Rocket J Squirrel
Give a man a fish, no takebacks.
When I was a kid, I took a few quick puffs on joints on rare occasion, to no effect except to make me afraid I did something wrong and might suffer legal or moral damage. That was just my personality, not a drug-induced paranoia. Never been drunk or buzzed (until my edibles experience in Oregon this year). Teens through twenties I had two weird cold-medicine trips while sick. Those were not fun.
I have had, over the years, several drug-like experiences that do not seem to have been related to putting any kind of substance in my body, i.e., spontaneous. Especially in childhood. Notably, at about age 5, a handful of experiences at bedtime where I entered another realm while lying in my bed; like a dream but clearly not one. Mom disagreed; to her it was a dream. It was scary, and I depended on my go-to wise person, mom, to explain it, and she failed. The extra-dimensional experience was like being kidnapped and released, in that I was all of a sudden somewhere else, bullied and frightened, and then I was, in a blink, back in my world.
The other notable childhood weirdness was a phenomenon I call gnostic seizures. A wave of panic and hyperclarity in realizing I am in a body, in a world, in a situation, a conscious something-or-other. I felt as if I would pop out of my body if I didn't start grasping at solid objects to keep rooted in the physical world. I didn't leave my body, but superimposed on the experience was a vision of being in the middle of nothing but blue sky. Contrary to how beautiful that might sound, it was terror. Omnidirectional blue sky, nothing under my feet, no sense of having feet, or a body -- well, maybe a stomach, as it was feeling quite tossed in the air.
In my adult life, I have noticed that when I am deprived of sleep for hours and then finally go to sleep, my dreams are in a special category. I'll call these dreams for lack of a better term. Often a feeling of a scary presence. A small number of these dreams involve looking into a mirror and seeing my face turn demonic, an ambiguity as to what this presence in the mirror was, was it me? Was it a foreign entity? Either way, it brought dread. Eventually I would wake in fear. After having a few of the mirror-dream experiences under my belt, I had another one but this time remembered, "Oh, this is that evil-face dream again", and I challenged myself to look longer each time. Breaking through that threshold of fear and staring back at the face has made it fade away in these subsequent dreams. My attitude was even such that I thought it faded too quickly. I desired a longer duration of the exercise it was providing.
Another common phenomenon that occurs in sleep after a long deprivation has been a very real-feeling dream of being in my bed and being grabbed and pulled by several invisible arms. And I have found, again, that moving past the fear threshold into a kind of calm surrender has caused the phenomenon to dissolve -- though "calm" and "surrender" are not adequate words for this.
These two changes in the way I treat these dreams feel like major accomplishments, though, compared to the work I need to do to heal myself, they are but a drop in the bucket. They are part of what has clued me into my need to address fear, and what little I know about psychedelics tells me that they are relevant when it comes to fear-related healing. My other big issue to address is anger. I have a mountain of it weighing me down. Not the kind of anger that makes me a notorious asshole, but the kind that gives me all the same impulses the average notorious asshole has, and I hold most of it in. I have a psychosomatic ache in my chest now just mentioning it, I am so bottled up.
Some time in my twenties or thirties, I decided that age 26 was my mid point, and mathematically working it out, age 52 would be the end of my life. This is my year; I am 52. I think I would rather this be more like the symbolic Mayan calendar end-of-the-world, more like my death this year won't be so literal. My feeling is that I have more to do here in life, possibly, and should not die, proper, yet. Psychedelics, it has been said, offer a death that is not so literal. It is, I hear, a positive transformation, and one can come out the other side still breathing.
I am under the impression that experiences on psychedelics that have a similar confrontational nature to my mirror dreams and my grabby dreams should be approached the way I ended up approaching them. True?
About the "edibles experience" I mentioned above: I had the weird fortune to travel to Colorado AND Oregon this year, made these trips because of the state legality of cannabis. Smoke and vapor cannabis were not options at the time, but I wanted to have my first real pot experience, so I got candies. The Colorado candy did nothing except perhaps, literally, a tenth of a second of weirdness (like someone changed my channel and switched it back immediately). The Oregon candy did a lot. It was not pleasant. It might have been too much or not enough of the substance. I plan to upload the journal that I wrote while it was happening.
I wanted to be able to say I had at least one experience of some kind before going into true psychedelic territory.
I have a go-to person for info on the relevant chemistry, and experiential wisdom, and he is a member of this forum, but I think a direct link to this knowledge pool will help. As for what I can contribute, maybe just letting you know how things evolve from here will be of value.
I have been a broken person since infancy. It takes me a while to come around to good ideas. I ain't young. It's time. dmt-nexus was recommended as the best place for serious consultation.
I have a disabling rat's nest of disorders, health problems both physical and mental. Too many to list, but some highlights are ADD, multiple chemical sensitivity, anxiety, sensory processing sensitivity, PTSD since infancy.
That's me. Hi.
I have had, over the years, several drug-like experiences that do not seem to have been related to putting any kind of substance in my body, i.e., spontaneous. Especially in childhood. Notably, at about age 5, a handful of experiences at bedtime where I entered another realm while lying in my bed; like a dream but clearly not one. Mom disagreed; to her it was a dream. It was scary, and I depended on my go-to wise person, mom, to explain it, and she failed. The extra-dimensional experience was like being kidnapped and released, in that I was all of a sudden somewhere else, bullied and frightened, and then I was, in a blink, back in my world.
The other notable childhood weirdness was a phenomenon I call gnostic seizures. A wave of panic and hyperclarity in realizing I am in a body, in a world, in a situation, a conscious something-or-other. I felt as if I would pop out of my body if I didn't start grasping at solid objects to keep rooted in the physical world. I didn't leave my body, but superimposed on the experience was a vision of being in the middle of nothing but blue sky. Contrary to how beautiful that might sound, it was terror. Omnidirectional blue sky, nothing under my feet, no sense of having feet, or a body -- well, maybe a stomach, as it was feeling quite tossed in the air.
In my adult life, I have noticed that when I am deprived of sleep for hours and then finally go to sleep, my dreams are in a special category. I'll call these dreams for lack of a better term. Often a feeling of a scary presence. A small number of these dreams involve looking into a mirror and seeing my face turn demonic, an ambiguity as to what this presence in the mirror was, was it me? Was it a foreign entity? Either way, it brought dread. Eventually I would wake in fear. After having a few of the mirror-dream experiences under my belt, I had another one but this time remembered, "Oh, this is that evil-face dream again", and I challenged myself to look longer each time. Breaking through that threshold of fear and staring back at the face has made it fade away in these subsequent dreams. My attitude was even such that I thought it faded too quickly. I desired a longer duration of the exercise it was providing.
Another common phenomenon that occurs in sleep after a long deprivation has been a very real-feeling dream of being in my bed and being grabbed and pulled by several invisible arms. And I have found, again, that moving past the fear threshold into a kind of calm surrender has caused the phenomenon to dissolve -- though "calm" and "surrender" are not adequate words for this.
These two changes in the way I treat these dreams feel like major accomplishments, though, compared to the work I need to do to heal myself, they are but a drop in the bucket. They are part of what has clued me into my need to address fear, and what little I know about psychedelics tells me that they are relevant when it comes to fear-related healing. My other big issue to address is anger. I have a mountain of it weighing me down. Not the kind of anger that makes me a notorious asshole, but the kind that gives me all the same impulses the average notorious asshole has, and I hold most of it in. I have a psychosomatic ache in my chest now just mentioning it, I am so bottled up.
Some time in my twenties or thirties, I decided that age 26 was my mid point, and mathematically working it out, age 52 would be the end of my life. This is my year; I am 52. I think I would rather this be more like the symbolic Mayan calendar end-of-the-world, more like my death this year won't be so literal. My feeling is that I have more to do here in life, possibly, and should not die, proper, yet. Psychedelics, it has been said, offer a death that is not so literal. It is, I hear, a positive transformation, and one can come out the other side still breathing.
I am under the impression that experiences on psychedelics that have a similar confrontational nature to my mirror dreams and my grabby dreams should be approached the way I ended up approaching them. True?
About the "edibles experience" I mentioned above: I had the weird fortune to travel to Colorado AND Oregon this year, made these trips because of the state legality of cannabis. Smoke and vapor cannabis were not options at the time, but I wanted to have my first real pot experience, so I got candies. The Colorado candy did nothing except perhaps, literally, a tenth of a second of weirdness (like someone changed my channel and switched it back immediately). The Oregon candy did a lot. It was not pleasant. It might have been too much or not enough of the substance. I plan to upload the journal that I wrote while it was happening.
I wanted to be able to say I had at least one experience of some kind before going into true psychedelic territory.
I have a go-to person for info on the relevant chemistry, and experiential wisdom, and he is a member of this forum, but I think a direct link to this knowledge pool will help. As for what I can contribute, maybe just letting you know how things evolve from here will be of value.
I have been a broken person since infancy. It takes me a while to come around to good ideas. I ain't young. It's time. dmt-nexus was recommended as the best place for serious consultation.
I have a disabling rat's nest of disorders, health problems both physical and mental. Too many to list, but some highlights are ADD, multiple chemical sensitivity, anxiety, sensory processing sensitivity, PTSD since infancy.
That's me. Hi.
