"Hamilton Morris: I had a very traumatic and formative experience myself. My best friend had a psychotic break while I was with him tripping, so I have seen this firsthand. I know exactly what it looks like. Joe Rogan: Yeah, Ive had friends have really bad experiences too with screaming and yelling and disassociation, and afterwards, become very strange and have a really hard time with reality for a bit. Ive never seen someone have a complete psychotic break. Hamilton Morris: This was that. He never recovered. Joe Rogan: Never? Hamilton Morris: He never recovered. He was my best friend at the time, and he never recovered. Joe Rogan: So he was fine before the psychedelics? Hamilton Morris: Yes. Joe Rogan: Jesus Christ. So now, hes still fucked? Hamilton Morris: Yes. Joe Rogan: Damn."
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic hallucinogens or serotonergic hallucinogens, the term psychedelic is sometimes used more broadly to include various other types of hallucinogens as well, such as those which are atypical or adjacent to psychedeli
"If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with his eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen."
"Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you might jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structure and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."
"Psychotropics have never been enjoyable to me, ever. … Every single one of them was a challenge in its own way. Some would make you sleepy, some would make you nervous, some would make you lethargic, some would absolutely impair your ability to walk and talk. Everything has its own little quirks, and none of them made me feel good. I like being clear, sober-minded, and aware and conscious. That is my favorite state. And the only reason I ever did any of those substances was to get a glimpse of those spaces that are not normally available in sober, normal consciousness."
"I came of age at a magical time. … Our consciousness was raised by Zen, and also by LSD. … Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that theres another side to the coin, and you cant remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could."
"Psychedelics are not suppressed because they are dangerous to users; theyre suppressed because they provoke unconventional thought, which threatens any number of elites and institutions that would rather do our thinking for us. Historically, those in power have always sought to suppress free thought, whether bluntly or subtly, because it poses an inherent challenge to their rule. Thats no less true today, in an age when corporate, political, and religious interests form a global bloc whose interests threaten all earthly life, including human life."
"I have taken ayahuasca, magic mushrooms and LSD. Before I took them, I was very excited about the idea of taking them. Now that I have taken them, I am a lot more cautious."