Mushrooms make time seem to pass slower

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Something psychonauts have known for ages has now been confirmed by a group of Swiss scientists. They tested psilocybin on twelve people and confirmed that it makes time feel slower.

At University Hospital Zürich, each of the volunteers was given a gel capsule with five milligrams of psilocybine or a lactose placebo. Later, they were asked to perform simple tasks, which would reveal their ability to tell time. When they had consumed the hallucinogen, each subject would take action too soon - indicating that time was moving quite slowly from their point of view.

The duration reproduction task (DRT) followed the same design in both experiments. A 500 Hz tone was presented to subjects via headphones for a defined duration s (presentation phase); after a constant interval of silence, w = 2 s, the same tone was presented again and the subjects had to switch off the tone by pressing a key when the duration of the second tone was subjectively equal to that of the first tone.

In a report to the journal Neuroscience Letters, which became available on Feb. 9, Jiri Wackermann and her collaborators explained that the hallucinogen acts on proteins called serotonin receptors, but how it affects our perception of time is still not fully understood.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/chem-lab-shroom.html

 

[afer]

resembles "the persistence of memory" by Dali)

 

[Elfinn]

Thanks for your timeless and precious information.

I have indeed experienced altered perception of time on psilocybin.
Indeed i have been transported to another time alltogether.
Where i had the function of a madman with a drum.
On psilocybin i encountered spirits of the ancestor shamans
who told me that what happens in the past,remains intact
and may be encountered on the sacred time-machine mushroom.
I was possessed and taught how to use the drum
the little cottage we sat in,started to lift of the ground and we flew
over the mountains.
This feeling of ancient times,lasted for a year or so
and i still feel it,as i meditate upon it now.
There is a presence with me,that does not share my perception
of reality,a spirit out of time,that takes my mind away
from the everyday hay-hay.

The spirit world is full of beings willing to dissolve
our perception of time,and take us back,and possess us
with their wisdom and untamed sense of humour.

 

[acim2]

This seems kind of flawed in some way....if you hear a sound for a certain period of time, then you try to repeat it and go too long, couldn't that mean just the opposite. That your perception of the original sound was too fast.

It seems like it's either that time went too fast when you heard the first sound, or too slow when you were trying to mimic the time period the second time. But, my guess is that when tripping on psilocybin you don't like listening to a tone for very long, so you stop it because you can.

I just don't see how that result for the duration reproduction task (DRT) means definitively that time is going slower for you. Although I'm sure it's a common psychological test.

 

[Guest]

please someone explains me the point of this research ? why is it so suprising ?

 

[st.bot.32]

Only surprising to people who haven't experienced mushrooms :lol:

Guess it is interesting as it indicates that it's not merely an illusion but you really are experiencing/processing time differently..

 

[Guest]

Nothing new under the sun, but atleast we can say it's scientifically proven :retard:

 

[????????]

This seems kind of flawed in some way....if you hear a sound for a certain period of time, then you try to repeat it and go too long, couldn't that mean just the opposite. That your perception of the original sound was too fast.

It seems like it's either that time went too fast when you heard the first sound, or too slow when you were trying to mimic the time period the second time. But, my guess is that when tripping on psilocybin you don't like listening to a tone for very long, so you stop it because you can.

I just don't see how that result for the duration reproduction task (DRT) means definitively that time is going slower for you. Although I'm sure it's a common psychological test.

The second time the tone was presented the subjects were under the effects and they pressed the key more quickly. This means they experience dilated time because they respond faster. From their point of view things go slow, from the scientists point of view the subject goes fast.

 

[acim2]

The second time the tone was presented the subjects were under the effects and they pressed the key more quickly. This means they experience dilated time because they respond faster.

Yeah...but I thought they under the effects when the reference tone was presented the first time too. Maybe not, but that's the way I understood the explanation of the study.

If not, it seems like a long period of time must have passed between when they got the reference tone and when they tried to mimic it. However, that would make more sense...if they weren't under the influence when they heard the reference tone.

 

[Guest]

a thought: how long takes an ego death?...you know, the kind of ego death that time comes to a complete halt, and you get to touch infinity, nothinglessness and complete bliss. it is impossible for the person that experiences it to measure. does it happen on a second ? or does it happen on some minutes, perhaps an hour or two ?
that's the thing that should be scientifically tested: complete, full-blown ego death. with brain scans, and so on, so we see what activity lies in there. is it a electrical storm on the brain, or is momentarily a true death that someway, lights up later ? with so many fundamental questions still with no answers, scientists are focused on the rudimentary basics that every psychedelic user learns on their first or second trip. i always miss depth on these studies, they seem so shallow and trivial...
when are we going to have a really understandable science that will explain our mind and the big secret behind psychedelics/psychonauting ? more importantly, do we need such science; is science, by todays standards, capable of handling such task, as understanding the mind by the mind, for what might be called meta-science ?

 

[????????]

daytripper, those scientists could use some counselling from you on their research

I agree; it's pretty pointless, like the study that was shown here about milliseconds..

 

[zarlack_galactic_explorer]

Good day to you fellow galactic (universe?) travellers..
I am new to this website but not new to psychonauting.. this was in interesting subject and as someone mentioned on here, yes it is pretty shameful how "science" is trying to question why mushroom users experience a time altered (timeless?) state. It seems as though they want to understand about psychedelics but are not even scratching the surface of the root reason psychedelics even exist and why, and what for (man??) and to extend man to nature and above understanding and perception.

I think that when they gathered the idea for this experiment, they were asking theirselves all the wrong questions.. does psilocybin make time feel slower? they should have asked theirselves, does psilocybin etc. bring us closer in tune with the time state of reality, does it make the user more aware of time, or unaware? and consequently, does this substance bring us toward a higher conscious or towards a duller senseless conscious? and THEN they can really get some good experiments on the way, and the truth nearer to peoples ears and then.. hopefully hearts..

I also think that whoever is in charge of these experiments will try as hard to maintain it within the thinking pattern of the rest of the scientifical industry to maintain there "image/profile" and act as if they are trying to help society whereas they do more harm by asking questions that bear no real useful answers compared to really trying to solve their own understanding by taking the shrooms theirselves and then publishing their experience with their already keen interest and knowledge in that field to help people out a bit... hehehe

We all know there are these realms outside of the "sober" thinkers mind; these realms exist but we tap in to them, and mushrooms are the tool whereby that can happen. Most scientifical "worldly" thinkers will not be able to perceive this and thus put a wrong interpratation of how the mushroom responds to the user.

anyway.. these thoughts are not cement, they are relative to my perception and not everyone elses.. but nice thread.. catch u guys on here some time

 

[user_1919]

Doing studies on stuff like this is just dumb. If these scientists really want to study the effects of mushrooms, like time perception, ego death, unity among the cosmos etc. they should eat about 5 grams themselves, and in there study tell people if they want to know more about time preception and ego death, to eat 5 grams of mushrooms. No words will ever be able to be put to ego death, it is just something that you have to experience.

PEACE & LOVE

 

[Guest]

but, again, perhaps "words" are around for so many time so we could try explain/understand death...just a thought.

 

[Forkbender]

Pretty strange. Mushrooms always make me think that time doesn't exist at all. :|

 

[acim2]

There's a story about Ken Kesey (I think from Electric Coolaid Acid Test) where researchers are testing his perception of time.

They have him estimate a minute.

Since he just had his pulse taken, he'd glance at what the researcher put in the chart and then count his heart beat. They thought that he had a perfect perception of time because he'd get the minute exactly.

The passage is really funny and interesting. It's about how funny he thought it was that the researchers were taking pulse and time estimates when that had nothing to do with the experience. It was all about what was going on in his mind and how he felt...not something some guy with a clipboard could measure.

 

[zarlack_galactic_explorer]

maybe it exists only in the mind..
but then how does a clock work? interesting subject

 

[gammagoblin]

maybe it exists only in the mind..
but then how does a clock work? interesting subject

Because we all collectively create the subjective reality where the clock works like this

 

[buffachino]

As perception dilates, so do all things relative to perception,
Which is everything but awareness.
Awareness is timeless bliss.

Anyone who associates with temporal event is infatuated by constructs of fantasy.

Time is simply a figment of nothing.

 

[BrainEater]

Thanks for sharing this combination of words buffa!!!