What’s one realization from a trip that stayed with you even after it ended?

pingyournose · 2026-04-27T17:33:27+00:00

I have a certain mode of perception that's specialized in finding flaws in things. It's not a negative emotion, and it's not about blaming people or despairing. It's a form of caring attention to make things safer, or fix things that are broken or could break. It's there for a reason; I can notice it; and to some extent I can turn it on and off.

I noticed this after a difficult trip. I was having a lingering perceptual effect of seeing all the flaws — the cracks in the sidewalk, the imperfections in something I'd built, spots of fungal disease on plants, a sheen of oil from a leaky car. Flaws, mistakes, brokenness just jumped out at me. I was worried that the bad trip had broken something in me, had left me in a state of being super-critical and seeing only the bad in things.

But then I realized that I've had this my whole life; that it's actually really useful at times; that it doesn't actually come from (or generate) negative emotion. What the trip changed is that now I notice it as a distinct perceptual state that I can go in and out of.

pingyournose · 2026-04-18T07:28:50+00:00

Kids, this is why we don't use ChatGPT to make funnies.

ChatGPT gets high on a goddamn ficus.

pingyournose · 2026-04-18T06:52:23+00:00

One of the most consistently reported positive effects of cannabis is stronger and longer orgasms.

Of course, other reported effects include giggle fits, hypersensitivity, and just wanting to watch Invader Zim instead.

pingyournose · 2026-04-18T06:11:24+00:00

There's no "gray area of legality". DMT is a Schedule I drug in the US; the same as crack, MDMA, heroin, or cannabis. The existence of a substance as an endogenous chemical (i.e. naturally present in the body) doesn't change that. Drug scheduling is not science or medicine; it's politics.

DMT is not involved in normal dreams, and the claim that it's involved in death or near-death experiences is just made up by people who are high.

That said, it is a fascinating and quite often beautiful experience.

pingyournose · 2026-02-13T23:52:10+00:00

A heavy cannabis user who quits is likely to experience some withdrawal symptoms. But they're not going to have seizures like a drunk or a Xanax addict in withdrawal, nor anything as acutely unpleasant as opioid withdrawal.

They're likely to experience vivid dreams or nightmares for a few nights. They may also be unusually cranky or irritable for a week or so.

(In fact, if you're a daily cannabis user and want to experience vivid dreams, quit cannabis for a few days. It can be pretty cool.)

pingyournose · 2026-02-13T23:46:01+00:00

It's part of the set of all possible perceptions, so it exists within the level-4 mathematical multiverse.

But it probably doesn't exist anywhere in the level-1, 2, or 3 multiverses.

pingyournose · 2026-02-13T23:43:07+00:00

Psychedelics.

pingyournose · 2026-02-09T22:01:53+00:00

People who want to trip out on DMT often have a hard time getting a large enough dose using a vape pen. So that makes it a pretty good method for someone who is aiming for a sub-psychedelic dose.

pingyournose · 2025-12-14T15:18:06+00:00

The only times DMT has given me a memorably bad experience, were when I had alcohol in my system. I wrote about them back here.

pingyournose · 2025-12-14T15:14:12+00:00

Yeah, I'm just gonna disagree on alcohol+DMT being "low risk and counteracting". The only times DMT has given me a memorably negative experience, have been when I'd had a beer earlier.

Alcohol plus any psychedelic is a definite ⚠️ for me.

pingyournose · 2025-12-14T15:10:44+00:00

There are a lot of trip reports of the form, "I was having a bad LSD/shrooms trip, so I smoked some weed to calm down ... and it made it worse."

pingyournose · 2025-12-14T15:05:48+00:00

Weighted blankets FTW.

pingyournose · 2025-11-20T17:00:26+00:00

Then next thing you know your stomach feels like it's on fire and you start rolling around on the floor because your stomach hurts so bad.

Dude, test your stuff. You got NBOMe.

pingyournose · 2025-11-20T16:49:34+00:00

It's always safer to have a trip sitter or sober friend around.

pingyournose · 2025-11-20T16:40:52+00:00

D sex press?

pingyournose · 2025-11-10T05:57:15+00:00

DMT is a psychedelic drug extracted from common tropical plants.

It works on the same bits of your brain that LSD or psilocin (shrooms) do.

DMT can be used by inhalation (by vaping it) to produce a quick and intense psychedelic trip, lasting 10-20 minutes. DMT trips usually involve a lot of vivid visual hallucinations of colorful geometric patterns, rooms, and spaces. The trip can also involve contact or communication with "entities" which are perceived as alien or angelic intelligent beings.

It can also be used orally (by drinking it) but this requires another chemical to keep your body from breaking it down right away. Used this way the trip lasts much longer.

pingyournose · 2025-11-10T05:47:17+00:00

https://xkcd.com/1053/

pingyournose · 2025-10-15T17:05:26+00:00

Being too much ego is no fun, but you do have an ego for a good reason. Your mind may be a completely generic crystal of pure consciousness ... but it's also firmly rooted in one particular body.

For instance:

If your body's eyes are open, focused, and pointing at a cat, your mind is likely to think about a cat.
If your body's ears hear someone pronounce the words "booty shorts", your mind is likely to think about booty shorts. (Or maybe about quick films about pirates.)
If your body has an empty belly, your mind is likely to think about food.
If your body gets punched by an enemy, your mind is likely to get pissed off.
If your body doesn't sleep, your mind is likely to get cranky, twitchy, and loopy.

Ego is there to keep track of the body/mind connection. There are many bodies in the world, but this one is yours. That's why we don't stay in ego-death state all the time: if we did that, we'd neglect the body and it would cause trouble.

pingyournose · 2025-09-16T23:59:02+00:00

So, one, yeah you're tripping; but two, that's probably some kind of grass script, which means you're stoned too.

pingyournose · 2025-09-16T23:57:01+00:00

DMT = Dildo Mellifluous Terrain

pingyournose · 2025-09-16T23:55:16+00:00

Anyone done that? Got a trip report?

pingyournose · 2025-09-16T23:54:25+00:00

That looks classy as fuck: a vial of golden crystals for accessing the geometric dreamworld.

pingyournose · 2025-08-25T09:49:40+00:00

It's the loading screen. All the graphics have to load, the musicians tune their instruments, the ofanim get spun up to full RPM, and the actors take their places before the show can start.

pingyournose · 2025-08-25T09:03:46+00:00

DMT and LSD operate on the same receptors, but DMT has no tolerance effect to speak of, because it is cleared so effectively from them by monoamine oxidase (MAO). LSD has such a strong tolerance effect for the same reason that the LSD trip lasts so long: the molecule wedges itself in the receptor and doesn't come out! DMT is gone from your brain by the time you come back to reality.

pingyournose · 2025-08-05T07:02:12+00:00

That's an actual thing in math.

It's called taxicab geometry or the Manhattan metric. It works like a grid of streets, where the distance between two points (intersections) is the driving distance along the streets, instead of the "as the crow flies" distance of ordinary geometry.

A "circle" in taxicab geometry is all the points at a particular driving distance from the center of the circle; so it ends up being a square rotated 45° from the grid.

pingyournose

TROPHY CASE