Losing consciousness. I went to get by blood drawn for the doctor and for some reason I got nervous or something, and I lost consciousness for just a minute or two.
I woke up as if I had just slept for 30 hours, more rested than I've ever been, no matter how long I sleep.
There's a camaraderie with the other soldiers on your platoon that happens when you're in the military that I've never been able to feel with any other group of people since I got out. I would really like to be able to experience that again, but minus the war part.
I had morphine at the hospital once. It was like a blanket woven with fibers made of love, calmness, and warmth. I would love to feel that again, but not a good idea. I can easily understand how someone can get addicted to opiates.
First time I took amphetamines, it felt like a buzzing I'd had in my head all the time was suddenly gone and I could actually enjoy the quiet for the first time.
It was so great that I swore never to take them again, cause I knew I'd want to take them every day and get addicted.
10 years later I was diagnosed with ADHD. Turns out amphetamines just let me feel what it's like without symptoms for the first time.
Now I do take them daily (but at a much lower dosage).
My kids are convinced I have ADD, and are probably right, but having used amphetamines recreationally and enjoyed them too much I am afraid of the meds. I told the one still at home to hide them when she asked if I wanted to try the Adderall.
How is this going for you? I don't feel addictive in general, but speed? Oh my that is some good stuff.
Same. It felt like heaven and you just felt perfect all around. And that was just a dose of pain relief. I tried LSD last year which i enjoyed, so i‘m sort of open to try new drugs in a controlled environment. Opiated however, never.
I was lucky to experience it in a controlled environment like the hospital to realise this drug is not for fun, it will make an addict of you.
Yep, dangerous stuff. I once had some minor surgery done. Afterwards I was sitting outside in a patient waiting room in a bed waiting for the drugs to stop working.
I brought my laptop and watched some episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was hilarious and super comfortable.
I can never do that again, it's obviously super addictive. The medical professionals are right in being really strict when giving out opiates in my country.
Apparently people's responses in this situation are a good indication of their vulnerability to addiction in general.
Anecdotally it makes sense. I've had morphine multiple times (after accidents) and found it meh. I certainly wasn't asking for more. It so happens that I hardly ever drink and I've never done drugs of any kind or even wanted to*, despite having no moral objections to them and being around a ton of people who do them all.
I think of heroin addiction as a yes or no question. I've tried it and it was nice (same with other opioid meds I have had to take) but some people, they try it and it's like they have never been whole before that point, or never been without pain - if it "fits" like that you will miss it so much. It was not that for me. I can't find the high in pot at all, either. I think it's a genetic difference, not a psychological one.
I did love the sleep you can get with morphine, that soft pillowy comfort. I don't want it all the time but it would be a great way to die, and it's great very occasionally, like once every five years.
It's a constant fear of mine. That I'm not doing well enough. I actually lie awake at nights and that's not something I normally do. But I know that I can't do more than my best, I'll make plenty mistakes, but so did my parents and I turned out fine. As long as you give all the love and support that you can. They'll be fine. There's not much else you can do, honestly, they'll have to find their own way anyhow
Flying with my father. Flying was his passion and I only ever got to ride with him once. Sadly, he passed several years ago and I'll never get to go up with him again.
The portals are still the only games I best on release day. I had a feeling of spoilers the first time, and I was so right I avoided everything about portal 2 until I got my hands on it.
The end credits song of the first and the moon shot in 2 memories are crystal clear in my head.
So much triumph was experienced. So much spaaaaaaace to experience it in.
Appalachian Trail for sure, I only did a couple sections but I am absolutely going again if I can. One day I'd like to actually do the whole thing but I just don't have the time.
Jeebus Christ no. As someone who has had occasional sleep paralysis since college... Just no. Even though I finally fully understand it and what triggers it, it sucks every time.
Everyone has sleep paralysis every time they dream. It's a mechanism that stops you acting out your dreams. What happens occasionally is that you come out of the dream state enough to become aware of being paralysed. You're not awake, so your unconscious mind is grappling with the horror of paralysis.
My own experiences were nightmares where I was being threatened by an unseen figure, but couldn't move to escape. I had a lot of them, some really horrible. Then I read an article with the above explanation, and I haven't had one since. It was like once my unconscious knew what was going on, it stopped freaking out.
It's also a good gateway to lucid dreaming. I was into it for a while and using sleep paralysis is one of the techniques where you rest your body but try to keep your mind awake.
During the course of my first graduate degree, I was surrounded by support, great professors, a cohort of other students who were driven, passionate, and colorful, even though we disagreed on several things (and one of them was an actual shitheel), and most importantly of all, a sense that I was learning, growing, and progressing along some kind of meaningful continuum of personal development... As well as being equipped to make some kind of difference in the world, as much of one as I made for myself (went from an uneducated, bigoted farm kid, someone who was already neck deep in neo Nazi stuff and bought into it into, well, pretty much the opposite).
I took that master's degree and went professional for a few years, but found myself missing graduate school and so I went back for a second Masters. That just wrapped up last September, but the experience wasn't the same at all.
I felt like I was just being pushed through machinery, going down a checklist, ticking boxes and moving on to the next. I kept thinking that eventually as I went through the motions I would find that an experience similar to the first round of graduate school would develop organically, but it never did. Once I finished the degree, that was kind of it.
Have to put up my hands and say that this could well be just because I was really going through a hard time in my life concurrent to that second master's degree, and that very likely colored my experience quite a bit, but it did just wrap up last year, so I will need some time and distance to be able to reflect on it more objectively and untangle the raw emotional impression from the objective fact.
I'm still wanting to go and get a PhD as an ultimate feather in my cap, but that will not be for a few years. For now, I need some time to work professionally to both save up money and meet some other personal life goals of mine, which I won't get into too much detail about here.
It could also be that you're getting older and you're developing a wider world view. I've been a corporate shill for a while now. When I hired in there were a lot of messes, but I was young/optimistic/saw a lot of opportunity and was rewarded when I cleaned things up. Over a decade later, this place is a mess. I'm coming to think that it's stuck in a rut of process/technical debt and Conway's law and that even though leadership has been saying things are changing for the whole time I've been here, we're really just getting more entrenched.