I’m not going to be that guy, because I don’t read nearly enough to begin with, but I read the book and… it was amazing. I have a deep appreciation for the psychedelic experience and reading his trip reports brought me, a 30 year old man, to tears.

What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as in e.g. vipassana does not? They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a problematic one. If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep. What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals, that we couldn't otherwise?

This is very similar to "what do antidepressant medications achieve that regular diet and exercise do not? "

Assuming equal efficacy is possible in the first place, and assuming every human is even capable of reaching those levels, there are people who can't spend the sometimes years it takes to practice meditation to a point where they can achieve psychidelic efficacy.

Why not have both available and you can do you?

An equally valid and troubling question, doesn't really make your point.

Yes. As captured by the Big Lez Show:

> Donny: Panaeolus cyanescens, psychadellic.

> Lez: What do they do to ya?

> Sassy: Take you on a journey of self-discovery, you find out who you really are, this and that.

> Donny: Either that or you trip out for four or six hours. But in our current situation this will be really good for us, gunna heighten our senses so we'll be way more in tune with our surroundings.

> Lez: These heighten senses?

> Donny: They heighten senses you didn't even know you had.

> Lez: Have we got more than five?

> Donny: So many.

> Lez: How do I turn them on?

> Sassy: Meditate.

> Donny: Yeah meditation's probably the best way. Or, trip out on some psychedelic mushrooms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPeSVlk6E70

The argument here is that psychedelics are more than "chemicals" and comparing them to drifting in and out of sleep is not a real comparison. Can't argue against them sometimes being problematic though, of course, but the argument here isn't acknowledging the real psychedelic experience. If curious, check out some reports on https://www.youtube.com/@Vivec

What I compared to drifting in and out of sleep was merely one effect of psychedelics that people tend to be curious about, namely hallucination. Moreover one can very much approach these dreamlike states with a meditation-like, non-judgmental, non self-centered mental posture, and this is going to make their effects even clearer.

I think the transcendent experience has a lot to do with it.

I love meditation and practice daily, but not everyone can do 1 hour a day (Goenka recommends two) and one ten day retreat a year.

If one or two guided trips can transform someone's relationship to death, that's hugely valuable.

> What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as in e.g. vipassana does not?

I actually don't think it's worth comparing the two. They achieve a similar end goal depending on your intentionality but I don't think it's fruitful to say one is better than the other.

> They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a problematic one.

Psychedelics certainly have a higher ability to be abused. People need to be educated on looking at their family mental health history, they need an informed trip sitter, and they need to be well informed on what the experience will entail.

On the other hand, how many guru cults that incorporate meditation as a form of psychological warfare and isolation have we witnessed in our lifetimes? The people who are casually allowed to walk around and profess themselves as prophets or gurus is highly adjacent to the consequences of ill-informed ego death and return in the psychedelic space.

> If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep

Psilocybin, LSD, and DMT are nothing like dreaming. They're very vivid experiences. They can rip you out of your rooting in this reality which is why, imo, they're not good to do unless you have an informed trip sitter who can ensure your mental, emotional, and physical safety. That's what also makes them powerful teachers in the way of perspective; imo, it's not that you're "unlocking secrets to the universe" during a trip, moreso you've been granted a perspective outside of your sense of self that is difficult to achieve otherwise. Depending on the dose it could also be total dissolution of the ego. These things wear off, of course, but someone who can help you do a "soft landing" in the case where you run into some trauma makes a huge difference. The things you process afterward are where "the work" is done.

> What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals, that we couldn't otherwise?

You could meditate until your ego dies and likely achieve many of the same machinations from what I've read from peoples testimonies. Again, the work isn't done during meditation, it's how you decompose your experience and incorporate it into your life later. Psychedelics are the same, just a different mechanism that you cannot choose to say "I'm done" halfway through.

Psychdelics can and do kill meaningful amount of people, almost exclusively due to injuries while under their affects.

147 psychedelic deaths over three years - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523208/

I'll have to find a youtube video but there's a good one with one of the psychdelic guru's describing a trip where had mis-dosed (he didn't realize the mushrooms he was consuming were significantly stronger than anticipated) and he ended up stuck in a "loop" of not being able to start his car.. for three or four hours. His exprience was distressing but not much of an injury, but he then delves into a story about how a similar loop resulted in one of his friends dying from repeatedly falling into cement.

If 147 in 3 years is "a meaningful amount of people" then we're gonna need to ban a lot of other stuff to stay consistent.

Like lakes, for example.

Stairs

Bathtubs.

Running

Earthquakes.

How did the guy end up with 2 different neophyte people they were instructing in dangerous situations and sharing that. Let's not mince word, if the first had started the carit would be a dangerous situation. In college with alcohol wed stick a sober watcher over the pre-frosh who decided to drink the first time away from home.

Having just one go slightly sideways would make me really cautious. I was because freshman year I found some random pre-frosh who had hidden in a closet cause they thought they'd be in trouble (they were not, wet campus) who needed help.

Why was he trying to start his car? I'm glad he couldn't figure it out otherwise he could have killed someone. This is a personal responsibility thing.

The paper you linked does not say what you claim it says.

Instead, it appears to investigate psychoactive drug deaths not to do with overdose.

There appear to be no "traditional" psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, etc) covered here _at all_ except perhaps one death categorized as a "hallucinogen", which is definitely a lot less than 100% of the 147 deaths investigated.

You misquoted the title, which is actually, "Fatal injuries while under the influence of psychoactive drugs". There was no psychedelic fatalities other than 1 MDMA & alcohol one. Those were all booze, and other drugs. I'm not saying there are none, it's just the death rate during psychedelic trips is a actually lower than for sober people. On average those drive less and are often in group settings, so it's more those substances don't alter the death rate and the safety is provided by the context of not driving as much as typical, and not working with machinery.

When you say legalize broadly i guess you mean allow doctors to prescribe it to their patients with proper protocols and not just allow anyone to buy it over the counter?

When I talk about legalising drugs, I mean being able to buy them with the same level of control as beer or cigarettes.

Because beer and cigarettes are both mind-altering drugs yet get a pass because of mostly-economic reasons.

Not economic, historical. It's purely because both were things before the puritan movement (which still greatly impacts society today) and people are already familiar with them. If alcohol were discovered today, there's no way in hell it would be legal

So of course they’re both very old staples in human culture, but I mean to say that any attempts to regulate them are/will be met with more economic resistance than cultural… like Anheiser-Busch (spelling definitely wrong) and Philip-Morris (now Altria I believe) would be a bigger obstacle than “the people.”

Do cigarettes have such a big mind-altering effect?

I can’t speak personally, but people often get from nicotine what they would also get from marijuana- both have a “high” that makes you feel “different”, and the withdrawal symptoms from nicotine are more like those of meth than marijuana (which as far as I know, has no withdrawal since it’s non-addictive).

thanks for clarifying.

I understand that people are very different because if I took mushrooms when I was terminally ill, I would have a trip so bad it would break my mind.

Did a previous trip lead you to this belief are you just speculating on what your experience would be like?

I’ve had one bad trip (not terrible) when I was expecting some bad news. I’m basing it off of that experience. I’ve had a dozen other good trips but I was always careful to make sure I was in a good headspace before doing it.

AFAIK, there are 3 key ingredients to the trip: the set (before), the setting (during) and integration (the after). This is not a DIY therapy, but needs to be under a therapist's supervision.