hippowest said:

So I just had a question about the materialist philosophy of the mind and how it relates to bad mushroom trips. If the general idea is that our behavioral states can be explained purely by physical chemical interactions in the brain then what are the implications of a mushroom trip going bad? From my I understanding mushrooms most likely act on the serotonin pathway increasing the overall level of serotonin effecting the synapses, thus causing the trip.

So my question is, if all that behavioral states are is chemicals in the brain, then how would an increase in serotonin in the brain induced by psilocybin go from a good chemically introduced trip to a bad one? Unless of course a bad trip is induced pharmacologically and something shifts in the serotonin pathway thus causing the onset of the bad trip. In other words, if it is just chemicals causing behavior then why would an increase in serotonin cause good trips in some, and bad trips in others? Or even a good trip on the come-up transitioning into a bad trip at the peak.

Sorry if this question is not structured well, I am not much of a philosopher or chemist.

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Quote:

Report #98

I inhaled ONE toke of DMT (about 25mg), and was immediately catapulted into another dimension. I did not see any elves or anything, it seemed to me that I had shot straight into the depths of the DMT experience without having to be introduced to them. Now, I am not a religious person at all, but I found myself (or what I had become rather) in what I can only describe as "The Temple of Life". I was in a sort of white dome, with jewelled walls, covered with liquid diamonds. I felt overcome by an enormous sense of maternal love. I think it was coming from my girlfriend. Confusion set in and I started to question the validity of all this. I could not recall how I had gotten there, or what I really was. In fact, when I opened my eyes, reality was utterly transformed, beyond all my powers of description. "Biosphere" is the word that comes to mind. My girlfriend looked like a machine-goddess, her face glowing with iridescent patterns of symmetrical color. I kept looking out the window, as the scene out there was not as I knew it to be. In fact the landscape was so completely alien that I couldn't except it and kept saying, "This can't be real". It was NOT 'psychedelic', this was something VERY, VERY different.

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hippowest said:

I don't think that consciousness and the mind are all chemicals. I was trying to present bad trips and good trips both being the result of mushrooms acting on the same brain pathway as evidence that behavior and the mind are more then just the chemicals in the brain. Basically trying to say that it cannot just be chemicals if serotonin increase could be a cause of both good and bad trips. Not very well developed I know, but like I said I am no philosopher.

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redgreenvines said:

the mushroom digestion process is uneven
so
you have a fluctuating stimulus for serotonin buildup in the brain.

when build up occurs you get longer and longer signal fading.

the signals are from sensation and from memory.

if you can keep on relaxing, and are in reasonable health, then it can be quite interesting to observe and to occasionally trip out sideways into the deeply layered results of more slowly fading sensations and memories.

if you tense up that will also continue longer.

no bullshit.

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