3/27/2022

On Saturday I attended a reunion for those who worked at my college paper back in the day. It was overwhelming being around many people I haven't seen in nearly thirty years. I knew Rob and his wife, but I spent most of my time talking with his wife about psychedelics since she is a trip-sitter for people doing ketamine. After the party I asked Leah to pass along this article concerning explaining what causes different psychedelic experiences to her.

A digression: People have wildly different experiences while under the influence ranging from horrifying to glorious. The authors of the study in question trawled Erowid for user-submitted anecdotes regarding their trips then sorted them according to the substance used during those trips. From there, they looked into previous studies about how these psychedelics interact with the brain on a molecular level to determine if there are patterns and connections between neurotransmitters and the experiences of the subjects.
Of interest is how DMT models the near-death experience (NDE) described by survivors. A survey of near-death anecdotes demonstrates how the experiences appear to be strikingly similar across cultures and time periods. Reports of near-death experiences date back to ancient Greece where Plato recounted the NDE of a warrior named Er and Democritus had a fascination with the stories of people who returned from the dead. A modern scientific account of a NDE was recorded by Pierre-Jean du Moncaux in 1740 from a Parisian apothecary.
Taking the former NCBI report into account, along with the anecdotal reports of near-death experiences and Erowid DMT trip accounts, I reckon people could understand the NDE phenomenon a bit better than before. Even if such a study winds up debunking NDEs or such a correlation.

Spoke with a former colleague, Rikki, who lives around Camden. He talked about video games and playing Elden Ring. I mentioned the only video game that I'm playing at the moment, and sporadically at best, is Disco Elysium.

My friends Dave and Tracey were in attendance and for the first hour we talked shop, i.e. title searching. Gotta reach out to my direct report to see if I've been assembling my jobs incorrectly after all this time. Basically if the present owner has no open mortgages, a searcher must provide an index report showing the title examiner there are no open mortgages since such occasions have caused grief for my employer in the past. Turns out Dave has been given a promotion that's bound to grow with the company and (IIRC) he's going to recommend me for his old position which would mean working from home on a regular basis instead of commuting to both of my counties.

Another challenge posed by the reunion was the location. My old home and Leah's home. I love my cats, I love seeing them, but even after these nearly ten months of being on my own too much Leah can wear on my resolve and potentially have me revert to old ways.

Wound up leaving at 10 p.m. and immediately called someone in my circle so I could center myself. That helped.