The Effects of Hallucinogenic Drugs on The Brain

With no special regard to the "out of body" phenomenon: I still do not like where it took me. "In the body, out of the body, and then in the body again", I still am in no possition to assert that all. Whoever coined the term/expression mind -expanding was a little looney. Were'nt they? If a person is going to pass away wouldn't it be better for that individual to pass on without having an illicit drug problem?

Psychedelics like LCD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, mescalin, DMT ect. are not physically addicting drugs. Yes they can have mentally addicting qualities but that is dependent on the user. These drugs (not including narcotics, alcohol, tobacco or any other street drug) can be very beneficial if used correctly. I "trip", using LSD most frequently, approximately once every two to three weeks. Although I would like to use them more frequently I don't because I feel that drugs need to be respected and done safely in order to find the benefits. I also have suffered from sever depression and anxiety and know how debilitating it can be. Using psychedelics has been very beneficial on my road to recovery and self-exploration. Aldous Huxley says it better than I ever could in his book Heaven and Hell. As a neuropsychology major I hope to study in more depth the psychological effects of psychedelics because little to no research has been done on them. I hope one day they will not be looked at as a "drug" but a way to aid in the expansion and exploration of the mind.

I don't buy it. You are over-exaggerating the effects of this drug and are quite simply spreading misinformation. Even if you did develop HPPD (which has not been confirmed to exist), those are not the symptoms of it and it is normally after massive amounts have been ingested for long periods of time.

I must say though that I do sometimes see certain things that REMIND me of tripping, but I am most certainly not tripping.

So, there are two possibilities:

A: You are lying/observing a placebo.
B: The psychedelics have speed up the development of schizophrenia or a similar disorder that was already on its way... which again, almost always takes more than one trip.

These kind of statements appall me.

Jesus is THE answer. He has it all! Not drugs, sex, etc.!

You seem to have done enough drugs to have lost the ability to spell and form sentences

Hi,

A friend's son has been acting as if he is tripping for about a year and a half. As time has gone on it's gotten worse but he does have moments that he comes out of it. I've been around many people while they were tripping and this is exactly how he acts. We are concerned that he will be treated with drugs that won't help him and or potentially cause more damage.

My son said he started acid/pot together when he was 11. Now he is 18 and in jail. I need advice.
Desperate mom

id like to know more about the effects of doing drugs on your brain...have u ever done air duster?

This is what happens when you're greedy for that amazing world. Yes it's so so so great, but you cannot be greedy or you'll be punished in this way, and you truly got a bad punishment. It's disrespectful to it. You have to humble to this drug. Just use it to learn and know about you, and your world, and then you let it resonate within in you for a long amount of using what you've learned in this world that you've been put in to. Don't try to stay out of this one and in to another that's not where you're supposed to be, and you'll never truly be there you'll only fuck the things up in the world that you are. Just learn from that world, and take what you've learned with you in to this one. If you disrespect it; it will disrespect you back I'm sorry to say.

Hallucinogenic drugs for one person are always a completely different life experience than for another person. The most important consideration when using a hallucinogen or any drug for that matter is your genetic propensity toward mental illness or brain chemical imbalances. The biggest regret I have is getting lured into using LSD and the Blaze at around 13 years of age. I didn't know what my family history for mental problems was at that time. Because I used LSD at 13, my life up until today (I'm age 30) has been a constant struggle and roller coaster ride in both my social and professional lives.

I now know that my mother's aunt had schizophrenia, my father suffered with depression/anxiety and some sort a sleep or attention disorder, and my mother has suffered with depression/anxiety and what seems to be an attention disorder. When I used LSD at 13, I began displaying signs of nervousness and paranoia with a constant discomfort with social interactions. This was a complete shift in my behavior before using the drugs. Just a week after using the Blaze, I went from dressing like a bright teenager to a complete slob because it was considered cool among other drug users. Around the age of 14 to 16 I had a complete break from reality. The dormant gene of schizophrenia I inherited from my mother's side of the family manifested and completely ravished my life until I stopped all drug use at age 18 to enter the military.

I went through several years of rehabilitation on my own while in the military. Finally the psychosis morphed into acute anxiety and schizoid disorder, a mild form of schizophrenia, both which were probably affected by a less noticeable form of depression. After I left the military, I went from living the military lifestyle overseas in Europe to living in my hometown attending college. The reverse culture shock created a pervasive anxiety that destroyed my attempts at healthy social life and caused me to obsess over my college grades to a point where I experienced two debilitating nervous breakdowns. Each nervous breakdown resulted in debilitating exhaustion that affected my ability to complete even the simplest of tasks, with the first nervous breakdown lasting about 1-1.5 months and the second last around 3 months. As a result I was forced to either retake the classes I was enrolled for or settle with the grade when the semester ended.

Finally I received psychological help and was put on clonazepam for short-term anxiety. After several years, my anxiety became manageable, but my school performance and motivation began to decline. I graduated with a high GPA of 3.6/4.0, but at much social and professional loss. My social life was superficial at best. At graduation, I discovered that I had adult ADHD that carried over from childhood. The ADHD needed to be treated with medication. I am now being treated for anxiety and depression as well as ADHD with medication. I had to pay almost 17 years of my life and most likely I will need to take anxiety and depression medication for the rest of my life because I aggravated the genes I inherited from my family tree with the use of LSD and the Blaze. If I hadn't used those drugs, I would have likely not have suffered the kind of brain damage LSD caused me.

The important point for anyone reading this is that I have experienced a lot of psychological disturbance because I used LSD. If you are the 2-3% of the population with rare family lineage that doesn't genetically predispose you to even the possibility of mental problems, then I would say you could use any drug you want and not undergo deterioration in your behavior. However, if you have dormant genes that come from close relative or even distant relatives, such as my mother's aunt with schizophrenia, you will likely aggravate those genes with the use of LSD because of its destructive effects and the stress it causes.

If I hadn't used drugs I would have mostly suffered with just ADHD, but the medication I used as a teenager would have most likely improved my behavior. My life would have been fairly normal or possibly exceptional because of my physical and mental qualities. I know that the price I paid for using drugs was at least about 17 years of my life.

Some people may have the propensity for anxiety or depression only, but even if the gene for the mental problem is dormant or from a distant relative, you will likely experience a shift in behavior characteristic of the gene that you carry. If you have depression, the use of LSD will shift your mindset and behavior toward a more depressed personality that may take therapy or many month if not years of sustained self-improvement to correct. The same with anxiety, if you take LSD, anxiety will either be aggravated as a dormant gene or amplify the active gene, so that from that point forward you feel more anxious in your everyday life. Another warning is introversion. If you are susceptible to introversion, drugs can lead to extreme cases of shyness and/or preference to less stimulating environments. You could be a complete extrovert as I was until I used LSD, then my parent's genetics that I inherited, lead to the propensity toward introversion, which ultimately manifested into utter isolation. Even if I was with peers, I was isolated in my head and felt uncomfortable just being in the presence of others.

When I experienced my first bad trip, from that point forward all my LSD trips were bad trips. I also experienced intense discomfort when using the Blaze. I eventually continued to use drugs but often removed myself from the social situation I used to get the drugs. Then, I isolated myself so that I could experience some enjoyment from the drug. My personality was prone to repeated drug use even though I was experiencing aversion to the drugs. One positive is that today I don't go near anything that alters my mind because when I did use drugs, I developed a very strong aversion to mind altering substances including caffeine.

The one positive of LSD is the philosophy of life I have developed because I spent many years of life experiencing intense inner struggle and pain. I was able, overtime, to morph my philosophy on spirituality and my perception on living life into a very lucid understanding with regards to the big picture of a human life. Many of the intangible ideas of quantum mechanics and advanced spiritual thought as well as how to live my own life, that are often misunderstood and neglected by the masses, were already developed in my mind or held tentatively in my mind before I learned about the idea from a more prominent thinker or scientist. I even pondered the ideas of Jesus and the Buddha before I learned them from their source. This belief system has allowed me to answer the most important questions in life and has allowed all my life experiences to become influenced by their answers.

I wouldn’t want to go back in time and relive my life because I am certain of my place in relation to my higher power. I am excited about where my life will end up and the evolution of my eternal soul. The excitement isn't always visible in my behavior, but it always keeps me company when life gets the most difficult providing a foundation of inner resilience.

If you believe you are the top 2-3% of people that don't have a genetic factor that could affect your mental state and behavior in an unhealthy way, then I would say use drugs once or twice to expand your inner awareness and self-knowledge. Hallucinating with drugs can lead to immediate and a life altering spiritual experience?

Dr. David Hawkins says that hallucinogenic drugs are way to experience spiritual states that the likes of Jesus and the Buddha spent their lives to achieve. For that reason, I would endorse the use of hallucinogenic drugs for a small portion of the global population; the rest of the population should avoid shortcuts to spiritual enlightenment. One of the benefits of hallucinogenic drugs though is the often lifelong pursuit of spiritual evolution to achieve the state that was experienced while on the drug. From experience I can testify that once you see the world on hallucinogens, you will understand how everything fits together. Dr. Hawkins says, you will feel uninhibited spiritually because all the blocks to the most spiritual experiences will fall away. He also states and I can say from experience, many people will spend the rest of their lives chasing an experience that usually takes many, many lifetimes to achieve. This means the drug will likely not only affect your genetic propensity for mental problems but will most likely steer your life down a path toward spiritual growth, which I think is a positive reason to use the drug, but hardly worth the pain if you create even a year of behavioral issues and mental disturbance as a result.