Carl-Richard

Exploring the effects of an unbalanced neurochemistry might be good once in a while, but you'll have withdrawals when you stop taking it. At least that is what happened when I took 5HTP the day before an oral exam. I had really bad anxiety. 5HTP is just one step further in the serotonin synthesis process than tryptophan, so I bet it's pretty much the same.

Whether it's some kind of supernatural force or not is up to you to decide. If you're interested in a more rational explanation, it's the case that mentally orienting yourself towards a goal will increase the chances of you doing the right things for that goal to become a reality. It's kinda like "duh", but it's easy to underestimate the power of goals and how they shape your mind.

OMG I just discovered The Mars Volta. It's like everything I like mixed into one thing

Any peak experiences? Like a state of no-mind, cessation of all physical sensations, loss of space and time, anything of that sort?

You think?

Have you had nondual mystical experiences?

I'll just say there is a difference between momentarily lifting the veil of the personal self and glimpsing the transpersonal self, and having the delusion that the weatherman on the TV is sending you personalized messages, persistent persecutory auditory hallucinations, problems thinking using linear logic, and believing that you're a famous person who will revolutionize some important field of study etc.

I meant talking about those types of experiences to people who work in a mental institution.

If you're talking about extraordinary experiences while in a mental institution, that is an easy conclusion to draw for the people you're talking to. It's also true that most psychiatrists or nurses are not trained in making that distinction, which goes back to the practical problem solving approach of psychiatry: if you get hospitalized, there is most likely a pathological reason for that, and that is why the psychiatrist will easily opt for a pathological diagnosis. That said, if you talk to people who study the difference between extraordinary experiences and psychosis, they will emphasize the fact that mystical experiences are largely positive in nature, leading to deeper insight and clarity of mind (and you will most likely not get involuntarily hospitalized, but you might choose to), while psychotic experiences are largely distressing, confusing, unwanted etc. (and you'll often get involuntarily hospitalized).

Have you had experiences with schizophrenia? Mystical experiences and psychotic experiences are not the same. Psychotic experiences may have mystical elements, and mystical experiences may have psychotic elements, but that is about it.

It's one of the first things you learn as an undergrad in psychology or psychiatry (the limitations of psychiatric diagnoses, what they're really for etc.).

It seems like you're treating psychiatry as being in the business of ontological truth claims ("I don't care about practical or usefulness, I only care about what is true"). Psychiatry is in the business of practical problem solving; diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Yes, it's true that laymen like to take a naive realist interpretation of what are intended to be pragmatic tools (they think diagnoses are real things), but psychiatrists don't do that.

Yes. Homosexuality went against the behavioral expectations of society for a long time. Society validates it by definition. You're acting like there is this objective measurement. There is no such thing. You said it's a "made-up thing by modern society" in order to dismiss it by some objective criteria, but the only thing you did was affirm its definition. Then why are you talking about psychiatry? You might want to rewatch the JP video you linked.

It's a wide definition which works for this argument. Functionality and distress are behaviors. I said "a certain expectation", so not all behaviors.

@Razard86 A lot of this boils down to, again, your style of communicating (which I've commented on before), which is to deconstruct concepts as a way to make a point, rather than keeping the concepts intact while establishing degrees of nuance. Mental illness is something society labels you with when you fall outside certain behavioral expectations. Kids who have trouble paying attention in school can get slapped with the ADHD label. People who, in your framing, have trouble overcoming fears, can get slapped with the depressive or psychotic labels. You can comment on whether these labels reflect something wrong with society (e.g. the school system), rather than the people, without abandoning mental illness as a concept. The concept exists, the diagnoses exist; the question is just about to which degree they're useful or not.

What about schizophrenia?

Do you feel like they're forcing you?

@Razard86 @Kksd74628 The disagreements around meditation vs. psychedelics is whether it leads to enlightenment or not, not whether it's beneficial.

Bahahaha

I think everybody knows about that lesson to some degree. In my experience, it's too strong to make me want to eat anything that deviates from that impulse, and I think everybody can discover that potential within themselves.

49:43 - 58:20

Those are mostly New Age spirituality things. What about good old self-development? Max out all the Maslowian levels.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CeHAOEQsFAA/ The graphic isn't from a scientific study. It was merely improvised based on a few sentences in a Dutch Vice article. The original thread should've been locked for being a misleading low quality post

@Opulence ???

Yeah, I forgot to add that nature hikes should ideally happen in an area you're familiar with. Don't just go into some random patch of forest unless you have experience doing that. Stick to hiking trails that are not too busy.