Are these simply spontaneous reaccessed trance states?

Which can be brought back with hypnosis or anchoring? Hm

There is no physiological basis for acid flashbacks. That is, LSD is gone from the system within days and leaves no residue or changes to the system that could account for them (other than the neurological changes associated with memory). Most humans report a variety of altered states throughout their lives - what are often reported as acid flashbacks are these normal shifts in consciousness being (falsely) attributed to a previous LSD experience. A small percentage of reported flashbacks may be attributed to memory phenomena such as anchoring.

Some measure of an LSD experience can be brought back by setting anchors during the experience and firing them off later. Some measure of the experience can be brought back by using techniques such as the "Drug of Choice Pattern" (see previous threads here). Some people have success accessing similar experiences with techniques such as holotropic breathwork or deep trance work.

I wholeheartedly agree with this theory.

Once, in high school, during a period where I did LSD every few months, I was once daydreaming about a trip I had in which we watched Dr. Strangelove and when I snapped out of it, I was experiencing the full effects of LSD for about 15 minutes before I got distracted. And that was intense before I had any idea how to build a state!

Once I learned about NLP, I promptly stopped doing drugs, because I just anchored all of the practical benefits to the states where I could use them. For me, that set involved making music, relaxing, and symbolic experiences.

What I found was that different drugs require different anchoring techniques. Firstly, the best way to anchor drugs is to elicit the state and let go of the drug, because while your on the drug, you reference to reality, in which you spend 99% of your time, is lost. That's why when you want to create a drug resource, you've got to do it psychosomatically. I taught a friend of mine, who felt he needed to "feel bliss" when he got on stage to perform, to get the audience clapping as soon as he went on stage, so that he could experience his entire end-of-show strategy to "feel bliss" right at the beginning.

And when you choose your anchors, choose wisely. You want to build a very involved anchor -- something that you have to stop everything else to do -- because that's how you do drugs. So when I built a weed anchor, which eventually developed into a relaxing anchor (using a cycle of strategy installation and anchoring technique), here's what I do simultaneously:

1. I fist my right hand, as if pinching (strained) a joint up to my lips and
2. I dig my left index finger nail into a specific crease on my pinky knuckle on my right hand and
3. I close my eyes and visualize the room spinning right while...
4. I inhale, listening to the sound of inhaling and
5. I feel the feeling of getting high.
6. I hold my breath until I get that burning feeling which means to exhale. While waiting, and while feeling my pinching and digging nail, and while the room is spinning, and while the inhale sound continues internally, and while I feel the feeling of getting high, I also taste and smell weed. (Notice that I'm nose-mute. True.)
7. I ask myself if I am as high as I want to be for the next two hours and if not, I do it again.

Here, involving all of your senses, notice that there is a point during this anchor where you don't have enough conscious processes to even remember that you began an anchor. The burning feeling in my lungs is designed to indicate that I have detached from the reality where I haven't smoked weed in years. Once you feel your lungs, it's too late.

My musician friend, with the clapping, started with a rhythmic clap, and remember that he's not a big band, so getting the audience enthusiastic right there is not totally easy. They reluctantly agree, because who's the hypnotist, right? And he rewards this my stomping his feet to a new rhythm, also picking up the pace of the old clapping. This involves his externals, so that as he picks up the pace as the audience gets enthusiastic. Meanwhile, he's getting the desired kinesthetics and feels bliss, begins a human beatbox to carry into the first song, and speed clap confusion sufficient ramp bliss

Step 6 is really important, because each of the steps previous sets up an experience that is going to intensify over time. The theory that makes it work is that since each individual chunk ramps upward, and each is already anchored to marijuana, once you get lost in all of the chunks, you win!

Now how do I know that all of these experiences are going to ramp? Notice the pinching fingers and the digging nail, because these are going to hurt more and more no matter what -- in what way? In the way that marijuana hurts -- The pinching creates muscle fatigue and the digging nail is similar to the burning lungs feeling. (Open the loop, close the loop, yeah?) And because the internal representations are initiated with these external kinesthetics -- and when I chained them, I chained them to a ramping state -- its not only probable that the whole experience will ramp, it's essential.

PhilFarber wrote:

There is no physiological basis for acid flashbacks. That is, LSD is gone from the system within days and leaves no residue or changes to the system that could account for them

Phil,

I remember reading that LSD can be stored in fat cells and that, at some point in the future, said fat cells can be tapped for energy and release the LSD. Has that been disproven?

Mike, the fat cell thing was a prevalent myth back in the day. It never had any basis in fact as LSD is water soluble, not fat soluble.
Erowid LSD Vault : Myth about Permanent Presence (LSD stays in your body/spine/brain forever)

Urban legends about illegal drugs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Apparently the myth may have begun with L. Ron Hubbard, who created a lot of drug-fear hype for his Narcanon organization:
Narconon Exposed: Is Narconon Valid? - Hubbard's Junk Science

As we do not and in all probability will never know everything about substances of any kind and how they affect human beings in residual traces (consider for a moment homeopathic medicines which work in minute quantities to reverse the effects they would have in larger amounts), we cannot catagorically state anything with certainty on the lasting effects of LSD.

It would have been nice to have a comment, instead of just an annonimous thumbs down.

Margaretelisabeth wrote:

As we do not and in all probability will never know everything about substances of any kind and how they affect human beings in residual traces (consider for a moment homeopathic medicines which work in minute quantities to reverse the effects they would have in larger amounts), we cannot catagorically state anything with certainty on the lasting effects of LSD.

Personally, I've rarely found homeopathic medicines to have any effect at all that could not be explained by such things as anchoring and expectation. There is no evidence that they have any pharmacological action. But that's another thread - and perhaps another forum entirely.

Hi Margaret,

I'll give you a reply, but I did not give you the thumbdown.

I think Phil F is correct in that LSD, as an acid is water soluble and therefore excreted by the body pretty quickly over two to three days. Some psychoactive agents such as cannabanoids are not water soluble and are accumulated in fat cells, which is why someone may test positive for cannabis over a month after stopping.

You're observation about homeopathy is interesting. At risk of adding to drug mythology I believe that the effects of LSD are not directly attributable to the drug. With a drug like alcohol or heroin the substance directly interacts with neurology through convenient receptor sites. The LSD has a catalytic effect on the balance and availability of chemicals that are naturally in our system, leading to the drug effects. This is why LSD dosage is measured in micro grams not milligrams.

I used to be a drugs worker and have worked with many who claim "flashback" phenomena. I am not aware of any biological mechanism for these problems, and have been able to understand them and work with these people using NLP techniques and approaches that would be used in addressing any other kind of trauma. To generalize about drug users, possibly unfairly, the triggers for such experiences often lie in the broad based arena of social anxiety, are kinaesthetically instigated, and then impact on mental state and cognition. The trauma might roughly be equated to the "bad trip" where someone became paranoid or "freaked out" in some other unpleasant way. Because the original experience was laid down while highly intoxicated getting to grips with it consciously can be elusive I have found, but we can work with that using anchors and the like as suggested in the OP.

"Flashback" is the term used by the drug user to describe their experience within a framework of a drug using lifestyle. It is not a technical term in that sense. Soldiers report flashbacks associated with PTSD, but no-one suggests that is down to residual amounts of psychoactive substance in their spine.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that people hallucinate for all sorts of reasons anyway, with or without adding LSD to the equation. In my view the phenomenon of a "flashback" and will always be rationalised by the sufferer within an interpretation of their own culture.

In the case of LSD some would say that having once or twice accessed these extreme altered states one is never the same again anyway. Even if LSD is used to engineer these extreme states through catalysis originally, having once crossed that threshold, perhaps it is easier for those states to come more organically given the wrong set of triggers.

Just a few thoughts

MH

malcombhead wrote:

You're observation about homeopathy is interesting. At risk of adding to drug mythology I believe that the effects of LSD are not directly attributable to the drug. With a drug like alcohol or heroin the substance directly interacts with neurology through convenient receptor sites. The LSD has a catalytic effect on the balance and availability of chemicals that are naturally in our system, leading to the drug effects. This is why LSD dosage is measured in micro grams not milligrams.

Interestingly, recent studies have targeted the gene expression of LSD and have demonstrated that it activates genes that, among other things, target synaptic plasticity and brain structure - i.e. states of intense learning. (What Tim Leary would have described as "imprinting.") For instance:

A Single Dose of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Influences Gene Expression Patterns within the Mammalian Brain

New LSD Research: Gene Expression within the Mammalian Brain

I believe this highlights the potential usefulness of psychedelics - and the dangers of their indiscriminate use. Where and when do you want to be in these states of powerful learning?