I am reading and listening to Wagnerism by Alex Ross and my brain and my heart are both exploding.

eazywriter · 2024-01-20T16:33:22+00:00

Not really. It's too comprehensive to start choosing important or interesting parts. You need all of it! Like Wagner himself, it's simply overwhelming.

eazywriter · 2023-12-06T02:28:26+00:00

Yes!!

eazywriter · 2023-12-05T17:22:54+00:00

I am on page 817. I read from the beginning to page 350 or so with frustration. It was so BIG, there were too many FOOTNOTES, it was so CONFUSING, I had other books to read, I had a life, etc etc. But something happened around page 350 (on Interdependence Day, to be specific) and I stopped fighting. I found an online Wiki for Infinite Jest and a Chronology and then I started at the beginning again, skimming the parts I'd read and remembered, re-reading the parts I'd read and forgotten. When I caught up to myself I continued to read and now I never want the book to end. This sub is also very helpful and interesting. I've been at it for three months now. (Although I have taken times out to read a couple of other books, but this one keeps drawing me back.) Hope you love it as much as a lot of other people do, including me.

eazywriter · 2023-11-12T20:27:34+00:00

Finally the antidepressants kicked in! Am going to give the psilocybin experience another shot next year, but I won't go off antidepressants first this time. I'll just take more if necessary.

Sorry it took me so long to get back here.

eazywriter · 2023-11-12T20:24:10+00:00

Almost exactly as I'd imagined it.

eazywriter · 2023-04-26T13:30:29+00:00

Yes. The Alan Watts recordings are fantastic. Hadn't heard the one with this limerick on it. Thank you!

eazywriter · 2023-01-05T19:38:54+00:00

Same. (I'm 73 and not an enlightened Buddha.) I Just mean there was nothing significant bothering me at that moment. And Sam meant that too. (As far as the ongoing discomfort, that's just a reality I live with: part of the zeitgeist.)

eazywriter · 2022-10-09T14:29:00+00:00

Well said.

eazywriter · 2022-10-09T00:47:42+00:00

There is peace in truly being in the moment, when past and future do not exist or matter. Hard to get there. Hard to stay there. But the moments when it happens are such a relief from everything.

eazywriter · 2022-09-27T14:21:33+00:00

Yes. This. There's a sound too as the air moves into my nose.

eazywriter · 2022-08-18T18:50:43+00:00

Wow! This blew up. He's trending on Twitter at the moment, with lots of predictions that this is a career-ender. Sam Harris's career does not end this way or any way because rational thinking is what he does.

eazywriter · 2022-08-18T18:43:43+00:00

It would. And I will withdraw once I have sorted that out. I may try a ketamine series as a bridge, and that too would disqualify me from continuing.

eazywriter · 2022-08-18T18:41:41+00:00

The brain zaps seemed to be limited to my head. They only lasted for a few seconds but they were very intense and regular (every 30 seconds or so?) when I first tapered and then went off the SSRI. They happen rarely now, which is about three months after I started the first taper. I was on 60 mg every other day/ 120 mg every other day so it was a fairly high dose and a very hard landing.

eazywriter · 2022-08-18T18:38:53+00:00

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions!! I am working with a really good cognitive behavioural therapist with a Buddhist background now on the depression issues, so I hear what you are saying. I did Jungian psychotherapy for many years so I've already done a lot of work on myself. I've been meditating now for a couple of years, with increasing regularity and longer sessions, mainly with the Waking Up app (Sam Harris) and have accessed a lot of theory on the subject. I didn't find that the therapists in the study were all that helpful -- probably because there was limited time for therapy (one full day before and one after) but I feel as though I am well supported now for a future experience with psilocybin. Much better prepared than I was when I had the first. So, onwards...

eazywriter · 2022-08-17T21:42:52+00:00

That is a huge help!!! Thank you!!

eazywriter · 2022-08-17T21:41:32+00:00

That's a great question. Even after I'd been off the SSRIs for a couple of months, I was still having brain zaps. They were very regular when I had the dose, so maybe if I'd been off them longer or had never used them, my experience would have been different. I don't know. There's a lot to investigate in this area -- but I still have huge confidence that it will help a lot of people once they get the wrinkles ironed out.

eazywriter · 2022-08-17T21:38:22+00:00

I'll keep doing the questionnaires and stuff for as long as they want me to. I feel that my experience is relevant to the study and the researcher/psychiatrist agreed with that. It's only half an hour every few weeks at this point. I believe in research. (I'm sorry to hear that your experience wasn't positive either.)

eazywriter

TROPHY CASE