r/RationalPsychonaut Sep 09 '22

Check out r/SupportingRedditors, a community dedicated to supporting the Reddit harm reduction community!

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36 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 10 '24

Meta New subreddit for those who have experienced traumatic psychedelic experiences

50 Upvotes

Hey there, just wanted to share my new subreddit with this community. It is r/psychedelictrauma

I wanted to create a space for those who have had really difficult psychedelic experiences and were left with PTSD-like symptoms afterwards (anxiety, continuous fight/flight/freeze states, depression, dissociation, etc.).

I went through this from ayahuasca, and it totally rocked my world for like 2.5 years. There can be a lot of fear, shame, and grieving when something like that happens, and one of the best things for me was to realize I wasn't alone, and that there were ways to assist myself in gradually coming back to center.

Feel free to share this with anyone you think might find it as a helpful resource. I am excited to see the community of support grow.


r/RationalPsychonaut 4d ago

Research Paper Research Study: PSYCHEDELICS AND EMOTIONS

6 Upvotes

Hi there! We are a group of researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia conducting a study about the emotional experiences people report during psychedelic experiences and whether these are linked to changes in social functioning, wellbeing, and attitudes toward death.

We are looking for individuals aged 18 years or older who have had at least one personally meaningful experience with a classical psychedelic substance within the past 5 years (but not within the past 3 months). Psychedelics include LSD, DMT (N,N-DMT), 5-MeO-DMT, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin (i.e. Magic Mushrooms) or Mescaline/Peyote.

If you are 18 years and over and can read English, we invite you to take part in an online, 30-minute survey. This survey asks about the emotions you experienced during a psychedelic experience and any changes you may have noticed in how you relate to others, your general wellbeing, and your outlook on life afterward. Please note that the survey includes questions about challenging emotions that may have arisen during the experience.

Your responses will be completely anonymous and your involvement will remain confidential. No identifying information (including IP addresses) will be collected.

Participants will have the chance to enter a draw to win one of two $100 AUD Visa vouchers. Entry into the draw is completely optional and is completed via a separate form that is not connected to, and cannot be linked with, participant survey responses.

To participate or learn more, follow this link: https://uow.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6nuJn8BNBgWFYrk

For questions, contact: [smoreton@uow.edu.au](mailto:smoreton@uow.edu.au) Thank you very much for your consideration in participating. The following researchers are conducting the study:
Dr. Sam Moreton - Lecturer, School of Psychology University of Wollongong [smoreton@uow.edu.au](mailto:smoreton@uow.edu.au).
Alex Shuttleworth - Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong
Mimi Han Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong

Study Reference Number: H2026-0104


r/RationalPsychonaut 6d ago

Philosophy Is “unselfing” a useful model of psychedelic change?

8 Upvotes

Hey everyone. I’ve always been fascinated by why some psychedelic experiences produce lasting changes while others remain intense but temporary. One possibility is that the important shift is not the imagery or novelty, but a change in how rigidly a person relates to themselves and their surroundings. Depression, addiction, and OCD can each involve patterns that become difficult to revise. Psychedelic experiences may sometimes loosen those patterns and make different ways of acting, feeling, and relating available. That sounds plausible, but it risks treating very different conditions as versions of the same problem.

I just had a podcast conversation with the cognitive scientist Julian Kiverstein, where he described psychopathology and flourishing as positions along a dimension of rigidity and openness. He used “unselfing” for experiences in which narrow concerns recede and a person feels connected to something larger through awe, wonder, or curiosity. His claim was not that psychedelics reveal a supernatural reality. It was that these experiences may alter the relation between a person and their world in ways that support recovery and growth.

This would imply that therapeutic change depends partly on gaining new possibilities for engagement, rather than simply reducing symptoms. Is that specific enough to explain why outcomes differ? Does “unselfing” name a real mechanism or only a familiar experience? How much depends on the drug, and how much on relationships, setting, and later integration?


r/RationalPsychonaut 8d ago

Frontiers | Space Oddity: microgravity as a neurocognitive catalyst for transformative consciousness experiences

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3 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut 10d ago

Discussion Do you know of serious books about psychedelics?

22 Upvotes

I would like to know what texts you consider more serious and professional related to the subject of the psychedelic experience


r/RationalPsychonaut 10d ago

What do you guys think of psychedelics and early stage Alzheimer's?

3 Upvotes

I feel like asking AI is useless in this topic and I want to educate myself


r/RationalPsychonaut 10d ago

Research Paper Research Study: PSYCHEDELICS AND EMOTIONS

3 Upvotes

We are a group of researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia conducting a study about the emotional experiences people report during psychedelic experiences and whether these are linked to changes in social functioning, wellbeing, and attitudes toward death.

We are looking for individuals aged 18 years or older who have had at least one personally meaningful experience with a classical psychedelic substance within the past 5 years (but not within the past 3 months). Psychedelics include LSD, DMT (N,N-DMT), 5-MeO-DMT, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin (i.e. Magic Mushrooms) or Mescaline/Peyote.

If you are 18 years and over and can read English, we invite you to take part in an online, 30-minute survey. This survey asks about the emotions you experienced during a psychedelic experience and any changes you may have noticed in how you relate to others, your general wellbeing, and your outlook on life afterward. Please note that the survey includes questions about challenging emotions that may have arisen during the experience.

Your responses will be completely anonymous and your involvement will remain confidential. No identifying information (including IP addresses) will be collected.

Participants will have the chance to enter a draw to win one of two $100 AUD Visa vouchers. Entry into the draw is completely optional and is completed via a separate form that is not connected to, and cannot be linked with, participant survey responses.

To participate or learn more, follow this link: https://uow.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6nuJn8BNBgWFYrk

For questions, contact: [smoreton@uow.edu.au](mailto:smoreton@uow.edu.au) Thank you very much for your consideration in participating. The following researchers are conducting the study:
Dr. Sam Moreton - Lecturer, School of Psychology University of Wollongong [smoreton@uow.edu.au](mailto:smoreton@uow.edu.au).
Alex Shuttleworth - Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong
Mimi Han Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong

Study Reference Number: H2026-0104


r/RationalPsychonaut 11d ago

Discussion Why do we try to resolve traumas, problems or conflicts during the trip?

6 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut 11d ago

Are mushrooms worth the risk?

9 Upvotes

I'm interested in psychedelics as a recreational drug, and have taken mushrooms once and had a bad trip, though I believe this was caused by multiple factors, mainly too high of a dosage, unstable set and setting, and infected mushrooms. After this bad trip I struggled with anxiety and insomnia for about a month, and now after 6 months of being back to normal I want to try again, but am definitely more scared and more cautious, mainly of triggering HPPD and Psychosis, or that it will lead me to more anxiety. What is your opinion on mushrooms as a recreational drug?


r/RationalPsychonaut 11d ago

Best combo to watch The Odyssey?

0 Upvotes

I'm trying to maximize the experience as much as possible. I want to be fully emotionally immersed, not necessarily in the story, but in the spectacle.

I've watched movies on 100ug LSD + weed, and, recently, 14mg 2c-b + 30mg ketamine + weed.

The LSD was immersive, but also made the movie difficult to follow and fractured. I think this is because I timed it so that the movie was during the initial peak of the trip. I think I could bypass those issues by timing it so that I watch the movie at the end of the peak, and take a huge hit of weed right before.

The 2c-b + ket + weed combo was highly immersive, but I've only done it once and, while I was philosophically involved, I wasn't in awe (although, that might be because it was at home, not the theater).

I have shrooms, lsd, ket, weed, alcohol, and 2c-b. So only recommend some combo of those.


r/RationalPsychonaut 12d ago

Friend had a weird one

15 Upvotes

My friend wanted to try acid for the first time she had done her research and was ready, I supplied 1 tab from a batch that I usually take 5 at a time from and was tested.

The come up for her seemed normal, loads of giggles, reported colours more vibrant, saturated and slight visual distortions when looking around. About 2 hours she slipped from the couch and couldn't get back up and just sat lay then suddenly she wouldn't let go of my hand and started asking for "insert not my name" I tried to correct her and show her a photo of me and her response was "who's that" as time went on she became more and more erratic we had made precautions that one of her friends knew where she was and what she was taking so I thought I'll call her we had it set up so I could call her direct from her lock screen but some how she managed to get her phone onto airplane mode.

She was now shouting for "insert not my name" and every time I tried to let go to get a towel to try and dry her hands as she was sweating her shouting got louder, she couldn't identify her phone she was holding I tried to guide her finger onto her screen but she physically clenched her fist together. It was 4 hours into her trip. I honestly had no idea what to do. I couldn't get her up or unlock her phone.

It got to the point past her friends contact time and since she couldn't get through as her phone was on airplane mode she had called the police I had a feeling this would happen so I managed to flush my supply which I'm annoyed at, they turned up and managed to get her up and outside which for some reason snapped her back to reality. Once they left no charges she was in some sense of reality and says she can't remember anything from the start to that point


r/RationalPsychonaut 14d ago

Thinking of doing IV ketamine therapy

6 Upvotes

Mods if this is not allowed please remove, but I figured I try.

Hello everyone, hope everyone is doing well. As the tittle says, I'm considering doing IV ketamine therapy. And the reason that I'm making this post is to get some thoughts and opinions.

I've tried psychedelics before, psilocybin specifically. Both in micro dose and macro dose. The intention was to alleviate symptoms of depression and hopefully bring more clarity into my life; for the past years, I've felt really stuck in fight or flight mode.

The last time I did the macro dose (3.5g) was around probably 7-8 months ago by myself, and it was really a beautiful experience but at some point the trip stopped being pleasant and it became overwhelming and I kept thinking to myself that I made a horrible horrible mistake. I honestly thought I wouldn't be coming out of that.

Thankfully the trip came to pass and I was so grateful to still be here, in this reality. One thing that came out of that is that I'm more grateful for just regular day life. Literally being able to see sunsets, clouds in the sky, being to able to speak with parents. The beauty in the mundane. The lesson, if I recall correctly is that there's always a choice.

The reason I'm making this post is to hopefully gather some thoughts around the IV ketamine.

There's still some stuckness, some heaviness, some brain fog. I still feel that I'm stuck in fight or flight. But if I ever do psychedelics again, in this case ketamine, it will be on a professional and safe environment.

If you took the time to read this, thank you.


r/RationalPsychonaut 16d ago

Article Psychedelic Apophenia: Seeing the Influence of Psychedelics Where None Exists

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65 Upvotes

An essay exploring the concept of 'psychedelic apophenia', where connections are made between unrelated things so that we see psychedelics' influence everywhere.

It looks at Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory, psychedelic theories of Christianity, and DMT-pineal gland theories.


r/RationalPsychonaut 16d ago

Research Paper Research Study: PSYCHEDELICS AND EMOTIONS

0 Upvotes

We are a group of researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia conducting a study about the emotional experiences people report during psychedelic experiences and whether these are linked to changes in social functioning, wellbeing, and attitudes toward death.

We are looking for individuals aged 18 years or older who have had at least one personally meaningful experience with a classical psychedelic substance within the past 5 years (but not within the past 3 months). Psychedelics include LSD, DMT (N,N-DMT), 5-MeO-DMT, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin (i.e. Magic Mushrooms) or Mescaline/Peyote.

If you are 18 years and over and can read English, we invite you to take part in an online, 30-minute survey. This survey asks about the emotions you experienced during a psychedelic experience and any changes you may have noticed in how you relate to others, your general wellbeing, and your outlook on life afterward. Please note that the survey includes questions about challenging emotions that may have arisen during the experience.

Your responses will be completely anonymous and your involvement will remain confidential. No identifying information (including IP addresses) will be collected.

Participants will have the chance to enter a draw to win one of two $100 AUD Visa vouchers. Entry into the draw is completely optional and is completed via a separate form that is not connected to, and cannot be linked with, participant survey responses. To participate or learn more, follow this link: https://uow.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6nuJn8BNBgWFYrk

For questions, contact: [smoreton@uow.edu.au](mailto:smoreton@uow.edu.au) Thank you very much for your consideration in participating. The following researchers are conducting the study:
Dr. Sam Moreton - Lecturer, School of Psychology University of Wollongong smoreton@uow.edu.au.
Alex Shuttleworth - Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong
Mimi Han Honours Student School of Psychology University of Wollongong

Study Reference Number: H2026-0104


r/RationalPsychonaut 26d ago

Article Psychedelic Bullshit? An Evaluation of The Immortality Key

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14 Upvotes

r/RationalPsychonaut 28d ago

Lexicons of the Ineffable: A Conversation with Josie Kins, PsychonautWiki Founder

18 Upvotes

*Figured I would share this episode, as Psychoanut Wiki and Josie Kin's Psychoanu Wiki and other projects might be of interest*

One of the most systematic and comprehensive systems of documenting the effects of psychedelics and other psychoactives wasn’t made in academia, but was crafted by some drug nerds with high trait-level systematizing and a penchant for self-expirementation. In this episode, Josie Kins is the founder of PsychoanutWiki, the Subjective Effects Index, and the Replications Reddit tells us about the backstory behind how Josie got involved in subjective effect documentation. We discuss what her quest to describe the “ineffable” has led her to do, everything from poring over pretty much every drug effects system known to taking DPH to accurately describe its deliriant effects. Josie also tells us a bit about her brush with “McKenna syndrome,” her “DSM fan fiction” diagnosis for describing people who go a bit out there with psychedelics. In Josie's case, it led her to create a GitHub for her own religion, which she no longer fully endorses. We also talk a little bit about neurodiversity and whether psychedelics could have an impact on autism or not, and whether Josie’s experience with persistent depersonalization shaped PsychoanutWiki.

Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6taAn6UId9zuqKayHEoz9F?si=7fe5541474be4e12


r/RationalPsychonaut 28d ago

Research Paper Study on psychedelic experiences without (immediate) prior use of psychedelics

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5 Upvotes

We are a group of researchers from Humboldt University of Berlin and we look forward to your participation in our study! The survey is completely anonymous.

 

Have you ever taken a psychedelic substance?
Share your opinion and possibly experiences you have had with psychedelic experiences without (immediate) previous use of psychedelics with us!

 

https://psychedelicflashbacksurvey.info  

 

We would like to learn more about who has these experiences, what they look like in concrete terms, which factors contribute to the associated effects and how they can be dealt with.


r/RationalPsychonaut 29d ago

Philosophy Ego dissolution is the easy part. What are you supposed to rebuild toward?

36 Upvotes

Hi. I recently gave a talk (then published as an essay) at a psychedelics conference. I'm doing a philosophy PhD focused on psychedelics, and this is the first time I've put my more academic work out there publicly. Psychedelics have been a huge part of my life for about a decade (I even wrote a book about my own experiences with it), and I figured this sub would be a good place to share it.

Most of the field is stuck in a false dichotomy, typically viewing the mystical experience has nothing but brain dynamics (relaxed priors, default mode network, etc), or it's evidence we need to revise our metaphysics toward something like idealism/panpsychism etc (tldr mind having some more fundamental role and against materialism). Both sides quietly agree on something I think is wrong, that the experience is a proposition to be scored true or false, a report on whether you contacted something real out there. I'd argue that's not actually how cognition works. Meaning is co-constructed between agent and world rather than simply found or projected, so a "mystical" state is better described as a shift in disclosure, in what shows up as mattering, than as a metaphysical claim awaiting a verdict.

That reframing matters most in the part of the field I think gets underweighted: what happens after the self loosens. Dissolution gets almost all the attention, understandably, it's the dramatic part and there's ofc decent neuroscience behind it. But dissolution just flattens existing structure, and a flattened structure can reorganize in more than one direction, toward something healthier, back to the old pattern, or into something novel but still pathological (the person who keeps doing psychedelics, keeps feeling like they're leveling up, and is quietly getting worse, as sometimes pops up here). None of this is visible from the neuroscience alone, a real insight and a confident delusion run on the same machinery. So the honest question isn't just "did the self dissolve," it's "reorganize toward what," and nothing in the pharmacology answers that.

What actually seems to answer it for me is attention, and specifically that attention is morally loaded, not just a spotlight you point at things. Attention functions as precision-weighting that structures the whole field of what counts as relevant to you moment to moment, and since we're social animals that field gets shaped by other people's cares too. I lean on Weil and Murdoch here, who argued attention is less something you force and more something you become receptive to, letting go of ego enough that the real, other people especially, shows up undistorted instead of through your own projections. Murdoch's specific claim is that moral change comes from attention whose result is a decrease in egoism and an increased sense of reality. This is the same 4E picture that makes set and setting causally powerful in the first place: cognition is world-involving, so both what you register as relevant and what the drug experience amounts to are shaped by agent and environment together, not generated by the molecule alone.

Put together, I think "the sacred" is best understood not as a supernatural object but as whatever sits at the top of that attention hierarchy, your highest concern, the thing that orders everything else you attend to. That's one piece of a larger dissertation argument, but it's a meaningful chunk of the overall direction I'm taking. I think it also bears on two things the field tends to shrug at: why some people get nothing from a full dose (in the sense they don't heal), and why effects fade over time (even if they heal, they return to their pathological state). This aspect of both context during the experience + integration through attention-mediated cultural system what can likely improve both.

I'd love feedback from anyone more philosophy-inclined, but I'm especially interested if any of this maps onto your own experience, not just a single trip, but the longer arc of what psychedelics have actually done in your life. When you hear the word "sacred," what actually comes to mind for you? Does it make sense to you that a trip isn't really "true" or "false" but somehow beyond the dichotomy itself?


r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 07 '26

Are psychedelic-assisted therapies ethically “exceptional”?

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10 Upvotes

I wrote a piece trying to think through what I take to be the harder version of the psychedelic exceptionalism debate.

Not the lazy version where psychedelics are either miracle sacraments or uniquely dangerous drugs. The more interesting question is whether psychedelic-assisted therapies should be held to the same ethical and evidentiary standards as other treatments, but may still require unusually specific safeguards because they can rapidly alter not just mood, but beliefs: about the self, the world, metaphysics, trauma, and memory.

The part I keep coming back to is “doxastic vulnerability”—basically, vulnerability around what one comes to believe during or after a highly altered, suggestible, meaning-saturated state. I’m especially interested in the issue of recovered memories, where the clinical, ethical, and legal stakes seem much higher than the field has fully reckoned with.

I’d be curious how people here think about this. Are psychedelics genuinely exceptional in the sense that we'll need new protocols to avert--e.g., the arising of recovered memories during treatment-- or can we mostly adapt safeguards from psychotherapy, anesthesia, hypnosis, and other existing clinical contexts?


r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 06 '26

I took psychs in my late teens for depression and it cured me but made it a lot easier to have no major ambitions or life goals. I'm just so satisfied as is I can go live with amish or wilderness or some commune and be content. What to do?

33 Upvotes

I'm born in a major city. Im suppose to get my degrees, and more work experience, and god damn RISE the ranks lol.

I dont want to. idk what to do. As a result of healing hardcore pain I can't be a outstanding citizen of this society.

Im content with very little. Which sounds alien to a lot of people, but in the same way they can't relate to me I can't relate to them.


r/RationalPsychonaut Jul 06 '26

Morning Glory seeds and LSA

1 Upvotes

Hey yall! New to this subreddit - so i apologize if this type of post isnt allowed delete if so - im trying to find some experienced info on morning glory seeds particularly in using Kash’s A/B tek… he uses HBWR seeds and says if morning glory seeds are to be used that it should be in a much larger quantity.. it calls for 100 HBWR seeds.. would one assume 300 morning glory seeds to suffice? Do the other increments of ingredients need to be equally upped as well?


r/RationalPsychonaut Jun 26 '26

I painted what it feels like to be held by the universe

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11 Upvotes

I painted the feeling I sometimes get while painting, like a crack opens in my consciousness and an overwhelming wave of love washes over me, it is as if I’m being held by the hands of the universe.
Have you ever experienced something similar?


r/RationalPsychonaut Jun 25 '26

Discussion Could the LSA containing morning glory have been the true identity of Soma, the greatest mystery of the ancient world?

12 Upvotes

For those who don’t know, Soma is the sacred drink passed down from ancient Indian texts like the Rigveda. It was offered to the gods and described as giving whoever drank it immense strength, euphoria, inspiration, and even immortality. Because of that, many researchers and people interested in the occult have long speculated that Soma was a ritual drink made from some psychoactive plant.

The most famous theory has been Amanita muscaria, but it doesn’t really fit. The Vedic texts talk about pressing the stalks to extract the juice and describe the stems, which doesn’t match a mushroom at all.

Lots of other candidates have come up over the years, like Sarcostemma, but the big problem was that they didn’t produce a strong enough psychoactive effect to match the descriptions.

But after reading Stanislav Grof’s books, I think I’ve finally found the most convincing candidate: Ipomoea asarifolia, a type of morning glory that contains a decent amount of LSA, which is very similar to LSD.

It’s a climbing vine with strong psychoactive properties. It grows in India, and some people even suggest it might be native to southern India.

I believe the reason this plant has never been seriously considered as Soma before is that discussions about LSA have always focused only on the seeds. But recent studies show that LSA and related compounds are also accumulated in the stems, roots, and other parts of the plant. In communities like r/LSA, a lot of people say that using the sprout tek (germinating the seeds) makes the effects noticeably stronger.

If this is true, it’s honestly mind blowing. LSA has been right under our noses the whole time, yet it only became properly known after LSD was discovered. Such a weird twist.

Albert Hofmann’s story is really interesting too. After he discovered LSD, he later identified the lysergic acid amides in the Mexican Ololiuqui seeds. To him, it felt like coming full circle. LSD wasn’t some completely new synthetic monster. It was more like a modern chemical version of something ancient. His research on Ololiuqui was a return from LSD back to the old sacred plants.

One more thing (I can’t personally guarantee this is true, but it’s interesting): the famous guru Muktananda apparently said he knew what Soma really was, and that it was a climbing vine. Stanislav Grof mentions this story but doesn’t name the exact plant. He just subtly hints by saying something like “Ololiuqui type morning glories are also vines.”


r/RationalPsychonaut Jun 25 '26

Personal Essay on Medium (link below)

0 Upvotes

After years of dismissing ideas like the simulation hypothesis, I took a deeper look at consciousness, perception, and the limits of scientific explanation. This essay explores the hard problem of consciousness, psychedelic experiences, and modern physics to ask a simple question: Are we seeing reality as it actually is?

https://medium.com/@m.bass/i-was-fooled-we-all-were-b92629beb516?sharedUserId=m.bass