Ask HN: Have you ever done shrooms? What have been your experiences?

I did them several times in high school. Most of the time I just ended up in a very giggly, stoned feeling state. A few times I got completely messed up (in a good way). No life changing ensights, but nonestop laughter (to the point where your abdominals hurt from laughing, but you still can't stop, and then laugh even harder that you want to stop laughing but can't, and so on...).

Some random good memories, from various times:

- trees looked like they were breathing and I was sheltered under one from the snow and felt like I was communicating with it.

- my friends older brother had a goatee and was talking to us and he appeared to be a wise goat-human hybrid giving us advice, which sent me into a laughing fit.

- a really fat lady janitor at the movie theater reminded me so much of jaba the hut, it was so funny.

- it was snowing and my friends and me went tobagganning at night, I had all my snow gear on and felt like I was on another planet (too much fun to describe).

- Watching Vanilla Sky, it seemed like the craziest movie ever (have not since seen it sober - seemed absolutely magical in the theatre).

The only negatives were essentially being a little socially timid. I remember me and my friends did them at someone's house whose parents were away in the afternoon. They were throwing a party that night and I was pretty terrified at first when strange people began to pour into the house. My throat and mouth also felt sort of wierd - not neccesarily bad, but almost like there was a vacuum inside my stomach.

But most of the time, shrooms just weren't that intense. I think LSD is reputed to do more of what you describe. I hadn't thought about shrooms in ages, but I wouldn't mind doing them again. However, not being sure what your getting from a dealer is a deal breaker for me. I do not want to risk damaging my mind/body because some dealer added god-knows-what to the shrooms.

LSD. And the creativity is not at all logical, it's more of an emotional/emphatic "now I understand what life is all about" sort of a thing. I wrote nearly 50 pages of reflection on LSD and I couldn't read any of it when it wore off; it was somewhat legible but highly emotional writing. Rereading it several times evoked the same feelings of satisfaction and being content with myself, but other than that, it's not something I would recommend for hacking code. But go for it if you want rambling sensationalism.

This is wrt to mental enhancements. The trip itself was completely insane. Hallucination is fun for a bit, but mine was laced and I was hallucinating for about 4 hours. Something I will always remember was walking on a black and white checkered tile, like a chessboard. All the tiles jumped up at me like boxes of various heights, and I was bouncing from one to the other to cross a puddle of green algae filled water. In reality, this was a highly kept shopping mall with glossy marble floors.

Also, changes in color and patterns produced sounds in my chest that were at times very pleasant and other times nightmarish.

It's hard to get rid of an experience like that. The metaphors and descriptions you acquire will affect your language to some degree. The first year after the trip I was a big fan and recommended LSD to everyone, but now, meh, I just couldn't be bothered. It takes a while to get out of your system completely; I was emotional for weeks afterwards.

I'm not sure that I think shrooms or LSD are good for programming per se, but they're very good for the larger goal of solving problems. They let you look at things with no preconceptions, like a child. You are able to playfully consider different perspectives and approaches in a way that can give you some great insights. However, you'll want to be careful about how much you take; the problem isn't that there is any kind of danger, but simply that at higher doses you'll be having too much fun to focus on whatever problem you're interested in solving.

Good luck talking about this on HN. When I tried to talk about acid, I got a bunch of wonderfully nasty remarks and demands to "get off HN", which I did for awhile. Oh, and my submitted post was killed.

Your first time, you might want to have someone experienced with you that you trust. It won't make you a better programmer, but like many life experiences, it is an opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself. You still have to do all the work yourself in order to realize that opportunity. I've been in the technology industry for 15 years, and virtually all of my closest friends have used psychedelics at some point.

Otherwise, I largely agree with swift's comments.

You're better off doing it the old fashioned way: study and practice.