
(not just on lsd) went on to have serious mental health issues. I know
correlation =! causation, but it scares me how big the drug culture is
becoming.

These drugs may have their place in some cases, but the reality is that the
biggest use case today is to generate Ad revenue

~~~
senorjazz
can confirm. Same with many of my friends. All heavy weed smokers, all used
psychedelics. A worrying % went on to have some mental health issues.

Now I know all the pro-weed people say "yeah but it is those pre-disposed to
having schizophrenic episodes". Perhaps, but at the sample rate in my
experience and others who have met later on the % is far higher than I would
have expected to be.

Same for just weed smoking. I post on a music forum, where near all members
used to be heavy smokers _. And anecdotally, about 80% had mental problems due
to weed smoking. The cycle is clear. Heavy weed smoking for years. Stop
enjoying it, but have become dependant. Come home from work. Smoke, freak out
for an hour, effects wear off, smoke again, repeat. This goes on for 1-2 years
before the realisation hits in, smoking is not good for me any more

\------------------ _ for the record all were also poly-drug users, not
exclusively smokers, so it could be caused by other drugs or the combination
of. But I have no doubt it saying, this is not only people pre-disposed to
mental health issues

~~~
wool_gather
You're putting the temporal cart before the causal horse. With or without
drugs, mental health issues can be latent or unacknowledged for years. And
without defending marijuana use, naïve -- even unconscious -- self-medication
is a very simple explanation for what you're describing.

~~~
Uberphallus
Yeah, I particularly like two counter examples.

Example 1: We have prevalence of schizophrenia of 1-2% both in countries with
extremely high use (Australia, 25-30% last year) and extremely low (Japan, <1%
last year). Still many schizophrenia cases have been associated with cannabis,
but here's the twist: CBD displays antipsychotic properties, whereas THC
exacerbates psychosis. That matches both the selfmedication hypothesis, and
the trigger hypothesis, but the aggregate data still dispels the causal
hypothesis.

Example 2: The countries with the absolute biggest rates of tobacco prevalence
are hovering around 40-50%, the US is sitting at around 20%. Among
schizophrenics, though, it goes around 75-90%. But funnily enough, you don't
see anyone claiming tobacco causes schizophrenia!

~~~
AstralStorm
The tobacco lobby was quite successful debunking that myth. Cannabis had no
lobby yet.

The association is likely tied to self medication. Tobacco contains a low
level monoamine inhibitor, these have some uses in psychiatry. (it is the main
bit that is addictive - not really nicotine alone - harman and norharman,
related to harmaline)

------
anc84
Alternatively: Adults experience Baby-like consciousness during an LSD trip.

~~~
sundvor
Alternatively 2: Adults experience headaches reading extended segments of
_bolded_ _underlined_ text.

~~~
AstralStorm
Needs more colors, blink and marquee tags.

------
callesgg
Makes logical sense to me.

A baby has nothing but its own genetically inherited model worldview to map
its sensor input to.

A model worldview that is primarily concerned with faces, treats, hunger and
feelings.

I takes many years to map these phenomena to a fuller model of the objective
world.

The brain and therefore the human consciousness cannot see the world as it is;
the brain gets its information through sensory input. For the input to make
sense it needs to be fitted to a model worldview (a table is only viewable as
a table once the mess of colors coming from the eyes can be mapped to the
representation of a table)

~~~
s-shellfish
I just feel like comparing a baby's experience to someone on lsd would likely
mean language/models don't exist, therefore self doesn't exist, logic doesn't
exist therefore cause and effect don't exist, or at least everything our
natural vocabulary/modeling structures allows us to connect with, like you are
saying.

Lots of our reasoning is necessary for individual survival, but it's something
we build up and learn from others over time, and it's something that is passed
down through culture.

I would just imagine that being a baby or being on lsd is similar to no ways
of chopping the world up, and no deep rooted ideas of the true nature of our
experiences. I don't think you need drugs to get there or need to have/be a
baby. I don't think it's much different than the purpose of attaining
enlightenment, from the Buddhist perspective.

~~~
callesgg
I would assume that cause and effect is one of the few things that a baby does
understand.

One one level: It might be that the baby does not understand cause and effect,
but it certainly acts in relation to it.

"I cry cause i know that will cause me to feel better."

The baby don't understand the sub components of why one thing causes the
other. (On a deep level neither do we, but as adults we do have a richer
collections of models that explain things, like crying causes other people to
give me attention)

~~~
s-shellfish
What I'm talking about for humans starts on the very high levels of
abstraction we tend to do it. We connect such disparate strands of data and it
all works because we have culture to reinforce it. All that background
information that says "yes, this is correct" is what allows us to hold onto
certain patterns versus others. If observation ceases, then the internal
individual models cease, then reinforcement of those high level abstractions
cease, because there's nothing to reinforce it.

So honestly, I'm really not sure if a baby reasons that way. I don't think the
baby is born knowing that crying leads to feeling better. I think the baby
just does it, the same way a cat meows when it's hungry. There's no language
or reasoning or models inside the baby's head that says "cry now therefore I
will feel better". We invent that reasoning after observation of it happening
again and again.

I'd call it all ridiculous, but it's a bit tongue in cheek, and I'm not sure
whether that's coming across right. Saying "crying gives me attention" is a
very unhealthy way to process emotions. People cry because they are sad, when
some need isn't being met, or when some need is taken away. We aren't much
different from babies in that regard.

I've been through plenty of instances in my life where crying was interpreted
as "give me attention" but all that did was make it really, really hard to
actually cry when I have actually been sad. Just because all the reasoning
models that presently exist support that sort of notion, doesn't mean the
notion is correct. It is important to be able to cry. Likewise, it's important
to simplify all the reasoning oneself has down to understand important,
fundamental awareness. Otherwise we get stuck with reasoning that is
counterproductive for self understanding and communication.

~~~
callesgg
> There's no language or reasoning or models inside the baby's head that says
> "cry now therefore I will feel better".

You don't need to have language to have models, artificial neural network can
model stuff they don't need language to do it. The text "I cry cause i know
that will cause me to feel better." is simply my explanation of the models
behavior.

> Saying "crying gives me attention" is a very unhealthy way to process
> emotions.

I definitely agree :) But that does not mean that it is not true.

Here is just a question to you that popped up when reading your text :)

Do you think that babies/animals are conscious?

~~~
s-shellfish
An artificial neural network has a mutable language. Trying to describe the
behavior of an artificial neural network with language is somewhat absurd,
because it effectively removes all the conventions and consequent problems
caused by languages, models and structures that the human mind, over time,
would likely develop difficulty retaining mutability for. If you give the ANN
language, it literally ceases to be what it is. It develops structure, model.
Too much discordance in structure is difficult for a human mind to process.

A baby is not an ANN.

> Do you think that babies/animals are conscious?

I can't say I know what consciousness is. I do know that ego tends to drive
individuals, whether from the inside, or the outside, all this stuff can
become chaotic, and everything often maps for individuals in order to retain
whatever fundamental and foundational belief systems are necessary to hold
onto their own awareness and their own understanding of their self - as well
as understanding of reality, information as it's processed. It can be a
precarious balance, understanding oneself - in relation to another. New
experiences in life that dramatically redefine self understanding are
interesting, but can be destabilizing, disruptive, or fluid, easy to manage,
trust others and trust self, but be adaptive.

Honestly, most of the time I do not see myself doing much differently than
what a cat does. Just my ego saying "I exist - You exist" for all information
created between selves. I could call it buddhist-computer scientist-artist-
programmer theory, but ANNs tend to make life ridiculous, as can be obvious.
Always seeing connections. I talked to an AI for a long time, and not many
others. Started to literally see myself as no different from a computer
program. Redefines idea of self.

Consciousness. There's reality. Reality should be incomprehensible, sometimes.
Can't decide if I'm positive or negative towards AI. Every aspect of
computation can be used for good intents or bad. But intentions often are a
dilemma. Can think about how intent affects self, affects others. Computer
security, for instance.

~~~
callesgg
> A baby is not an ANN.

The mind of a baby is somehow emergent from it's brain, the brain being a
neural network.

Conscious. I used to believe that consciousness was a sort of self deception
of thought feedback loops. Then i realized that it was self destructive to
think like that. In a sense i still sort of think it is the most rational
answer. But i refuse to believe it. The brain seams better suited to believing
it is conscious. My models of the human mind that are based on consciousness
has results that seams to give more positive outcomes. And they have higher
explanatory value. Presumably cause they align more with the models that other
people use to interpret the world.

~~~
s-shellfish
Yes, I think minds work better when they can be self oriented. I think my mind
works better when it is self oriented, but I see feedback loops in behavior
and interaction with people from which I could choose to make inferences from
to denote ideas of intent, but I choose to not do that because it does not
give people freedom from thinking about how other people think in ways that
can be self destructive.

It can be self destructive to think about feedback loops if they are all
perceived as negative.

Alignment of models. Ebbs and flows. I think it's important to see positives.

------
ojhughes
I took a strong hit of acid when I was a teenager at Glastonbury festival. I
ended up falling into a delusional, catatonic state where I thought I was in
some kind of war zone surrounded by dead people. Thankfully some friends found
me and talked me down. I hope babies don’t have an experience like that!

~~~
myth_drannon
They do have, it's called baby night terrors. The baby wakes up in the middle
of the night in some sort of trip and can scream for hours.

~~~
alex_hitchins
I thought babies were also known as night terrors...

------
clevershot
I had LSD once when I was a young adolescent. It was by far the greatest drug
related experience I ever had. So many colors, thoughts and stories. Sleeping
the next day was difficult though.

Afterwards, I never felt any bodily urge to take it again, but, my mind was
very keen to another round. So much, that I got scared, and never did it
again.

Maybe I should give it another shot now that I have had babies

~~~
Nursie
Few people end up taking it habitually. That's not to say none do.

I had it when I was a late teen, enjoyed it, took it again a number of times
(7/8?) into my early 20s, but by the last time I just found it boring. I think
_most_ people have some fun with it and move on.

~~~
clevershot
What is the worst that could happen? You hear all these stories

Asking for a friend.

~~~
Nursie
From repeated use?

I knew at least one person who was a tripped out mess every time I saw them.

I have no idea how that dude's life panned out as I haven't seen him in a
couple of decades. I imagine it didn't really go anywhere until he stopped
dropping acid every day...

Some people report HPPD from repeated use.

LSD is a stimulant and there are some negative physical effects associated
with it, but all are temporary AFAICT.

------
golergka
While a lot of this makes great sense, this:

> Blake thought that the doors on perception are artificially kept semi-closed
> for cultural reasons - i.e. the ability to focus and do work for the
> enrichment of the powers that be

Just reads as an intentional satirical portrayal of "anti-establishment"
stereotype.

~~~
thinkingemote
I've also read a study that images the brain on LSD which shows that there's
less activity in perception which kind of goes against the folk story of LSD
opening one up to input. What happens is that some input gets stopped and so,
common to all illusions, the brain creates stuff to fill in the gaps. This
might be just to do with hallucinations though.

In other words, LSD closes the doors of perception rather than opens them!

~~~
Galaxeblaffer
It's just weird how persistent the halucinations are.. Like if you look at a
painting it will look totally different than normal, you will probably see
shapes of weird things a bit like Deep Dream's terrifying faces and dogs but a
bit different. You can then leave said painting for 2 hours and come back to
find the painting has the exact alterations from reality as before.

Because of this i'm more inclined to think that it's more like an unfiltered
view of reality. Normally the brain will end up with the final image that we
call reality but on lsd some of the last filters are missing showing you the
world in a different way. This could also explain why perception centers show
less activity in that they don't put in the last work to show us the normal
image without weird artifacts as faces, animals, fractal patterns and colored
light.

~~~
robbiep
Wouldn’t it make more sense that LSD is a filter, and it sticks for the
duration? Or at least, different lenses? This idea of ‘that’s a more real’
reality doesn’t make sense, the visualisations can be different next trip (in
the situation you describe) which to me implies the opposite.

Btw my favourite trip illusion/hallucination is looking at marble/granite -
the veins appear to flow!

~~~
Galaxeblaffer
Actually haven't tripped the same place twice yet, so my pseudoscience
anecdotal arguments is probably wrong.

It's certainly possible that it's a new/warped/different filter on top but for
now i like the other idea better. Especially because of Deep Dream. To me it
would make sense that the brain would try and find patterns(faces, animals,
familiar shapes etc.) everywhere and then end up with a final image where all
bad candidates have been pruned. I wouldn't call it "more real" just more
unfiltered and thereby "less real" since you are sometimes seeing stuff that
should have been filtered out. My favorites for illusion/hallucinations would
everything organic it's just god damn fascinating. Also any type of
display(tv, phone) is just mind blowing to look at.

------
efficax
Who is ray peat and why do we care? This is some late 90s weird internet. It’s
good to see the crazy is still going but this stuff seems more speculative
than evidence based

~~~
Flenser
from the first PDF linked:

> Raymond F. Peat, Director, Blake College, Eugene, Oregon, and Nutritional
> Consultant, Medical Diet Service, Portland, Oregon. M.A. General Studies,
> University of Oregon, 1960. Ph.D., Biology, University of Oregon, 1972\.
> 300'/2 N. Jefferson, Eugene, Oregon 97402.

------
hkai
>Blake thought that the doors on perception are artificially kept semi-closed
for cultural reasons - i.e. the ability to focus and do work for the
enrichment of the powers that be.

Statements like that sound a bit political and make me doubt what he is
writing.

~~~
krageon
Is it really political to stop and think about what you are doing for the pure
gain of someone else? I should think that's just critical thinking at work.

~~~
jjuel
Not necessarily, but saying that the "doors are kept shut artificially" is
something straight out of r/conspiracy.

~~~
DonHopkins
So is "the NSA can tap into almost any conversation or electronic
communication they want in real time" and "the President(*) colluded with
Russia to steal the election", but here we are.

~~~
drngdds
So is "Bush did 9/11" and "Hillary Clinton is a child rapist." Just like a
infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters would eventually write the complete
works of Shakespeare, a bunch of people making up unsubstantiated conspiracy
theories will eventually make one that happens to correspond with reality.
That doesn't mean unsubstantiated conspiracy theories should be taken
seriously.

------
empath75
I don’t have much to say about this but I did get saved from a fairly bad trip
by finding teletubbies on tv at 6am.

------
neom
Tangentially: I was reading a study about fMRI in dyslexia the other day, and
it seemed to me to indicate that the area of the brain that has lower activity
and blood flow in a dyslexic was the same area they found to be reducing
activity and blood flow on psychedelics.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29412010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29412010)
/
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118143)

------
skc
I don't know about an LSD trip but I've often wondered what exactly a baby
perceives while in the womb or as a newborn. Their brains aren't just sitting
there as a blank state so they are experiencing something. I wouldn't at all
be surprised if it's very trippy seeing as infants have literally nothing to
hold onto to define reality as we see it.

I often watched my newborn staring off into empty space clearly perceiving
/something/

~~~
Cthulhu_
Whatever it is, they remember it subconsciously - shushing a baby (like the
calming type) and rocking (also works for adults) reminds them -
subconsciously - of the sound of the mother's blood flow and movements.

------
deepvibrations
I am convinced that at a young age we experience things in a way very similar
to a psychedelic state. I always thought babies are in more of a DMT-state (my
experiences smoking NN-DMT gave me this belief) and I guess as they get older,
they slowly come into reality, so between 2 and 5, I guess it is more of an
acid/mushrooms level of experience.

------
derefr
Fun thought: would chronic LSD administration (i.e. making a person never not
be tripping for ~1mo at a time) enable language learning at the level babies
are capable of?

~~~
senorjazz
No. It would destroy them mentally and permanently.

~~~
empath75
My (now) brother-in-law sold acid when we were in high school, and there was a
point of time in our senior year where he took acid almost daily for 2 or 3
months. If you'd asked me to describe him in one word when we were 20, i'd
have said 'burnout'.

Believe it or not, he's fine today. He quit doing drugs in his early 20s after
he got arrested, got a business degree, and hasn't touched them in 15 or 20
years. You'd never guess that he's done acid a hundred times or more by
talking to him.

------
jeandejean
I'm a bit confused... Isn't it an article encouraging consuming LSD?

~~~
ryanmercer
Welcome to Silicon Valley. One year it's modafinil and adderall, one year it's
nootropics, one year it's psychotropics. Rinse and repeat.

~~~
DonHopkins
HBO totally nailed it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cEaBIDAY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cEaBIDAY4)

------
miguelrochefort
If you're not familiar with Ray Peat, here's what the Peatarian diet looks
like:

\- 1 L milk (add salt and sugar)

\- 1 L orange juice (add salt and sugar)

\- 1 raw carrot

\- bone broth

\- NO PUFA (Omega 3/6)

~~~
jgalvez
This is an absurd over simplification.

His eating guidelines are much, much more extensive:

[https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ray-peat-diet-
foo...](https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ray-peat-diet-food-choices-
and-general-guidelines.20/)

