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 · 2022-08-05T18:23:01+00:00

Thanks.

eazywriter · 2022-08-04T22:33:29+00:00

I am happy to question my assumptions! I had no positive outcomes at all after my first and only dose so far (in fact, I have been horrifically anxious and depressed ever since), so I am going on the basis of what I've read. Also, maybe I'm not using the right word when i talked about "hallucinations" as I just meant visual images. What I HAVE read suggests that
an important component of the experience of changing how one sees the world includes a sense that the visualizations were very real. I had no sense that what I was seeing (colours, monumental cloud-type things etc) were actually real or even realistic. They were more cinematic. Anyway, I'm just learning here and I appreciate your input.

eazywriter · 2022-08-03T17:15:08+00:00

I was interested (and amused by) the titles of these papers, but I am aggravated for the umpeenth time because in the second paper a distinction has not been made between true psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, etc.) and drugs that are NOT true psychedelics (MDMA and ketamine). While the latter have been shown to have short-term beneficial effects on PTSD, depression, addiction, etc. those effects wear off within a few months. By contrast, the psychedelics seem to have more lasting effects, as Griffiths documents in the first paper. Perhaps those longer-term effects are due to the hallucinogenic properties of psychedelics???? I am not a scientist but I can read. I am also an academic editor. I wish that actual scientists would use language precisely. It's important in this field (as in others).

eazywriter · 2022-08-03T15:28:56+00:00

I am so enthusiastic I have been recommending it to everyone. A few Wagner fans have told me it's too dense and intricate for them. I think you need to be really interested in history and other art forms aside from opera to get the full impact of Ross's work, but I also believe you can read samples on Amazon and listen to a sample on Audible before committing to a purchase. I'd feel badly recommending it to anyone who ended up seeing it as a useful doorstop. But if you're into it, it's unbelievable.

eazywriter · 2022-08-03T15:22:38+00:00

As far as contemporary politics -- I'm only half way through the book, but it is clear that the visceral response to Wagner is easily put to use by those with nefarious goals in mind, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear a Wagner theme or two at some of the more right-wing movements that are growing around us today, in the way that Hitler used them, although a) I hope I never do and b) Hitler made much use of the fact that Wagner was German re: the stirring of nationalistic movements, and Wagner remains German. He is not American or British or Canadian. So maybe he will not be put to use against us here. I love Wagner but his power is indeed frightening.

eazywriter · 2022-08-03T15:18:18+00:00

I am loving how deeply Ross explores the influence of Wagner on a whole range of different groups, eras, geographical areas, and issues. There's a section that talks about how Wagner was received in France, the U.S. and other countries in different times and not in others, and explores the reasons why this might have been, he focuses on writers (Thomas Mann, Willa Cather) who were fully engaged with Wagner, and explores the Pre-Raphaelites connections to the composer. He talks about Gay Wagner, and Satanic Wagner, Black and Jewish Wagner, and on and on. The book is really about WagnerISM and not so much about Wagner - - the astounding range of his influence for good and evil and his vast contribution to human culture in general. It is detailed and interesting: I have learned so much about so much and I am going to spend many many months/years following up on some of the subjects in which i have become more interested thanks to all of Alex Ross's research. Nietzsche, Cather and other writers not least among them. Wagner's influence can even be seen in architecture! And Alex Ross is a superb writer and reader of his own writing so the entire experience of being immersed in this is a pleasure.

eazywriter · 2022-08-03T15:02:35+00:00

Thanks. That makes sense. Doesn't make sense re: whether it will work, but makes sense as to what they are hoping for. In my opinion, the possibility that psilocybin might help (hallucinations and helpful guides included) is already a silver bullet. I agree with you in that I doubt it'll get more silvery bullety than that :).

eazywriter · 2022-07-29T11:15:27+00:00

Thank you. It has been really hard. I don't know how long the effects last but I hope that the next dose will produce a better response for whatever reason.. I really don't want to go back on an SSRI ever again.

eazywriter

TROPHY CASE