iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 17/10/2025

Somewhat adjacent to my last post—this little book is what initially sparked my interest in #psychedelics as an #archaeology undergrad who wanted to study ice age cave paintings in Europe. Their descriptions of altered states are a little, ah, naïve, but I didn't know that at the time. ⬇️

Couverture de « Les chamanes de la préhistoire : Texte intégral, polémiques et réponses » (2007) par Jean Clottes et David Lewis-Williams

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 11/10/2025

🤣🤣🤣 My bff and I are so stupid sometimes—an actual text exchange from yesterday and today:

An iMessage text exchange where in the first person asks, "You ever thought about getting 10,000 steps a day like me instead of gooning and playing Sega Genesis all day?" The second person replies, "You're the gooner."

110

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/10/2025

Oh, I see. I don't know anything about D&D, really. But about five minutes ago I was looking through my photos for something else, and ran across this meme I'd saved at one point.

Meme split into two halves. On top, it says,

Friend: So you just sit at a table and pretend to go into dungeons and fight dragons? Is it fun?

The bottom half is the response, showing Big Bob from Bob's Burgers saying, "I mean, I don't want to oversell it, but it changes you forever."

010

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/10/2025

This request is really for everyone. Most of mine are in boxes or storage currently. This is a pic of my wonderful high-rise apartment in #Chicago that I miss terribly.

A stylish living room with books prominently displayed on the back wall and on the coffee table.

050

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/10/2025

This is a bad take, and why sometimes people have unrealistic expectations about #psychedelics and their outcomes. They may help change unhelpful perspectives if you're being intentional about it, but that doesn't mean you have everything you need. And sometimes you don't *know* what you need.

"The strangest part of tripping is realizing you already had everything you need to create the life you want."

250

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/10/2025

(Don't willy nilly just gobble down magic mushrooms, please.)

Screenshot of the paper's abstract, which reads:

Psychedelic fungi have received considerable attention recently due to their promising treatment potential of several psychiatric disorders and medical conditions, both in clinical settings but also as a nutraceutical. Besides research, a growing number of companies are developing capacity to conduct research and clinical trials where these fungi and their products can be used, and to provide these fungi to the public market that are rapidly becoming legal across the world. Whereas Psilocybe species are better known as psychedelic fungi, species in Panaeolus are also reputed to contain the psychedelic compound psilocybin and used recreationally. For the novice, there is no contemporary scientific summary of all the species in this genus that are known to be psychedelic, compared to those that are not. The global distribution and species diversity of these brown to white, often inconspicuous mushrooms are also not summarised, nor is it known to what extent DNA sequence data that are needed for identification have been generated for all of the species in this genus. However, psychedelic Panaeolus species are used and moved across the world. This lack of data makes it difficult to regulate bioexploitation and apply law enforcement of these fungi and the compounds they contain, especially seen in the light of the rapid development of the related markets. The aim of this review is to summarise current scientific data and knowledge on the species biodiversity, geographical distribution, extent of sequence data for identification purposes, and the psychedelic potential of species, based on published results. The review revealed where species are mostly known from, while also indicating areas seriously lacking such biodiversity data. A significant degree of study across the world is still needed to confirm which of these species are truly psychedelic and exactly what compounds they can produce.

020

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/10/2025

I gleefully await the day AI can correctly check the box and/or pick out all the images with fire hydrants. How I will laugh and laugh! What are you gonna do then, Cloudflare? What are you going to do then? Lol

A Cloudflare "Verify you are human" checkbox

010

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 06/10/2025

If you see this post, a random photo (or meme) from your photo gallery without explaining it.

A meme of a stick figure man with flames covering his body as he runs away. The text reads: "I tried it at home!"

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 03/10/2025

Curious to hear people's experiences with #sativa #cannabis strains as an alternative to stimulant meds for managing #ADHD. Does it help or is it all hype? (I'm prescribed Adderall for ADHD, but I don't take it that often, bc I don't like the side effects. It does help me get things done, though.)

010

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 01/10/2025

Started reading this last night, and It made me wonder (not for the first time) what the world would be like if there were no gods? Ever. Anywhere. Like, humans just never considered the supernatural as a possibility? 🤔 #psychedelics #religion #BookSky

Cover of God on Psychedelics: Tripping Across the Rubble of Old-Time Religion by Don Lattin (2023)

262

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 27/09/2025

This is the sexiest contemporary artwork I've seen in a long time. I can't stop looking at it—it's absolutely stunning. Good grief. Artist: LEGIO_X (2025)

Abstract digital artwork by @LEGIO_X (https://x.com/LEGIO_X_/status/1971597157481566622): A geometric abstract artwork featuring a series of evenly spaced black vertical bars forming a three-dimensional corner or enclosure. A sharp red beam diagonally cuts across the scene from upper left to lower right, intersected by a faint magenta glow, while a contrasting deep blue plane emerges from the lower right, enhancing the sense of depth. The bars cast shadows that form a solid black triangular shape in the center, adding a visual illusion of volume and perspective. The minimalist composition and bold use of primary colors evoke a retro-futurist or op art aesthetic.

050

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 22/09/2025

That's a no from me, big dog.

Screenshot of an iMessage text from an unknown sender asking, "Can I ask you something about life purpose?"

040

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 20/09/2025

(Huxley makes a similar observation in The Doors of Perception.) I think a similar, but different, issue arises when you're very experienced like me, and you begin to compare one experience with prior experiences. I have a tendency to start troubleshooting the encounter if it doesn't meet a... ⬇️

Screenshot of excerpts from Huxley's The Doors of Perception with highlighted passages. The highlights read:

"But what I had expected did not happen. I had expected to lie with eyes shut, looking at visions of many-coloured geometries, of animated architectures, rich with gems and fabulously lovely, of landscapes with heroic figures, of symbolic dramas trembling perpetually on the verge of the ultimate revelation" (15).

"The change which actually took place...was in no sense revolutionary...The other world to which mescalin admitted me was not the world of visions; it existed out there, in what I could see with my eyes open. The great change was in the realm of objective fact. What happened to my subjective universe was relatively unimportant” (16).

120

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 19/09/2025

I cannot remember the definition of "palimpsest," no matter how many times I look it up or ask Siri what it means. 😅

Screenshot of the definition of palimpsest: (noun) a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.

030

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 18/09/2025

Interesting cultural observation by Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Excerpt from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi (1883), which reads:

“In the North one hears the war mention, in social conversation, once a month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject for talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficient reasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlement to-day, it can easily happen that four of them—and possibly five—were not in the field at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that the war will at no time during the evening become the topic of conversation; and the chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will remain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, you have added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of the war that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and would now soon weary of the war topic if you brought it up.

“The case is surely different in the South. There, every man you meet was in the war; and every lady you meet saw the war. The war is the great chief topic of conversation. The interest in it is vivid and constant; the interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention of the war will wake up a dull company and set their tongues going, when nearly any other topic would fail. In the South, the war is what A.D. is elsewhere: they date from it. All day long you hear things “placed” as having happened since the waw; or du’in’ the waw; or befo’ the waw; or right aftah the waw; or ‘bout two yeahs or five yeahs befo’ the waw or aftah the waw. It shows how intimately every individual was visited, in his own person, by that tremendous episode.”

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 17/09/2025

Honestly, the daily Co-Star app notifications are way better since I made this cat my wallpaper.

iPhone lock screen with an illustration of a lazy white cat on an orange background with a Co–Star app notification that says, "You'e doing your best."

iPhone lock screen with an illustration of a lazy white cat on an orange background with a Co–Star app notification that says, "Your rage is valid."

110

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 17/09/2025

This might be a great application of a non-psychedelic derivative drug.

020

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 15/09/2025

Basically, if I'm understanding correctly, DMT reshapes brain harmonics (suppressing global, boosting local, raising entropy), and these shifts track subjective intensity in real time, similar to other psychedelics.

Screenshot of the paper's abstract, which reads:

Exploring the intricate relationship between brain’s structure and function, and how this affects subjective experience is a fundamental pursuit in neuroscience. Psychedelic substances offer a unique insight into the influences of specific neurotransmitter systems on perception, cognition and consciousness. Specifically, their impact on brain function propagates across the structural connectome — a network of white matter pathways linking different regions. To comprehensively grasp the effects of psychedelic compounds on brain function, we used a theoretically rigorous framework known as connectome harmonic decomposition. This framework provides a robust method to characterize how brain function intricately depends on the organized network structure of the human connectome. We show that the connectome harmonic repertoire under N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is reshaped in line with other reported psychedelic compounds - psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and ketamine. Furthermore, we show that the repertoire entropy of connectome harmonics increases under DMT, as with those other psychedelics. Importantly, we demonstrate for the first time that measures of energy spectrum difference and repertoire entropy of connectome harmonics index the intensity of subjective experience of the participants in a time-resolved manner reflecting close coupling between connectome harmonics and subjective experience.

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 15/09/2025

But you know me, and I went and looked up the original medieval recipe in Priscilla Throop's translation (1998, p. 21), and honestly these cookies sound spicy, but not really joyful. 🤷🏻‍♂️ To her credit, Hildegard does not give you a 37 page essay on that one summer with her granny before the recipe. ⬇️

Screenshot of a section about nutmeg and its uses from St. Hildegard von Bingen's (Priscella Throop, trans., 1998). Hildegard says, in part: "If a person eats nutmeg, it will open up his heart, make his judgment free from obstruction, and give him a good disposition. Take some nutmeg and an equal weight of cinnamon and a bit of cloves, and pulverize them. Then make small cakes with this and fine wheat flour and water. Eat them often."

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 14/09/2025

Hey, #BookSky! When does Our Wives Under the Sea pick up? Should I stick with it? Bc it's rapidly heading toward the DNF pile as we speak.

Cover of Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea (2022)

131

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 12/09/2025

See also the Scientific American article summarizing this study below.

Screenshot of the paper's introduction, which reads:

"Psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) and its metabolite psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine), hallucinogenic compounds produced by Psilocybe spp mushrooms, are under investigation for treating depression and substance use disorders. The use of psilocybin mushrooms is legal under regulated conditions in Oregon and Colorado, but to ensure safety, psilocybin-containing products require standardization and production using current Good Manufacturing Practices. However, unregulated products marketed as magic mushroom edibles (eg, gummies and chocolates) often contain no psilocybin and instead contain muscimol from Amatina muscaria, synthetic tryptamines, or other adulterants. During 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 180 emergency cases, 73 hospitalizations, and 3 deaths associated with these products in 34 states. This study analyzed the constituents of unregulated magic mushroom commercial products."

110

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 10/09/2025

What I found so interesting is that some underground practitioners find that psychedelic mystical experiences are even more vital to positive outcomes than mainstream research suggests. Pleased to see that personal experience, harm reduction, and altruism are very highly valued in these communities.

110

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 10/09/2025

I accidentally got embroiled in this little book on and off today, and tbh, I just skimmed through parts of it. To call it "a history" is a little bit of a stretch; more of an introduction, really. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Not really a very weighty source on #angels or #angelology. Idk—three stars, I guess. #BookSky

Screenshot of Angels: A History by David Albert Jones (2010)

140

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 10/09/2025

And I'm not telling anyone to do this BTW, but slow-looking at art on a "museum dose" of mushrooms or LSD is truly a 🤯 aesthetic experience. See, Daniel Tumbleweed's 2015 book The Museum Dose: 12 Experiments in Pharmacologically Mediated Aesthetics. (A different Daniel, incidentally.)

Screenshot of the paper's abstract, which reads:

People typically rush past artworks in museums, limiting their ability to benefit from meaningful engagement with art. We tested the hypothesis that slow-looking allows prolonged contemplation of artworks, enhances emotional engagement, and fosters deeper cognitive understanding. To evaluate this, we examined how slow-looking influences visitors’ aesthetic experiences at the Penn Museum when engaging with select artifacts. Using a within-subjects design, participants encountered four museum objects, with two assigned to free exploration and two to a structured slow-looking condition. In the free exploration condition, participants viewed the objects without time restrictions or instructions. In the slow-looking condition, participants were guided through three 5-minute stages based on the Aesthetic Triad framework: sensory processing, emotional evaluation, and meaning-making. Slow-looking was linked to more compassion and feelings of being enraptured and edified. Participants also experienced more beauty when looking slowly. Extended, guided viewing may enhance emotional and cognitive engagement and support transformative aesthetic experiences.

030

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 09/09/2025

...and which seems to encompass all the likely outcomes of many aspects of our current global zeitgeist. I read the ebook on my iPad, but I just ordered a physical copy to put on the shelf, and because I think I want to read it again more slowly. ⬇️ From one of the chapter epigraphs in the book:

Screenshot of a chapter epigraph in the book. It reads:

There is a "real" world, out there, but we do not perceive it directly. It is assembled by the sensory and nervous systems of each individual animal, and it is assembled differently by every one of them. What we perceive is a construct.

Every animal's perception of the world, constructed by its evolved sensory apparatus and nervous system to take best advantage of its environment, is subjective—there are no colors out there, as we perceive them, waiting for us. There is no sound—only waveforms.

And perhaps the strangest fact of all: Outside our bodies, there is no pain. Pain is something we create.

– Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think

120

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 09/09/2025

Wow, this is a book that's both timely and prescient. I couldn't put it down. On the surface, it's a kind of thriller set in the near-future. But really, it's such a compelling meditation on consciousness—including artificial consciousness—that draws on anthropology (Eduardo Kohn's... ⬇️ #BookSky

Cover of The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (2022)

181

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/09/2025

Thank goodness! 😅 Now can we please have the ability to edit posts? Pretty please?! 🙏🏼🥺

Screenshot of a Bsky notification announcing saved posts as a new feature

020

Daniel @thisispsychedelico.com · 08/09/2025

As an aside, I went and looked up Mary Kawena Pukui's insights on transcendental experiences in Native Hawaiian culture. This is from Nānā I Ke Kumu, Vol. 2 (1974, p. 129 if anyone is interested). I'm curious to know how #psychedelic (mystical) experiences are aligned with this interpretation.

Screenshot of an except from Nānā I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source) by Pukui et al. (1974), which reads:

Did fervent prayer ever culminate in that overwhelming feeling of one-ness with a supreme deity that is termed the "great transcendental experience?"

Mrs. Pukui believes it did not. Or, if it did, it was the rare experience of the prophets (kāula) who lived as hermits.

Perhaps something approaching a transcendental experience may have occurred in the states of noho (possession) and other trance and trance-like states. But even in these, there was apparently little mystic-religious exaltation. The possessing spirits were either harmful ones to be exorcised, or the beneficent spirits of known, deceased relatives. When the ʻaumākua took partial possession in kīheipua or ho’oūlu ia, they provided the energy spurt that helped the swimmer to shore, the inspiration that caused the chanter or dancer to achieve a superlative performance. There was not, as far as we can judge, the ecstatic union-with supreme powers described in other cultures and religions.

Hawaiians, rather than feeling a kind of fusion with a deity, were more apt to receive messages. Veiled in mysticism, transported via dream or sign or vision, conveyed in allegory though they might be, the message was very often practical advice from those approachable, interested gods, the ʻaumākua.

030