I've been prescribed adderall. It gave me energy, it gave me focus. It became easier to respond to external requirements. I'd get that paper done, I'd do the extra work. Boring routine activities were just as boring and I felt just as disconnected from them as before, but I could endure them longer. Socially, I would become more talkative, more prone to getting caught up in unexpectedly long conversation, but still ineffective at achieving my social goals.
I've taken the occasional xanax, I've used some phenibut, I tried kava kava once, and of course I've consumed alcohol. All of those substances had slightly different effects, but none of them would really ring a bell with me. Essentially, they lowered my inhibitions to the point where I could act toward strangers more like how I would act toward my friends. So maybe I'd feel less awkward about the conversation drifting off, long silences, and self-disclosure, and I'd approach people more readily as I would with friends. Still, something is missing.
I don't really know what the best label for my 'condition' might be. The disorganization, chronic tardiness, underachievement and difficulty following instructions might suggest ADHD. The oversleeping, indecision, feeling that life is mostly boring and bland, and lack of strong emotions might suggest depression. The awkward presentation, inconsistent eye contact, not having anything to say and a proven difficulty in making human connection might suggest anxiety.
But for me, personally, there seems to only be one problem: lack of feeling of purpose, structure, meaning.
That something can be temporarily fixed by any psychedelic. 25-I, LSD, DMT, shrooms, LSA. It's not perfect. Especially when I took a plant form rather than a purified form. I sometimes ended up experiencing nausea, stomach pain, mouth dryness and vasoconstriction that would significantly color the experience. I also don't get the amphetamine level of motivation. I would not persist at something unpleasant for as long as I would on adderall and it would not be easy for me to focus on something like a paper for 2 hours straight. The improvement I experience is unlike what any other class of substance provides but happens to be the most valuable one for me.
Essentially, when I take a psychedelic, life just "makes sense" for a few hours. Not in a spiritual way. I don't talk to god. I don't contemplate how "everything is a fractal". It just becomes clear what to do next. If I go to a party having ingested a moderate amount of psychedelic, I won't be at my smoothest. Better than 'sober' because I will at least have things to say and I'll make good eye contact, but experience shows that I've come across as nervous and eccentric to others on psychedelics. Still, it's a small price to pay for what I get. I can finally think about what I am doing in real time. You know, I talk to a girl and there is just this sense of "yep, the greeting was decent, we've talked long enough, I should suggest a change of activities". It doesn't matter that our conversation was generic and it doesn't matter if I don't suggest a cool activity because higher level things like transitioning at the right time matter more than getting all the details just right. Or "this guy I'm talking to, he looks like he knows people, I should ask him about his freshman year to possibly get on the topic of what social organizations he is in". It might not work how I think, but at least I have a thought in real time! Usually, all my clever thoughts are never accessible to me in the moment, I always just sort of go by inertia. Normally, I'd be talking to you because I was talking to you a moment ago and our subject will be whatever we talking about a moment before until it magically changes and I simply have no goal for the conversation.
Even academically psychedelics help. Finally, there is a sense of 'good enough'. It becomes possible to write an essay that is 'good enough' by my own judgment. Not that I have an inferiority complex about my writing, but my work always feels incomplete even if my thoughts seem complete. With psychedelics, there is finally a sense of "hey, you know what the question asked, you know you are confident in your answer, you know that your essay communicates your answer, therefore you should be confident that your essay is complete". It's that third step, (feeling that my essay is a pretty good reflection of what I think) that only works for me when I take psychedelics.
But this is an everyday problem. Psychedelics a legally risky and inconsistent solution to the problem. The relief is unfortunately limited mainly to the 4-12 hours that a psychedelic might last. I might feel great the next day, but I'd be mostly back to my former capabilities. So with tolerance to take into account, I can only feel in full control of my life 15% of the time. Is there a nootropic stack that can get me there on a more consistent basis? I'm not one to think that psychedelics are magical substances created by aliens to enlighten humanity. They are chemicals like everything else. I don't feel like I really need to intensely enjoy music or feel pleasant vibrations in my whole body. I just want that feeling of purpose and agency. It seems their main activity is on 5HT2A receptors. What does this mean? How can a 5HT2A agonist do for me what months of hard work, adderall, and good advice cannot? No nootropic that I've tried has been able to do this for me on its own. Not piracetam, not phenylpiracetam (thought it did make the world feel more real!), not L-theanine, not PRL-8-53.
Edited by burnlife, 24 March 2015 - 01:14 AM.
