The following post discusses my personal experience of the phenomenology of feminising hormone therapy. It will also touch upon my own experience of gender dysphoria. I wish to be clear that I do not believe that someone should have to demonstrate that they experience gender dysphoria – however one might...
DMT has a certain popular reputation – that of something discombobulating, inscrutable, not necessarily for the faint of heart. While I do believe DMT is capable of providing a comprehensible and even wholesome experience, it definitely deserves its reputation as an extremely powerful psychedelic. While it may only last twenty...
I wish to reiterate that in the original post what I am talking about is schizotypy, not psychosis. These are distinct conditions and should not be conflated.
Additionally, in that comment, I mention that I have a handful of friends who have experienced psychosis. None of these people were rationalists or had anything to do with rationality.
There's a preprint of the paper available here.
I can't say I looked into bodybuilder's experiences, but I respect it. The report you linked seems highly accurate.
I didn't think I mentioned trying testosterone in the post (insofar as I was living a "high-t lifestyle" in 2019-2020 or so it was all natty) but more recently I have actually tried deliberately spiking my testosterone levels in order to experience the phenomenology. Still experimenting with it and will refrain from immediate comment.
I don't enjoy meditation, so I don't do it often. I never really figured out the move to relax muscles through meditation. (By 'relax' I mean all the way; before I started, my calf muscles were rock solid concrete-like fascial adhesions... (read more)
I have also sat people through acute psychotic episodes a few times over the years, so I'm familiar with what that looks like. I also agree with you that it can be quite frightening and sad.
Schizotypy is not the same thing as schizophrenia or psychosis. I hoped that I was being careful enough with my language around this (and even lampshading colloquial use of the term "schizo" with scare quotes) that nobody would think I was conflating the mild increase in schizotypal traits I was experiencing with schizophrenia or psychosis. I'm not sure how I could convince someone of this through a comment field but having spent ample time around people with... (read more)
Someone did also send me a short video on DP/DR from Shinzen Young.
I recommend reading everything Zinnia Jones wrote about it. I also occasionally spend a bit of time trawling through posts on r/dpdr, there's some interesting reports in there.
The following post discusses my personal experience of the phenomenology of feminising hormone therapy. It will also touch upon my own experience of gender dysphoria.
I wish to be clear that I do not believe that someone should have to demonstrate that they experience gender dysphoria – however one might even define that – as a prerequisite for taking hormones. At smoothbrains.net, we hold as self-evident the right to put whatever one likes inside one's body; and this of course includes hormones, be they androgens, estrogens, or exotic xenohormones as yet uninvented.
I have gender dysphoria. I find labels overly reifying; I feel reluctant to call myself transgender, per se: when prompted to state... (read 7914 more words →)
I would suggest looking at things like three-dimensional space groups and their colourings as candidate glyphs, given they seem to be strong attractors in high-energy DMT states.
This sounds like a shadow talking. I think it's perfectly viable to align the two.
DMT has a certain popular reputation – that of something discombobulating, inscrutable, not necessarily for the faint of heart.
While I do believe DMT is capable of providing a comprehensible and even wholesome experience, it definitely deserves its reputation as an extremely powerful psychedelic. While it may only last twenty minutes or so, you might encounter situations which challenge foundational aspects of your belief system.
The risk involved is clear: the unprepared mind may start believing things which are bad for its ongoing well-being. Of course, the inverse is also true: DMT may help dislodge bad priors, break you out of unproductive behavioural patterns, or introduce you to new, more compelling models of reality.
This... (read 2189 more words →)
I agree that it's unlikely we could ever be 100% confident in some proposition here. But, with sufficiently high fidelity neurostimulation protocols (likely invasive ones) coupled with direct reports, I remain optimistic we could develop something like asymptotic confidence in a given theory of consciousness.
I doubt we could ever keep the armchair philosophers happy. But for the consciousness engineers (i.e. the people who actually want to do something with a theory of consciousness), I think this should suffice.