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An end to your journey with psychedelics?

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zknarc

zknarc

Rising Star
I never set out to be a ‘psychonaut’ or hyperspace traveller. After my depression and anxiety caused me a breakdown, I felt I’d try anything.

I have done DMT (well, pharmahuasca I guess) four times with two of these being really huge 4hr experiences. Each time, I have had an overwhelming thought of “omg what have I done to myself” as I start to sense the sheer enormity of the experience, just how minuscule and vanishingly distant any link to reality starts to become. The past, the future and where I am have no meaning. Form, colour and and eventually even me cease to have any distinctions.

With DMT, I actually become what I feel and that is what is so scary about it for me. The duality I feel as a human, ability to interpret and separate from my own experience, is totally dissolved. Loss of this barrier means feeling things gets to the very core of me because I become them, I *am* them. This has allowed me to feel total, pure love to the depth of my being, to have experienced utter uncontainable perfection, to be completely embodied by the care others have for me but also harrowed and shaken to my very essence. These are foremost amongst the experiences most indelibly imprinted on my memory but after these experiences what are so utterly removed from my reality I have often left wondering for weeks what I do with them. After quite some time, I’m left with the sense that perhaps being pulled from life and having any reality made vanishingly distant just isn’t what I need.

Do any of you have some idea of when you might stop or ‘be finished’? Had you ever felt similarly?
 
I leave happily the lead heavy expectations and over analyzing. Sometimes a question does not have to be solved, but rather never asked. One can drool over things to death (no offense here!).

Should this, or that? I do that in my profession to get something done, but for personal life not so much anymore, there I find so much solace in the flow. Gut and intuition tells whats fitting that flow, and what not.

I did try to rationalize everything like a mad man, but it never delivered or met the expectations that were put out. Now, I still rationalize, but is like a brain fart only. Can only smile about them.

Can't smart things out, I feel there is a guidance and I trust in it.
If that would tell me to stop the psy's, I would do so.
Have done so before with other practices, and when it happens that is usually a sign something ever better crosses the path so there never is a void.
That's the general strategy: it only gets better :thumb_up:
 
I know some people that drank once, got healing, and never felt a need to drink again. I know some that drank until they started families. I know some that drank for a few years and stopped. I know some in their 70's who still drink regularly.

I know people who drink once a year and some people who drink 4 times a week.

As for myself.... I would guess that I will probably drink my entire life, but I guess you never know....
 
For me, psychs have there place in life but that place is temporary. They have significantly helped me to become in touch with my spirit as well as increase my awareness of our connection with each other and the forces of nature. I am currently using them as an aid in healing and learning, but the ultimate goal is to be able to achieve these states without the use of anything at all! There is so much to explore in the metaphysical realms and with psychs it can be very unpredictable. Learning to navigate your mind, body, and spirit while sober will help you accept these psychedelic experiences and help you decide when to come to terms with your use of plants.

There are multiple paths to the same destination and I think it really depends on your honesty with yourself and your purpose for taking DMT in the first place.

Peace and Love :)

-SM
 
I think of psychedelics as sort of a reminder, or way to stay on-track. To use the mountain of enlightenment metaphor I'm so fond of, sometimes the top of the mountain may be obscured by clouds and you need to be reminded that there is, in fact, a peak.

Things like meditation and practice may be better ways to actually climb it, but when faith gets hard, it's nice to have help.

Once every year or so seems good enough for me.

Blessings
~ND
 
Nathanial.Dread said:
Once every year or so seems good enough for me.

Blessings
~ND
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I'm with you there, although I've developed a good relationship with micro-dosing , so I use psychs far more often than I trip on them.

I've been exploring the psychedelic properties of cannabis to satisfy my trip impulse. :)

But yeah, I've thought about this and see myself continuing my relationship with the plant(s) for some time, in one way or another. If there's even a space of years between high dose experiences, the time spent integrating them can be just as valuable, IMO, as multiple trips in the same time frame.
 
null24 said:
If there's even a space of years between high dose experiences, the time spent integrating them can be just as valuable, IMO, as multiple trips in the same time frame.
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^True. The life is trip itself. Just a slow and stretched kind of trip :) We've noticed with my friends that often the most precious things from trip start to unfold after few weeks/months from the experience.
 
I have often left wondering for weeks what I do with them. After quite some time, I’m left with the sense that perhaps being pulled from life and having any reality made vanishingly distant just isn’t what I need.
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Do you have friends you can share your new knowledge with (and better to share the next trip)? Do you have family who need you love and care? If you trip alone and then keep everything inside, if you don't find an "application" for the Love inside of you - then I can understand your feelings of being "pulled from life". But when you have someone to share the new knowledge and love with, when you have friends whom you can hug and tell how much you appreciate them - that's a totally different story. That's never-ending flow of energy and life in its most beautiful form and there's no need to stop it.
 
Hey zknarc
It’s all subjective, but I guess when you feel the experience doesn’t give you what you seek. You might just as well stop. People seem to try aya/dmt for various reasons. I gave aya to my brother (this was his first psychedelic). I urged him to try a low dose as first timer, he insisted he wanted a normal dose. I gave him 10g MHRB – he drank it. Purged – got healed – unleashed feces as there was no tomorrow. He was despite this very satisfied about the experience. He got, what he felt – what he needed out of it. He had no interest to proceed further (drink a second time).

I guess, in the end – what famous philosopher Alan Watts said about psychedelic “When you get the message hang up the phone”.
 
The over-analysing side of me has been pondering this too, with Alan Watts "When you get the message, hang up the phone" resonating around.

I feel I have the crux of the message, and my trips have evolved through wonder, fear, bliss and now, like a once fast train that is slowing down, jumping on is very easy now and even pre-flight nerves are easing. The Alienness of it has gone, I enter into the same space of beauty and I keep looking for the next revelation. But what can compare to realising and that we are all one, its all just you but its everything and it is God - but in infinite beauty and movement constantly cycling.

I was told that hyperspace is just a state of mind, that you could be it whenever you wanted. Oddly I do feel it, most of the time - not the churning chaos - but the same significance and feelings but whilst in this reality.

I am not a long time psychonaut, so is this just the honeymoon period ending?

I have an appetite for returning though, it is like visiting an old friend. When you have not seen them for so long you miss them, but they don't have new news for you. The entities all hide now, I see them in the "walls" but they don't come to play.

Is this a big-headed attitude in thinking I have seen all that could convey more meaning? A hiatus? Have I traveled to the doldrums in hyperspace? Or have I eaten all the fruit and now I sit by the empty (but beautiful) tree?

smoothmonkey said:
For me, psychs have there place in life but that place is temporary. They have significantly helped me to become in touch with my spirit as well as increase my awareness of our connection with each other and the forces of nature. I am currently using them as an aid in healing and learning, but the ultimate goal is to be able to achieve these states without the use of anything at all! There is so much to explore in the metaphysical realms and with psychs it can be very unpredictable. Learning to navigate your mind, body, and spirit while sober will help you accept these psychedelic experiences and help you decide when to come to terms with your use of plants.
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I think we are all probably saying the same thing, we have all had this revelation (or for those who already believed, a reassurance). And I guess unless you want to be a shaman and work with the spirits to achieve things in this world all that remains is a reminder of what you truly are, should you forget. Besides, my spirits are not the jaguar and snake - they are the ironing board, art gallery and biscuit (even with Caapi tea) which would make it very surreal.
 
What to do with psychedelics or the experience... an interesting question to ponder on. Sometimes I feel like the psychedelic experience in itself is just like session at the mental fitness gym - flexing those brain muscles that connect the subconscious with the conscious or what-not. It helps us to stay sane, to keep things in perspective or change perspective - whatever is necessary. There's no need for anything specific to be filtered out of any one experience - even though it can happen - but rather the point is to experience it. Just like with real world traveling, the change of scenery can be soothing for the soul, or can leave one shaken, but in any case it changes something and in that change it gives us room to grow.

For me psychedelics are like a long distance friendship. We visit one another from time to time, spend some quality time together - sometimes for longer periods and sometimes only a short stop by - and then for long stretches of time I don't see them at all, but I hold them in the highest respect. It's been some years since I visited the realms of the psychedelics now and it's not because I got the message. It's because of choices I've made and because I don't feel any need for them at the moment.

I know though that in the future there will come a time where I will either feel like it's the perfect moment to simply enjoy them or I will want to use them for work on a specific issue. And they will be welcome friends once again.

If you feel like your experiences aren't really helping what you wanted to set out and fix, then I have two suggestions for you. Either stop using them, since they don't seem to work, or change the way you use them. I don't mean dose-wise but rather the setting, the set, the intention, the integration.

I have to admit that for depression and other psychological issues I didn't find dmt/pharmahuasca very useful. Beautiful experiences, yes, but without direct impact on my issues or state of mind. I found lsd and mushrooms to be more useable - the former in the sense that I could direct the experiences to lead me to my "hangups" and learn about them, the latter in the sense that they would drag me through my worst nightmares and confront me with all of it in a way that I could not repress or deny - so I had to deal with it. with dmt I rarely got this to that extent; I would say it's more mystical and speaks to a different level of yourself alltogether.
Please note that this is just my personal view and experience so it doesn't mean that's how it is for others or you.

So you can hang up the phone, and you can dial a different number or wait a while and dial the same one again, or you can walk away from the phone and make other experiences - life is full of crazy things that can happen. Message or no message, sometimes it's just nice to be connected, and sometimes it's nice to get off the line. Trust your gut feeling.
 
anne halonium said:
zknarc said:
Do any of you have some idea of when you might stop ?
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never.
its encoded in my DNA.
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Same with me...

It IS somehow actually encoded in my DNA!

I was born to be a psychonaut...

Learned to meditate & hallucinate as a small child long before my first experience induced by a psychedelic compound found me. Once that happened, I was home.
 
Enoon said:
I have to admit that for depression and other psychological issues I didn't find dmt/pharmahuasca very useful.
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Did you try "true" Ayahuasca brew with Caapi? Not smoking, not DMT+Rue, not DMT+pharma, but DMT+Caapi? I wasn't getting the true message of Aya until I tried it with Caapi. Caapi is the true spirit of Ayahuasca which unfolds with the addition of DMT. And Caapi is VERY good for depressions. Many people take it daily in micro-doses for its great health benefits.
 
Psychedelics wasn’t really something I was really super keen to do and a bit of a final roll of the dice as every type of treatment I have tried has come up (usually very) short. I admit in hindsight I was hoping for a bit of a magic bullet like these amazing newspaper articles and 1970s studies.

To be honest, the prospect of doing it and going into the experience scares the heck of of me each time. It is the closest to helpless and alone I think it is possible to feel, it is like becoming a helpless child where anything can be done with me. Afterwards I’m “omg yes reality again, as badly depressed as I am reality being back is nice right now, very nice.” Duration of the experience is also a struggle to cope with, I think I’d find something like LSD really hard. Maybe I’m really not a good candidate for psychedelics?

electro said:
I have often left wondering for weeks what I do with them. After quite some time, I’m left with the sense that perhaps being pulled from life and having any reality made vanishingly distant just isn’t what I need.
Click to expand...
Do you have friends you can share your new knowledge with (and better to share the next trip)? Do you have family who need you love and care? If you trip alone and then keep everything inside, if you don't find an "application" for the Love inside of you - then I can understand your feelings of being "pulled from life". But when you have someone to share the new knowledge and love with, when you have friends whom you can hug and tell how much you appreciate them - that's a totally different story. That's never-ending flow of energy and life in its most beautiful form and there's no need to stop it.
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My family care about me but are really not the sort to be able to share these things with. My therapist is very good and I have discussed my first experience with her. In her professional capacity she can never condone any use of these chemicals and from a harm reduction point of view is concerned for me doing this alone. Still, she was very interested in the experience (I think both for moving forward with my treatment and personally actually). I have not discussed my others yet but intend to it is far easier for her if it is something I have already done rather then something I intend to do. I also felt I needed some space with them on my own first.

Despite it's rather distasteful image, I’m also looking into MDMA. It appears it may maintain the duality of reflection on thoughts and feelings (total inverse of my experiences with DMT) while suspending defences.

I will keep my 5g of DMT I have left and MAOIs in case the time feels right again.
 
zknarc said:
Psychedelics wasn’t really something I was really super keen to do and a bit of a final roll of the dice as every type of treatment I have tried has come up (usually very) short. I admit in hindsight I was hoping for a bit of a magic bullet like these amazing newspaper articles and 1970s studies.

To be honest, the prospect of doing it and going into the experience scares the heck of of me each time. It is the closest to helpless and alone I think it is possible to feel, it is like becoming a helpless child where anything can be done with me. Afterwards I’m “omg yes reality again, as badly depressed as I am reality being back is nice right now, very nice.” Duration of the experience is also a struggle to cope with, I think I’d find something like LSD really hard. Maybe I’m really not a good candidate for psychedelics?
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Hi zknark! I really respect your honesty and your currage. Ive been lurking on nexus for about a year and this is the first time I see someone who consideres to not do dmt again because of reasonable and critical self- analyzing. Im sorry that I dont have an answer to wether you should quit the psychedelic carreer or not. But I think that you should always listen to what the molecule "says". And also, trust your gutt-feeling. With that said I wish you the best of luck and may you find what you're looking for
:)
 
its not for everyone .
if peeps wanna quit thats fine.

lots of wonderful people leading wonderful lives never tripped.
best wishes.



in my case i cant imagine...........
if you took away my hallucinogens,
id be shell of a mean , but still hot, slut.

^its giving me an identity crisis just thinking about it.
 
For me personally, I Will never quit psychedelics! But, that's because Ive gotten so much out of it, both positive and less positive but all positive non-theless 😉 If that was not the case and I felt that I got nothing out of it, it wouldn't be a question for me if I should quit it or not.
 
Just for the record zknarc, the times in my life where I have had full-blown depression, I stopped using psychedelics (and Cannabis for that matter) until I was out of the depression. Only then I would resume.

I got out every time with a swift, self-kick in the pants, loaded with self-discipline. Making sure I got enough sleep every night. Making sure I exercised enough every day. Making sure I ate good, healthy meals every day. Making sure that I expressed gratitude every day. On & on, etc.

This kind of self-discipline would eventually (you have to be patient & kind to yourself) lead me back to loving & forgiving myself totally, which to me is key to being a psychonaut to begin with.

Then, when I would resume use, I would be like, "wow, how nice it is to trip balls again!". And all would be right in my universe once more.

It takes work. It takes practice. It takes patience with oneself. But there is nothing in life worth anything that doesn't take those things anyway.

Be good to yourself & may peace be in your heart.
 
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