Hmm, my interview was less civilized, not sure I met the same person...

The problem is our techniques for healing the mind are currently quite primitive and crude compared to the ones we employ for healing the body. Surgery with a sledgehammer if you will. If autisim (or at least some forms of it) work like I suspect, the problem is that things are too open, not too...

I don't think we're quite as limited as you may assume. Oxytocin depletion is unlikely to cause a significant change in genetic expression patterns unless it becomes a persistent condition that results in receptor site increase or decrease like serotonin or dopamine baseline adjustments do, so I...

I'm afraid I don't really see how the hydrogen analogy functions, but I suspect it's because my experiences are different from yours. I don't believe that renders it less valid, but just forgive me if I offend you by unintentionally misinterpreting it somehow. Some of what you're saying reminds...

Not to be funny, but a professional what exactly? Psychiatrist? Psychologist? Neuropharmacologist? GP? Shaman? Midwife? Is there such a thing as a professional psychedelic therapist?

An analogy is like a box of chocolates – A mismatched assortment of core ideas someone has tried to package as a whole by sugar-coating them with the same truth, which usually turns out a bit too dark and bitter to make it palatable, and usually is more suited to the taste of the one giving it...

Well not everyone's really wired for it, just as not everyone's wired for straight/gay/bi/etc sex. The problem is the majority of us are conditioned heavily to believe there's only one acceptable form of lifestyle. There has been a lot of progress made on the front of acceptance for gays but I...

My thoughts are that some of the behavior I've seen in autistic people has been things I've done myself, on occasion. Usually while exploring various aspects of my synaesthesia. If I couldn't turn down the gain on the additional sensory crossover channels, I'd suspect it would render the world...

Preloading with vitamin C? I find that dampens things considerably for me. Vitamin C and citric acid tend to be useful in recovery but not in preloading. The cofactor for 5-HTP->5-HT (serotonin) synthesis is vitamin B6. Niacin (B3) also makes a good pairing as conversion to it is a competitive...

I feel bad for both of you, it sounds like she really has some things she needs to think over and either decide she believes them or decides to reject them. Too many people just accept what they're told as kids and refuse to ever think about them critically or entertain the possibility they...

Thanks. Sometimes I think my tendency to generate walls of text must put a lot of people off, good to know someone reads it. :) The birth canal's only narrow for us and our big heads. Outside of birds, you won't find too many long term relationships in general. Monogamy is a small minority in...

My opinion is "No thanks." I've tried it several times, with results ranging from bad to nightmare. Others using the same stuff as I was seemed to enjoy it well enough. For me it was always like having spent about an hour too long on a fast spinning ride at an amusement park. Puke city. That...

I'm poly, though right now the only long term partner I have is my husband. We're not exclusive though, so there are other friends we have sex with sometimes. I'd say I definitely fall in the group of people who are just inherently wired a certain way. I never went looking for this, I just came...

Personally I find the idea of a completely deterministic system too depressing to bear, so I choose to believe in the free/will randomness model. Until there are solutions to things like the three body problem (both classical and quantum versions) and we can explain things like quantum foam...

1. Antidepressants: Like many people, I've been on an antidepressant or two in my life. Initially I was very wary of them, and due to a bad experience with effexor (if I hadn't been a naive kid at the time I would have pushed to sue the doctor) was frightened of them for many years. But one...

I've had it once, it was sold to a friend as LSD, by someone who usually had reliably good LSD. It definitely wasn't though. It also turned out to be my first experience trying any hallucinogen. That wound up being about 20 hours of hell. My neck hurt for a long time after but that wasn't the...

I keep seeing spam like this: http://twitter.com/sarahj101 that really makes me want to slap someone. Tons of spammers pushing mephedrone (4-methylmethcathinone) as "just like MDMA but BETTER and LEGAL!" all over the place.

I've had SP on and off all my life. In fact I just had it again last night! You get used to it after a few decades. These days it only happens once or twice a year, though in the past it has happened as frequently as several times a week. Some people only experience it once in their life and...