Why An LSD High Lasts For So Long (pbs.org) 138
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has been credited, in part, for the creation of the iPhone, the polymerase chain reaction, as well as some pretty abstract artwork. Since the drug is classified as a Schedule 1 substance in the U.S., it's been more difficult for scientists to legally study the drug and learn about how it affects the brain. Therefore, when a study (or two) is published it makes the findings all the more fascinating. Two studies were published last week (one in Current Biology, the other in Cell) that examine how LSD produces such diverse effects and why the drug takes so long to wear off. The Scientist reports the findings from for the first study: For the Current Biology study, 21 volunteers were given a placebo, a small dose of LSD alone, or the same dose of LSD but with kentaserin, a serotonin 2A antagonist. Study participants who took the kentaserin reported virtually the same experiences as those who took the placebo, and fMRI brain scans confirmed similar brain activities across participants in both groups. The serotonin 2A antagonist "blocked all the effects of LSD, so it was like if people didn't take any drugs," coauthor Katrin Preller, neuroscientist at the Zurich University Hospital in Switzerland told The Verge. "All the typical symptoms -- hallucinations, everything -- were gone."
As for why an LSD high lasts for so long, Angus Chen has written an in-depth report on PBS Newshour about the findings from the study published in Cell: LSD and other psychoactive drugs work by binding to specialized proteins called receptors on the surfaces of neural cells. On the receptor protein is a sculpted "pocket," into which molecules with the right shape can fit and thus stick to the cell, where they initiate changes in the brain. But different substances can often fit into the same receptor. Many receptors that bind LSD and DMT, for example, also fit the natural chemical messenger serotonin -- which is produced in the body and helps regulate mood. Figuring out how each drug interacts with the same receptor in a different way is key to understanding why an LSD trip lasts all day whereas an experience with extracted DMT is often over in 15 minutes or less. By freezing an LSD molecule bound to a single brain cell receptor as a crystal in a lab, researchers were able to get a 3-D x-ray image of the drug and the protein locked together. The image showed Bryan Rother, a pharmacologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and senior author on the paper, and his co-authors something strange about the way LSD fit inside this receptor. Drugs typically come and go from receptor proteins like ships pulling in and out of a port. But when an LSD molecule lands on the receptor, the molecule snags onto a portion of the protein and folds it over itself as the molecule binds to the receptor. LSD seems to stimulate the receptor for the entire time it is trapped underneath the protein "lid," Roth says. Proteins are in constant motion, so he thinks the lid eventually flops open, allowing the drug to fly out and the effects to wear off. But the team ran computer models that suggest it could take hours for that to happen. Until then, the trip goes on.
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They're not, you're just hallucinating.
They mention DMTs short effects (Score:1)
But taken orally there are no effects without an MAOI, and with one it too lasts hours (though not as long as LSD).
what a buzz... (Score:3, Funny)
LSD is all fun and games right up to the point you are standing in your best friends kitchen on Xmas night talking to his mum. She has a wasps head and you can't work out if you're whispering to her or shouting at her.
Re: what a buzz... (Score:1)
And you're trying to explain why you've dropped out of university.
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And you're trying to explain why you've dropped out of university.
They don't drop out,they just transfer to the Dept. of Barista Studies and minor in Burger-flipping
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And you're trying to explain why you've dropped out of university.
They don't drop out,they just transfer to the Dept. of Barista Studies and minor in Burger-flipping
Or start Apple...
Re:Depends (Score:5, Informative)
There are different kinds of hallucinogens. They usually fall into 3 broad categories : dissociatives, delirants and psychedelics.
- Dissociatives disconnect your mind from your body, causing things like out of body experiences, makes you feel light, etc... Ketamine and PCP are dissociatives.
- Delirants cause hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality, no matter how strange they are. Making you talk to imaginary people, see monsters, etc... Datura as well as many plants associated with whichcraft are delirants. These effects are rarely enjoyable so these substances are not considered drugs of abuse.
- Psychedelics cause you to "see things differently". While the hallucinations are convincing, you are usually fully aware that things aren't as they normally are. Technically, they are pseudohallucinations. Common effects include light tracers, distorting shapes, divine revelations, etc... LSD, DMT and psylocibin mushrooms are psychedelics.
tl;dr : people under LSD know they are hallucinating.
Re:Depends (Score:5, Funny)
associated with whichcraft
That craft. That one right there.
Never liked acid (Score:2, Interesting)
Never liked acid. While other drugs tend to amplify or enhance mind states that you normally experience to a lesser degree without drugs, acid always made me feel like my brain was doing shit it fundamentally shouldn't be doing at all, not really related to any normal mind state. If I had to do psychedelics again, I'd stick to mushrooms, I always found they had more euphoric effects to go with the trippy shit, generally a much more fun experience. And yeah, acid did tend to go on a bit too long.
Re:Never liked acid (Score:5, Funny)
Never liked acid. While other drugs tend to amplify or enhance mind states that you normally experience to a lesser degree without drugs, acid always made me feel like my brain was doing shit it fundamentally shouldn't be doing at all, not really related to any normal mind state. If I had to do psychedelics again, I'd stick to mushrooms, I always found they had more euphoric effects to go with the trippy shit, generally a much more fun experience. And yeah, acid did tend to go on a bit too long.
Forget that, last time I did mushrooms they grew eyes and started walking towards me. Later, I discovered that if I jumped up and smashed my head into bricks that sometimes a "good" mushroom would come out and give me the power to destroy they eyeballed mushrooms. From that point on, only falling into a bottomless pit or walking into the bad mushroom's eyes would be harmful to me. Eventually I climbed a flagpole and moved on.
Placebo? (Score:3)
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Re:Placebo? (Score:5, Interesting)
5HT-2A antagonists aren't really something you should hand out like candy. Those receptors are all over your body, not just your brain, and they deal with a LOT of body functions. Particularly blood clotting.
Using it as a "safety switch" to cancel horror trips is something I would not recommend!
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Best chemical to abort trip (Score:1)
Try L-Theanine, 200-2,000mg+ (you can mix the pure powder into tea like peppermint tea). It's a harmless amino acid found naturally in green tea in small amounts, and aborts trips via another way besides 5ht2a antagonism. I believe it just quiets the excitation (glutamate) of the brain. I've tested it personally and with other people who all agree it works, and is the least prone to side effects of any other medication administered for such purposes. I was actually trying to test out the combination on some
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That will knock the tripper out, but not end his trip.
Re:Placebo? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says the effect lasts so long because the receptor lock on to the LSD molecule. I doubt an antagonist would work because they generally block the receptor without activating them but in this case the sites are activated already and the LSD is locked on. The antagonist can't replace the LSD molecule. At best they can keep the LSD from activating additional receptors.
It looks like with LSD, once you're high, you just have too ride it out.
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try it before you make an unfounded proposition :)
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Well they could try, but I still suspect that when you're at the "woah oh shit there it goes" stage, you better be planning on being there for a few hours. There is stuff that gets you tripping for a half hour or so but acid isn't one of them.
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It depends on the dosage.
With very small doses the effects are not that strong. It is more about slightly altered perception than full-blown hallucinations. Colors may become more vivid, you notice small things that you haven't noticed before, etc... You can get the same effects with a placebo. Even experienced trippers can be fooled, at least to some extent.
And the summary explicitly mentioned small doses.
Of course, at high doses, there is no way you are going to say you had a placebo if you were given the
Why a summary lasts for so long (Score:1)
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You know it's a bad trip when the summary uses the term DMT, twicefully, but does not explanify what it means. Not that I am one of those people who would read beyond the subject line. Please don't think less of me or judge me. I'm the same person I was before this secret became generally known. There may be some kind of cure or electroshock therapy for those of us who read more than the subject title.
Too long was always my gripe (Score:2)
The first 4 hours were fun, but after that it just got kind of tedious.
There were always rumors it was jacked up with speed or strychnine, but I never thought you could fit enough of either in blotter for that to be true.
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I've heard the same. I know somebody in town who's invited me to come give it a try some time when his daughter isn't home but I've yet to take him up on it. The nice things about LSD over mushrooms are price, longer trip, and (more) predictable onset. I can't think of any others. Mushrooms cost more, but aren't too tricky to grow - Plus I think growing them yourself adds something to the experience. The trip with shrooms is only 2/3 as long (or so), but coming down after that duration is usually welcome an
AL-LAD (Score:1)
Alexander Shulgin synthesized a slight variation of LSD called AL-LAD.
https://erowid.org/library/boo... [erowid.org]
It lasts about half as long as LSD.
At low doses, AL-LAD is less cerebral, more visual than LSD.
At high doses, the effects get more similar, nearly identical.
I can fully recommend it and haven't taken any apparent damage after 20+ AL-LAD trips. ... or if you're more naturally inclined, you could just eat magic mushrooms, which also act much shorter than LSD.
Personally I find mushrooms to be much more diffic
Re: Too long was always my gripe (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah mushrooms are preferable for just a nice time. LSD for profound mind altering experiences that you need to plan a whole block of time for, at least it was for me. I never understand these people that have bad trips or see things that aren't there (as opposed to just simple visual effects) It really is all about set and setting as they say (and making sure you know exactly what your ingesting). You can absolutely take these drugs responsibly, like everything else it's the dumbasses that ruin it for everybody.
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I always assumed that the "bad trip" was really about loss of control. Some people can't seem to handle that.
Re: Too long was always my gripe (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much. Some people are just too "tightly wrapped" for psychedelics. Rather than surrendering to the experience, they try to fight it and end up having a really bad time.
Control freak personalities in particular are prone to this. I can only imagine the scene if somebody dosed the White House water cooler these days....
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Mushrooms are lower impact, but that works against them, too, with shorter and less intense peak effects, and though shorter, they had a similar "long tail" effect where you just felt kind of hyper but without the benefits of peak effect.
They required dedicating less time, but I never found the difference completely compelling.
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I dunno. With acid I always ended up sick of it towards the end - the last few hours being a drag when I just wished it was over. Mushrooms on the other hand, I always preferred the time when the visuals had pretty much gone but the world still felt sparkly and nice. More euphoric. That's when me and the wife would head off into town. Maybe that's just different occasions and expectations though.
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I wont give my partner acid any more as he goes crazy, complete dissociation with only a couple of tabs. Had to hold him to the bed for 4 hours as he kept wanting to go outside and fight random made-up situations. Not really a bad trip though because he cant really remember what happened.
Once I took AMT, and figured it
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Re: Too long was always my gripe (Score:2)
I meant dumbasses in the sense of not using these kinds of drugs in a responsible manner and then freaking out, dying or whatever giving more fuel to the anti drug crowd. I personally would never allow myself to be under the influence of anything in public or in an environment I was not comfortable in or I had to be responsible for anyone but myself.
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WRONG DRUG.
If you experience an erection lasting more than four hours see your doctor immediately, or go to a party.
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The first 4 hours were fun, but after that it just got kind of tedious.
There were always rumors it was jacked up with speed or strychnine, but I never thought you could fit enough of either in blotter for that to be true.
While the strychnine thing was a myth (which was understood by the time I was into psychedelics), there are at least a handful of other active substances that can fit on a square of blotter and produce qualitatively similar effects. Some other psychedelics are active at sub-miligram dosages and have been around for decades, and some of them are somewhat commonly available now. They may be sold surreptitiously as "acid" or more openly and correctly named. LSD experiences are notoriously variable and unpredic
So, an LSD trip is like, bad TV reception? (Score:2)
That molecule gets trapped in there, feeding crazy signals to the brain, until it just happens to fall out.
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I think we can model this as an exponential decay.
As in : the molecule has a 50% of coming out loose and being eliminated every 6 hours.
They sure, some molecules will stay in for much longer than the duration of the trip but after a few days, nothing significant will be left, and after maybe 2 weeks, there won't be a single molecule left in your brain.
There are mentions about some kind of "afterglow" lasting a couple of days after a good trip and sometimes subsequent "flashbacks". However, I think they are
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Or until the receptor sites are hopelessly fatigued and you crash into a two day hang-over.
Creative high (Score:1)
Don't forget the Beatles song [google.com]. Incidentally don't talk about flower power. The substance is a fungus.
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The effects wore off and we got Windows 10.
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> Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has been credited, in part, for the creation of the iPhone The effects wore off and we got Windows 10.
LOL, Perfect!
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Yay, mushroom power!
psychedelic drugs and animals (Score:5, Interesting)
Animals and insects eat psychedelic drugs in the wild - just to get wasted. Deers do it, so do some flies - and they repeat the experience, so it is not an accident.
It says a lot for how long the psychedelic experience has been around consciousness, that it is not unique to humans.
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Sounds like more fun than a troop of monkeys eating fermented fruit and getting falling down drunk.
Terrence McKenna talked about the "Stoned Ape" (Score:4, Interesting)
hypothesis, in which proto-humans regularly ingested psychedelic plants or fungi, and it led to the rapid development of the higher mental functions found in humans.
http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/ [lycaeum.org]
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Tiger tripping (Score:2)
Although it is an extract from a film (BBC?) I do not recall the original.
There are also films of apes tripping on fermented alcohol taken from tree pockets and some of them (10%) are repeat "alcoholic" offender. As you say tripping was not invented by human
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Flying (Score:1)
I can fly! I can fly! I can fly! Splatt!
"Cure" to LSD Trip? (Score:2)
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Could you give kentaserin to someone having a bad trip to bring them back to reality?
There are those of us who perceive and experience reality as the bad trip.
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I know that antipsychotics can be used to stop a bad trip. Some of them can act as serotonin antagonists.
Though I don't know how effective they really are compared to a placebo, and if they are, by what mechanism.
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Wrong (Score:1)
Steve Jobs used it as a young man, and what he said was that he thought everyone should have the experience. None of Apple's inventions have been credited directly to that, that's your own flawed conclusion. He was talking about himself and the kind of person he felt he could become (incidentally, you don't need substances to access that part of yourself). Don't pass it off as fact. Bear in mind too that LSD was a very different proposition back then, it was a very different substance, initially used in a v
Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous (Score:1)
LSD was also a strong influence on Bill Wilson [theguardian.com] in his search for a cure to alcoholism. The story goes that Bill Wilson eventually split with AA over AA becoming a completely anti-drug organization, and he still wanted to experiment with LSD and alcoholism.
oh, for the love of... (Score:1)
Does Slashdot need to repost everything on Reddit a few days later? Mother of God. This site is increasingly obsolescent. I love it, but I think that's just nostalgia talking.
"So long"? No, long was STP (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And STP lasted for close to 24 hours. Yes. I can personally verify that it did. And yes, this is long, long beyond the statute of limitations.
Imagine being so dense (Score:1)
DOI & other 4-substituted psychedelic phenylisopropylamines are where it's at, (nod to the "STP" (DOM) poster) with 36+ hour durations. You can fall asleep & wake up still in that oh-so-desirable mindspace. DOI has been shown to have health-promoting effects (via TNF-alpha (beneficial to the cardiac system)) and is not illegal. Not for everyone, but that ought to go without saying. Educated, responsible use is vital.
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Something producing a full-on LSD-like experience in say, 2-4 hours would be a huge hit, both with psychonauts and scientists. I think 8+ hour
Dock Ellis (Score:2)
"(LSD) has been credited, in part, for the creation of the iPhone, the polymerase chain reaction, as well as some pretty abstract artwork." ...and also a Baseball No-Hitter by Dock Ellis.
Must See Video Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:People who use elicit drugs... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: People who use elicit drugs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well no shit dumbass, so can "licit" drugs like alcohol, the legality of the substance has no bearing on the issue. If I want to take mushrooms or LSD in the comfort of my own home in a controlled setting (look up set and setting) and have a great time that's my business. Heck I don't even drink and really drunk people are the ones that disgust me.
Re: People who use elicit drugs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, how about operating machinery while sick with the stomach flu? I mean really, distraction is distraction.
Obviously the problem is not the drugs it is the choices that people make while on drugs. There's a difference. Just like you can't blame a gun for killing people. People kill people. Why don't we outlaw guns?
Why does everybody feel it's ok to blame the drugs? oooo the drugs made me do it... how about no, the drugs enabled you to do it... they didn't make you anything.
Re: People who use elicit drugs... (Score:4, Funny)
Except that doing an abortion have very little effect on the surroundings but doing drugs can have huge consequences for other people (operating vehicles or heavy machinery while under the influence of drugs, etc).
While I am not specifically against a person's right to choose what happens to their own body, it's tough to claim that an operation preventing a person from existing is without consequence for other people.
Aside: this is why I love me some Slashdot. In 20 comments or less, we're comparing tripping to abortions.
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Re: People who use elicit drugs... (Score:1)
no one gives a fuck what you think.
but people who elicit drugs... (Score:3)
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Alyssa listed illicit drugs; elicited listless shrugs from online readers.
Re: People who use elicit drugs... (Score:3)
So if it were made legal it would be fine? I guess people that take pot in states where it's legal don't disgust you? And people that drank during prohibition disgust you?
Re:and you retards believe in it! (Score:5, Informative)
Creativity comes from many sources, absolutely it appears some highs may stimulate creativity and conversely some seem to suppress creativity. Interestingly, lack of sleep is supposed to stimulate creativity too.
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I have met several people that said dropping acid was a positive life changing experience. It changed the way they look at the world. Steve Jobs made this claim, and credited LSD as one reason for his success.
The main reason given to NOT use LSD is the claim that it causes genetic damage and birth defects, but that has been totally debunked. It is not addictive, and side effects like anxiety and paranoia, only occur with repeated use.
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The main reason not to take LSD is that it can drive you insane. It is unlikely but the risk is non-zero, especially if you have predispositions to schizophrenia.
It is a substance that can change your life for the better or for the worse, or just give you an enjoyable trip. From what I've seen, the outcome is more likely to be positive, especially if you do what you can to minimize the risks. However the risks are real, and LSD is mostly unpredictable.
And while LSD is not toxic and not addictive, you really
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I once went without sleep for 5 days, and while the 5th day was wasted, the 3rd and 4th were amazing for getting work done, particularly writing. I wrote a semester's worth of work on landscape architecture during that 5 day stretch, and having re-read a lot of it (15 years later) recently, it's a) not bad, and b) not something I could do now on a good day.
Uh...I once went 76 hours without sleep while finishing up my senior project in college. Toward the end of that period, I was in the computer lab writing, I looked at the clock, I wrote a sentence, I looked at the clock again and 20 minutes had passed. That's when I decided I wouldn't be productive anymore without going to sleep, so I walked to my dorm to take a few hours.
I later found out my roommate had seen me in the computer lab during that period, went in to say hello, but I was completely unresponsive
This story... (Score:1)
...is a trip.
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Religions are some of the most creative works of fantasy art in history and they most likely come from either full-on schizophrenics or ingesting drugs, knowingly or not.
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