This is interesting, but are the results confounded with setting? You do MDMA in a club. You do ayahuasca with your personal shaman while on a forest retreat in Costa Rica to heal from your divorce. You do nitrous next to a dumpster behind a Culver's. Seems like more than just the effect of the drug is being measured here.
Definitely confounded with setting! It's hard to separate them. This is one of the things I was curious about with the MDMA vs ecstasy distinction, but super hard to disentangle.
True, but the fact that some substances like Ayahuasca and Psilocybin invite much less to misuse than typical party drugs like alcohol or Ecstasy do have an influence on the risk/reward scale.
Are you open to sharing the data? I study the molecular effects of psychedelics in neurons trying to build predictive in vitro models and would really love to have the raw survey data as a "ground truth" of the cognitive effects I'm trying to predict!
My MIT email is REUVENF, my gmail is the substack username
Poor salvia. Don't take it personally Sally, it's just that most people don't enjoy falling through a tunnel of knives for 10,000 years, nor do most people derive any spiritual insight or healing from it. We still love to read horror stories of college students destroying their dorm rooms while under your influence though💓
Surprised that Iboga is so uncommon. High on healing experience but perhaps also risk. It was indeed a looong survey to stick with. Happy to read the results.
Wow, I almost completely forgot about Iboga. It's unfortunate what a double-edged sword that plant is. Such great healing potential, yet such a huge risk as well. I certainly hope that Iboga is subject to more research in the future!
Hm, I took the survey and have done about ten of these drugs multiple times. I'm now realizing I may have answered wrong in that I did not say that any of these drugs had any lasting effect on me physically, spiritually, mentally etc. But I assumed that you meant like permanent. You didn't ask about a hangover or feeling shitty in the days afterwards, which I think would shift this a lot. I just can't understand otherwise how MDMA/Ecstasy end up so high on the list when it makes you feel so shitty the next day or two.
If you're looking for low risk and high pleasure, but don't care about spirituality, GHB knocks all others out of the park as far as I'm concerned. But the non-hangover aspect is a huge and possibly the most important aspect there. Once I was past my 20s, there is no drug that is worth it, to me, if it's going to ruin my whole next day or put me out of commission.
Dumb question. What's the criteria for a drug being psychedelic? For example, I've never seen THC and Alcohol included in lists of psychedelic drugs before, not that I look at such lists though. When I look up the definition online, it seems like all recreational drugs could fit into the category. I haven't explored many drugs myself, so I'm curious to understand from others.
She describes adding Alcohol not as a psychedelic, but to have a 'reference' drug that most people have experience with its effects (so you can interpret a drug you've never tried as "4X more something than alcohol", rather than just being "0.56 something" which is nearly meaningless)
THC is an edge case, I suspect that Aella was working not so much on a criterion but more on a tradeoff of "having lots of substances for comparison" vs "avoid having too huge and clunky of a survey" and THC made it but other psychoactives didn't
Worth clarifying that I'm not 100% sure it's what I took; I got it at a store which claims they can't sell psilocybin legally but that the company uses a "proprietary blend" which would be metabolized to psilocin. I looked up all the users who had tried this particular edible and they said it feels like 4AcODMT, so went with that. (Also no nausea, which is a huge plus for me personally.) Not sure precisely what I experienced, there were little hints of visuals and breathing aftereffects i've had on higher doses of THC before but nowhere close to "tripping"/hallucinations for me. Seems like a good choice for meditation or for sex. Bad if you're feeling sick; it'll enhance all the waves of sensation with that.
The brand was "Seshnz." It tasted *delicious*, much better than edibles normally do.
This is interesting, but are the results confounded with setting? You do MDMA in a club. You do ayahuasca with your personal shaman while on a forest retreat in Costa Rica to heal from your divorce. You do nitrous next to a dumpster behind a Culver's. Seems like more than just the effect of the drug is being measured here.
Definitely confounded with setting! It's hard to separate them. This is one of the things I was curious about with the MDMA vs ecstasy distinction, but super hard to disentangle.
True, but the fact that some substances like Ayahuasca and Psilocybin invite much less to misuse than typical party drugs like alcohol or Ecstasy do have an influence on the risk/reward scale.
Are you open to sharing the data? I study the molecular effects of psychedelics in neurons trying to build predictive in vitro models and would really love to have the raw survey data as a "ground truth" of the cognitive effects I'm trying to predict!
My MIT email is REUVENF, my gmail is the substack username
Beny
Poor salvia. Don't take it personally Sally, it's just that most people don't enjoy falling through a tunnel of knives for 10,000 years, nor do most people derive any spiritual insight or healing from it. We still love to read horror stories of college students destroying their dorm rooms while under your influence though💓
Surprised that Iboga is so uncommon. High on healing experience but perhaps also risk. It was indeed a looong survey to stick with. Happy to read the results.
Wow, I almost completely forgot about Iboga. It's unfortunate what a double-edged sword that plant is. Such great healing potential, yet such a huge risk as well. I certainly hope that Iboga is subject to more research in the future!
Indeed! I attended an academic conference on Iboga once, where the hopes of a third stage of usage together with more research was mentioned.
Least party drug potential of all though, but life altering for sure from my experience. Cognitive boost potential as well in lower dosages.
Hm, I took the survey and have done about ten of these drugs multiple times. I'm now realizing I may have answered wrong in that I did not say that any of these drugs had any lasting effect on me physically, spiritually, mentally etc. But I assumed that you meant like permanent. You didn't ask about a hangover or feeling shitty in the days afterwards, which I think would shift this a lot. I just can't understand otherwise how MDMA/Ecstasy end up so high on the list when it makes you feel so shitty the next day or two.
If you're looking for low risk and high pleasure, but don't care about spirituality, GHB knocks all others out of the park as far as I'm concerned. But the non-hangover aspect is a huge and possibly the most important aspect there. Once I was past my 20s, there is no drug that is worth it, to me, if it's going to ruin my whole next day or put me out of commission.
I didn't ask about short-term side effects besides mental stability, no
Dumb question. What's the criteria for a drug being psychedelic? For example, I've never seen THC and Alcohol included in lists of psychedelic drugs before, not that I look at such lists though. When I look up the definition online, it seems like all recreational drugs could fit into the category. I haven't explored many drugs myself, so I'm curious to understand from others.
She describes adding Alcohol not as a psychedelic, but to have a 'reference' drug that most people have experience with its effects (so you can interpret a drug you've never tried as "4X more something than alcohol", rather than just being "0.56 something" which is nearly meaningless)
THC is an edge case, I suspect that Aella was working not so much on a criterion but more on a tradeoff of "having lots of substances for comparison" vs "avoid having too huge and clunky of a survey" and THC made it but other psychoactives didn't
This is helpful, and yeah I didn't read all the words. I noticed some other heavy hitters weren't on the list. I assume they aren't psychedelics.
this is cool, thanks! imo psilocybin mushrooms are among the safest and best
I approve this message
Proud to be one of the ~50 4AcODMT reporters lol
Worth clarifying that I'm not 100% sure it's what I took; I got it at a store which claims they can't sell psilocybin legally but that the company uses a "proprietary blend" which would be metabolized to psilocin. I looked up all the users who had tried this particular edible and they said it feels like 4AcODMT, so went with that. (Also no nausea, which is a huge plus for me personally.) Not sure precisely what I experienced, there were little hints of visuals and breathing aftereffects i've had on higher doses of THC before but nowhere close to "tripping"/hallucinations for me. Seems like a good choice for meditation or for sex. Bad if you're feeling sick; it'll enhance all the waves of sensation with that.
The brand was "Seshnz." It tasted *delicious*, much better than edibles normally do.