Tag Archive for: LSD

Talking About Psychedelics

Psychedelics are not an integrated part of our culture in the West and as such they can be difficult to talk about. There is still social stigma attached to the topic, and even though they are increasingly gaining credibility and acceptance, they are still in many ways taboo.

How easily and openly you can talk about psychedelics of course depends on who you are talking to. If you have a very open minded friend then perhaps it is no problem to speak with them about your interest or experience with psychedelics. However, if you come from a conservative background then it may be very difficult to speak about with family members and even bringing up the topic might start ringing alarm bells.

Selective Sharing For Integration

When it comes to a successful integration of your experience, selective sharing is an important point. Just as you have certain friends that you might speak to about certain things like music or philosophy, in the same way you probably have friends that would be more open and receptive to the topic of psychedelics.

Choose carefully who you will share your experience with and how much you will share. The experience can lose some of its magic if not held properly by the listener. A highly skeptical or even mocking response can really dampen what was a very personally meaningful experience and detract from it’s power to catalyze positive change in your life. In some cases it may even cause you to doubt what you experienced and and be encouraged to brush it off as nothing more than a weird drug experience.

Know Your Crowd

Selective sharing should also take into account which aspects of your experience you choose to talk about. If you had a spiritual experience and you have a friend who is very firm in their material mechanistic worldview, then it may not be worth speaking to them about the spiritual aspects of your experience or connecting with the divine. Most likely it will be written off and rationalised by someone who at the end of the day did not experience what you experienced. However, you may be able to speak to that same friend about some of the positive changes you have felt since the experience. You could talk about how you feel or think differently and can even reference some of the science which has shown the changes that happen in the brain. Referencing some of the scientific research that has been done may provide a perspective on the experience that your friend will more readily trust.

With this in mind it may not be that with some friends you can speak about psychedelics with and others not. It is more a case of choosing how you speak about psychedelics with each individual.

Opening a Conversation

A good entry to a conversation about psychedelics is to ask a question. Rather than opening up with “I had an amazing experience last weekend on LSD“ you could open up with:

“did you ever try LSD?“
“did you have any experience with psychedelic drugs?“
“do you know anything about psychedelic drugs?“

Entering into a conversation this way is a good way of putting the feelers out. You can get a gauge on persons perspective without commiting yourself to anything and can proceed accordingly in the conversation. If it seems like you do not want to go any further you can say “oh I just read something interesting about it the other day and it got me quite interested.”

Choosing a time to share

If there is someone who you would really like to speak to but are afraid of their response, try to choose a time when they are in a more open and less judgemental state. Generally if someone opens up or shows a vulnerability to you then they will be in a more open frame of mind. Another good sign is when they are really listening to you and asking questions that come from a place of curiosity rather than challenge.

Shifting the landscape through conversation

Talking about psychedelics is an important part of shifting the cultural conversation around the topic and moving the psychedelic movement forwards. With that in mind I would like to share a quote from my friend and Altered founder Dax DeFranco from an interview I did with him back in 2017:

“I think the most important thing is to use and talk about them in an honest way. There’s a lot of talk about ‘coming out of the psychedelic closet’ – like I mentioned before, when you’re the only person who’s experimented with x, it’s hard to talk about it or make it a part of your identity, but the more people that do, the less pressure and fear others feel to identify that way. I think the simple act of being a psychedelic person who’s honest about being a psychedelic person is extremely powerful.”

24/07/2020/by John Robertson

Psychedelics

What is an LSD Experience Like?

What is an LSD experience like? This is a question I often get asked by people who are curious about the psychedelic experience and who just want to know: what is it actually like?

One word that is often used when trying to describe the experience is ineffable. Which means that it cannot be put into words. However this kind of relegates language and is also, dare I say it, a little lazy. That said, I do understand that it is an extremely difficult experience to describe.

Psychedelic researcher Katrin Preller

Last year I went to a series of talks put on by the MIND foundation at their Betahaus hub in Berlin. One of these talks was by Katrin Preller on the topic of social cognition and self experience. As part of her presentation Katrin presented the subjective effects of LSD as reported by study participants. This is an excellent summary and I think answers the question very well, with a nice succinct list of aspects of the experience.

Subjective effects of LSD

Audio-visual synesthesia
Elemental imagery
Changed meaning of percepts
Blissful state
Complex imagery
Experience of unity
Insightfulness
Disembodiment
Impaired control and cognition
Spiritual experience
Anxiety

The diagram below shows us how strongly each of the effects were felt. As you can see, audio-visual synesthesia scored highest, and anxiety lowest.

Subjective effects of LSD. Schmidt et al. 2015

You can see Katrin’s whole talk here:

One thing that it is worth noting is that a psychedelic experience depends largely on three factors; set, setting and dose. The variance between these factors can totally change the experience, as well as the type of person who has the experience. For example, if a low-doses was taken at a party I don’t think spiritual experience or disembodiment would come up so much. Still, I think the list holds up as an excellent summary of the effects.

23/07/2020/by John Robertson

Psychedelics

How To Trip When You Have Flatmates

Finding a place can be a big part of preparing for a psychedelic experience. If you live with flatmates and don’t have your own private apartment or house, it can be the biggest obstacle to making it happen.

If you have flatmates that you don’t feel comfortable sharing your interest in psychedelics with and you’d rather not talk to them about your plans to trip at home, then this post is for you.

This post covers:

The minimum prep
Questions to consider before doing a journey at home
Using a cover story for a covert trip, with step by step instructions
The Midnight Trip
Bonus Tips

How to trip at home when you have flatmates

Note: I do NOT advise to do a covert trip for your very first psychedelic experience.

If you already have quite some experience, it could be easier than expected. The first time I went for it, after some initial come up anxiety, I was surprised at how comfortable I was and the only real hurdles were the times I had to leave my room. That is why…

Preparation Is Key

Living in a shared space can be complicated. The prospect of interacting with sober flatmates while tripping is not an attractive prospect and could cause complications. The only time this can happen is when you have to leave your room, i.e. to use the bathroom, the kitchen, or get things from else where in the house.

Set yourself up to be able to stay in your room for the duration of the session.

On the most basic level, this means having the following ready:

Enough food and water
Enough warm clothes
A vomit/piss bucket

Yes the piss bucket might seem a step too far, but when you are 4 grams deep and suddenly realise you desperately need a pee, only to head to the bathroom to find that your flatmate is taking a nice long bath, you will be glad you had this ready. I am happy to say that I’ve never had to use it. However, it has given me peace of mind knowing that I’m covered and could stay in my room if I really needed to.

Tip: When you need to leave your room, move calmly and quickly. If you see a flatmate, keep moving, not stopping for small talk.

Some questions to consider before doing a journey at home

Do flatmates respect your private space?
Do they knock before opening the door?
Do they leave you alone if you don’t answer the knock?
What is the interaction normally like in the corridors? Is it normal to walk past each other without saying anything?

Cover Story

Depending on the relationship you have with your flatmates, a cover story might be a good option.

Say you are doing an at home meditation retreat

Here are the steps to doing this:

1. Become a meditator

It is a good habit anyway and will serve you well in your psychedelic practice.

2. Talk to your flatmates about meditation

and your experience of it. Ask them if they’ve tried it. Invite them to practice with you. Who knows, you might even get a meditation buddy, this will support your practice.

3. Do a ½ day meditation retreat

This is an optional step and works well as a dry run. You can also just skip it but the steps here will still be used.

i) Tell your flatmates your plan to do an at home retreat / long practice. Tell them that for that day, ideally you’d have as much peace as possible and not be disturbed.
ii) Ask them when would be the best time for you to do it. Find out when they will be at work, out for a whole day, or even better, away for a few days.
iii) If there isn’t a time you can get the place to yourself, let them them know that you will be in silence, and therefore, if you see them whilst visiting the toilet, you wont speak with them. You’re not ignoring them, its just the guidelines of the retreat.
iv) Find a date and put it in your calendar.
v) Prepare to be offline for the day, let important people know you will be unavailable. Take care of all emails in advance. Standard clearing practices.
vi) Do your at home meditation retreat.
vii) See how it goes, tell your flatmates about your experience.

There is a ½ day at home retreat as the final part of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Power Of Awareness Course, which I can absolutely recommend.

4. Tell your flatmates that you’re going to do (another) at home retreat.

Follow steps i to v as above.

5. Trip!

Safe travels!

Bonus Tips:

I recommend a low – medium dose as I would recommend having a tripsitter for a high dose. If you are thinking that you want to do high dose anyway, consider that you might have a big emotional release, for example through laughter or crying, which could be quite noisy and problematic.
Use headphones for music if your flatmates will be home. Telling them you’re doing a meditation retreat and then pumping music won’t do. Unless you tell them its an extended sound meditation, I guess. Also, you might wake them up if you go for…

* The Midnight Trip *

Another option is the midnight trip, which sidesteps possible encounters with flatmates by tripping when everyone else is asleep. It is also pretty straightforward and means that you don’t have to do many of the steps listed above.

If you are flexible with work and sleep hours this could be a good option and is one I have used with success.

That’s all for today. Safe practice, be well!

09/07/2020/by John Robertson

Dose

The Importance of Dose

A reader recently commented on a post that they tried microdosing but it didn’t work for them. My first question was, how much did they experiment with the dose?

Finding the right personalised dose can take a lot of trial and error. We are all different and effects can vary substantially between individuals. This is true not just with microdosing but also higher doses and I think that finding the correct dose is an oft underestimated key to using psychedelics.

Consider this:

A medicine can be a poison depending on the dose.

The exact same substance, the same chemical compound, one that could heal you, could also kill you, depending on the dose.

Suffice to say that dose can completely change a drug’s effects.

Though the psychedelics psilocybin and LSD are incredibly non-toxic, meaning that a fatal overdose is basically impossible, one could still consider an experience to be ‘poisonous’ in so much that it has negative effects on a persons psyche or wellbeing.

Dosage is, I venture to say, the number one reason why people have bad trips. Set and setting has been mentioned, say, people at festivals or parties around large groups of people, loud music, a lot of stimulation. But what about if they had taken a much lower dose? Would it have been overwhelming? Mightn’t they have gotten the enhanced party experience or mind opening adventure they were after?

I have had my own too-much experience at a festival, and whilst it was big flashing lights and lack of a quiet space to lie down that could seem to be the problem, I could have had a more pleasant experience by simply being careful with the amount I was taking. Not everyone wants to have a peak mystical experience or deep inner journey, sometimes people just want to enhance their experience of something else they already enjoy. Much in the way coffee would enhance a workday, a mini or museum dose might enhance a party, concert or brainstorming session.

Dosage is More Important than Set and Setting

As has been said by the late, great Boston psychonaut Kilindi Iyi, at very very high doses of magic mushrooms, set and setting doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. So that would mean that dosage is the most important factor in a session.

Though this is on the extreme end, I think it illustrates a good point. Dose is, in my opinion, too often and too easily overlooked when it comes to taking drugs.

Consider for a moment the difference between:

a shot of vodka vs. bottle of vodka
one tiny puff of weed vs. a huge bong rip
a bump of ketamine vs. a big line

Very different experiences.

So how to get it right?

Here’s some practical tips when it comes to exploring substances.

Practical Tips on Dosing

Use scales

Invest in a good set of scales and use them carefully. Especially important when using potent psychedelics that are active in very small doses like 2C-B, or those with higher toxicity like MDMA. Eyeballing can be horrendously inaccurate.

Know the dose for specific route of administration

Don’t confuse the intranasal dose with the oral dose, for example. Those can be very different things.

Start out small, increase the next time

Research is good but I’d generally say that its always good to start lower than you’d like and work your way up.

“Those who received a small taster before a higher dose were observed as being even more likely to reap the benefits than those who were only given the higher dose.”

About study participants from John Hopkins’ psilocybin study – Link

The great Czech psychedelic pioneer Stanislav Grof used a step up approach in his psycholytic psychedelic therapy work. After some sessions to build trust between the therapist and patient, he would start patients on 100 micrograms of LSD, and gradually work them up on consecutive sessions until an optimum dose was reached.

Make use of boosters

You can use a booster. This means adding a second dose on top of the first to boost the effect. The key to getting the booster right is the timing. If you add too early, before the first dose has reached its peak, you risk taking too much. If you time it too late, you miss the chance of adding to the peak of the first dose and just extending the session – or having a second peak that is similar to the first. To counter this, take note of the time when you take your dose. Then consider setting an alarm as a reminder to check in with how you feel and to then make a decision on whether or not to take the booster.

With psilocybin taken on an empty stomach (no food for 2-3 hours before), the region of 60-80 minutes after the original dose is generally a good time to take a booster.

Use volumetric dosing for microdosing LSD

Volumetric dosing enables you to be very accurate and precise with dosage when you have paper tabs of LSD. You can find a guide on how to here.

Keep a drug journal

Logging and tracking have become quite a thing in the self-improvement field and for good reason. By tracking our behaviours we get good solid data that we can assess objectively. Using only a scale and a notebook, you can track and log your ingestions and doses and make notes on the effects, gaining precious personalised data.

Maybe you’ve heard of a food diary to raise awareness of what you are eating. Or a smoke diary for people trying to quit. Logging and tracking raises awareness of our behaviours, feelings, triggers and patterns.

Keeping a drug diary has to have been one of the most useful things I’ve ever done in regards to learning about my relationship with different substances and what doses work for me. The data has been invaluable for deciding doses and finding my sweet spot for different applications and activities. I know my optimum kratom dose to enhance focus on a work day, my LSD minidose for a day out, and my MDMA dose for a session with friends, including booster and timing.

If you wanna know more about drug journaling, take a look at taking drugs like a nerd.

Don’t underestimate the dose. Better yet, overestimate it.

04/07/2020/by John Robertson

psilocybin magic truffles microdose scales

Taking Drugs Like A Nerd

Taking drugs is widely considered a cool and badass thing to do. Wild, crazy, indulgent, rock’n’roll. Certainly not something that should be done in a nerdy way. But, (and thats a big ass but) I would like to tell you why taking drugs like a nerd is actually a very good, nay, a great, worthwhile, and even honourable thing to do.

I will present my argument in two parts:

What it means to ‘Take Drugs Like a Nerd’
Outcomes of Taking Drugs Like a Nerd

Los geht’s!

What It Means To Take Drugs Like A Nerd

In the simplest terms, it means honouring your inner research scientist. Donning a metaphorical lab coat and experimenting with your mind and experience through the means of first person large scale bioassay.

Here is what it means in more concrete terms:

Taking them in a comfortable and controlled environment
i.e. at home (as opposed to a party, club or festival), being very selective of company, wearing comfortable clothes.
Being well prepared
Coming to the session fed, rested and generally in a good mood.
E.g. having a healthy, light meal approx 2 hours before an MDMA roll.
Having basic cosy-time-at-home supplies ready to hand.
See: A Simple Checklist for Psychedelic Therapy Sessions At Home
Taking a well considered and accurately measured dose
That means using a set of scales, rather than eye balling it. And choosing the dose based on what you are looking for from the experience.
Following a set procedure for ingestion
AKA taking the drugs in a particular and conscious way
E.g. putting on certain music and stating out loud your aim (much as toasting a “cheers” is a way of expressing good intentions before drinking)
Logging and tracking ingestions
Making a note every time you consume, including substance, quantity, route of administration, and time of ingestion.
Taking notes on inner experience
Occasionally writing down your thoughts and feelings as they come to you, with timestamps.
Not mixing with booze or continually boosting
Not taking more doses to increase or extend the high through the night.
Having certain rules for the session
Such as no breaking things or calling exes.
Doing a simple evaluation the next day
To improve the future sessions. Evaluation on how the session was conducted rather than the introspective content. Can be done using a simple WWW-EBI-AN structure (what went well, even better if, additional notes).
Filing your records of experiences and evaluations
This will be useful for integration work.

Outcomes of Taking Drugs Like A Nerd

A More Comfortable Experience

Drugs by their nature change the landscape of our reality. Via physiological and neurochemical manipulation, they change our perceptions, feelings, and ultimately our experience of being a human in the world. To varying degrees, depending on the substance and the dose, they can trigger quite radical and rapid shifts.

At its best, this can be exciting and awe inspiring, but at its worst, overwhelming and extremely uncomfortable.

Taking drugs like a nerd helps to counter the possibility of negative outcomes that can sour an experience and make it not only less enjoyable, but even have long lasting negative consequences.

Increased Access To Insight

Ah insight, that juicy stuff that helps us gain deeper understanding. Deeper understanding of ourselves, others and the realities we live in. Why is insight a good thing? It can help us to navigate the journey of our lives, make better decisions, be better people, and have a deeper sense of appreciation for the richness and complexity of the great mystery of the universe.

Improving How You Take Drugs

The notes you’ve taken and evaluation will help you refine your protocol and how you use drugs. You’ll glean useful info on things like how long it takes the drugs to hit you and how different doses effect you. Over time you’ll also notice patterns on how your sessions vary with different kinds of music, company and activities.

Being Responsible

Taking care when taking drugs means taking responsibility for your own safety and wellbeing. Family and friends who know about your hobby don’t need to worry about your safety, and neither do you. By doing geeky things like time stamping ingestions, you won’t prematurely take a booster and end up overdosing. You also won’t end up in hospital and place extra strain on the health service of your country.

Minimise Damage and Disruption

Being nerdy and so controlled about taking drugs means that occurrences like knocking things like glasses or lamps over are less frequent. It could also be that someone is hyped up and decides it would be fun or somehow necessary to smash or destroy things. (I mean tbh, it is fun, but dealing with the consequences isn’t). If you think that sounds crazy, well, powerful mild altering substances are crazy. Tao Lin deciding to smash his laptop whilst on shrooms because he felt the evil of technology (documented in his book Trip) is a perfect example which springs to mind.

Geeky drug taking can also mean minimising disruption to your non-drug taking self. To illustrate, lets begin with a typical day-after scenario of a Saturday night MDMA sesh.

You wake up tired and groggy late in the day, still dressed in the now smelly clothes from the night before and in desperate need of a shower. You instinctively know that you’re not only running behind and missing one of your precious days off, but at a distance that you can’t make up. You also have the added bonus annoyance of figuring out how the hell you’re going to resync your sleep schedule so you don’t feel like total shit at work on Monday.

Let’s contrast this with the end of a nerdy session and the day after.

After having enjoyed the wonders and magic of your chosen substance, the effects begin to subside and you land gently, helping your body to recover with a nutritious meal that you’ve already prepared. You put on a JJ Cale album to listen to whilst you clear up your space and then run a nice warm bath. Finally, upon leaving the tub, you stick on a movie to snuggle down to as you drift off to sleep. Boom, you wake up the next day refreshed with a cheeky and knowing inner wink. You can enjoy a leisurely brunch and coffee in the sunshine whilst you consider your plans for the Sunday. Life is difficult as you have two equally good options of catching up with a friend or sticking on an episode of Midnight Gospel.

Depending on your substance, dosage and length of session, you may even be fit to go to work the next day. Imagine that, the joys of drugs on a weeknight with no negative consequences. It’s a beautiful thing 😉

Social Progress

Geeky drug taking is geared towards self betterment and becoming a more connected and healthier individual. And healthy not in spite of fact that you use drugs, but actually because you do.

By being a responsible consumer of drugs you are contributing to changing the cultural and public perception of a drug user. Through your example, friends and acquaintances’ image of a drug user will begin to shift from that of a reckless and unhealthy burden on society to that of a thoughtful and responsible, well-functioning individual . Through your example, you will gently tug at the thread of the negative and deeply ingrained culturally conditioned stereotype. Through your nerdiness, arguments for decriminalisation and legalisation become stronger and we will get closer to sensible drug policy. Legalisation would mean easy access to quality controlled drugs – yes, imagine that.

Take Drugs Like A Nerd… With Me!

I’ve been taking drugs like a nerd since 2011 and it is my no.1 tool for personal growth. I believe it could be the same for many others and enjoy sharing knowledge and offering guidance on how to best utilise these incredible tools.

Best way to stay in touch is to join my newsletter, info below.

Be safe, explore well!

03/06/2020/by John Robertson