Comment by josephg
8 months ago
> "If you give tech bros a hit of psychedelics, all you get is tech bros on psychedelics."
This is an amazing line. I must admit: the first time I tried LSD I had some code open on my laptop. Before the trip I was curious what programming on LSD would be like, so at some point dutifully I sat down in front of my editor. I was immediately utterly transfixed by the colours of the text cursor as it pulsed. Then I lost myself watching hover states as I moved the mouse around. Needless to say, I didn’t get any programming done.
I remember thinking how strange and hilarious it was that, while sober, I care at all about programming. It all seemed so hollow.
A lot more happened on the trip - the whole thing was incredibly profound and insightful. But all these years later, I still have a crystal clear image of that pulsing cursor etched in my memory.
Ok, that was a theoretical lesson I learned before when reading books about it. You cannot do productive work while tripping.
And I also had my laptop close by to maybe take notes, but the screen was really stressfull.
Watching wild nature in the sun was much more enjoyable.
Ahh I had a similar trip with Ableton GUI on acid, all the gui controls went in fire and animated in a psychedelic way
It depends on the dose, I've successfully programmed and written about programming while high on acid. Though usually just a half tab or even a quarter. I felt like it was useful, improved focus and creativity.
One time I played CSGO on acid, my brain might be exaggerating the memory but I swear I played like a master. Maybe I just had easy games but it really felt like I was playing much better than usual and I was dominating.
Also played satisfactory once, though with that I just ended up painting my factory in neon colors and stuff like that. It looked pretty cool though, I kept the color theme I made.
My pet theory is that LSD (particularly in low doses) primarily suppresses a bunch of inhibitory parts of our brains. So thoughts that would normally be suppressed make it all the way up to conscious experience. If that’s true, then our experience of being more creative on lsd shows how much we repress our creative selves in normal lives. That neon colour scheme, and that skill at csgo wasn’t in the lsd. It was in you. It is in you. You just normally bury it.
Ram Das said lsd didn’t do anything to him (though I find that an amazing claim). I think one of the Indian gurus said the same thing. I’m not sure if I believe them though.
I agree, it's definitely about the self. That's what psychedelics are to me, they're a way to explore the self. Seeing things from a new perspective, unlocking new ways of thinking. Seeing yourself in a different light.
It's not every trip but some of them really feel extremely profound and inspire me to change my life for the better.
One of the first psychedelics I tried was psilocybin mushrooms, made tea and I think we made it quite strong. I must have been around 17-18 or so, and what I remember most clearly isn't the crazy visuals, it's what came after. After the peak when I started coming back to reality I experienced this mental clarity where I felt like I saw my life from an outside perspective and I was ashamed of who I was. My parents didn't want me experimenting with drugs so I distanced myself from them and we always argued, had a really bad relationship. My two younger brothers were just annoyances to me, I just wanted them to leave me alone. But during this trip I thought back to when I was their age, chilling on the couch with our dad watching nature documentaries and stuff, and I just felt so incredibly bad about the brother I was to them.
Before that day I was on a pretty bad path, I was doing a bit more than experimenting with some pretty serious substances and i really think that trip changed my life. I turned things around, it was a bumpy road and it took some time but after that trip I started trying to do better and it worked. 15 years later I'm pretty proud of the person I am and I don't think I would be where I am today if not for that mushroom trip.
A lot of people make psychedelics seem like it's some kind of amusement park ride or just some druggie fun time, ooh pink elephants and blah blah. To me it's not about that at all. It's about the profound ways they can reveal things about yourself that you're too blind to see.