Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/26/vsauce-went-to-peru-to-experie.html
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I watch my entire life unfold as though it were projected on a movie screen. But it wasn’t my whole life; it was every lie, every counterfeit pose, every missed opportunity to say or do something true, every false act and ingratiating gesture, every pathetic attempt to be seen in a certain light...
I don’t need ayahuasca for that, lol. It’s pretty much my full time consciousness.
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Lol, likewise. I’m acutely aware of this myself though i’m sure when under the influence of such substances the way this is experienced is colored in a specific way. I’m lowkey curious what that’s like but knowing ayahuasca is potent it’s not the sort of thing i think i’d want to fuck with. I’m not even keen on taking Advil 
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Me also!
I have an ex who took it and described what Vsauce did, except it didn’t stick with her in a meaningful change sense - more of a horror about who is really driving sense. I think I’d be fine with what came out if I felt the need to take a mortar and pestle to my ego again, but I just don’t.
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From the various experiences i’ve read or seen online a part of taking these substances is making sure one has the proper context and “spiritual” guidance to get the most out of the experience, otherwise the person taking the substance will miss the point of the trip or experience the wrong things. I dunno, again i haven’t taken anything of this sort before… feel free to counterpoint if you do have experience with it 
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I recall the hallucinogen rules as: be in a pretty good place, with pretty good people, including yourself.
Personally I have no room for them anymore. My self told me when that part of my journey reached its waypoint, and the next stop on the line for me isn’t by way of there.
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Context is everything. Haven’t tried ayahuasca yet. Early mushroom experiences for me were very transformative and gave me a sense of connectedness to abso-fucking-lutely everything - left me feeling like a mashup between Tommy Chong and Jill Bolte-Taylor. And dried spaghetti figured prominently in all of this but I won’t get into that here. But context - yeah.
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As Alan Watts said - when you get the message, hang up the phone.
Though he still had some messages to take from the bottle. But the point, I think, is still valid.
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My self told me when that part of my journey reached its waypoint, and the next stop on the line for me isn’t by way of there.
I’m imagining a satnav saying something like, “After the next trip, turn hard right on to Young Republican Way.” 
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I think it’s hilarious all the people piping up to say, “I don’t need ayahuasca to feel that!” On one level, sure: everyday consciousness doesn’t preclude most experiences. But on another level, having the experiences I have had with psychedelics, another part of me is shouting, “Well, you guys are full of shit and don’t know what you’re talking about.”
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Well its true, as you say. Vsauce’s quote says that until one has taken the substance in question a person has no real concept of what he’s talking about. I’ve read enough about these kinds of trips that i have a general idea of it, but i don’t pretend to talk about it in a definitive way.
I’d love to be able to take some mushrooms or something someday, i just need to work up the will to do so. Got a friend i believe could get some for me. It kind of scares me though, as i said above… i’m pretty nervous when it comes to most substances, even legal ones.
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A few years ago I did a post on the mathematics of visual hallucinations. My experiences with dissociatives and ego death had similar visual patterns. https://boingboing.net/2010/01/11/modeling-visual-hall.html
Anyone who is interested in this should also check out erowid.org, which has an incredible database of trip reports using various substances, including ayahuasca.
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And you should feel all those things. There is nothing wrong with any of it. And I hope someday you do decide to do it.
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Super interesting, i will definitely check it out after work. Thanks for sharing
That’s the good shit, though!
I find it notable and kind of boring that “modern westerners” who have intense psychedelic experiences always come away from them with these powerful insights about themselves.
Like, even when your self is disproved via direct experience, the takeaway is still “I have learned these things about how I am” or “I have changed these things about myself”.
Outside of the modern west, psychedelic experiences are very tied to de-individuation. The idea that the group, the species, the land, the lineage, or the world itself is the “being”, and our immediate experience is just a limited window to the true whole.
That’s the kind of insight that us modern westerners can only gain through extremely altered perception - because of our upbringing in a highly individualistic society, the self is otherwise a pretty unshakeable article of faith.
I mean, there’s plenty of ways to learn that you should devote more time to the things that give you joy, or that you should love and forgive yourself more, or w/e. You can learn that from a Hollywood movie. But learning that you aren’t you? To me, that’s some other shit.
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‘Take a U Turn’
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Much of why I’ve liked Kierkegaård.
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There’s another way to have an out-of-mind, out-of-body experience: have a kid. You will be OUT OF YOUR MIND MANY TIMES, I guarantee. And it will be a bad trip, too.
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You’ve not met my young Søren?
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