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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Serotonin & Dopamine, Permanent Ego Transcendence - Psychedelic implications
#11899311 - 01/25/10 04:13 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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Serotonin is love and Dopamine is Ego. Both regulate the same functions of the nervous system in different ways.
The Ego is a rigorous, instinctive, imprinted, impulsive projection mechanism, oriented toward personal survival and enjoyment. The heart is creative and altruistic, impersonal, too simple to be imprinted except where it interacts with the ego.
Subjectivity increases with Serotonin because it loosens the imprinting of the Ego - which is why the four higher circuits on the 8 circuit model of consciousness are accessed through serotonin (& compassion, activism) increasing drugs, lowest on the list being pot.
I suspect Ketamine, 8th circuit activator, is an exception. When the Ego is transcended, the 8th circuit can be permanently activated because the impulsiveness of an ego-driven semantic script is shut down and present mindedness is perfected - the mind travels directly through the causal stream, rather than processing logic through abstractions (maps) and verbalizations. Ketamine probably simply inhibits the semantic mind in a manner capable of producing a similar, temporary, state of consciousness - but without it resulting from unconditional, ego free love.
Schizophrenia
typical antipsychotics primarily inhibit dopamine, and atypicals inhibit primarily serotonin. Both, in general, are tranquillizers, meaning they reduce level of neural activity. Typicals decrease drive, self expression, self esteem, motivation to socialize - impulsive forward momentum, and even sometimes trigger symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.
Hallucinations and delusions (projections, into the imagination and the environment) reduce on typicals - probably because the ego is a projection mechanism.
Hallucinations and delusions probably reduce on atypicals because love is the source of creativity.
5-htp - an over the counter antidepressant, converts dopamine to serotonin, stops working when dopamine levels drop below a certain point. Have read at least one study wherein it was successfully used to treat a Schizophrenic, and heresay that it reduces frequency of hallucinations on psychedelic trips - and has been helpful to other schizophrenics. Has only been around since the 90s, ill researched.
If it could be taken at high enough dosages on moderate dosages of mushrooms, lsa, or lsd to abort the trip, dedication to meditating on unconditional love for the duration of the trip might provide a method of permanently transcending the Ego. But it is new, I have seen evidence it can be very dangerous in combination with certain other drugs (such as prozac), and it has not been researched extensively enough for effectiveness and safety to have been established.
LSD, LSA, Shrooms, & DMT act primarily on the serotonin neurotransmitter system, although dopamine levels temporarily increase while tripping - in the long term, their usage tends to decrease dopamine levels.
the 3rd & 4th circuits
Cow poop in the grasslands attracts hallucinogenic mushrooms, grassland chimps evolved into human tribes. Mushrooms rapidly increase level of neural activity, a serotonin boost would have (at lower dosages) increased sexual behavior, hunting ability, and social skills - since greater levels of serotonin would've encouraged a greater desire to communicate, & the hearts of these chimps would've embraced more than their traditional social bodies - having so enlarged.
This event could've easily, in the long term, triggered the socio-sexual & semantic circuits.
During the puberty years, personality development researches have noticed a marked increase in personality deviation, whereas for the rest of the life course it is generally stable - possibly because of a serotonin boost.
placebo
Heartless (remorseless) ego is imprinted too rigorously to be subjective enough to respond to a sugar cube as if it were a stimulant or a depressant, but a creative artist, a guy with elevated serotonin levels, can turn that sugar cube into either - if properly triggered. The internal manifestation of impulsive creativity. The ego produces the impulsive identification, & the heart amplifies it, or makes it work.
Psychedelic Drugs after Total Ego Transcendence
Love unmodified by Ego doesn't discriminate, doesn't feed on situational triggers, so it expands on its own. Its food source is infinite, so long as bodily health is maintained *(whatever form that body may take).
This results in a # of benefits: choice oriented nervous system direction - "placebo" becomes conscious decision. An unbiased reasoning faculty *(although the evidence processed before the switch, intuited from, may still produce bias results even after the ego is gone). &
exceedingly high levels of serotonin, naturally - but experienced free of delusion or hallucination. Meaning, any dosage of a physically harmless Serotonin increasing drug could theoretically be taken every day without decreasing physical or mental performance, permanently increasing the user's range of ability and ability level.
Learning would become very rapid because old programming would not inhibit one's ability to learn, and because the instructions given would be processed objectively.
-------------------- my website
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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the Dark Night of the Soul, & Temporary vs. Permanent Ego Transcendence [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11899387 - 01/25/10 04:25 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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I have read that one or many Dark Nights of the Soul mark the path to Liberation, permanent ego transcendence. Probably because anything which threatens the Ego is likely to put it in a state of distress, reducing its size and resulting in symptoms similar to a dopamine deficiency, a humiliating, guilty, anxious, or sad experience.
Painful emotional experiences are mainly caused by a decrease in neural activity. Humiliation results in a drop in pride, sorrow from a drop in love (the Ego & the Heart interact to create attachments - these attachments, our encounters with them and their continued existence, keep us happy by keeping our dopamine and serotonin levels elevated - in addition to related neurotransmitters), ect.
When the Ego is gone, the Heart takes over all its duties - but before that happens, the mind may begin to feel weak and inhibited, crushed, low.
Temporary Ego Transcendence
If the "ego" in the sense of the dopamine neurotransmitter system, is transcended for an instant, it is probably transcended permanently. But there are other kinds of experiences that are labeled as Ego Transcendence, sexual and psychedelic.
To become something one is not (images, cellular life forms, a cartoon), or to temporarily transcend thought at the moment of an exceedingly intense orgasm.
-------------------- my website
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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a few techniques that have been useful to me. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11899446 - 01/25/10 04:36 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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30 minutes to an hour of flat back asana immediately before bed time - I found that as long as I didn't roll/move, I didn't fall asleep unless exhausted, & my mind slowed significantly because my body already associated the time and position with restfulness.
Meditation on emotional control. A focused effort to release egotistical emotions, and to guide love to discriminate less over time. To, through concentrating, learn to love neutral then detestable objects, people, and places.
Contemplation on No Blame. If self and others cannot be blamed, the Ego loses its food source, its ability to be triggered, & problems are approached in terms of effectiveness rather than through abstract notions of fairness. pride, humiliation, guilt, & anger (condemnation) all feed on blame, but it requires an increase in love to transcend fear and sorrow.
Forgiveness and No Blame are very similar, and forgiveness of self and others may of necessity precede blamelessness.
Contemplation upon the full implications of Determinism may encourage blamelessness. If every thought and event are in motion, & result from their preceding motion (momentum, energy transfer), is not reality deterministic?
Even if it isn't, blame is useless for purposes of rational problem solving.
-------------------- my website
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daturaplane
Stranger
Registered: 01/26/10
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Re: a few techniques that have been useful to me. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11907174 - 01/26/10 06:32 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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PCP is first circuit and yet ketamine is 8th? That's interesting. I've never tried PCP, but isn't it supposed to be similar to K? Perhaps it's all a circle, like 8 goes to 1. Makes sense to me. Turn on the eighth circuit and end up back at the first circuit fight or flight. Like the fine line between enlightenment and insanity, generally seen as emptiness by the general population. What a world.
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Re: a few techniques that have been useful to me. [Re: daturaplane]
#11907692 - 01/26/10 07:46 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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The relationship is this: survival mode involves instinctive reactivity, wordless instantaneous response to situational triggers, & so too does the 8th circuit of consciousness involve wordless instantaneous response to situational triggers. But the 8th circuit is objective reason motivated by love, the 1st is primitive reptile brain imprinted response.
It doesn't go around in a circle. Like I said, Ketamine probably permits a state of consciousness similar but not identical to 8th circuit activation - but only to the extent the mind learns to process information directly within the causal stream, rather than through abstractions (& probably to the extent astral tripping is induced).
-------------------- my website
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notapillow
I want to be a fisherman
Registered: 09/29/03
Posts: 31,129
Loc: A rare and different tune
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Re: a few techniques that have been useful to me. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11908366 - 01/26/10 09:24 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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you have done your homework
but your taking a few big leaps
but i gotta say while what you are laying down is kinda batnut whacky i see what your going for and in understand (some of) it
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: notapillow]
#11909248 - 01/26/10 11:28 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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I am not an expert on neurotransmitters, and I have no college education. I have read a couple of books on Schizophrenia, done a bit of research on Serotonin and Dopamine (considered by mainstream science to be the Ego and the Heart), and various psychological disorders involving elevated or decreased serotonin or dopamine levels, respectively.
I have extensively studied mainstream psychology, mysticism, and 8 circuit consciousness - and continue to do so. The evolution of the 3rd and 4th circuit was a leap, an educated guess at best, but if it became a tradition amongst the rapidly evolving chimps to ingest mushrooms around mating time, it might make sense that puberty triggers the 4th circuit's activation.
Most serious mystical paths attempt to achieve unconditional love, many attack the ego directly. This state of consciousness is often expressed poetically, with great reverence, and the various things that are claimed about it: the ability to learn very rapidly, the ability to sit still for hours in unusual postures, the transcendence of (emotional, perhaps even physical suffering) in favour of infinite bliss, the transcendence of desire (it is mainstream science that dopamine = desire), are all explained by the theories outlined above.
I am taking a leap that is worth taking, I think - but the theory makes perfect sense to me. It doesn't contradict anything I've ever read about psychology, mysticism, or 8 circuit consciousness, or in my younger experimental years, experienced directly for myself.
To use the Freudian model as an example: Id, Ego, Superego. The ego, the id, and the guilt aspect of the superego can be traced to Dopamine. Altruism can be traced to the heart.
The path commonly taken by mystics: Silent, still contemplation, simple diet, charitable conduct. Renouncement of the material. Everything which increases the brain's supply of dopamine is cut off, & everything which increases the brain's supply of Serotonin (mainly kindness) is encouraged.
Nirvana sober may be similar to being high on psychedelics without hallucinating, I have even read rumors that getting close to enlightened mystics can result in a sort of a contact high, and that one danger the student of a guru faces is the risk of falling in love with hir teacher - quite possibly because of the intensity of the love radiated by such people.
-------------------- my website
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solstice
Hempowered
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11910139 - 01/27/10 06:57 AM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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That's pretty interesting!
The last bit reminds me of countless devotee/master relationship: Rumi/Shams, Bulleh Shah/Inayat Shah, M-tsho-rgyal/Padmasmabhava and the list goes on...
-------------------- Man woke up in a world he did not understand and that is why he tries to interpret it - Carl Jung
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PsychoPsilocin
Playboy
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: solstice]
#11910705 - 01/27/10 10:11 AM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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Ok. Say if there exists an enlightened individual in the world. That individual comes into contact with other non-enlightened individuals and gives them a "contact high", that is, through showing love and whatnot. This can help the individual they "contact" to evolve on the scale of the eight circuits of consciousness.
Now, this is a continual process. That enlightened individual will meet many others, helping them to become enlightened. Then those individuals will help others to become enlightened.
Eventually the entire world will bathe in the light of love!
All without the use of drugs!
But then what fun would that be???!!!!!
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notapillow
I want to be a fisherman
Registered: 09/29/03
Posts: 31,129
Loc: A rare and different tune
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: PsychoPsilocin]
#11911126 - 01/27/10 11:32 AM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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again i thnk w are all taking some big leaps here
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solstice
Hempowered
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: notapillow]
#11911278 - 01/27/10 11:58 AM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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I thought it was the whole point of this thread
-------------------- Man woke up in a world he did not understand and that is why he tries to interpret it - Carl Jung
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tony serro
DEA Agent
Registered: 08/20/09
Posts: 1,508
Loc: Montreal
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11911616 - 01/27/10 12:49 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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I kind of figured something like this out myself once when i was on mda, good job. Just one question though: I'm interested in an atypical pyschotic that does ANYTHING to the serotonin system. I don't know much about them but I used to take quetiapine to get to sleep during my days abusing stimulants and as far as I know it is DA antagonist which removes DA from the synapse rather than increase it the way stimulants do. Its also a very interesting experience to take just for the fuck of it. But yea what atypicals are there that fuck with 5-ht?
-------------------- The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, suppressed,brutalized and defamed of all Damned Things is the individual human being. The social engineers, are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned to it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it The psychotherapist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots. -Robert Anton Wilson
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Jabbawaya
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1,479
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Re: Serotonin & Dopamine, Permanent Ego Transcendence - Psychedelic implications [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11911651 - 01/27/10 12:54 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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This... doesn't make much sense. You're blending totally misinformed scientific information with Leary-esque circuit-consciousness in a way that makes both topics difficult to understand. I see what you're trying to do, but you might try to hit one topic or the other to avoid confusion.
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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the reason so much information is covered, [Re: Jabbawaya]
#11912303 - 01/27/10 02:45 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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The reason so much information is covered is in an attempt to illustrate the mechanisms of the Serotonin and Dopamine neurotransmitter systems, their importance, and how they fit into both the Mystical Experience and the 8 Circuit Model. It is a bit confusing because it is a lot of information to take in, but I don't consider it an ill informed attempt (although my inferences might be) because I am drawing so much from well established mainstream scientific facts.
http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=2003-99789-002
(quote) Atypical antipsychotic drugs have revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia and related disorders. The current clinically approved atypical antipsychotic drugs are characterized by having relatively low affinities for D2-dopamine receptors and relatively high affinities for 5-HT2A serotonin receptors (5-HT, 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin))
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14642974 - more on atypicals inhibiting serotonin receptors.
www.nodid.net/Articles/neuroscience_pharmacology/abraham83.pdf - Many of the assumptions of this research paper are probably false, according to more modern scientific findings (such as the mechanisms of atypical antipsychotics). They thought that since 5-htp increases Serotonin levels, a deficiency was responsible for the symptoms of psychosis experienced by the patients. They failed to take into account that 5-htp does so by reducing dopamine levels - which demonstrates to my mind, in addition to that typical antipsychotics worked primarily by inhibiting dopamine receptor activity, that schizophrenia is caused by both elevated levels of serotonin and dopamine.
I think of cross referencing as an important kind of research, when a phenomenon occurs that has yet to be explained, and that it is difficult to experimentally validate - such as Nirvana, & Samadhi. Any conclusion upon the subject will be tenuous, to the extent it cannot be "hard science," both because most Western cultures are in many respects hostile to that kind of research, & because Nirvana is considered so rare. Yet the better understood it is, the easier it is to achieve, & the less rare it becomes.
-------------------- my website
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: the reason so much information is covered, [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11912599 - 01/27/10 03:37 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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I like what you're saying but I don't think you can simplistically reduce love to serotonin and the ego to dopamine; these neurotransmitters have very complex effects on our psychology and behavior.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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notapillow
I want to be a fisherman
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Posts: 31,129
Loc: A rare and different tune
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: solstice]
#11912688 - 01/27/10 03:53 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
solstice said: I thought it was the whole point of this thread
well hell, i guess it is
im just saying lets take our time here and really try and understand what is being said. i dont agree with a crap ton of that first post. and like dude sayed. he has no real backroud in this. hes just read some books and taken some drugs
who hasent?
but i gotta say that the clea cut definition he gives his ideas intregues me.
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: notapillow]
#11913311 - 01/27/10 05:35 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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deCypher: Agreed, ....The Serotonin and Dopamine system consists of some pretty complex interlinking pathways, and various other neurotransmitters impact mood. . . . but, . . . . .
Dopamine boosting drugs: Heroin, cocaine, amphetamines
Heroin both depresses higher brain functions and increases dopamine levels - this dopamine increase sometimes speeds up users even although the drug has a significant tranquillizing impact. It is, on the 8th circuit model, the brain stem or survival mode drug - because of this reduction in higher brain functioning. That dope is the most essential attribute of the high.
Cocaine and amphetamines increase dopamine levels, & as a secondary impact, adrenaline levels - although crystal meth contains synthetic adrenaline, so results in a direct increase in adrenaline.
Both of these classes of drugs result in extreme increases in pride, & are extremely addictive.
ADD - dopamine deficiency, lack of motivation and self esteem, antisocial - but largely because asocial. Easily stressed out because of a lack of Ego Strength (high levels of dopamine/pride - which is a feeling of being in control). A tendency toward impulsive, destructive behaviour, such as drug addiction, because of a lack of ego boundaries.
Aspergers - mental health is a complex field, but often thought to be caused by a serotonin deficiency. A tendency to be anal, obsessive compulsive, overly aggressive, & lack empathy. (I feel they) desire social interaction more than the ADD kids because they have more of an Ego to feed and protect, they have a difficult time socializing because they tend to push people away and don't want to leave their comfort zone.
Serotonin and Love are both thought to inhibit aggression - one charge I have encountered against Serotonin is that, in romantic relations, elevated Serotonin levels and decreased Dopamine levels result in reduced romantic attachment - probably because the Ego is the point of attachment, possessiveness, - & when balanced against the heart, this attachment identification becomes romantic love.
http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm - romantic love=adrenaline, dopamine, & serotonin
As mentioned, LSD, DMT, & hallucinogenic mushrooms directly interact with the Serotonin receptor system, resulting in elevated levels of Serotonin. As does Ecstasy, by a different mechanism which has the unfortunate side affect of dumping Serotonin rather than stimulating a long term increase in your supply (like LSD,DMT,&shrooms). Some users even take 5-htp to cope with this uncomfortable Serotonin decrease. I think all four of these drugs are associated by their users with feelings of love, & none of those which impact dopamine exclusively - although I think most regular users of heroin and cocaine can admit to elevated levels of pride, & even love of the drug itself.
. . . The more research I do, it seems like, the more correspondences I uncover to confirm my initial conclusions.
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11913756 - 01/27/10 06:43 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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the 5-htp thing was probably reaching... most of the original articles that led me to consider the possibility it could be used as a trip abortant seem to have been deleted from Google. Apparently, it does reduce dopamine levels (long term usage) - but not because of an instant dopamine-to-serotonin mechanism of affect. & l-dopa does the same for serotonin.
I read on a message board that this was because taking one or the other competes for the same enzyme because the two systems are so intertwined.
I thought it could be used as a trip abortant because I read one report that it was used in such a capacity, & a few message board posts of people claiming to hallucinate a bit less when preloading with it, because of the double-blind schizophrenia study, & because I read an article claiming it converted dopamine to serotonin, & because I read an authoritative-seeming article claiming it stopped working when dopamine levels dropped below a certain point. All online research, therefore likely to backfire. Still probably useful as a long term supplement, at recommended dosage, in addition to a regular schedule of meditation.
-------------------- my website
Edited by AmericanSpirit (01/27/10 07:18 PM)
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notapillow
I want to be a fisherman
Registered: 09/29/03
Posts: 31,129
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: AmericanSpirit]
#11915290 - 01/27/10 10:32 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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ADD - dopamine deficiency, lack of motivation and self esteem, antisocial - but largely because asocial. Easily stressed out because of a lack of Ego Strength (high levels of dopamine/pride - which is a feeling of being in control). A tendency toward impulsive, destructive behaviour, such as drug addiction, because of a lack of ego boundaries.
thats me to a tee
however i have little no intrest in dopamine enhancing drugs. dopamine along with adrenaline compele peopel to do all mannor of things. self mutilation ect.
i just dont think that you can say that any one chemical is responsible for any single part of the phyche
its a dance
its all of them meshing together in a fabric.
you obviously have a well formed understanding of the ego. thats probly not gonna get you far
obiously the ego is you
your understanding of YOURSELF is a component of you.
its only there as long as you want it to be.
people talk a big talk most of the time about the ego, obviously
but i however fing that to be diving miles deep into 2 inches of dirt.
its all the other components of you that are so much more interesting
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AmericanSpirit
Loose Cannon
Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 85
Loc: Eschillion
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Re: Experimental research required, in the underground if not the mainstream. [Re: notapillow]
#11915384 - 01/27/10 10:47 PM (14 years, 1 month ago) |
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*its all the other components of you that are so much more interesting
that's your heart, & that's everyone but you
-------------------- my website
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