5-MeO-DMT sometimes cancels the Ebbinghaus illusion

(psychotechnology.substack.com)

27 points | by surprisetalk 2 hours ago

7 comments

  • cj 29 minutes ago
    I can also eliminate the illusion by covering up the blue circles and only looking at the orange circles.

    Maybe that's what the DMT is doing? ... perhaps it gives you tunnel vision (or tunnels your attention) such that you only "see" (or are paying attention to) the orange and blocking out the blue from your mind.

  • thewillowcat 20 minutes ago
    > QRI is a non-profit building a new science of consciousness. Its central bet is that: Consciousness is a relatively simple property of our universe — simple enough for evolution to discover it. Consciousness has useful computational properties — otherwise evolution would not have come to rely on it.

    My brother, that is philosophical position, not a "bet".

    • ricardobeat 12 minutes ago
      It is a bet if they are trying to build a business, or do research, on top of that position.
  • throwup238 42 minutes ago
    Some family recently visited from out of state and we went to Venice Beach, where there is now tons of stores selling “magic mushrooms” along the boardwalk.

    To my knowledge shrooms haven’t been legalized in California so I was curious what they sold (but not enough to try it). Turns out California state regulators have been surreptitiously testing the product from time to time and most of it is 5-MeO-DMT… and they don’t do anything about it despite being schedule I.

    Venice Beach, leading the way in “medical” research!

    • quesera 11 minutes ago
      I'd be astonished if any of what you wrote above is true.

      State regulators do not "surreptitiously test" Schedule I drugs on the public via retail sale. That's just inane.

      There is no legal classification for "magic mushrooms", but I am willing to bet that the products for sale are legal, and do not contain psilocybin or psilocin.

      They're just some unregulated compound that might have come from mushrooms, but is more likely made in a lab, and may or may not be mildly psychoactive.

      And they'll probably add some caffeine and theobromine, which boardwalk denizens will feel the effects of and not know precisely how to categorize.

      • radicaldreamer 3 minutes ago
        A lot of them contain psilocybin analogues like 4-Aco-DMT
    • radicaldreamer 4 minutes ago
      There is simply no way, since it isn’t active orally.

      Also, it is an extremely powerful psychedelic with effects nothing like psilocybin. It’s most likely 4-Aco-DMT

    • yieldcrv 29 minutes ago
      This is the second time I’ve heard that but my Google search isn’t yielding results, can you link me to the tests from California regulators?

      This article also says that 5-MeO-DMT has no psychoactive effects taken orally

      • throwup238 17 minutes ago
        I misremembered! It was 4-AcO-DMT not 5-MeO [1].

        [1] https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/NR25-024.aspx

        • ews 10 minutes ago
          they are very VERY different substances, the subjective experience of 4-AcO is actually very similar to Psilocybin.
          • radicaldreamer 2 minutes ago
            Yup, it’s a prodrug. Some people prefer it to the real thing because it has fewer GI side effects, although one study has said it has more adverse events (particularly cardiovascular stress) associated with it as well
          • Jerrrrrrrrry 6 minutes ago
            Its a prodrug. It metabolizes into the same alkalines
    • tgtweak 18 minutes ago
      Very fitting that California be at the forefront of narcotic research
      • quesera 8 minutes ago
        You are responding with affirmative condescension to a claim that is almost certainly not true.

        Apparently it feeds your biases though. Check your filters, perhaps?

      • riffic 0 minutes ago
        narcotics are not even being discussed here.
  • drcongo 1 hour ago
    > But then I notice that when I move my attention to the centre of the picture — to the space between the two groups of circles — their apparent sizes begin to rebalance[...]

    This works for me without DMT.

    • lstodd 21 minutes ago
      It also won't work on DMT. Because when you take DMT, whatever variety, you will not be able to look at a monitor, a picture or anything really. The whole concept of "looking at something" is inapplicable then.
    • superb-owl 1 hour ago
      same!
  • axblount 36 minutes ago
    It's really hard to take stuff like this seriously. 5-MeO-DMT helped you see something you knew was true? (the red circles are the same size) Shocking.

    I'm really confused by the idea that we're at some kind of evolutionary local minimum and psychidelics are going to push us out.

    I'm not up on the biology, but don't our bodies produce DMT (I realize that's not the compund from the article) and/or analogues? If psychdelics allow us to see the truth, why isn't my brain upping the dose?

    • ricardobeat 10 minutes ago
      > 5-MeO-DMT helped you see something you knew was true? (the red circles are the same size)

      You may be an exception here?

      Most humans, myself included, see the right circle as larger than the left one, regardless of how strongly you know they are the same size. Perception quirks like these are the basis for a lot of graphic design theory.

      If the drug cancels this effect, it is doing something significant to the brain.

    • lstodd 27 minutes ago
      > why isn't my brain upping the dose?

      because you are not stressing it in the right way.

      PS. idk where you got the idea of 'we're at some kind of evolutionary local minimum'. it was never about that.

      • axblount 22 minutes ago
        The article implies that our sober brains are susceptible to illusion where as the 5-MeO-DMT brain sees things more truthfully.
        • lstodd 16 minutes ago
          Hah, yes and no. What we see sober is an illusion, and etheogens just show us other illusions, so that with some effort we can cross-correlate them and hopefully arrive at The Truth. It being that there is no such thing.

          Most one can do is accept that one is limited by one's perception and then keep that in mind.

          • quesera 1 minute ago
            Well put.

            We're all blind, and that might be an elephant.

    • mistermann 29 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • functionmouse 20 minutes ago
    I mean. So would looking through cardboard tubes. In this context, cardboard tubes are at least as cool.