How Psilocybin Works: Addition by Subtraction
Psychedelic Frontier gladly welcomes our first guest, Zizo! A big thanks to Zizo for today’s post about some surprising psilocybin research results. Psilocybin is the inactive precursor of psilocin, the chemical primarily responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of Psilocybe “magic mushrooms”. Though human cultures have used this entheogen for many centuries, we are only just beginning to understand the physiological mechanism by which it produces its psychedelic effects. This slow scientific progress is a result of harsh international drug policy, but I digress… The psychedelic trip is often described as profoundly mind-expanding, and the brain is popularly presumed to...
FDA Approves Lorcaserin, Diet Drug with Psychedelic Effects at High Doses
This is a landmark step towards sensible US drug policy. Since the Nixon Administration passed the Controlled Substance Act passed in 1970, nearly all psychedelic-style drugs have been automatically classified as Schedule I, which means absolute prohibition with no recognized medical potential. (LSA presents an exception as a Schedule III drug, and the case may be made for the “psychedelic” nature of dextromethorphan and ketamine.) Lorcaserin, a weight loss drug with euphoric, hallucinogenic, and dissociative effects at high doses, has been classified as a Schedule IV medicine. This marks the first time that the DEA has acknowledged the...
New Interactive Graphs Visualize Online Drug Talk
On his blog Virostatiq, Marko Plahuta has published a set of colorful interactive graphs depicting drug discussions on Bluelight.ru, the harm reduction forum. According to Marko: I analyzed around 1.2 million posts on bluelight.ru and constructed a simple diagram that tells a lot. It was constructed in such a way that drugs that are frequently mentioned together, appear together. Circle radii are proportional with frequency of appearance of the same drugs in the posts. A second graph maps the relationships between drugs and effects commonly reported in user posts. The source data covers a period from 2010 to 2013,...
Tripping as a Tool for Self-Realization
Psychedelics are the chameleons of the drug world — amenable to a variety of uses, dependent on the user’s attitude. The importance of set and setting cannot be overstated. If you use them as intoxicants, you will become intoxicated. If you want to see pretty shapes and colors and “trip out” to music, then they will act as sensory enhancers. If you just want a new mode of consciousness that leads you to experience life in a novel way, they will satisfy that urge. There’s nothing wrong with these approaches. “Getting fucked up” can be a completely legitimate...
How to Conjure Visions in Ribbons of Smoke
The image of smoke swirling through the air, catching the light as it dances upwards, can be absolutely breathtaking. In a dark room with a single stick of incense, you can follow the threads of smoke as they weave about, reacting to your every breath. Here’s the exercise. You will need: incense, a candle, and materials for getting high (not strictly necessary, but cannabis amplifies the imagination in my experience). This works best indoors. Turn off all the lights except for a single candle. I mean all of them — if you have so much as a dim...
Free Book: The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley became a pioneer in the (practically nonexistent) field of modern psychedelic literature in 1954 when he published The Doors of Perception, a short but detailed book about his experience with mescaline. Many people would hesitate to publish a book about such a controversial and personal topic even today, half a century later, but Huxley staked his claim smack dab in the middle of the 1950s. The term “psychedelic” hadn’t even been coined yet (though Huxley would contribute to its creation a few years later). This book represents one of the first and best-known “trip reports”, at...
Excellent short video: ‘The Psychedelic Experience’
From Aubrey Marcus, aka Warrior Poet, comes a terrific short video about the value of psychedelic experiences (whether mediated by chemicals or not). Similar style as Jason Silva, but less manic. My favorite part of the video: What can the Psychedelic Experience be? The cloth that wipes clean our lens of perception, The compass that points true north to our life’s calling, The lantern in the catacombs of our subconscious, The sword stroke that unfetters the muse, The sunlight that dispels the shadows of our past Or simply a respite of eternity, in the fast flowing river of...
Sacredness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
There is a logical fallacy that psychonauts tend to make called the Appeal to Tradition. Just as it sounds, this is when someone describes a particular method or system as superior because it is traditional. The truth, of course, is that a solution’s stature as a tradition has no bearing on its effectiveness. A tradition may be passed on for many generations and still remain fundamentally flawed. Even psychonauts with the best of intentions commit this logical error. Having come to deeply respect a particular entheogenic tradition — for instance, the Amazonian ayahuasca ceremony — they insist that it is...
My First Solo LSD Experience Discovering the Inner Sanctum with Some Molecular Assistance
I had taken LSD once before, but it was a smaller dose taken in a social setting. This time it would be 250µg, alone in the comfort of my apartment. Here are a few anecdotes and musings from that sunny April day. Some were written in my expanded state of mind, while others were recollected in the following days and weeks. It was one of the most remarkable days of my life. I peer in the mirror, in awe at the living being before me. My hand is pale but splotchy, a red and purple thing against the...
Trippy Must-see Short Film: Hyperspace
This is one amazing 7-minute head trip, loosely based on Terence McKenna quotes. Hyperspace was written, produced and directed by Isak Gundrosen & Ida Skjefstad. Liked this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed to get much more! Or enter your email address for weekly updates:
Stereodose: Streaming Radio for Psychonauts
Have psychonauts gone mainstream enough to warrant their own music player? Apparently so! One more sign that the Psychedelic Renaissance is gaining momentum and coming into its own. What’s next, a social media network? (Actually, there is one! I’ll post about it soon.) Stereodose an online music player dedicated to drug-induced states of mind. There’s the regular web app as well as one for Android. The iOS version comes out at the end of April. The interface is slick: select your drug (weed, ecstasy, LSD, or shrooms), your mood (with options like “thug life,” “shaman,” and “rolling balls”), and your playlist starts. What about...
Carnovsky’s Psychedelic RGB Wallpaper
Carnovsky is the Milan-based artistic duo of Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla, responsible for the trippiest wallpaper and scarves you are ever likely to set eyes on. Their RGB series of artworks combine independent colored images into fabulous, multi-layered bestiaries and jungles. From their website: RGB is a work about the exploration of the “surface’s deepness”. RGB designs create surfaces that mutate and interact with different chromatic stimulus. RGB’s technique consists in the overlapping of three different images, each one in a primary color. The resulting images from this three level’s superimposition are unexpected and disorienting. The colors mix...