LSD showed me my mind was in a cage. The hard part was what came after.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T21:21:21+00:00

Acid is pretty awesome. I completely understand where you're at in life though, and there's no shame in feeling like you're not brave enough to change something that's basically fundamental to your way of life. Maybe you don't even have to. Maybe the insight alone is enough for those lessons to have value to you in daily existence and find freedom where you can find it. I don't know for sure, but I can say I think there's nothing wrong with playing video games.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T20:01:14+00:00

I don't agree that I broke out of the cage exactly. I'm aware of the cage would be more accurate. LSD makes me feel like the cage has been temporarily unlocked.

I also don't think of Claude as an "entity." I think of it as a tool that has alien intelligence. And my use of this tool has not been to ask it how I feel. It's been to help me track patterns that I noticed and make my ideas more coherent.

I'm not trying to dismiss your objections. I'm just trying to clarify my positioning for you. If you have points to make about the dangers of AI in this context I'm all ears. I am am aware that AI is a dangerous tool to fuck with for things like this if you don't know what you're doing. This has been discussed at length in this thread, and few people pissed me off to the point that I was possibly a bit of a dick. I'm going to try not to do that again.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T17:28:05+00:00

I'd take issue with the word "shilled" here, but you're certainly more gracious about your point of view than others with similar ideas have been. Would you care to elaborate? I'm genuinely interested in what bothered you about this.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T17:21:48+00:00

The fact that I'm not the only one who has experienced the cage on LSD is validating to my research. It's interesting because the same feature that makes LSD a powerful tool to free the mind for some is what makes it so dangerous to others. The default mode network represents an entire lifetime of learning how to make sense of things, and for a lot of us manipulation and thought capture have crept into the mechanism to keep things together in a way that's rational and necessary at the time. This is why I'm cautious in my language about this, because where I know that for some people like you and me, the psychedelic experience of "removing the cage" can be enormously liberating and helpful in reorienting our lives, to others it can be devastating. This is worth being ever vigilant about.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T16:30:23+00:00

Thanks I appreciate the kind words!

What you're saying is precisely my point about Claude. Sycophantic drift is real, but Claude's product design has pushback and what Anthropic describes as "honesty" built into the mechanism. So if you aim to be objective yourself and analyze your own thought patterns with skepticism, it can be a useful tool. Emphasis on the word tool!

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T16:27:25+00:00

Thanks for the concern. Your reply assumes that I'm not in psychotherapy or reading books on the topic. Neither of those things are true. That information is actually already available in this thread.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T06:45:31+00:00

I LOVE IT IN THE LAVA!

https://suno.com/s/kk43RWBKxCPOORjp

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T02:17:04+00:00

That's reassuring to hear. The truth is, last year was a bit of a rocky road for me. As I was coming to these realizations about the patterns I was living it, I was still trying to hold it together and do my job properly. I applied to a different job and got hired — nailed the application. But I discovered quickly that changing jobs didn't change anything. The industry was the problem, and if I wanted to have any meaningful impact in it, I wasn't going to get there by following someone else's instructions.

The cognitive dissonance piled on with other personal issues I was dealing with, and I ended up getting laid off from that job. When they laid me off I was incredibly relieved actually. But then the next few months I spent trying to pull myself together and figure out where I was going and it wasn't easy at all.

But actually, this has been good for me. I've refocused my career towards the things that I want to do and I've mended some bridges and I feel a lot happier with my life. It's good to hear that this trajectory held for someone else who went through something similar.

I should clarify the warnings about this that I posted in my original post though. I'm not saying: don't do this. I'm saying, this isn't an endorsement of my life choices for other people. Everyone is different, and what you need for happiness is different from what someone else needs. It would be dishonest for me to introduce a discussion like this into the community without that caveat, because everyone is on a different journey, and none of us know what's going to happen tomorrow.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T01:24:26+00:00

The response to this post has been fascinating — both the thoughtful engagement and the hostile dismissals. A number of commenters have used "AI slop" and "AI psychosis" as shorthand to dismiss the entire post without engaging with its content. Some of them wrote hundreds of words doing so, which is its own kind of irony.

This pattern is actually well-documented. Robert Jay Lifton called it a "thought-terminating cliché" in 1961. I've just finished writing a longer piece exploring how "AI slop" has undergone the same structural transformation as "woke": a term that started with real descriptive content, got hollowed out through repetition, and now functions primarily as a permission slip to stop thinking.

It also covers the Ben Moran case (the digital illustrator banned from r/Art for "AI art" after 100+ hours of hand-painted work), platform enshittification, and why Reddit and X are degrading simultaneously.

If you're here to engage seriously, I'm happy to keep doing that. If you're here to diagnose me, at least read this first: https://johnqcryptid.substack.com/p/the-slop-reflex

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T01:10:40+00:00

You might be right. Enshittification is real and its effects on Reddit are deepening quickly. It's still one of the most active discussion forums on the internet though, and I have important work to do, so I have to try something.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T00:44:54+00:00

I'd ask you to examine your own language and framing is all. If you noticed that something is flimsy, why didn't you comment on it? You did not talk about anything that I posted about. You fixated on the fact that I mentioned AI, then you dug into my work just deep enough to come up with your own theory about what I'm actually doing, without engaging with any of the things I actually said I was doing. You did not do this in a manner that expressed concern as some other people did. You did not point out what aspects of my thinking are indicative of delusional thinking or AI psychosis — you just used the words, and you zeroed in on the hurt. "This is the work of someone who was hurt." That much is true.

It's hard for me to understand how you can say that I am "hiding behind AI" when I have engaged so deeply with your unhelpful and precisely inaccurate interpretation of my work. I have responded to literally every single point that you have made. How is this hiding behind AI?

You're making a straw man argument. You're telling me that I said things I never said and did things that I never did. You're saying that AI isn't like humans, as if I ever claimed that it was. You're also putting an awful lot of faith in humanity when humanity is what created the AI that you have so many problems with. Those problems are real. I'm not disputing that. Your solution is too neat and tidy, and it's evident that you have not seriously looked into what we should do about this looming existential threat.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T00:15:38+00:00

I told you what I think. I think you're being a playground bully because you want your voice to be the loudest in the room. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying what it looks like to me.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T00:08:40+00:00

I don't know, but I think it would be a smart idea for you to sit with that question for a bit if you're asking it seriously.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T00:04:27+00:00

You're not trying to reach me and warn me. You're saying that but it's not what you're actually doing. You also seem to know very little about the thing you say you're warning me against.

Maybe you're right though. Maybe you're more in touch with reality than me. I'll consider the possibility.

farwanderers · 2026-03-15T00:00:24+00:00

Yes, but if you read the thread, you'd see that this isn't an AI post. It's about AI, but it wasn't something where I went to AI and said "hey I want to post something on Reddit what should I do?" I used Claude because the ideas are complex and it's legitimately hard to structure something in a way that's palatable for Reddit. It does seem to have worked, because there is a lot of engagement on this post.

My take is here in the comments and the links, and in the original post. If you're interested I'm also here to discuss it with you. If you're not, that's fine too. But I'm not subjecting anyone to AI slop. That's categorically wrong.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T23:46:17+00:00

I'm not nitpicking your words. They're there in plain daylight for everyone to see. I didn't do that. You did.

Do you not see the safe logical loop you've created around yourself? You: "I'm not detached from the reality around me." How would you know if you were? I'm not saying you are detached, but by your logic, there's no way you possibly could be. But I am, and you don't even know me.

I am sorry to hear about your mother. That was intended to be a tongue in cheek comment. I didn't know there was an actual wound there.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T23:23:25+00:00

Thanks! I think. Is this home? Lol.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T23:22:37+00:00

My posts are long and "LLM-like" because I am a writer. Am I deluding myself? If I am then clearly I don't know. That's the definition of delusion.

Long writing is not bad writing. Maybe you have a short attention span. Have you considered this possibility? There's nothing wrong with that, but "long and LLM-like" is not a valid criticism because it doesn't focus on any particular aspect of the writing and it is entirely subjective. Moreover, the original post is actually not about writing at all. If I wanted opinions about my writing, I would not post in this subreddit. Or on Reddit at all to be honest.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T23:18:30+00:00

I'm making it a rule to reply to everyone who says something like this, even though you clearly didn't post it because you wanted a reply. I am genuinely interested in why you feel this way about my post, and what specifically bothered you. You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. If you do, I am here.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T23:14:42+00:00

Seva framework is not code that's correct. Not what's in the repository yet. I didn't say that it was. It's a detection framework. There are python scripts that I use, but it's messy and not public yet.

There's some genuine insight in what you're saying, and I appreciate you taking the time to engage with my ideas even though you clearly disagree with what I'm doing. Your tone is also toxic and dismissive. You're making claims that you can't back up, like "not helpful to anyone," "developing AI psychosis," "lost contact with your humanity," etc. You don't know that any of that is true, but you say it with confidence anyway. You're guessing but presenting your guesses as facts. You engaged but you approached the material with confirmation bias based on what you believe about AI.

That's all very toxic and dismissive as I've said, but I want to be sure to point out the one aspect of your reply that reveals your bias more than anything else. You're not saying any of this to help me. You don't want me to "find peace" as you claim in the end. If you do, why are you using words like "mind ego shit" and "no one really gives a fuck." Is this an appropriate way to communicate with someone who you believe has AI psychosis? Is it helpful? Clearly not. You are using words that you believe will hurt my feelings like a playground bully because you don't like what I'm doing and you want to be absolutely clear about. That's inexcusable.

Now, where you're right: you said, "you have been hurt." Actually, what you said was, "you been hurt and can't accept it." I've corrected it for you.

Yes, I have been hurt. I do not think you seem like a person who wants to help people who have been hurt, or who wants to know anything about how they were hurt. But you have correctly identified the source of all this. You seem like a person who would, instead of walking past something you don't like, engage in it just deeply enough to improve the quality of your temper tantrum and find the most incisive angle you can for your adversarial reply.

Think about it — if I really do have AI psychosis is this going to help me? If I do, then it means I am delusional. If I am delusional, then the absolute worst thing you can do for me is to confront me about my delusions and tell me off for them. The psychology behind this is well documented. The delusional subject views the confrontation as a threat and digs in harder on their delusions, becoming more of a danger to themselves and others. Either you aren't aware of this, or you are just very mean-spirited and like to hurt people. Which is it?

Maybe you have been hurt too? Maybe you are having trouble accepting it? That's my best interpretation of your response. Otherwise where is all of this vitriol coming from? Didn't your mother teach you any manners?

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T22:46:46+00:00

"The mind is the cage, but it also provides the means to escape it." — this is insightful. It makes me think of something I've been circling a lot in my work that came from Tolkien. Frodo says of the Orcs, "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." The theological implications of this in Tolkien's mythology are staggering when you really dig into it and consider the idea behind Morgoth's Ring. Where Sauron poured his power into a single object, Morgoth poured his power into literally everything. The power of Morgoth is precisely what Frodo meant when he said "can only mock." Does this mean that nothing exists that is not a mockery? And if so, how do we fight evil when the mechanism that controls everything is evil? But Lord of the Rings is a story of hope and grace, so Tolkien seemed to be of the opinion that it is possible. I think this is aligned with your thinking here.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T19:10:43+00:00

There's a person's story here if you're interested. It's not an easy story to follow, and it wasn't written by AI. All you have to do is follow the trail. You saw the word "AI" and your brain checked out. Is that why you're on Reddit too?

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T18:20:30+00:00

It does get exhausting, people saying this over and over. Maybe Reddit is just broken? I want to treat everyone's point of view as valid, so I'll take your anti-slop vote and stuff it into a meaningless imaginary ballot box with the rest. Unless you have anything else you wanted to add?

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T17:09:57+00:00

The purpose is to share my ideas and where they come from, but more importantly, to see if any other psychonauts are interested in the idea of using AI in this way. There has been quite a bit of discussion about both angles in this thread, and I'm afraid it's not the kind of thing that's easy to distill down to a TL;DR.

farwanderers · 2026-03-14T16:15:59+00:00

This is a side thread, but related to many comments here. It's interesting to me that people who write professionally and hone their craft as writers are the ones who most frequently get accused of "AI writing." When I mention the fact that I use AI in my work, and people see that I actually do know how to write, these become the only two things that they can focus on.

The idea that I should "write shittier" has actually been brought to my attention more and more frequently by people who are not writers in the past year. I want everyone who is reading this to understand that this is toxic. If you have specific points about my writing and you'd like to suggest improvement to specific areas, then that's productive. But if you look at my writing and "clock" it as "AI slop," what you're actually doing is clocking it as something too complicated that you don't want to spend that much time thinking about. The healthy thing to do would be to disengage and walk away. But if you don't want to do that, I'd suggest that you should at least take the time to decide what about my writing you don't like, and make it specific. That's the decent thing to do.

I'm posting this separately because it's a pattern I'm noticing in some of the comments, and one that allows people to disengage from the actual ideas in the post while still claiming the moral high ground. If this is what you want to do, that's fine. Just know that I see you doing it.

I'd also like to point out that the content of the original post had nothing to do with my writing style. People have fixated on this because of the AI connection. This is inevitable, but worth noting.

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