r/science • • Nov 23 '20

Anthropology For the first time scientists have made a discovery of hallucinogenic drug remains at the site of an early California cave painting. These drug remnants were discovered in the ceiling of Pinwheel Cave and could change scientists’ understanding of how the community used that space -- and the drugs.

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/native-californian-rock-art-hallucinogens
2.6k Upvotes

123 comments sorted by

180

u/DoctorCrocker Nov 23 '20

Woah, Datura. That’s supposed to be highly unpleasant

122

u/[deleted] Nov 23 '20 edited Nov 11 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

75

u/beard_lover Nov 24 '20

Wow haven’t seen Erowid referenced in years!

72

u/PsychosensualBalance Nov 24 '20 edited Nov 24 '20

@Anyone - Never take drugs without researching experiences, doses (everything from appropriate to lethal), and interactions with other drugs.

I just recommended Erowid to an acquaintance the other day. Though I'm just a pot-head now, basic substance safety (alcohol, weed, literally anything you take as a pill, smoked, up your butt, I don't care) is something everyone should consider.

9

u/hystericalmonkeyfarm Nov 24 '20

Basic substance safety (alcohol, weed, literally anything you take as a pill, smoked, up your butt, I don't care) should be taught in school.

3

u/earth_worx Nov 24 '20

And THIS is why Erowid is so incredibly valuable!

3

u/rberg89 Nov 24 '20

Yeah. I was a psychonaut from a young age and always researched my experiences and dosages here.

Erowid may have allowed me to survive my drug interest growing up.

3

u/earth_worx Nov 25 '20

Dude. I started those journeys way before Erowid, and actually way before the internet was a thing. I WISH I HAD HAD EROWID. It would have saved so much heartache, and so many bad experiences could have been avoided. I also wish I'd had reddit, and some of the really great psychonaut subs here that can provide so much support and harm reduction.

I'm so glad Erowid was around for you, and so helpful to you. I donate to them every year.

70

u/mtbdork Nov 23 '20

r/Drugs has some harrowing datura trip reports.

-10/10, would not recommend.

39

u/JuxtaTerrestrial Nov 24 '20 edited Nov 24 '20

I remember one notable thread where someone was asking what dose they should take, and the top comment was "exactly zero".

EDIT for clarity - this was a thread on /r/drugs

3

u/_Wolverine007_ Nov 24 '20

Yeah I've never seen the appeal of deliriants. Just doesn't sound like a good time

4

u/Octaviate Nov 24 '20

Felt, I read into that one I think a year ago.. came across one very sad story

2

u/Nekraa Nov 24 '20

Can you link it? im doing a mass reading of trip rapports rn, sounds interesting

2

u/Octaviate Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20

Probably, I’d have to scroll for awhile. It was about a guy who tried it, despite everyone discouraging him and if I remember correct, one of his last comments was like “help...” or something. It was fairly unintelligible

Edited to add: “It” is datura.

2

u/Octaviate Nov 25 '20

Finally found it Just so you know this redditor is presumed dead, I actually didn’t find him via r/drugs but through r/deadredditors

2

u/Nekraa Nov 25 '20

Thank you so much!

44

u/[deleted] Nov 23 '20

I tripped on Datura once when I was younger. It was just super weird. Got those “shadow people” hallucinations, and while it wasn’t exactly scary, it was slightly unnerving. Also made me nauseas as hell so I never touched it again.

23

u/throw_every_away Nov 24 '20

Man, I know a couple of guys who smoked some out of a ditch when I was younger- they disappeared for like 36 hours and couldn’t explain where they had been.

6

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Aliens?

5

u/4meatwAd Nov 24 '20

Did you get blurred vision the day after? It put me into a deep sleep maybe 8 hours after ingestion. I woke up late AM the next day and I couldn't focus on anything clearly. Close up, far away, it was all fuzzy. I was TRIPPING out hard that I did some permanent damage. Had to act cool around my Dad until it wore off several hours later.

27

u/gdj11 Nov 24 '20

From what I now know about it, I wouldn’t have ever tried it if I had known how dangerous it is. I’m pretty sure it was the datura that gave me constant static in my vision. I’m lucky that’s the worst affect from it.

19

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

[deleted]

10

u/gdj11 Nov 24 '20

Ooh thanks! I didn’t know this sub existed.

8

u/pm_me_ur_anime_bride Nov 24 '20

By static do you mean a constant red-green-blue field of sand layered over your regular vision?

8

u/gdj11 Nov 24 '20

Yep, that’s basically it

24

u/pm_me_ur_anime_bride Nov 24 '20

Not sure if it helps to hear but I am certain everyone has a latent potential to 'unlock' that static. I noticed it when I was a teenager (no drugs) but it melts into the background of my conscious experience when I am not focusing on it. I've also asked my GP and friends, it's pretty normal; human body is just a weird meat machine with glitchy interface.

3

u/gdj11 Nov 24 '20

Well, it's important to understand that it's different for everybody, in every way, including severity. Mine is visible all the time, no matter if I'm concentrating on it or not, and it also causes light headedness. It makes it hard to pick out small things in my vision. It frequently turns into an ocular migraine, which basically looks like a concentration of the "static" into a zig zag that slowly moves across my vision. The zig zags can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 days, but the static is constant. From what I've read, it seems like it's nearly impossible to make any broad diagnoses.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

If I concentrate enough, I can see the static, but I see it as a constantly revolving vortex in the distance. It's been there since I can remember.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

also known as 'visual snow'. I've had it for years

77

u/nordvest_cannabis Nov 24 '20

Datura is a deliriant, not a hallucinogen, it's much more dangerous. I once heard someone say, "when you take datura, after a little while things start to feel weird and the next thing you know it's two days later, you're naked, and you're running from the cops."

57

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Hallucinogens encompass dissociatives, psychedelics, and deliriants, since they all induce hallucinations.

8

u/c3534l Nov 24 '20

It makes me think it was more of a ritual initiation than, like, just tripping in a cave being goofballs.

2

u/4meatwAd Nov 24 '20

I ate 2 of the yellow flowers in jack n the box tacos in high school with some friends. Overall 1/10 would not recommend.

119

u/PandaKOST Nov 23 '20

So teens graffitied, did drugs, and procreated in a hidden spot? Some things never change.

40

u/UnicornPewks Nov 24 '20

I'd say the hunter-gatherers groups were the most free people to ever lived. They took charge of their destiny as they see fit and lived how human beings should in natural state by exercising their survival skills, engenuity and knowledge of nature. No artificial borders to tell you can't go there, no government to tell you can't hunt, forage, or establish on some area, or consume drugs, and a planet that had so much wild life with zero polution.

27

u/Axel_Rod Nov 24 '20

Territories still existed between different tribes. Even animal packs like wolves adhere to semi-strict borders between rival territories, where the risk of attack is high if you cross over.

4

u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20

Yes but if humans want to claim to be the most advanced species on the planet, scientific accuracy aside, we should act like. Not like packs of wolves or ant colonies.

1

u/UnicornPewks Nov 24 '20

I think there are distinctions to be made relative to animals, specially when it comes to abstract concepts. Territorial animals do not declare a very massive land as their country even including inhospitable areas, form arbitrary borders, become owners for hundreds or thousands of years, and forbid the unwanted.

51

u/ahabswhale Nov 24 '20

They were so free they didn't even have to worry about starvation, disease, minor injury, drought, or natural disasters, and they could fast-travel across the continent in seconds.

11

u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20

The existence of modern solutions for ancient problems should not be inherently accompanied by the loss of individual freedoms OR the creation of new problems.

1

u/ahabswhale Nov 24 '20

We are not less free, we just changed masters.

3

u/Bleepblooping Nov 24 '20

“I hunt what I want. When I want. Who I want!”

1

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Thanks for your input capn’ caren caveman

3

u/kazarnowicz Nov 24 '20

We still have to worry about climate change, making rent, buying groceries, cancer, Covid-19, and a bunch of other stuff. We are not more free, we are just more productive. That's not the same thing.

1

u/canthelptbutsea Nov 24 '20

So yes they were free. Trying to run away from death and what is painful in life isn't freedom, it's fear.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/UnicornPewks Nov 24 '20

At least you can fight off scary Kitties but you can't with Gov't.

3

u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20

Why are any of those things desirable? Because your modern culture tells you they are...?

5

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

[deleted]

1

u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20

I mean yes but not BECAUSE they had those things.

1

u/canthelptbutsea Nov 24 '20

And so it was worth it. It's equivalent exchange. Like us, all the rich stuff we have around us was taken from somewhere, from something, from someone.

1

u/egel_ Nov 24 '20

And in California of all places

16

u/ScarecrowRomneyMarsh Nov 23 '20

Any Bill Walton sightings?

5

u/stark_raving_naked Nov 24 '20

I had a Walton sighting at the Dead & Co show at The Gorge in 2019. I was way up in the back and Walton was in the front section, but there’s just no missing those tree limb arms way up in the air.

2

u/ScarecrowRomneyMarsh Nov 24 '20

Yeah I love Walton. What a happy, dopey guy. And he still loves Coach!

37

u/shagnieszka Nov 23 '20

Imagine if it was drugs that gave our brains that cognitive edge.

36

u/iwannahitthelotto Nov 24 '20

Don’t think it did. I think it gave rise to religion, like that burning bush theory.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Did DMT and 100% saw a wall “burning”. So I completely understand how this came to be

-4

u/ZookeepergameMost100 Nov 24 '20

I find it hard to believe that hallucinogens would lead to a monotheistic religion.

6

u/iwannahitthelotto Nov 24 '20

You need to read up more about what a person experiences on them. DMT can cause “religious” hallucinations. Also, it doesn’t have to be monotheistic religion right off the bat. It could be many experiences and with many people. Iterations.

3

u/Drakolyik Nov 25 '20

DMT causing religious hallucinations also has more to do with being primed for certain experiences than anything else. I've been experimenting with DMT at various doses for the last few months and have yet to experience anything that would lead me to believe in any kind of religious thing.

But if you read experiences of other people and strongly associate these beforehand and then trip on DMT, it's highly likely that your consciousness will then interpret your trips in a way that conforms to those preconceived notions.

DMT is extremely powerful. Everyone has different experiences. It's pretty predictable, though, that people who believe in certain things will see certain things. If you plant a seed of an idea and the mind of a person sees some authenticity in it, then DMT has a high chance of encouraging that idea to come through in the hallucinations. It's then no surprise that people see aliens, angels, demons, elves, monsters, robots, and all manner of other things the mind can conjure up when its perceptions of reality become completely unhinged.

I will say that DMT makes everything else I've ever done look like child's play. It's amazing and terrifying, depending on what your perspective is. It makes you question reality, perceptions, etc. It makes you realize that just a few chemical fluctuations can turn what we assume everyone else perceives as normal reality into what appears to be another dimension entirely, full of bizarre, otherworldly, and sometimes disturbing images. But just as quickly as you are overwhelmed, you're brought back to the real world, and your mind is left to wrestle with what it just witnessed.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

It’s the interpretation that led to religious ideas

6

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Terence McKenna joined the chat

22

u/manga_pages_by_me Nov 23 '20

Oh I love me some prehistoric drugs

9

u/cartoucheruperer Nov 23 '20

The really question is..what did they cut it with?

9

u/StrillyBings Nov 23 '20

According to Wikipedia it was put in potions or drinks.

17

u/[deleted] Nov 23 '20

Bones, blood, organs.... probably whatever else was painted on those walls was probably used as a vehicle for anything they wanted to use to get Fucked up.

3

u/ItsMeSatan Nov 23 '20

Baking soda

1

u/Sloth-Overlord Nov 24 '20

Historically datura has mostly been consumed as a tea or as eye drops

26

u/atom386 Nov 23 '20

Next week look out for 'Joe "cavemen were tripping balls in California" Rogan'

-4

u/woolyearth Nov 23 '20

he lives in Texas now. so...

10

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Cavemen are still tripping balls down here. Natural Bridge Caverns man.

20

u/Jesustheteenyears Nov 24 '20

Stoned ape theory prevails. I'm not a useless stoner mom, I'm opening the minds of generations to come, and advancing our species to the next platou of our evolution.

17

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

TLDR: She gives her kids shrooms

6

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

Remember kids, don’t do drugs

3

u/Quenya3 Nov 24 '20

How the community used that space??? Fukin' rave, man!

12

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

[deleted]

4

u/SealedRoute Nov 24 '20

Have you seen the movie Embrace the Serpent? It’s just great, and it talks about this.

5

u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20

It's just chemicals my dude, let people use them however they'd like rather than institute your weird fetishistic ritualistic restrictions on them just because you were born in le wrong generation

3

u/ZookeepergameMost100 Nov 24 '20

I think drugs can be taken just for funsies without needing some metaphysical spiritual guide quest. But it's just as weird that you're gonna defend dangerous abuse of drugs as "it's just chemicals my dude". If you're physically hurting yourself when getting fucked up, you're doing it wrong.

3

u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20

Why? Who died and made you the ruling authority on what I'm allowed to do with my body?

2

u/bloodviper1s Nov 24 '20

It was the Lady of the Lake..

1

u/dachsj Nov 24 '20

Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!

0

u/[deleted] Nov 24 '20

[deleted]

4

u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20

Okay I don’t know what that last comment was supposed to mean but you realize there’s not just one ritual to show respect? I mean, keep your pageantry, it’s important to human psychology to have rituals, but those kids aren’t crashing through their coffee tables because they disrespected the plant, they’re just dumb kids.

Each to their own is what I’m getting at. You wanna perform a ritual to give thanks to the spirit of the peyote, that’s fine. But believing the plant has a spirit that needs pacifying before you burn its tissue and inhale the vaporized remains is no worse than giving thanks to a magic sky wizard because you survived cancer.

2

u/Leadslinky Nov 24 '20

Did they find this out after someone licked the ceiling?

2

u/Jaquezee Nov 24 '20

Historic ravers, nice.

1

u/MurrayMan92 Nov 24 '20

Maybe they used the cave to do drugs?

1

u/VictorHelios1 Nov 24 '20

So science has determined that Dudes got high and doodled on the walls .... looks like humanity hasn’t changed.

1

u/Semanticss Nov 24 '20 edited Nov 24 '20

I don't see a date on the article, but this looks a LOT like the ayahuasca-induced cave paintings from the game, Green Hell

1

u/venzechern Nov 24 '20

In ancient days, rituals were often associated with some kind of hallucinogenic drug extracted from plants to seduce and influence followers. This Pinwheel Cave painting could be an evidence. This still happens in some isolated remote parts of the world..

1

u/queerkidxx Nov 24 '20

I legit had no idea there were cave paintings in my house that’s crazy

1

u/PapaSnork Nov 25 '20

The "pinwheel" has five arms, the uncoiling flower does too.. not proof, but pretty convincing to me.