From Self-Cringe to Self-Insight

Cringing at ourselves, while painful, can lead to greater awareness of our personal identity. First, one of the most common forms of self-cringe is cringing at our past selves, which reminds me of this meme (our brains are incredibly adept at recording cringe memories in crisp detail, whereas positive memories are a bit more blurry).…

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Mescaline Revelations: Hume, Buddhism, and the Illusory Nature of the Self

One of the most interesting aspects of psychedelics is how the experience ties into philosophy. I am especially drawn to the notion that they can attract one to – or concretise – certain philosophical ideas, theories, and systems. For example, in The Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide (1882), the psychologist William James wrote how the…

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