I took a lot of acid one night and had a long discussion with a rock demon.

[Warren Stupidity]

Last edited Tue Sep 29, 2015, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Afterwards I didn't start worshiping rock demons.

Just sayin'.

[beam me up scottie]

1. This thread is useless without pictures.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. yeah, that is pretty much how it went down. Were you there too?

[beam me up scottie]

3. Oh yeah, I'm the girl whose head he's holding.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Oh.

Yeah that was a hell of a night.

[beam me up scottie]

6. Totally worth it though. Such vivid dreams...

[Gregorian]

11. That must have been the brown acid

[beam me up scottie]

12. You were there too?

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

13. The brown strychnine has been cut with acid,

so watch it. From National Lampoon's Lemmings album.

[Gregorian]

14. I just fell out of my walker.

Do you feel old yet? It really hit me when I remembered that Belushi died in 1982. But I digress.

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

19. Old is a state of mind

my body is getting old but my mind isn't.
Sure do miss those younger care free days though.
Do you remember the Radio Dinner album? I loved how they decided the winner of the election.
Profiles in Chrome was the track name.
Deteriorata was another good track.

&list=PL01B1B50606EA2120

[Gregorian]

23. That's a real stinker.

To be honest, I'm much younger than I have ever been. I've learned so much, and evolved so much I can't believe what I used to do. I do miss a good drinking session, though. My musical tastes have been refined to the point that my life is surrounded by a multitude of amazing tuneage. That's what getting old should be. I fixed my injured back and knees; I've just recovered from 25 years of a serious illness. I'm almost young again. Knowledge, science, and sharing.

[Nitram]

5. Umm, and what's your point?

One acid trip defines what you do or don't believe? And how is that applicable to the rest of us? Immature BS. I've taken acid too, on multiple occasions. sometimes it informed my spiritual beliefs, sometimes it was but a giggle, and sometimes it scared the hell out of me. so what?

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Wait, did I insult your deeply held beliefs in rock demons?

I'm so sorry.

[Nitram]

24. No, you insulted my sense of the absurd.

[gcomeau]

25. I'd guess this has something to do with his point...

I've taken acid too, on multiple occasions. sometimes it informed my spiritual beliefs..."

If you think any experience you have ever had while taking psychedelics "informed your spiritual beliefs" then your judgment regarding the validity of any spiritual belief or experience is self evidently suspect. (And "suspect" is characterizing it extremely kindly).

[Nitram]

27. Well I have never taken complete leave of my senses on acid.

I wonder if you wouldn't agree that psychedelic experiences can reveal tantalizing aspects of the complexity of the human brain which call into question some of our assumptions about our sense of self? Or is it just an escape into confusion and absurdity for you?

[gcomeau]

30. So only partial leave of your senses then?

I wonder if you wouldn't agree that psychedelic experiences can reveal tantalizing aspects of the complexity of the human brain which call into question some of our assumptions about our sense of self?

If you mean through the process of a non-drugged objective third party properly and rigorously analyzing neural activity and such as the subject undergoes the experience? Sure, useful information could potentially be acquired that way.

If you mean by listening to whatever the drugged up person spouts off about while their brain function is chemically compromised, or subjectively interprets about the event after the fact, and thinking their perceptions somehow expose some hidden aspect of reality? Umm, no.

[Nitram]

32. Wow, gcomeau, you must have had some really bad trips!

You sound very closed to any experience you cannot immediately scientifically explain. My condolences on the closing of your mind. Try reading some of Oliver Sach's writing if you don't believe authentic scientific insight cannot be gained through the judicious use of psychoactive pharmaceuticals.

[gcomeau]

35. I value my brain too highly...

...to blindly and ignorantly poke at it with chemicals just to see what will happen.

If you think that's insufficiently "open minded" I refer you to the old adage about your brain falling out.

[Nitram]

36. I'm not familiar with that adage. Sounds rather hyperbolic to me.

May I remind you of the religious nuts who refused to look through Galileo's telescope because they feared it was the work of the devil.

[gcomeau]

37. If you are under the impression...

...that there is even the most remote of resemblances between being scared to look at something because your superstition says an evil magic superbeing is involved and the recognition that you have exactly one brain and deliberately compromising its function for your own personal entertainment or curiosity is fucking stupid then I really can't help you.

[Nitram]

38. Sounds like you're scared to death of psychedelic experience.

That's okay. It's not for everyone. Can lead to psychotic breaks in a certain percentage of the population. I respect your sticking with "better safe than sorry."

[gcomeau]

39. Wow.

Playing with your brain for fun or idle curiosity = moronic. That is the sum total of the statement I am making.

I also don't invest all my retirement money in business proposals presented to me by members of the Nigerian royal family on the internet. Feel free to conclude I sound like I am "scared to death of venture capital experiences" if that for some reason makes you feel better while you run out to cut a check.

[Nitram]

40. It's okay to be scared. Many people are.

But I'd suggest you stop assuming you know as much as you think you know. You clearly have a paucity of imagination, curiosity and gumption.

[gcomeau]

41. Gotcha...

In your world a functioning brain and the ability to recognize abject stupidity = scared.

Which is why you like the idea of doping yourself with psychedelics perhaps?

Good luck on your Nigerian business ventures, you courageous visionary you...

[Nitram]

42. Wrong, Prufrock, fear of shadows and phantoms is not adaptive behavior.

And anybody who conflates the word "dope" with psychedelics is obviously clueless about the entire subject.

[gcomeau]

46. FFS... let me spell this out using words of few syllables...

It's fucking stupid. Not scary... except I suppose in the sense of it being frightening how fucking stupid it is. Let us take a short journey of explanation through some of the mind-numbingly obvious reasons why it is stupid.

1. We're still figuring out all the ways the brain actually works. Long term impact of any of these substances on neural activity is not fully understood.

2. Experimenting on yourself, even when it's not involving experiments on the brain, is the mark of stunning incompetence. You lack objectivity when you are the test subject..

3. When it IS experimenting on the brain it goes from stunning incompetence to cartoonish levels of idiocy. You have to USE YOUR BRAIN to evaluate the results. If you compromise your brain function you are invalidating your findings before you even begin you genius. You cannot learn ANYTHING from self-experimentation on your own damn brain, Your findings are invalidated the moment they're generated. You have no idea how your tampering with your perceptions interfered with your ability to evaluate those perceptions. It's like deciding to run a test on some microscopic substances using a microscope and deciding to start by mashing at the lens of the microscope with your fingers to leave a nice fingerprint on it, then sprinkling it with glitter, then for good measure heating it up in an oven until the glass in the lens deforms like a fun house mirror.... then looking through it at your test material and going "OOOH... well this is interesting! It looks all bizarre! I wonder what deep and profound conclusions I can draw from this!?!?!?"


I would say that experimenting on your own brain by dosing yourself with psychedelic chemical substances is akin to a caveman poking at an iPad with a pointy stick to see what happens... except the caveman's pointy stick experiment is actually far superior! Because at least the caveman isn't compromising their own brain function and can relatively reliably evaluate the outcome of his experiment. (Poked with stick, glowy thing changed it's picture! Ooh!) whereas you are conducting an activity from which it is IMPOSSIBLE to derive any reliable data.

[Nitram]

49. to you, G. Comeau Prufrock

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

[gcomeau]

59. Wow you're just oblivious aren't you?

You're laser focused in on your "I'm gonna call him a 'fraidy cat over and over in as many ways as I can think of" strategy and no statement or argument penetrates your skull while you pursue it.

[edhopper]

43. What you are dealing with

is an ideology that there are "other planes of existence". And that psychedelics don't merely alter your brain chemistry, but somehow open your perception to a reality you normally could not see.
Of course it is a exclusive ideology, that says only the officially sanctioned drugs do this. Not opiates or anti-depressives, etc...
Turn off you mind, relax and flow down stream.

[gcomeau]

47. Yeah, I've encountered it before.

I would say i'm stunned anyone could be that credulous... but we are in the Religion forum after all so I would be lying if I did.

[Nitram]

50. I get the feeling you two are so obsessed with religion...

...that you see religion behind anything you don't understand.

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

[Act_of_Reparation]

51. Are you T.S. Eliot?

Because if you're not, you didn't write The Waste Land. And if you didn't write it, you might consider throwing a couple of fucking quotation marks around that poem, slick. It would be the honest thing to do.

[Nitram]

53. I assumed you wouldo know the poetry and the author. Was I wrong?

Do you actually think I was trying to take credit for an allusion to lines that I thought might help you understand where I'm coming from? Or are you just a dick? Do you always look for irrelevant details to avoid the point? Or is your reading comprehension not up to the task of discerning the point?

[Act_of_Reparation]

56. You posted of a piece of work that is not yours without the proper attribution.

What you or I know beforehand is irrelevant, because at face value the words appear to be yours. And no, you cannot assume that everyone walking the corners of the internet is familiar enough with early 20th century poetry to know 1) the work, and 2) the author. Whether deliberate or not, posting these words as you did without attributing the original author is dishonest.

Do you actually think I was trying to take credit for an allusion to lines that I thought might help you understand where I'm coming from?

Oh, I know perfectly well where you're coming from. The words of a long-dead poet no one really reads outside of a high school English class do little to demonstrate your knowledge of human neurology, but rather serve as a kind of cudgel you can wave around in a useless and vulgar display of intellectual masturbation. "Look at me! I can quote Eliot! I'm smart!"

Yeah, well, I can read poetry, too. So I'll see your Eliot and raise you a fucking Shakespeare:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day-to-day
Until the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

- William Shakespeare, "Macbeth" Act 5, Scene 5

Or are you just a dick?

A dick? No. If I recall correctly, you are the one who threw the first stone. By rights, I think that makes you the dick.

As for me, I've always liked the word "nemesis". It is derived from the Greek nemein, meaning "given what is due".

Do you always look for irrelevant details to avoid the point?

Nope. But when there's no point being made, one must make due with what one is given. If you are interested in discussing this subject with even the slightest degree of seriousness, then say something worth addressing.

Or is your reading comprehension not up to the task of discerning the point?

How sadly predictable.

I've long contended that once one rolls out the old "learn to read" trope, one has not only descended into the depths of bare, naked egotism, but effectively lost the argument as well.

Consider, for a moment, the following:

1) I can read.
2) I still think you're fucking wrong.

I know, I know: it is difficult to believe. But, against all odds, one may be perfectly literate, and *gasp* still disagree with you.

[Nitram]

57. The words would only appear to be mine to someone who never graduated from high school.

Your inability to discern the point I was making by quoting a few lines of great poetry suggests I over-estimated both your intelligence and the breadth of your knowledge. Being literate means a great deal more than being able to read words in sequence and understand the meqaning of each word separately. It means being able to comprehend their meaning and relevance within the context of a conversation, a skill in which you are sadly lacking. But your arguments from the beginning have demonstrated a remarkably blinkered and rigid intelligence. I still wonder why you are so threatened by the suggestion that there is more in the world, oh, sorry:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Hamlet, Act 1. Scene V by William Shakespeare

[Act_of_Reparation]

58. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwn.

[Nitram]

71. Attribution? or are you actually John Cleese?

[Act_of_Reparation]

74. Uniform Resource Locator

Click and you shall receive.

The source also happens to be watermarked in the upper right hand of the image, but I guess it's hard to see.

[Nitram]

48. Wrong, Hopper.

You are dealing with an enormous body of evidence that there are aspects of or brain's sensory experience and cognitive process that are not normally not available to ordinary consciousness. Read some of Dr. Sach's books and you might get a better understanding ft the concept.

[edhopper]

55. Then you are not talking about

other planes of existence that are invisible without the aid of psychotropics?

[Nitram]

60. Did I ever say I was?

Then you are not talking about other planes of existence that are invisible without the aid of psychotropics?

[edhopper]

61. Sounded like that

could you elaborate on what you do mean?

[Nitram]

62. I have elaborated in my posts above.

Please peruse them at your leisure. I am struck by how the people I've encountered in this thread seem a bit stuck in a habit of stereotypical thinking that makes it difficult to follow a line of reasoning that they are not familiar with. Seem to be stuck on interpreting everything though a lens of religion and New Age mythology.

[edhopper]

63. okay

[edhopper]

64. I have read your posts.

There is only one statement that acid helped shape your "spiritual beliefs", without any explanations of those beliefs.
So i ask again, could you elaborate on any insights you received under acid that you could not have gotten elsewhere? What truths did you discover under acid that others don't see without it?

[Nitram]

65. I'm afraid my spiritual "beliefs" are of a complicated and very subjective nature.

I wouldn't be able to summarize them in a coherent way. But one aspect of my understanding is that there is no bearded white guy god. There is no heaven and hell. It is all happening right inside each of our own brains. Aldous Huxley wrote that in order to survive, our brain filters out and modifies most of the sensory input we receive every second of our waking life. People who can't filter out the torrent of information cannot function. But psychedelics temporarily open those filters, letting us experience more of what is going on outside of our minds, and more of what is going on behind the scenes within our own brains. And the brain is a marvelously complex and highly developed organ.

[edhopper]

66. Thanks

that helps.
BTW this thread was a satirical reply to this other thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=213469

[TexasTowelie]

7. Like a Lays potato chip,

you couldn't eat just one?

[Warpy]

8. You're lucky, no one had the manners to turn up for my acid trips

Not gods, not demons, not even a lousy little leprechaun.

I did, however, begin to understand the inspiration for a lot of Gothic stone carving.

[Gregorian]

10. I saw glowing loaves of Wonderbread.

It was religious man.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. I can't wait to try some ayahuasca.

I'm saving up for a South American excursion now. Acid has taught me some things, but I've never even had mescaline or peyote, so I want to have a greater spiritual experience.

[bvf]

16. Tripped in a cemetery one autumn and spent a good hour

on my belly naming all the leaves.

I wouldn't say I worship leaves now, but ever since autumn's been my favorite season.

Oh yeah, and there were a few animated headstones. Friendly ones, fortunately.

[rug]

17. That explains only a small part of it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

18. Back in college I ate a bunch of psilocibin mushrooms and played Mario Bros. 3

I laughed my ass off for four hours straight and then ate some pizza.

Profound, isn't it?

[Nitram]

28. Sometimes the profundity of the experience reveals the profundity of the observer.

I wouldn't expect a mollusk to enjoy a van Gogh.

[Act_of_Reparation]

29. Sometimes the absurdity of the experience reveals the absurdity of the observer.

I wouldn't expect an unreasonable person to draw reasonable conclusions, not matter the chemistry involved.

[Nitram]

33. Ditto.

And I'd class you as an absurdly unreasonable person based on your comments here.

[Yorktown]

20. Your rock demon was incompetent

I tool a lot of acid one night and had a long discussion with a rock demon.
Afterwards I didn't start worshiping rock demons.

I blame your rock demon.

Not convincing enough.

Didn't know its stuff.

Any rock demon worth its salt would have made you believe in it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Is a rock demon like a rock god, but they play guitar really *badly*? (nt)

[edhopper]

22. There are times I have felt one with the Universe

I am pretty sure the feeling is not reciprocal.

It's like having a crush on a TV character, not only are the feelings one way, but the object of your attention isn't even real.

[Act_of_Reparation]

31. I took some trips myself back in the day.

But never was I unaware that I had taken drugs. Even in the throes of temporary, chemically-induced psychosis I was cognizant of the fact my brain chemistry was altered, and therefor never took the experience for anything more than what it was. My skepticism remained firmly intact. I laughed my ass off and generally had a good time.

[Nitram]

34. Mores the pity that your mind was closed to insights of any kind.

You appear to be more cynical than skeptical.

[Act_of_Reparation]

44. That's funny.

Because I was thinking you appear more self-righteous than insightful. But then, that's a common trait among people who build castles on swamps.

[Lordquinton]

45. "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

They should have added "And built on a swamp, on top of a castle that burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp"

[Nitram]

67. Huh? So you prefer to have a closed mind?

Why am I not surprised.

[Act_of_Reparation]

68. Is "closed" the only alternative to "open"?

[Nitram]

69. They are, in fact, antonyms. You can have an open mind without being stupid or...

...or gullible or defenseless. But I guess your vocabulary is too limited to follow that train of thought. Hence the childish internet memes instead of actual thoughts.

[Act_of_Reparation]

72. An antonmyn in no way implies a word is binary.

A thing could be open, closed, or in myriad states between the two. But, I guess it is easier to deal in absolutes. Hence the childish straw men and ad hominems instead of actual arguments.

[Lordquinton]

73. For someone who claims to be open minded

You sure are opposed to hearing differing points of view.

[wendylaroux]

26. could of been this guy

[Cleita]

52. Rock demons. Those are my favorite. It's so easy to walk away from

them because they can't move.

[Person 2713]

54. I saw many a blue dog in Griffith park Hollywood thanks to a friend of Owsley

I have had cats for my pets all my life.
It took a long time to get off that mountain