have any sort of enhanced perception presumably resulting from psychedelic experimentation?

For example, I could never look at sunlight in the same way after the first shroom experience, and now after a few travels with lucy, the ocean/lakes/rivers, or the sunset don't look quite the same. The blue and orange are more saturated, more alive.

It doesn't bother me, quite the contrary.. I find it marvellous (admittedly somewhat distracting while riding the bike though ). Am more than happy to just sit there and enjoy for hours.. psychedelic-unware friends comment that I seem more "spaced out", but I don't feel that way at all.. quite the opposite, actually.

I think that it's just wonder with a tinge of appreciation, but I understand how it may look from the outside.. especially if the person doing the judging hasn't felt any wonder since perhaps they were a child..

It can't be residual traces of lucy in my system, the last trip was weeks ago.. shrooms were over 5 months ago.

Do you get the same? Perhaps you'd like to come forward with an explanation?

I can certainly relate. The world has become much more vivid and more gloriously detailed than the way I used to perceive it before my experiments with acid and DMT. I remember before I smoked any weed, I recall thinking that stoners looked spaced out. It was only once I started smoking that I realized they're not zoned out, they're just not focused on what you're focusing on. A lot of times I hear people say that cannabis is a detriment to attention, but it doesn't have to be the case, and many times it's not. Just because people aren't focusing on what they think is the appropriate focal point, doesn't mean another person isn't holding a focused stream of concentration that they determine happens to be more beneficial for them at the time. Point is, don't worry what other people think about what's going on in your head.

I doubt that the phenomena of long-term changed perception is a result of residual traces of psychedelics in the body. Part of it is that you're reconfiguring and establishing new neural connections. It's sort of like you're quite literally learning your world around you and the details and patterns in what used to seem like chaos. Now that your brain has made observations and connections in regards to certain details, it can now begin to consciously recognize them in the environment. Another part of it stems from a similar mechanism as that of post-traumatic stress disorder. That mechanism dictates that stimuli experienced in a certain mind state can return you to that mind state with repeated exposure. So in other words if you watch a sun set while tripping, the next time you see a sun set, that can be enough to revert back partially to that mind set. It can be more subtle than the whole sunset. Perhaps the way the sun illuminated the concrete or dirt, or trees left a strong impression on you while you were tripping, and upon illuminating the concrete (or whatever) similarly, it can also create small flash backs. They're nothing to be worried about.

Colors, while sober, for me are also much brighter since the start of my psychedelic journeys. Smoking weed can be positively trippy now...

never long term but i have always always been spaced out, i actually had a teacher at school accuse me of drug use because of it when i had never touched such a substance other than alcohol in my life.

really i just zone out and think about things, i could of been sat there in class day dreaming and think to myself, where do blackboards come from? who makes them? what must it be like to make blackboards for a living? and in no time at all im wondering what is at the edge of the universe? is there an infinite wall? would you be able to drill into it and make the universe larger?

with mushrooms occasionally after a strong trip i will have several days where i will feel different about things, just looking at grass growing can make me feel happy to be alive and i can so easily get lost in music but after a couple of days im back to normal, as far as i know i have no lasting effects or changes from using any psy other than like above i get quite decent open eye visuals when i smoke which i dont complain about.

I have been cathing trails since the first time I took lsd at the ripe ol age of 15. 15 years later and I still notice them in a normal state of conciousness. Smoking bud has a surprisingly psychedelic quality to it as well. I tend to agree with Global, in that by using psyches, you create ne pathways in the brain which were not always there. These days, I seem to have the ability to keep one foot in this world and one foot in the other at almost all times, which I consider to be a beautiful gift. I've heard it said that the visuals from aya are not true hallucinations, because what you are seeing is very real - a glimpse of what one normally does not see. Perhaps this why people see very similar things on their journey's.

Indeed.



Ah, it's not worry per se.. I've sort of always been the odd one out, strange interests et cetera, all my friends are used to that. But even the ones that smoke just weed can't seem to understand why I'm doing these "harder drugs". They're all "open minded", but only a couple are willing to take the N hours necessary to find out for themselves.. I don't feel superior or anything for having had the experience, of course.. (if anything I wish they could see/feel what I did!), it's just that I realize I'm changing.. perhaps too much to be able to relate after a while.



I agree, this is my interpretation too. The "doors of perception" framework/model fits nicely with my personal experience.



I think that PTSD would apply only to extremely negative mental states and would manifest when a trigger is present in the environment (imo flashbacks are nothing but this). For the positive experiences, I think a huge part of it is that in your mind's eye you can still see the light like during the trip. It has become part of your model of the world now, and even though it's not as strong as when tripping balls, the overlaid image in your mind's eye certainly does influence the model (what you perceive).



I know what you mean I also do that, but this is a different kind. I'm not really thinking at all (which generally is hard for me to do!), just.. being. It's beautiful, and it fully catches my attention, basically.

Of course it has probably always been this way, and lucy simply opened my eyes to it..



This is what I've heard too. I'll find out next week

PTSD is simply the negative side of the flashback coin and happens to be what psychologists stumbled across first (thanks to the wars of the 20th century), but flashbacks can act through that same mechanism, just in a (possibly) positive way. The thing about taking psychedelics is that you allow yourself to become quite impressionable and many emotions will rise and fall throughout the trip alongside stimuli in your environment. If in the case of PTSD you have distress resonating with negative stimuli, then in the case of these positive flashbacks, you have eustress resonating with positive or neutral stimuli (and there's nothing to say that flashbacks can't be more like a PTSD reaction if your trip was especially negative).

Great topic, truly great! I think a lot of people can relate to this, myself included. I have talked to quite a number of people who have had this type of transition, where after a psychedelic experience it is almost as if reality itself get's a good ol' fashion polishing.

But why is this? It surely isn't that reality has changed, and it isn't as if you suddenly get some type of improved awareness... You are still the same, but things are more vivid, more alive, more unreal than before.

I believe this is induced because of the appreciation we gain from these experiences. It's almost as if the psychedelic experience says, wake up and realize your awake. At which point the reality you are in suddenly becomes enhanced. You "wake up" and have a great appreciation for these things, it's like wow I never took the time to realize how beautiful and amazing I truly am.

You say, "it isn't as if you suddenly get some type of improved awareness", but if you were metaphorically "asleep" and now you're realizing you're awake is improved awareness. Awareness and consciousness are somewhat interchangeable terms. If psychedelics are consciousness expanders, then it seems like they should be awareness expanders as well. No?