Oh the chemicals. The 1998 movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is of more educational value than it may seem. More so than, say, Requiem for a Dream (2000), never even mind Trainspotting (1996). But already I digress! If reality is perception, which to each and everyone of us it is, and if our perception is shaped by chemicals, which it is, then chemicals can be used and abused to 😶 modify our state and 👁️ modulate the mind's eye. Which of course we have been doing since time immemorial. We always were curious and playful monkeys — already as kids we enjoy the high of getting dizzy on the playground — who then got better at science and therefore the substances.
Some people think all drugs should be legalised — clearly this would be a big mistake. Just imagine your neighbour on XTC or your bus driver shaking off their hangover in the morning rush hour. Many people feel there are hard and soft drugs. Again I markedly disagree, as I presume do you. The case of alcohol of course is well-known, but the flaw in the assumption can be clarified with many examples. Like what's the difference between an overdose of some puny µg's of fentanyl leading to death and a normal dose of weed triggering psychosis? Whatever the case, it's such an awful tremendous loss, the way 🇺🇸 'Murika took away from humanity the entirety of drugs' potential to heal ourselves and save the future when it mattered most. But it no longer matters.. So yeh, the chemicals, oh the chemicals.
Before we go, let's emphasize the obvious: there is knowledge and experience, rarely coming together in equal measure. Which — as is the case with most things — they don't need to for someone to have a valid opinion. Consequently I myself don't nearly have as much experience with, nor knowledge of all of the below as I would like.
..want tussen droom en daad
staan wetten in de weg en praktische bezwaren,
en ook weemoedigheid, die niemand kan verklaren,
en die des avonds komt, wanneer men slapen gaat.
One thing experience taught me, is that drugs, while beyond doubt helpful in dealing with reality, will not provide purpose for our time spent in it. I suppose one still needs religion for that, or l'enfer des autres — in any case it needs to come from within, won't be brought to you by whatever a druggie may put in. Put differently, and as is common knowledge, they won't fix a hole.
Final babblings: without a distinction between “hard” and “soft” drugs to me a sensible way to distinguish between drugs would be 1) those that alter your mood, 2) those that distort your perception, and 3) those that are plain poison. Of course there is overlap, already in part because of mere choice of inevitably ambiguous words. Altering your mood means altering your perception; and poison will certainly change your mood.
Regardless, to me it seems primarily a matter of 1) an easy way up ↑ or down ↓, and 2) hmm ⇹ if your font supports that, otherwise maybe just ↕. And I believe chemicals do not change a person's true nature. By this I mean, for example, I don't have friends or loved ones who would turn violent under the influence, or racist when intensely inebriated.
Tom, last edited 17/1/24
Czyli 3-MeO-PCP. Dissociativa. 😶🌫️ You may know of ketamine and bladder trouble, and have heard of PCP punching holes in our monkey brains. Fearmongering at its finest. Drink a bucket of seawater, and tell us how your kidneys feel.
But dissociation can go a long way, too long far away. One may ever so insidiously start losing too much sense of Zeit und Raum. 🫥 The matter of “too much” would be too much of a matter to go into here.
26/1/24 addendum: The ether scene in Fear and Loathing does a good job showcasing part of the sort of vibes NMDAR antagonism can bring. I cut the fragment and put it up here. Was slightly miffed I didn't figure out quickly enough how to retain the subtitles, which I then had to put in that separate .html file.
I had at first completely forgotten 🫤 about the benzos here. Do not fear!
I honestly don't know the first thing about these benzodiazepines, yet there are so very many of them. I'm just grateful they helped me take the bus back then, and delivered me from the invisible burden of prying eyes and relentless city hustle – help me find some peace quietness of mind in unfavorable circumstances.
They can.. poke an inert soul, stuck in a void or undesirable state. And they are manifold, m.in.
Also 🍄 mushrooms of course, I suppose, but too much botany (like Salvia divinorum, let alone deliriant Datura) gets too murky for me. Not for me..
..as aren't the ↑ stimulants (cocaine, speed, amphed up hyper hyper), not by accident conspicuously absent on this here page. As is ⇹ ethanol, dansen en pintjes drinken. 🍺
Czyli tetrahydrocannabinol – cannabis, quoi. We have good reason to assume Shakespeare (and seriously even Jesus 🫢) got ha' every once in a while.
Czyli U-47700.
Opioids bring misery and bliss. And bliss. Wars have been fought over, and many a suicide committed with them. Big pharma sucked out most of the joy to turn it into a profit, and left the popular imagination with heroin, and the richer populace with an OxyContin problem. The poorer people with cold fentanyl to die for..
And the law-abiding, amateur µ-suckers — Mytragina speciosa. Kratom, homeopathic heroin! as it were.
But hmh — rich, poor, a tangent coming up here. The <1% will take without morals, rob you with a smile, and kill without remorse. Many of them perhaps oblivious of it — it doesn't take a genius to own a yacht, and no IQ test is required to party on one with an empty mind full of coke — but most all of them are despicable egos morbidly high on their own gases. Life sneakily imitates art again, denn daß Narrenschyff segelt weiter (1494/281).
You can learn all about the chemicals, if you want: on Wikipedia aplenty, whither I copiously link by default, but just as valuable knowledge can be found, in different manners of abundancy, at comprehensive PsychonautWiki and venerable Erowid. And how could I bring this page to a close without a few words of praise and respect for the late Alexander Shulgin, whom we owe thanks for the rediscovery of MDMA and authoring PiHKAL & TiHKAL. Man lived a long life, doubtlessly not without many frustrating hurdles and much unpleasantness, charting the unknown, sharing the wisdom of much laborious though at least, presumably, oftentimes just as much fun work.