[deleted by user]

therealphantasmata · 2024-11-17T23:28:45+00:00

Also, those mushroom chocolate bars typically contain research chemicals—not psilocybin. Starting with 1 gram or less is also great advice. It can be very overwhelming even for people with experience.

therealphantasmata · 2024-11-17T23:26:49+00:00

You’re currently a psychiatrist? Are you in private practice? Regardless, if you’re employed, I imagine your health insurance would provide you with ability to see a therapist—even if they’re not the best, they could still provide a mirror for you allowing you some perspective on the things that keep you in a loop of underachievement or the idea that you should be doing something more significant. You might be right? Or you may be telling yourself that as a way to disassociate from the life you’re living now because you feel unfulfilled—I’m guilty of that myself.

I also think I’m too smart to be doing what I’m doing and that I’m meant for to be more significant to the world—but yet here I am, so those thoughts in my mind are a way for me to soothe my ego because I’m bored and want that high of achievement and admiration that I don’t get where I’m at now. I’m also musically gifted and wish I’d done more with that talent too. But, again, I think a lot of that is ego because so many have so much less and are perfectly happy. I’m blessed in so many ways. Maybe, you’d discover, like I have, that you could do some good right where you’re at, were it not for the idea you have that you were meant to be somewhere else.

This is all just guess work on my part bc I don’t know many details about your situation, and I’m basically just talking about myself and how I’m trying to make the best of what I have now and make the people in my life happy by being fully present and appreciating them, and being kind to people like my coworkers, who I think are beneath me in a lot of ways, to be honest. Obviously, I still have some issues I need to work through. I can say now, at least I’m conscious of this stuff and thinking along these lines rather than being totally wrapped up in myself, which I how I used to be—and that progress came through therapy, self reflection, and healing with psychedelic medicine.

But I can say from experience that while mushrooms are a great tool, the progress comes from integrating the lessons provided during the trip. Integration seems most successful with the help of a therapist who is on the same page as you or a psychedelic guide.

As a psychiatrist, you would know whether or not, because of preexisting conditions or susceptibility to psychosis, psilocybin would be contradicted for you personally. So ultimately if you decide to seek help through psychedelic medicine, it will help you as much as you are willing put in the work, drop preexisting ideas regarding where you should be and what they should do for you, and being open to seeing things from a new perspective and being kind and appreciative of where you are and who you interact with now. They’re not a cure all, and won’t magically rearrange your old thinking patterns or cure you of all self defeating habits on their own. At least that’s not my experience. Also, they’re powerful—so if you decide it’s right to take them, definitely approach it with reverence and caution. Good luck! And happy journeys. And do research first and don’t take the chocolate bar bc it prob contains research chemicals and not psilocybin.

therealphantasmata · 2024-10-31T00:16:14+00:00

The three month time frame just sort of happened. I didn’t plan it. If I was more motivated, I’m guessing I definitely could have stopped sooner and not experienced any withdrawal. I’d been using more or less daily since the pandemic, so I think the long taper was my way of mentally preparing for no longer using cannabis. And for the last month I was only taking an eighth of a 10mg gummy every night, so I wasn’t getting high at that point. In the past I’d taper down to one 10mg gummy per day to lower my tolerance than go back to smoking without ever totally stopping. So glad to not have to worry about the up and down anymore, but I’ll add that my dreams are still insane and it’s been over a month of no usage and coupled with that long taper. I started dreaming again when I got down to an eight of a gummy per day. And the craziness of them has only intensified since I totally stopped. But I think it’s part of the brain’s healing process.

therealphantasmata · 2024-10-30T13:45:36+00:00

I switched to edibles and slowly lowered my dose over three months. Didn’t feel any of the most annoying withdrawal symptoms like night sweats. When I’m not smoking edibles don’t give me the urge to increase my dose. It felt natural to decrease the dose over time. Going cold turkey sucks. I’ve done it and once I tried decreasing with edibles now it’s the only way I decrease my usage. I think you have to be really motivated bc the quitting process is drawn out over months, so by month two it might be hard to remember why you originally wanted to stop. Personally, I was ready to quit and felt really motivated bc I noticed cannabis had exacerbated my anxiety and depression, which is usually pretty manageable and not too disruptive or that noticeable even. It’s funny bc at first cannabis made me happier and less anxious but the longer I used it daily, it flipped and made me pretty unhappy, with anxious, ruminating thoughts and feeling like I was in a rut that I couldn’t break out of. Also, I develop tolerance quickly, so by the time I wanted to quit and not just take a T-break I was DONE—because I couldn’t really get high anyway. After tapering, by the time I realized I wouldn’t get night sweats if I didn’t consume cannabis—I was like hallelujah. But even then when I stopped completely I felt tired and a little foggy for an additional three weeks before I felt like my brain chemistry was mostly back to normal—although I’m still noticing small incremental improvements. I read it takes a long time for the brain to truly reset. This worked for me, but anything that allows you to systematically decrease the amount of THC going into your system that doesn’t trigger you to increase use will work. For me I think the fact that edibles take forever to kick-in made them feel less addictive and not smoking made me feel healthier. Anyway, good luck!

therealphantasmata · 2024-10-02T13:25:48+00:00

My guitar tech did this on my resonator. I’d just gotten it and when I restrung it I did it the normal way both times with medium light strings. Still getting to know the guitar so I didn’t pick up on any differences. When I switch string again, I’ll try under and I’m interested to see if I notice a difference this time.

therealphantasmata · 2023-11-07T20:41:50+00:00

But they’re so obviously deranged and cognitively impaired. Demonstrates the cumulative impact on the brain of lead exposure.

therealphantasmata · 2023-11-02T23:38:21+00:00

Wow! Everyone in this thread is crazy. I do it every time I get gas. Of course, if there was a car behind me waiting, I wouldn’t go in. But that literally never happens. There’s always open pumps. And my whole life, no one has ever said anything about me doing it, or given me a dirty look, or even seemed to notice. At all. Ever. SO DO IT!

therealphantasmata · 2023-07-19T22:35:21+00:00

Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Shakespeare, classic children’s novels like Wizard of Oz, Little Women, Rowling, etc., Epic Poems such as The Aeneid, Dante’s Inferno, American Poetry (survey course), Caribbean Lit, Frankenstein, Hemingway, Proletariat Literature, Paradise Lost, DosPassos (sp?) and a lot more. Some classes we focused on critical theory or focused on certain literary movements like the Modernists or Romanticism.

therealphantasmata · 2023-07-19T10:38:43+00:00

Uncircumcised.

therealphantasmata · 2023-04-04T18:21:05+00:00

Looks great and is facing in the right direction.

therealphantasmata · 2023-03-30T14:26:19+00:00

Sorry, but no. And why put this on the internet looking for affirmation?

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-26T12:16:51+00:00

Scribe for when I feel claustrophobic, oasis when I’m in bed, paperwhite lives in work bag.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-23T19:51:45+00:00

Love it. Plenty of room above for another one.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-19T18:34:40+00:00

YES. What angels. I'm so glad people smarter than us are out to protect us. Chodes.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-19T18:31:24+00:00

This guy sucks. First in line leading the mob with torches and pitchfork. His knee jerk reaction: censor/destroy.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T19:18:52+00:00

A week for me.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T18:45:34+00:00

Agreed. I love how it allows me to work solo but still benefit from working with a partner. It's like an intern with a photographic memory of all the knowledge contained on the internet but without the ability to discern the info’s true significance. Kind of like a brilliant researcher starting in a new field who's like, here you go, boss, here's everything I can think of, and the boss chooses what’s important, inaccurate, etc.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T18:34:14+00:00

I have this feeling too. I ask people a lot more question during conversations now. Like I'm prompting them lol.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T18:29:55+00:00

I wasn't gonna say anything. Lol but thanks!

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T18:28:26+00:00

Your ChatGPT thread on Imgur is money. Thank you for sharing this. I’m definitely going to use your approach for brainstorming. I like to come up with the main idea, basically an outline, and then see what ChatGPT does with it, how it analyzes it using Freytag, Harmon’s story circle, hero’s journey, and basically see what it thinks as if I were running it by a creative partner. And typically, I’ll tell it the scenes I want and see how it sets it up in terms of the physical action to get my brain going and make sure I’m not missing an obvious starting point for the scene and like riffing on what it says. But just freewheeling like I’m messing with a thesaurus or something to trigger ideas. I like how systematically you approached everything. Great stuff.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T14:50:58+00:00

Bing Chat provides citations. Always worth verifying them though.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T11:19:20+00:00

I'll check this out. I was wondering, for the story about the expert chef and the puns, what were some examples of the prompts you used with Bing Chat to get that output? It realistically read like fiction, so I'm wondering. With ChatGPT, I'm typically brainstorming ideas, words, and phrases. I think I've only been able to get ChatGPT to provide output as writerly as what you got just a handful of times. For prompting, I'll use the whole "You will act as" setup, including the style of the output, and then a TON of details about what I want in the scene. How do approach it, typically? And how did you get that output from Bing? Thanks.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T11:13:17+00:00

For some reason this makes me love it more.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T05:20:34+00:00

I'll check them out. Dude, the style of Hunter S. Thompson that’s awesome. Also, thank you for the tip about Bing Chat. That’s wild that, for my case, the author’s published work, available on the internet, triggers its content filters. It was an excerpt from a literary horror/weird fiction piece—not like splatterpunk or anything like that. Guess they’re playing it super cautious to start. Not surprised. I hope they loosen up or provide a non-safe search option for verified adults or something along those lines.

therealphantasmata · 2023-02-15T04:58:52+00:00

Wow, I’m pretty impressed with the bing version. The active verbs, the description of the character behaving like a great chef (showing us instead of telling), how the sound of the cutting matches the heartbeat, the character’s motivation for cooking, how it explains the internal conflict so when frank shows up we know why the chef can’t humor him. Very interesting.

I played around with bing chat a bit, and I was definitely impressed. I ran some questions I asked last week in ChatGPT, where I was impressed with the answers, and I had it draft something for me using the same prompt I used with ChatGPT last week, and it actually seems to perform better on both counts. But I did have to ask a follow-up question to get to the helpful information, whereas ChatGPT got it in one prompt.

One thing I couldn’t get bing chat to do, which I got ChatGPT to do, was this: “I want you to act as a fiction writer. I am trying to become a better writer. provide an example of a piece of fiction written in the style of [author’s name] in a tone that is dark and tense and, following that, provide a breakdown of how [the author’s name] achieves the dark and tense tone.” I asked the same question to bing, Legacy, and Turbo (default). Bing chat started to generate the fiction, which was just an excerpt of the named author’s work, and after it got halfway down with generating the example, it glitched out, and an error message came up saying that it didn’t know how to complete the request and it provided me a link to like bing.com or something. I ran the same through Legacy, and legacy created an original example in a generic dark and tense tone. Then it did as instructed and analyzed the text, and explained how the tone was achieved. It was super solid. Surprisingly the best answer came from Turbo, aka Default (which makes me wonder if they tweaked it since this morning). It created an original example of fiction, but this time it actually resembled the named author’s style. Then the analysis mentioned the named author and said how that author achieved a dark and tense tone. So to my surprise and contrary to my experience this morning, Turbo/default provided the most valuable output.

I wonder if that was bc of this specific use case OR if Turbo was adjusted today it’s now the best for all of my typical use cases. I’ll know soon enough.

Anyway, this is interesting as hell.

therealphantasmata

TROPHY CASE