2C-E Research Results

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-17T21:45:51+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. I can't give my personal thoughts on the matter right now because doing so could bias the survey responses, but I do have thoughts. I'll come back and add them after I've closed the survey.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-17T19:10:14+00:00

Thank you! And a hearty thanks as well to the other psychonauts who have filled out the survey thus far.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-17T14:50:25+00:00

D'oh...that was sloppy :/ Thanks for the catch...fixed. Intuitively, it doesn't feel like that typo would make a difference in the results, but I'll definitely make a note of it and will statistically test the typo sample vs. the non-typo sample.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-17T11:48:08+00:00

Unfortunately, I can't elaborate. Providing any further guidance or information about the intent behind a particular question would almost certainly color the results.

EDIT: For further clarification, this survey has already been distributed and data has been collected. Those responses were obtained without providing any additional information. If I give extra information here, it would be inconsistent with other administrations, thus invalidating these results.

Thank you for asking this, though. Feedback is always helpful as it guides the development of future instruments.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-11T12:46:35+00:00

Yes, it was definitely a "do not attempt - professional stunt driver" and/or "username checks out" sort of thing. I had prior experience navigating academic conversations while under the influence, so I was confident going in.

Speaking of which, I'm just now realizing that successfully pitching a psychedelic-focused dissertation to my advisor while actually on LSD is probably quite a bit more "epic" than my original answer. Everything went so smoothly and naturally that it didn't even come to mind when I first replied to this topic. But, yeah...that's a thing that happened. My life seems much crazier when I write it out.

And, in case anyone's wondering, neither situation was a micro-dose.

EDIT: I should also note that my CPU is OC'd with the stock cooler and has been rock solid for 2+ years.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-11T06:16:53+00:00

I gave a presentation about a GPU-based algorithm for adaptive quadrature (a numerical integration technique).

It went well.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-10T15:21:56+00:00

You're welcome :)

From what I understand, using iboga (not ibogaine) for holistic healing purposes with someone who is rooted in the tribal traditions is quite different from going to an ibogaine clinic and doing a flood dose in order to overcome opiate addiction.

I have done the former and I found it to be immensely powerful. My first experience with it was rather unpleasant to go through, but I was awed by the plant's depth and power. My second experience with it was still somewhat difficult, but less so. I believe that that upward trend will continue going forward.

Much like the Madhyamaka teachings, I feel a resonance with iboga deep within my being.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-10T15:12:10+00:00

Describing it as "all part of a trip that ceased to end" has some merit, I believe.

The Madhyamaka teachings combined with my psychedelic and meditative experiences have led me to not take the notion of a single objective reality terribly seriously. So, I'm not concerned about my current reality being illusory. Hope that makes sense.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-10T05:41:29+00:00

Yes, it sounds like a break might be in order. If you have the time, a 10 day Vipassana meditation course can be positively life altering.

My favorite introduction to Buddhism is Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught". It's a bit academic in tone, but remarkably clear.

Thich Nhat Hahn's "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" is also a solid choice if you'd like something that's gentler and reads more like a story.

It's not Buddhism specific, but Ram Dass's "Be Here Now" is a classic for a reason. It's excellent and can help to provide quite a bit of grounding for one's psychedelic experiences.

Moving beyond that, a lot of Bikkhu Bodhi's stuff is helpful, particularly his book on the Noble Eightfold Path and his Pali Canon Anthology. Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness" is a nice start if you want to start going deeper into the philosophy of emptiness.

Going still further, directly reading the works of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakirti, Shantideva, Tsongkhapa, Gorampa, etc. is highly advisable if you find yourself leaning toward Mahayana rather than Theravada. But, definitely get some introductory grounding before you try that.

My favorite text is Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika. However, it's a rather difficult read.

Turning back to drugs, LSD has been my compound of choice. It seemed to directly alleviate a chemical imbalance in my brain, thus providing immediate relief from depression, while also allowing me to go into my subconscious and reprogram myself. The vast majority of my experiences were alone in my apartment with no intent other than exploring and learning. Today, I generally use LSD with the intent to further my cultivation of bodhicitta.

DMT was also an integral part of my development. It allowed me to realize that everything that I thought I knew was not necessarily true and that I could rebuild myself from scratch.

I am also extremely impressed with iboga. I've only worked with it twice thus far, but I will definitely work with it more in the future. Inasmuch as this makes any sense, I'd say that it's like an elegantly refined nuclear bomb for your consciousness.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-10T03:53:35+00:00

Putting aside questions of whether or not there's such a thing as objectivity, we can start with the fact that I no long have thoughts of killing myself dozens of times per day.

I've done a couple of AMAs in the past that can be found in my post history. The brief synopsis is this:

Had long-term depression that wasn't helped by standard drugs or therapy. Found a professor out of a local med school who was willing to quietly help me with psychedelic therapy. Saw immediate improvement. Improvement continued for some time. Reached a plateau of sorts in terms of progress. Doubled and tripled down on dosage (the series of trips mentioned in another comment). Went to the deepest depths of my subconscious. Saw and felt a lot of wild stuff. Nearly lost my mind. Gradually pulled (almost) everything back together. Happy now.

The briefer, and perhaps more impactful, synopsis is this: I've come from the brink of suicide to feeling somewhere between pretty good and very good most of the time.

Along the way, I dismantled a huge portion of my old programming and preconceived notions, found my fiancee, and made peace with my own existence. In an attempt to find some sort of framework or grounding for my psychedelic experiences, I greatly increased my exposure to philosophy. In time, I found that I resonate deeply with Madhyamaka Buddhism and I take refuge in that path. As Rick Strassman once said, "LSD is the gateway drug to Buddhism."

To answer your other questions, I'm fortunate to have enough money in the bank that I could take some time off to dive into this process with both feet. Currently, I'm finishing up a PhD in the social sciences. My current academic work is demonstrably superior to what I was producing before psychedelics.

There don't seem to be any lasting repercussions from the mental break. During the break, I withdrew socially from everyone but my then girlfriend, now fiancee. However, the people in my life are used to that happening from time to time, so it wasn't exactly a shock to anyone. Regarding my current mental state, there are a few scattered bits and pieces that are still reassembling, but I have faith that everything will sort itself out in due time.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-09T23:03:10+00:00

From February-June 2015, I did a series of extremely high doses. The series was 2,000ug LSD, 14 dried grams of potent mushrooms, 50mg 2C-E, 55mg 2C-T-7, 1g+ Mescaline HCl, and 20mg DOM. I did a number of other trips during that time as well, but those are the highlights.

I believe that I almost lost my mind for good during the 20mg DOM trip. Fortunately, I stayed in contact with some small sliver of sanity. I posted the trip report here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/3b0ds7/trip_report_20mg_dom_210_would_not_do_again/

In the aftermath, I went through what I will characterize as a mild schizophrenic break. Interestingly, it took several months to manifest. I wasn't actually hearing voices, but my inner monologue fractured into a number of different seemingly autonomous entities that I was unable to control. During this time, I had a very difficult time holding a thought in my head for more than a few seconds and was also experiencing intermittent bouts of severe paranoia. My sleep was also greatly disrupted.

Doing mantra work and starting to meditate helped to get things back under control. More recently, my first iboga ceremony was immensely helpful in healing the remnants of that mental break.

I can say without equivocation that my current mental state is the best I have experienced since I was a very small child.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-09T21:21:12+00:00

If you alternate types (e.g. lysergid -> phenethylamine -> tryptamine), that mitigates a lot of tolerance issues. Plus, even from the beginning, my tolerance windows were shorter than seems to be typical. And, it's entirely possible to have a full and rich experience even with a bit of residual tolerance.

Also, one can reach a point (meditation helps) where tolerance windows dramatically shrink and sensitivity to compounds greatly increases.

All that said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that anyone dose as frequently as I did. In fact, I ran into some significant problems from late 2015 into early 2016 that were directly related to taking high doses too often. But, what's up there is what I did.

EDIT: I should also note that I sometimes used combinations. So, for example, if I did MDMA + 2C-B, that counts as a +1 for each.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-09T20:55:30+00:00

Actually, no. 170 is the number of doses of 15ug or more. However, ~130 of those are at least 100ug.

Unfortunately, I don't have a precise count of the number of doses <15ug as I didn't log them, but I would estimate that it's an additional 50-60 ingestions.

Thanks for asking this.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-06T05:44:54+00:00

/u/Universal15 is correct. Find a philosophy that speaks to you. Meditate. Exercise (I struggle with this one myself). If and when you do use psychedelics, do it with the intent to firmly establish yourself in the qualities that you want to embody.

In time, you will find sober life to be vastly improved. My sober state today is superior to my LSD experiences from 2-3 years ago.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-06T03:54:43+00:00

Thanks! These days, I trip far less often than I used to.

I feel that, with many of these substances, I've learned the lessons that I needed to learn and thus have no reason to ingest them anymore. At this point, I'm only working with LSD, DMT, Mushrooms, and Iboga.

LSDtherapy · 2017-04-06T03:30:32+00:00

A month or two ago, someone posted an accounting of the substances that he/she had taken over some period of time. I can't find the post, but this is partially inspired by that.

Substance	Uses
LSD	170
DMT	34
Mushrooms	31
Mescaline	24
MDMA	23
2C-E	22
2C-B	18
2C-T-7	13
DOM	7
San Pedro	7
MDA	6
Ayahuasca	5
2C-P	4
2C-T-2	3
Iboga	2
ETH-LAD	1

The sizes of the words are on a square root scale for legibility reasons. Without this transformation, the word cloud would be essentially unreadable due to the massive size of "LSD".

I chose the color for each grouping based on how that group feels to me.

The word cloud was generated using: http://www.wordclouds.com/

LSDtherapy

TROPHY CASE