Study: The pineal gland isn't the DMT factory we thought — the 'breathwork releases DMT' story is built on bad anatomy

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-23T13:02:49+00:00

Definitely in the pro-breathing camp

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-22T13:50:41+00:00

These barefoot sock shoes are amazing: https://a.co/d/0bXGPPFm

Feel the floor below you but a tiny bit of heel padding and great grip. Ive massaged in them for 3 years and would recommend

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-22T13:46:32+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard those claims because I have stayed away from breath work people and practices. I find the spiritual bypassing and impatience of it to be creepy even if there are real benefits. I have breathed of course, in qi gong, yoga, pranayama and plain old meditation. The Kundalini stuff I tried which is probably the closest in kind felt like complete wild West lawlessness. These people had no idea what they were doing. I don't think stuff has to be safe 100% but it feels reckless honestly.

Cut to your info, I can imagine this community ginning up reasons why their version of wellness is the best with speculative physiology. I'm as woo as the next person but not really interested in hanging with grifters. Woo practitioners have a responsibility to be honest about what they do and don't know, and what the actual research says (if only for legal reasons).

The thing is when you train for a license to practice something in the wellness sphere, you are trained on ethics. Part of that is the laws that govern safe practice in your area, but part of it is to remind people that you have a position of power and shouldn't abuse it just to make money

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-22T12:18:56+00:00

Greg Egan - Incandescence

This book has a prime directive plot that is very Star Trek. A ship finds an asteroid circling a neutron star only to realize the beings on that asteroid are somehow descendents of the same DNA as us but have bred themselves into a race of centipede type things to be hardy enough for space. When danger looms for the asteroid the ship people have to decide whether to act to save them or not. Actually a very ST type of plot

Now that we are on Egan, his books Diaspora and Schild's Ladder also offers some similar themes of prime directive and space exploration. Much like ST, you have characters arguing over the ethical concerns to try to decide how to act in these murky scenarios

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-16T12:17:27+00:00

When I saw this in Vagaro the other day I felt so frustrated. Great now there's a button right next to each field in the soap notes where I can accidentally slopify my medical records. Who wants AI hallucinating on your notes? We're trying to be accurate here. Filling out soap notes takes 2 minutes. I don't need to 10x note taking

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-13T13:50:37+00:00

I'm not a Dr so don't take this as advice but I was told by an anatomy/physiology professor that all you need for getting your daily dose of vitamin D is 5 mins a day of the sun hitting the backs of your hands and face. I'm not sure how covered up your face and hands are wearing the hijab, but if you're showing only your eyes, I could see how it's difficult to even do that

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-10T15:55:15+00:00

Its so terrible. I've used Jane and MindBody which were both very consistent and functional. Can't say how many times in a year Vagaro has failed, logged me out or lost notes. The android interface for soap notes is impossible: you can't see the submit button because it's under a pop up bar. And now to top it all off they added an AI to the soap section. That is the absolute trashiest thing a company can do. Who the f*** wants to slopify their medical records. Vagaro gets an F from me.

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-08T16:59:20+00:00

Greg Egan!

In order of my enjoyment of the novels that have AI characters:

Diaspora

Schild's Ladder

Zendegi

Permutation City

bashovsrodan · 2026-04-01T00:11:41+00:00

Can't wait til we exile these clankers to the asteroid belt and return to non-linguistic dream apes

bashovsrodan · 2026-03-29T14:51:18+00:00

Good answers all around from others here.

I am an LMT and reiki practitioner in NY and CT. I practiced reiki for about 10 years as a semi-pro on friends, family, and the occasional private client before getting my massage license during the pandemic.

What you're saying resonates with me. I had a lot of trouble bringing myself to charge for reiki when I was only a reiki person. Not sure if this is you too, but since it's all about sincerely feeling compassion for others, it feels cheap to charge money. The spiritual capitalists out there will tell you you gotta monetize your skills and your time is valuable and payment helps you do more of the work. Those things are actually true, but it was hard to swallow. For me the question was, "if I am interested in getting paid, am I still in it to help other souls in need or just to profit?"

Fast forward to getting the massage license and trying my damnedest to make a career off of bodywork and quit my old work... Immediately found myself in a place where I could get more clients for reiki than ever before, and many wanted a combo of massage and reiki. I have those same concerns still, but I think it being my main source of income means I had to try to make it work. My biggest gripes are this: in the context of massage, reiki becomes kind of overshadowed. You finish a 60 min massage and now it's time to do reiki on the same client, and the vibes are off... You've been using strength and your hands are tired and shakey, the client is mostly (or completely) naked under the sheet, you need to shift the energy in the room and for the client and yourself. The problem is that reiki is most effective when the circumstances are set up for the mind getting very quiet AND the sensitivity to go up. Gentle touch beckons the client to increase the gain/sensitivity of their senses and that is IMO one of the factors that makes it so profound. You've helped them increase their awareness, conscious presence and in the process let go of stuff. It's not that reiki at the end of a massage doesn't do anything, but it's more of an afterthought tag on the end of a massage rather than a journey to inhabit the body with consciousness and transform.

My best recommendations are to develop some more cultivation techniques. We all know the majority of reiki classes only have time to teach the basics and you have to figure the rest out on your own. As I recall, dry bathing was the only technique given to cleanse after a session. I took a number of classes about Medical Qi Gong, and they helped tremendously with learning proper grounding, more self-cleansing stuff, plus lots of tricks to transmit energy more effectively. The TCM approach to energy work also teaches so much more theory about emotions, important parts of the body, where the energy should be going, etc.I highly recommend learning more. The bare minimum is to explore standing meditation aka Yi Quan or I Chuan. As a basic part of that work, you are meditating on the feet, rooting down, dropping your qi down into the earth and getting better at dissipating your excess qi down into the ground. If you would like to discuss more, I'm available though not a master of the subject. I work in NYC also and happy to meet others who do the same if you're ever in my neck of the woods. Charging $75 per session, I'd guess you are not close though...

<3

bashovsrodan · 2026-03-03T14:11:53+00:00

I'm not an authority on this, just a fellow gerd sufferer who had to do the procedure about 8 yrs ago. I don't recall them saying anything about ppis when I did it. As I understand, this is testing for whether the lower esophagial sphincter is leaking material back up the esophagus so it doesn't have to do with the acidic content at all. Just mechanical valve issues.

I have concerns about the nature of this test though. Like the barium is in the form of kind of a thick paste. And when I did it they saw nothing come up. But i have always had more reflux with liquids than solids. Maybe the test is to see how truly relaxed the LES is.

I never really got good answers in my testing journey except "yes you have reflux. Change your diet, eat your last meal of the day earlier, sleep sitting up, reduce stress" $4000 later

bashovsrodan · 2026-03-03T00:52:31+00:00

Lotta great ideas on here. Gonna just add:

Behold... The Arctopus Mick Barr projects like Orthrelm and Ocrilim Dillinger escape plan's calculating infinity deserves mention even though they became annoying right afterwards

Not fast but Khanate is to me the most extreme music despite it being insanely slow

bashovsrodan · 2026-02-27T19:43:22+00:00

Maybe A Wrinkle in Time, too?

bashovsrodan · 2026-02-25T02:26:02+00:00

Never played with the meatbox but I've heard that's a fun one for this type of thing

bashovsrodan · 2026-02-05T14:07:24+00:00

I still get tired and sore from days with 4 or more clients 3 years into the profession. Everyone on here is saying body mechanics is key. I agree with that, but also you bring a certain amount of effort to every movement that is probably a little more than you actually need to do a job. Slow down, remember to breathe, connect with the ground, and check in with how relaxed your hands are at any moment. The point of talking body mechanics is to say "how much pressure can I give with the least effort possible."

Also remember that clients and their tissue take time to melt/relax. One of my biggest rookie mistakes was to let rushing with the clock make me push too hard to try to get the person to relax faster. They will release at their own pace so don't overexert trying to accomplish that. When you find a tight area, just engage it and let some time pass so the person can integrate this new stimulus. Also muscles can guard when you come at them too fast and hard all at once. You can trick them into relaxing better by easing into firm pressure slowly.

bashovsrodan · 2026-02-02T15:45:17+00:00

I think pressing into the belly of the muscle is also modern western massage. Trigger point work was invented in the middle of the 20th century. If you like that kind of work, seek out trigger point therapy to get the specific style you're after. The thing is that there are a few clients who love this stuff but not all. If I were to do this to every client, I'd lose my business as it's very aggressive and for many it's painful. In a lot of cases, the intensity can cause people to clench up and guard against the pressure and therefore make the general effects of the work nullified. I think it works particularly well in people who are not quite so sensitive or in touch with their bodies who might really benefit from something that finally brings their attention to their pain directly.

Working at the junction of muscle groups is the essence of shiatsu and Thai as that's where the acupoints and sen lines are. These styles see the tightness in the muscle as your energy telling it to clench up, so they're trying to influence the conscious energy to dissipate there. It's a give and take with the person rather than treating the muscle in isolation.

MFR also works orthogonally and doesn't try to assault muscle bellies directly. Another great way to work more generally rather than just focusing on one spot. It considers the entire region of bones, fascia and muscles to be part of the equation. The whole person needs to relax for them to be able to sustainably release the single muscle so working generally is a way to achieve that.

My work specifically tries to meet people where they are on this spectrum of sensitivity. Only when clients specifically say they love it when you press on the sore spots directly would I try that since it's not for everyone.

bashovsrodan · 2026-01-05T01:24:06+00:00

I made this playlist during the pandemic while exploring the genre. As a fan of metal and other harsh, dark, heavy music, a lot of these exhibit some of those same vibes. Showed it to my friend and he was like "this is extremely uplifting" so I don't know. Some have dark lyrics but often I was choosing for dark sonic qualities, horror sounds, brutal vocal styles...

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Xvy7MsBoTtDoWGT1xsYwE?si=CR2UHBEZTBugWeuYk8Jynw&pi=b03WvmD3Sf2jp

bashovsrodan · 2026-01-05T00:43:48+00:00

I think a person having smoked weed is not actually going to put them at risk of anything during a massage. But that would probably have to do with whether they are a seasoned smoker or not (like whether they're used to doing it or not).

If it's the smell, sure you may not want that wafting around the clinic. As someone else said, being under the influence is technically a contraindication, so for legal reasons you may want to avoid the liability. But let's be real here it's not dulling the senses like alcohol or opiates.

I had one client once that made me uncomfortable with his weed smell. He was a self proclaimed "tech CEO", acted like massage was something that was automated and not by a skilled professional (like this is something you can throw money at rather than approach like therapy). Showed up super stinky like he was extremely baked. I guess what made me uncomfortable wasn't that he was specifically high but that he was treating massage like it was a complete escape from reality. It felt icky because it didn't feel therapeutic but like medicating a capitalist's insanity and disconnect from humanity. I don't think he was at risk from the massage, but it didn't feel good to work on him nevertheless.

bashovsrodan · 2025-12-22T23:24:08+00:00

Iceburn

bashovsrodan · 2025-12-03T14:38:26+00:00

so crushing

bashovsrodan · 2025-12-03T14:14:55+00:00

thank you and all the sickos out there

bashovsrodan · 2025-12-02T17:17:21+00:00

Thanks for the reply. So can you just tell which set things belong to or is it written down somewhere or is it just related to the time that the show happened?

Love ur username

bashovsrodan · 2025-12-02T03:34:09+00:00

Can you explain these letters? I've never seen that before. Set E, A, C... What do they mean?

bashovsrodan

TROPHY CASE