BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Laboratory >

Half-People: Too Many Visions

  
 
delacroix
18:18 / 04.03.06
An American playwright who spent the sixties and the seventies avoiding LSD and suchlike told me that he thought people who did hallucinogens were, at the end of the day, half of what they had been.

Bizarre. But in a way I've always wondered if that was true... acid veterans, what do you think? I've done my share (which honestly wasn't that much... just my share...) and I feel fine, but I definately had some kind of a melt-down which I felt reduced me to--well, yes, a half-state, for a long period.

But I also thought at that time, well, you're either going to continue that strange journey, now that you're out in the void, or you're going to take the long walk home to Earth. I opted for the latter choice, and have never really regretted that. Is that where half people come from? Are they those who went half way?

This has been a long standing question of mine...
 
 
T Blixius
18:43 / 04.03.06
It seems to me, too broad a brush to use, painting a picture of LSD at the center of peoples problems in life, especially when many of the people risking experimentation with such a drug probably made many other questionable decisions which contributed to a breakdown to a "half-state" if I am correctly understanding what you mean.

I certainly experimented with acid a great deal, along with a great many other chemicals. I had the usual experiences with 1, 2, and 3 hits, probably about 50 to 100 micrograms as a usual dose, although many times the quality wasn't that high. I did have some luck coming into gelatin based LSD in the late nineties, which was extremely more potent/higher quality than my previous experiences. And I did have a single experience of an accidental overdose of a large quantity (about 40 to 50 doses or 5,000 µgrams or more) of liquid LSD which was extremely terrifying and also spiritual and profound as such experiences tend to be (I had the death/rebirth experience.. long enough for its own thread)

Later, I did have an emotional breakdown of sorts, although this was due more to societal pressures and my own issues that anything related to LSD, I think. But certainly, I was behaving as a "half-person" for that time. I don't think it was really related to my LSD usage, although i guess it tends to make an easy scapegoat for those who wish to avoid responsibility for themselves, so perhaps that's an answer in itself.
 
 
Lenore of Babalon
04:32 / 05.03.06
For me, I think it's quite the opposite - that I've found myself more complete in my experience because of it.

I was always fascinated by hallucinogens - did my research before ever trying them, then finally did when I was in my early 20's. Later I did a LOT more, also experimentally combining them with "smart drugs" - piracetum, hydergine, vasopressin, specifically. I did have some issues after that particular experiment, but I really do believe in hindsight that they were based on totally unrelated (but big) issues - emotional immaturity, relationship issues, life changes, death of a sibling, etc. On the other hand, focusing on neurochemistry when you should be working on maturing isn't really a productive use of time.

When I was 30 I was introduced to psilosybin, and become "Lenore - Girl Mycologist" for a year or so which meant I had plenty on hand to play with and learn from. Now 12 or 13 years later, the only time since then that I've had any was about 4 years ago when a young friend was both anxious and apprehensive on her first time and asked if I'd go with her, so I've had time to gel my thoughts about it all.

I've always been pretty introspective, and can remember first trying them out to "experience new realities" and such - trying to find god or something, I guess. I went through the phase of thinking that "true revelation" would be found like that. At some time though, it changed. "Experiencing new realities" really seemed to just be new ways of looking at the same things - just with a child's eyes again. At that point I think I realized the biggest benefit from them - that they simply helped me to remember how to really see things new each day and appreciate every single thing in life for the wonder that it is.

So yea, there are plenty of ways to bring about a change in one's perception of life, but that's the way I did. I think that it has really enhanced my life in that respect (and at the very least by providing some *hilarious* anecdotes). Singling hallucinogens out as making a person half an individual is pretty limiting, I think. I mean, you could say the same about having a few drinks, or smoking marijuana, or even taking anti-depressants or meditating - they all change your perception.

That said, anything that affects perception can certainly exacerbate already existing tendencies to dissolution, so caveat emptor in that respect.

Just my thoughts....
 
 
All Acting Regiment
05:53 / 05.03.06
"Half-people", I think, needs to be properly defined. Unti lthen I've got a vague idea about how having taken acid they've somehow crossed over to the "other side"-you know, chipped inot the world circuit, spoken to Charlie Chaplain, whatever- and thus appear less "real" on "this" side. By about 50%.
 
 
eye landed
01:25 / 06.03.06
am i meant to presume that we all start off as whole people, and then some of us halve ourselves chemically? does this have anything to do with the idea of humans or our universe as a union of two otherwise separate realms (perhaps described as mind and matter, or time and eternity), for example the intersecting branes idea in string theory? i guess i can use the phrase, 'ghost in the machine'-- is that the divide thats implied? do h*llucinogens make us aware of this duality, delude us into it, break it apart, or does the description matter less than the echatology?

functionally speaking, using hallucinogens demonstrates that foundations of experience-- the filters through which we separate it into reality and imagination-- can be manipulated throuh conscious effort. if the structures used to organize all information can be altered by the choice of an individual, that individual may be tempted to create reality willfully. on a reductionist level, if the chemistry at a neurosynapse is the most fundamental way the outside world interacts with the personal body (sensation/perception), and psychotropes alter that chemistry in a predictable way, do psychotropes a) hide parts of the world from us by occupying sites of interaction, like closing the eyes to increase the importance of sound; b) enhance our natural ability to sense by supplementing our natural chemical receptors, like looking through binoculars to make the phsyics of viewing distant light more favourable? among other possible descriptions, of course.

option 'a' can be seen as halving us. only 'half' of our usual synapse sensitivity is available to the external world, while the rest is sheltered into some kind of intrapersonal recursivity. option 'b' could be seen as halving us if you take the dependence angle. a regular user becomes less sensitive when sober, like when you take off your prescription glasses. however, the idea of 'half-people', as presented, suggests to me an a priori conceit rather than a description. in fact, it seems unnecessarily judgemental, perhaps the result of personal or cultural fears around messing with reality.
 
 
*
18:37 / 06.03.06
Does anyone else think this belongs either in Head Shop or Temple?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:03 / 06.03.06
this thread might suit the temple or headshop better.

however,

if the thread is designed to look at Scientific reactions to users of hallucinogens (or psychotropics), then maybe it has a place here.

Ken Casey (author: One flew over the cuckoos nest and main character in Tom Wolfe's Electric Acid Cool-Aid Test), while an LSD test-subject, kept trying to reveal his revelations to the scientists who were studying him. They ignored his exhortations and simply filled out whatever was attached to their clipboard.

although they were doing the research, Casey felt that himself and the other test subjects were the only ones learning anything of value.

so for the myopia of expectation.

but all in all, I suspect the Temple would get a more considered response.

--not jack
 
 
quixote
02:34 / 07.03.06
Half-people? Who is this beak and how does he come up with this nonsense?

Acid, for me, was a door of perception, a simpler way to glimpse some of what the mystics meant. I didn't take much, and I didn't take it for long, but it was an irreplaceable experience. I have no trouble understanding why peyote is a sacrament among some American Indian people.

I've also met a few people who'd definitely lost at least half their minds from overindulging in acid or mushrooms or cannabis or whatever. They struck me as people who could have accomplished the same effect on tea leaves.
 
 
cusm
00:04 / 09.03.06
Seems to me a judgemental view of the "drug burn" after effects common to the experience, which has a lot to do with being exausted on many levels. This from someone who admiditedly avoided the stuff and so demonstrates a bias against it. This "half-people" croc is just a new justification for "drugs are bad, m-kay?" and is not so much science as uneducated generalization.

*dismissing hand wave*
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
18:19 / 09.03.06
from the Temple thread on spider totems:

wicked webs we weave

LSD may make half a person, but it makes for a beautiful, flawless spider web.

draw your own conclusions.

--Not Jack
 
 
zoemancer
02:28 / 22.03.06
How exactly does one know they are a "half-person"? What exactly does that mean?
 
 
Quantum
14:04 / 22.03.06
Nothing. Like Holocaust Denial.
 
 
HCE
22:20 / 22.03.06
Ken Kesey, I believe.
 
 
the Fool
21:02 / 29.03.06
I'll just agree with the sentiments posted here. I did a huge swag of acid and the whole 90's rave thing. It was profound, I learned a great deal, but like Delacroix eventually I was drifting off into the void. I'd stopped 'learning' and was just unravelling. I wasn't even processing the stuff I'd already received. I made a decision and put my feet back on the ground. Then over the following years I digested all the information I'd downloaded from the ether.

Rather than 'halve' me, I'd say it opened up sections of myself I might never have come across otherwise. It was important in my development of identity, realising what is me, and what is put on me from outside. It spawned all my 5th dimensional thinking and analysis. Allowed a deeper understanding of dreams and permenantly altered my creativity (made positivity its source rather than negativity).
 
  
Add Your Reply