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Comment by Glamklo | Hacker News Reader

Curiosity.

We only live once.

If your default live model is going to school, then going to unviersity, partner, kids, work, work, living daily live, getting old, dying and you are happy and content, great!

But that image is not true for a lot of people for a lot of different rasons.

LSD gave me a lot of empathy for people who have some mental illness for example. MDMA gave me a very empathic experience i never had before.

And just getting old might be a goal for people, also something like not dying but again, thats just a default thinking not necessarliy what other people conclude for their lives.

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It's fascinating that this particular comment was flagged (I vouched for it).

The reason I took psychedelics the first time was also some combination of curiosity, recreation, and frustration at feeling like I'd fallen into a local min. As a cousin comment mentions, their power is giving you a different perspective which you quite literally cannot conceive of in your current mental state.

Those who have been to therapy (and had a good therapist) know the value that an honest and different outside perspective can have on your life. But there's also a barrier between you and that other person - they don't really have the full context of what motivates or worries you. Psychedelics are a new perspective on the thoughts going through your head, the sensory experience you're having, the emotions you're physically feeling.

That's not to say it's all good and no bad, but I'll leave that to the droves of comments exaggerating their risks. If you're looking for an altered mental state, mushrooms / LSD / MDMA pose far less harm than alcohol or cannabis.

> you quite literally cannot conceive of in your current mental state.

I'm open to considering the possibility that I can't conceive of it in my current mental state if you're open to considering the possibility that I can.

The dogmatic way some people speak about the life changing potential of psychedelics is reminiscent of how other people speak of religion. It sounds compelling, but the more detail they go into, the more I grow suspicious that maybe this person just wasn't particularly imaginative in the first place.

I'm not saying that's the case! But it's difficult for me when people are asking me to be open minded (about the possibility that there are insights and truths that I'm literally incapable of accessing without psychoactive substances, which most people agree aren't capable of creating anything that isn't, to a greater or lesser extent, already present in your brain) but use language that categorically deny possibilities outside of their experience (there must be such insights, and no human is capable of arriving there without psychoactive aid, because they personally didn't).

I don't know, I know it's a bit childish for me to feel this way, but it also doesn't feel unreasonable.

Many people take moderate doses of psychedelics and find the experience unremarkable. They just don't feel the urge to post incessantly about it online after.

(A sufficiently high dose will probably get you experiences you "cannot conceive of", assuming you haven't gone through psychosis or delirium, but this is not recommended by most).

MDMA is very neurotoxic. It can be used safely, but should not be advertised as harmless. You certainly cannot be using it nearly as often as alcohol or cannabis.

The life path of "going to school, then going to unviersity, partner, kids, work, work, living daily live, getting old, dying" is, other than the kids part, utterly horrifying to me and feels like not living at all. Why even bother with life if driving to work and driving home is all youre going to do with it? I am fully of how pretentious this sounds but, the way most people live is an insult to the precious gift of the human spirit.

Of course for many there is no choice. But that only makes it more horrifying not less.

2 weeks ago I took shrooms with my friend, we went to the basement of an arcade and crashed a bdsm costume party, then i spent the night at her place. This weekend, I played music with 4 talented people for 15 hours, and we finally collapsed giggling and covered in sweat at 2:30am. Thats living life! These are the kinds of things you can do if you are willing to take risks. You think I want to retire to a life of watching wheel of fortune? Why???

Dude, most people go to parties and play music sometimes. Most people have friends and hobbies and are not the mindless NPCs you seem to think they are. This does not make you special.

What a shitty thing to say.

What's shitty is accusing everyone else of "insulting the human spirit" because you think you're the only person to have hobbies.

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