Five sessions in the Harmonic Egg
One of the trippiest and most pleasant treatments I’ve ever tried, the Harmonic Egg allowed me to get some peace of mind back after a long period of that good ole 2020s stress.
Articles for category: therapies and treatments, weird
Fun with ancient psychoactives: blue lotus and African dream root
It all started with The Spirit Molecule. (Updated April 2023.) My interest in the mind-bending end of self-experimentation started after reading about DMT, the active ingredient of the now-infamous ayahuasca brew, in Rick Strassman’s The Spirit Molecule.
And then there was the time vitamin B-complex drove me insane…
One of the first things you discover when you start investigating nutritional therapy is that vitamin B-complex formulations are badly designed.
Perfume therapy
(Updated April 2023.) After reading Alyssa Harad’s Coming to My Senses, about her discovery of perfume, I was inspired to set forth my own approach toward arming oneself against the world with scent. I rank perfume up there with recorded music and books when it comes to tools for mental health.
Chronic illness and “nice” people
(Updated April 2024.) In 2013 I began thinking again about a phenomenon I first experienced at the nadir of my health woes in my early thirties, and several times since. I wondered briefly about it each time it happened, but was too beleaguered and distracted to dwell on it. On several occasions I developed noticeable, ...
Weird niacin deficiency symptom: perceptual changes
Recently I came across a discussion forum referring to the use of niacin for social anxiety at multi-gram doses. One commenter mentioned that based on her experience, either niacin has to be repleted in much larger amounts than commonly believed, or plays a much more important role in the diet. Or both. This intrigued me. ...
Seven things I’ve learned from chronic, undiagnosed illness
During the years I was figuring out the celiac-nutritional deficiencies-liver damage thang, I had a few revelations that probably otherwise wouldn’t have been visited unto me until later in life. Several of these were a result of aphasia episodes, wherein my speech became slow and halting and would occasionally just stop mid-sentence. 1. People listen ...
Another weird deficiency symptom: oversensitive hearing
Over the past 10 years I’ve discovered that when my magnesium gets really low I develop an annoying sensitivity to noise. It took me a few years to put it together after the first time it happened. In that case it eventually resolved by itself, but not before I spent several months plotting the demise ...
SSRI withdrawal, sleep paralysis, and pseudo-alien abduction attempts
As I’ve learned more about prescription meds I have re-evaluated the disastrous health symptoms that led me to switch to a gluten-free diet 14 years ago. At the time I had just stopped Zoloft after 18 months. I knew nothing about SSRI withdrawal except that it could make you feel briefly worse if you didn’t ...
OTC psychoactives
In July 2011 Marla at Perfume-Smellin’ Things blogged about perfumes featuring frankincense, a component of incense which, according to a 2008 research study that somehow completely missed me, is a psychoactive agent that can affect depression and anxiety. Apparently history is full of censer-swinging dope fiends: the use of frankincense, aka oliban or olibanum, goes ...
