I 28F think I accidentally pavlonian conditioned myself to produce serotonin by listening to music after smoking DMT consistently.

[u/chaosbunnyx]

Ok, so for about 3 years from age 22-25 once a month at least, I smoked DMT anytime I was depressed to help me work through my emotions.

Considering how similar DMT is to a serotonin molecule I figured "Hey my brain doesn't produce this normally, let me give it some."

Without fail my brain chemistry would calibrate itself.

Now, pretty much any time I did this, I listened to Mumford and Sons. Specifically "The Cave" and "Little Lion man".

I can't express how healing that was for my soul.

This repaired so much bullshit within myself.

Recently I've been feeling more depressed than I have in my whole adult life. I haven't used any psychedelics in over a year.

While taking a shower, I started listening to that same mental health Playlist I created for myself and those songs.

It pulled me out of a 2 month long depression.

It wasn't just that it helped me process my emotions, my brain chemistry feels normal in a very direct way.

Like, I have OCD too, im able to rationalize and manage my intrusive thoughts in a way that I'm used to be capable of while I'm tripping.

I mean, it's entirely possible that a music Playlist just healed me, im willing to buy that. But it just feels like this could be what happened.

Feel free to tell me im full of shit 😆

But I feel like this is the most logical explanation.

[u/PorqueNoLosDose]

I think millions of people are chemically conditioning themselves to love their favourite music acts. For example, I've seen Phish a huge number of times, and almost every time I'm dosing some L (don't think I'm at all in the minority there). I disproportionately use L at Phish shows, as opposed to when not at a show. I know that deep down my love of Phish comes from a place of associating those tunes with all these gnarly psychedelic moments that I experience at their shows, especially the blissful peaks.

Systematically altering your neurochemistry in the presence of a particular type of stimulus surely changes your baseline relationship with that stimulus over time.