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Notes -
I'm sorry man. I genuinely am. Even during the experience (or very very shortly after the peak), I was grappling with multiple existential crises:
I don't know if you ever had a choice in the matter. I don't know if I did either. But I am so lucky to have made the choice of going the route I would have committed myself to going well in advance. Screwing with my brain's chemistry is pragmatically useful for therapeutic purposes and also... fun. But it's not a solution to metaphysics. If I claimed to have come up with one after the trip, my notes tell myself that I should consider the original me gone, maybe for good.
I hope you're doing okay. I wanted to be changed too, but I'm clearly the annoying kind of person who is just as analytical and self-scrutinizing when sober as they are zooted. I'm happy/sad about that. Uh, now that I think about it, I do understand the limits of language as a communication tool/expression of qualia better. That perhaps does constitute a change. Words genuinely cannot express the conflict within at the time. Good luck to you, if there is some residual damage, we will likely be able to cure you, speaking from a medical perspective. That is a promise I am mostly confident science can cash.
I've never done it myself (and would be terrified to) but it's quite interesting to read these anecdotes about psychedelics and then connect it to some of the research that's been coming out. Psilocybin AFAIK disrupts functional connectivity in the brain quite aggressively and basically causes different brain networks to become less segregated and bleed together, and it does so most severely in the default mode network, which is the piece of mental circuitry responsible for your sense of time, space and self. So you get ego death.
It also helps to suspend depressive symptoms by disrupting the connections between networks, specifically the hippocampus and default mode system, which are associated with that. Your thought patterns are quite literally spilling into each other on the fly in a way that can temporarily disassemble your entire perceptual and affective world, and it offers the possibility of your mental circuitry settling into a subtly changed baseline for better or for worse. It's basically very imprecise, very ghetto biohacking.
I honestly don't think it's all bad and has some possible transhumanisty applications, but as it currently stands the drug is like a sledgehammer where the effects aren't fully understood or controllable. If not I would be all in to be honest.
I agree with you. That's my understanding of my the mechanics, though note that there's also a general increase in neuroplasticity as well as evidence of some neurogenesis.
In predictive processing terms: psychedelics relax your priors, which helps unstick the stuck ones (like depression).
For what it's worth, I was always fascinated by psychedelics even as a teen, and wanted to try them recreationally. But I avoided them for a decade, because I was too afraid of the risk. Then my depression got really bad, and I felt the clinical trial was a good shout before I resorted to IV ketamine and ECT (very annoying to get in my parts of Scotland). It worked wonders, and gave me more confidence that I could push things.
Uh.. Turns out there's a limit to how far I wanted to push things. I might try LSD again, but never at this dose. I've had my fun. I like my sanity. If you do specifically want a treatment for depression, the evidence for psilocybin is much more robust. You've probably read my blog post, but if you haven't, it's in my posts.
The interesting thing about psychedelics is that you can titrate this somewhat, in ways that change it qualitatively as well as quantitatively. LSD/Psilocybin is a sledgehammer. Ketamine (in recreational doses, administered nasally, I have no idea about IV and no interest in trying) is more like pushing the clutch out on a manual car. "You" are still there, and can still contemplate things rationally, but you're separated from the world in a way that lets you be, for want of a better phrase, creatively objective.
The unfortunate side effect, for me, is that I spend a good deal of time on most ketamine trips thinking about how Nick Land was right about everything.
I am interested in trying ketamine, preferably I since it's more effective for depression.
Perhaps it's unfortunate that I often think Nick Land is right when sober. To be precise, more directionally correct than any other contemporary philosopher or writer. I hate the man and his ideology, I don't want the future he imagines and dreams of to come to fruition. I want something human to survive into the far future.
Alas, I must still concede that it's a very real possibility that the techno-capital singularity consumes us whole. It won't surprise you to learn that I spent a good while on the trip worrying about the Singularity. I do that while sober too.
I'm much more optimistic, in that I believe that much of the aspects of ourselves we consider to be distinctly human are actually necessary qualities of intelligence, and there will be many ways that even a superintelligence is human or hyper-human. And I would also rather see humanity gone and replaced by an able and energetic intelligence than eternally humiliated in something like a WALL-E future.
On the actual point of the conversation, SWIM would recommend to SWIY to be sure to source high-quality ketamine and start with small doses. If SWIY cuts out a line that looks like what you see in the movies he's going straight into the Interstellar black hole, that's what usually ruins ketamine for people. Put a nature documentary, some youtube drone footage of Iceland/Cape Town/Japan, or a cyberpunk anime on TV.
I've been surprised by how difficult it is to find ketamine in Scotland, it's far easier to come by down south. I think that I'm most likely to go through the hassle of an IV infusion on medical grounds, the subjective effects don't appeal to me nearly as much as the benefits for depression. But good to know, I'm open to it!
I suspect somewhat that the experienced effects of psychedelics are less important for long-term mood changes than they look. Or, at least, that it's actually more productive to hang out with friends or watch a good movie than it is to strive after "insights" during a trip. Medical grounds are probably the easiest way to get ketamine, but there's always TOR.
I did end up hanging out with friends and mostly enjoying it. I've got a full essay almost cooked in the oven, if you want, I can ping you when it's out. Might even be tonight, given my observed preference for procrastination when it comes to studying for my exams.
(I am perhaps unnecessarily scared of the DW, but it strikes me as a bit of a hassle. I'd have to buy crypto, and I live on a visa. Eh, it's an option for the future!?
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