Comment by Unearned5161
8 months ago
I wonder if a similar thing to the dwarfing high of heroin applies to these psychedelics. Would the amazing awakening experience I'd have with an LSD trip make all other mentally exciting moments and smaller awakenings I come across in day to day life more boring in comparison?
Have you been to a really long opera? It’s quite impressive. After hours of pretty intense performance and singing, can you not appreciate the street musician the day after? Do you have a strong desire to go to the opera again the following days?
I get the direction you're trying to go in, but I think this metaphor is flawed. If all I've seen in life are mediocre street musicians, and then one day I go to some concert and it's the best thing ever, sure that's going to change how I see the street musicians from before.
Replace with food and its even clearer. Going to some top of the line Micheline star restaurant _will_ alter how you look at food for the rest of your life.
Watching a movie in blue-ray full quality no compression _will_ alter how you appreciate streamed movies for the rest of your life.
You can still appreciate it for what it is, but it will forever have that relative smallness.
> Going to some top of the line Micheline star restaurant _will_ alter how you look at food for the rest of your life.
Interestingly I don’t agree with you and that’s what I would call elitism.
Food is a great example as I know I’m personally able to appreciate a great and complex meal at a high end restaurant and still enjoy some fast food.
It’s the same for art : does having a favorite book/movie/music/videogame/… makes you unable to enjoy other books/movies/music/videogames ?
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Honestly, kind of.
That’s like asking if getting a new pair of glasses makes looking at things more boring. Psychedelics are most interesting because of the medium and long term effects they have on the brain.
The second part of your comment seems reasonable, but your glasses analogy makes no sense. Glasses don't make things look exciting, they make things sharper and help you see better.
Furthermore, if you're trying to say that taking off my new glasses makes things less clear then yes, that's precisely the symptom that made me acquire them in the first place.
I don’t think so. I’ve done it probably 20 times and I feel like it bleeds out into the rest of your life. It forever altered my appreciation of clouds and postmodern fiction/philosophy
Right, that sounds reasonable enough. Maybe that's because it's more of a semi-permanent neuron rewiring and less of hitting a dopamine receptors rev limiter?