Article Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism? by M. Stolaroff

[doubledog]

I don't know much about budhism, but fully agree that low to medium doses of phenethylamines (MDMA, 2C-B or mescaline) are great when one wants to explore and heal emotionally, it could be used as a tool for self-analysis. At least I use it that way for years.

Tryptamines in lower doses are too unpleasant or unsettling, so imo full or higher dose is better.

 

[blig-blug]

Tryptamines in lower doses are too unpleasant or unsettling, so imo full or higher dose is better.

Huh, to me it's the opposite: low doses of phenethylamines don't give me almost any depth but do give me uncomfortable stimulation, while low doses of LSD, DMT, or mushrooms are very helpful to me for not only meditating, but also creative thought, and playing and laughing.

 

[Here&Now]

5mg of 5-MeO-DMT was the closest to a nondual meditative state, while a strong dose was considered a nyam (a strong meditative experience).

These breakthrough doses may be useful for seeing what is possible and finding inspiration, but they are not the point. Nature would never flood the brain with DMT or 5-MeO-DMT at such levels in everyday life; it is simply too physiologically expensive. Therefore, we should look for subtle shifts within a normal energetic profile. Focusing solely on high doses is not a sustainable spiritual practice. They are part of the path, but not the goal.

If I were to estimate, I think I've had maybe around 100 5-MeO-DMT trips, and legitimately 90 of them were sub-breakthroughs. I totally agree that it's the fertile connective tissue between everyday life and extreme profundity where real and lasting change can be initiated. Using Zen-like practices of superconsciously choosing to "simply awaken" while in the midst of a 5-MeO-DMT sub-breakthrough is an esoteric practice that's suddenly made possible by the chemical catalyst. It's as if it heavily greases the gears and it becomes trivial to crack a koan at will (enter an authentic state of Being). That's assuming the right kind of effort (non-effort) is performed on the part of the practitioner.

Though I have a theory about high doses of 5-MeO-DMT as well. Some may look at this opinion as a form of heresy, but part of me wonders if the state they produce is beyond the reach of your average long-time meditator. Even if those states aren't strictly required for producing what we could call enlightenment, I have a feeling it's comparable to a bodybuilder who uses tons of exogenous testosterone to gain amounts of muscle that normally wouldn't be possible due to their body's natural hormone limits. I'm not saying meditators can't reach it, but I theorize that even very skilled ones may not be.

 

[Here&Now]

Huh, to me it's the opposite: low doses of phenethylamines don't give me almost any depth but do give me uncomfortable stimulation, while low doses of LSD, DMT, or mushrooms are very helpful to me for not only meditating, but also creative thought, and playing and laughing.

Same here for phenethylamines, and even mescaline. I think they're just not for everyone, at least not when the goal is a more transcendent condition of mind. For me, tryptamines are excellent for that. I guess it just comes down to individual variations in biology whether one type or another will give someone what they're looking for.

 

[doubledog]

Huh, to me it's the opposite: low doses of phenethylamines don't give me almost any depth but do give me uncomfortable stimulation, while low doses of LSD, DMT, or mushrooms are very helpful to me for not only meditating, but also creative thought, and playing and laughing.

Imo lower doses of phenethylamines do not give anything deep by themselves, they just allow to go deeper without internal resistance. Work have to be done by myself, otherwise nothing very interesting happens.
It's like going to gym, without really lift weights it has no sense.

I solve the problem of uncomfortable stimulation by alternating emotional self-analysis with walking (and sometimes also with constructing small rock dams on a local creek ).

Maybe I should try again lower doses of tryptamines.

 

[blig-blug]

Imo lower doses of phenethylamines do not give anything deep by themselves, they just allow to go deeper without internal resistance

Yes, same for me with tryptamines! However phenethylamines actually may increase my internal resistance at low doses, only at higher doses do I find them helpful for that.

Would you say that (in your baseline state) your body tends to be tense, and you tend to be anxious? Or not?

 

[doubledog]

Same here for phenethylamines, and even mescaline. I think they're just not for everyone, at least not when the goal is a more transcendent condition of mind. For me, tryptamines are excellent for that. I guess it just comes down to individual variations in biology whether one type or another will give someone what they're looking for.

Maybe I should clarify that I agree with an idea that phenethylamines are less transcendent than tryptamines.

Yes, same for me with tryptamines! However phenethylamines actually may increase my internal resistance at low doses, only at higher doses do I find them helpful for that.

Would you say that (in your baseline state) your body tends to be tense, and you tend to be anxious? Or not?

No, I am not very anxious person. Do you think that it plays some role in it?

 

[Here&Now]

Maybe I should clarify that I agree with an idea that phenethylamines are less transcendent than tryptamines.

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. The one thing that can be truly difficult is grasping another's subjective experience.

 

[blig-blug]

No, I am not very anxious person. Do you think that it plays some role in it?

I don't know because I don't have actual data, but I suspect that tense and/or anxious people may find low doses of phenethylamines harder to handle or unproductive, as the stimulation increases any tension that was already there. At higher doses it may not be necessarily the case, because other effects appear that can help reconceptualize anxious feelings and tension, and handle that energy easier. For example, with higher doses of 2C-B I feel a lot of physical energy but can move it around my body at will, merge with it, and experience it as pleasant if I want to (and focus). This is not the case with low doses.

This is all based on my personal experience as someone with high baseline anxiety. Maybe I should make an informal survey in the Nexus about this, it could be interesting to get an idea of whether this is actually the case. It sounds intuitively right to me but that's a weak basis.

 

[northape]

Though I have a theory about high doses of 5-MeO-DMT as well. Some may look at this opinion as a form of heresy, but part of me wonders if the state they produce is beyond the reach of your average long-time meditator. Even if those states aren't strictly required for producing what we could call enlightenment, I have a feeling it's comparable to a bodybuilder who uses tons of exogenous testosterone to gain amounts of muscle that normally wouldn't be possible due to their body's natural hormone limits. I'm not saying meditators can't reach it, but I theorize that even very skilled ones may not be.

These states more closely resemble the bardo or an after-death experience from what I have read - a state where the mind is free from its bodily prison and can roam freely.
Who knows if anyone can reach it on their own? I think anything is possible, but the probability is extremely low. My stance is that everyone who enters those breakthrough spaces has the karma for it. It certainly could serve as a guiding light for a lifetime.

 

[doubledog]

I don't know because I don't have actual data, but I suspect that tense and/or anxious people may find low doses of phenethylamines harder to handle or unproductive, as the stimulation increases any tension that was already there. At higher doses it may not be necessarily the case, because other effects appear that can help reconceptualize anxious feelings and tension, and handle that energy easier. For example, with higher doses of 2C-B I feel a lot of physical energy but can move it around my body at will, merge with it, and experience it as pleasant if I want to (and focus). This is not the case with low doses.

This is all based on my personal experience as someone with high baseline anxiety. Maybe I should make an informal survey in the Nexus about this, it could be interesting to get an idea of whether this is actually the case. It sounds intuitively right to me but that's a weak basis.

Would be interesting to know more about different people's reaction. I admit I am little bit surprised as tryptamines are much more anxiogenic than phenethylamines for me.

 

[blig-blug]

I admit I am little bit surprised as tryptamines are much more anxiogenic than phenethylamines for me.

Exactly my reaction if you swap both words in the sentence
I may prepare a small survey and ask Trav if I can post it, then. It won't be too scientific, but already better than basing it on my own experience only.

 

[Here&Now]

These states more closely resemble the bardo or an after-death experience from what I have read - a state where the mind is free from its bodily prison and can roam freely.
Who knows if anyone can reach it on their own? I think anything is possible, but the probability is extremely low. My stance is that everyone who enters those breakthrough spaces has the karma for it. It certainly could serve as a guiding light for a lifetime.

That's true, the 5-MeO-DMT breakthrough does very much resemble the Clear Light described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And the notion of karma being the limiting factor makes a lot of sense as well. I wonder if 5-MeO-DMT can serve as a bypassing mechanism that temporarily burns away those restrictions, similar to my bodybuilder analogy regarding supraphysiological testosterone.

I do think any meditation practitioner could reach a state like that, but it's more so my suspicion that they just don't, whether due to lack of right effort or whatever else. I believe every human has the potential somewhere inside to do unfathomable things, with no psychedelic intervention required. It's just that the current condition of our collective understanding is so poor. Despite experiencing quite a lot of this stuff and learning from the wisdom of the past, I can't claim to truly know what this is all actually about.

 

[blig-blug]

the 5-MeO-DMT breakthrough does very much resemble the Clear Light described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Given that you are experienced in both 5-MeO-DMT and ketamine, I'm interested in how you would compare both experiences (deep k-hole and full 5-MeO-DMT dose). I was very surprised to see that, far from those out of body experience reports that I've read, my k-holes have resembled much more a higher jhana state.

 

[Here&Now]

Given that you are experienced in both 5-MeO-DMT and ketamine, I'm interested in how you would compare both experiences (deep k-hole and full 5-MeO-DMT dose). I was very surprised to see that, far from those out of body experience reports that I've read, my k-holes have resembled much more a higher jhana state.

I wish I could give you a proper answer here, because I see the strong resemblance in ketamine as well. I've read enough of others' reports to realize that ketamine falls into the coveted category of substances which can reliably produce nondual-level experiences, which is what prompted me to make sure I have a supply. I just haven't yet had the opportunity to go beyond ~50mg subq, which is still a little ways from a k-hole.

That's awesome to hear that you've taken the plunge with it now, and even more awesome that you're confirming what I suspected. I'd love to hear more about it, whether in this thread or the other one.

Even though ketamine and 5-MeO-DMT can take you to similar states of 'unification with all things', I do suspect that there's an important difference between them. It's almost as if 5-MeO-DMT lifts you upward into higher consciousness and ketamine lowers you down into higher consciousness, if that makes any sense. Due to the different routes of stimulating the experience, there seems to be different results that are produced. Namely in ketamine's addictive qualities, and the way it can leave you with the urgent desire to hop back into the experience to recall the profundity you just witnessed. The after-effects of 5-MeO-DMT are a lot more wholesome, nourishing, and satisfying.

Like I mentioned, I don't yet have direct experience with a high dose of ketamine, but that's what I've gathered so far from lots of reading and my own experiences.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I missed that I was tagged in this...

Interesting... I was kinda talking about this as elements of my practice just recently...

Let's just say, I agree with the theory

One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

Found it (on my status)!

It was cool explaining to him some of my other reasons for so much low dose work. Sure I'm scared, but I also want to go the depths in a more firm way in order to glean more when I'm there. It's like I want a more stable wavelength in the space regardless of what it decides to present. Lot's of low dose work ingrains the medicine and the space inside you in a safe manner... at least that's what I'm operating from.

One love

 

[blig-blug]

I'd love to hear more about it, whether in this thread or the other one.

Here it can be a good place, as I think my experiences had features in common with jhanas.

Most often, at first I traverse a phase with very vivid memories. These memories are positive, negative, or neutral, although neutral and negative seem to predominate. Its content is not very relevant here, but something that comes often are memories from a tonsillectomy I had performed on me when I was about 3 or 4 years old, and much later hospital memories related to the aftermath a suicide attempt. I strongly suspect they used ketamine in both occasions, the bodily feelings are identical to those memories, particularly the later ones (which, being more recent, are easier to recall). In that stage I also reflect about my life, often from a pessimistic point of view, and feel like a failure, that something is extremely wrong with me, and that I have completely ruined my life. This may partly come from the second hospital memory rather than anything that's actually going on in my life right now, but in that moment it's

Then, I reach a point where I start feeling completely outside of normal reality. I feel my body stretch and "flow", in the moment I interpret it to be "the flow of reality", and I get the impression that I'm dying, kind of at the gates of death. However it's not scary and it's not delusional either, I still know that I'm safe.

Then, there is a sequence very similar in some aspects to the first jhana at the beginning, and then aspects of other jhanas.

The beginning is extremely similar to first jhana, both as I have experienced it in meditation (it's the only jhana I've reached) and as it's described in MN 111:

placing and keeping and rapture and bliss and unification of mind; contact, feeling, perception, intention, mind, enthusiasm, decision, energy, mindfulness, equanimity, and application of mind. He knew those phenomena as they arose, as they remained, and as they went away. He understood: ‘So it seems that these phenomena, not having been, come to be; and having come to be, they flit away.’

It's exactly that. Rapture and bliss (piti and sukha), a strong feeling of energy all over the body (by then, it's more the "subtle body" or "breath body" than the physical body) and a feeling of profound elation, even euphoria. And indeed I see every feeling, image, and thought arise and pass. The focus on the present is very strong, and even making an effort it's hard to think of the past or future. The difference here from first jhana is that it requires no focus or skill whatsoever, it's forced on me by the substance.

After that, there is progressively more and more light, and the energy in my body starts being the only thing I perceive, I don't perceive even a "subtle body" anymore. It's as if I become a cloud of energy. My sense of self starts to weaken more and more, and I feel the energy that I am flowing towards a very bright light, like a sun, to merge with it.

I have never gotten any further. I don't merge with it, and start coming down.

After those strong experiences, I personally haven't had the urge to repeat it immediately. It may be related to the memories phase that I go through, sometimes it has been tough, although much less than if something similar were to happen with a tryptamine.

It's almost as if 5-MeO-DMT lifts you upward into higher consciousness and ketamine lowers you down into higher consciousness, if that makes any sense.

Yes, although I haven't experienced 5-MeO-DMT I think I know what you mean. Ketamine feels to me like it takes me to the gates of death. The movement is definitely "downwards".

The after-effects of 5-MeO-DMT are a lot more wholesome, nourishing, and satisfying.

I believe that. I have found Pharma/Ayahuasca to be a much superior experience to ketamine. But as they are so different, I find them both interesting. My last Ayahuasca experience seems to have been very conditioned by my previous ketamine experience several days before. It's as if ketamine had opened something in me, and the lower than planned dose of Ayahuasca was then able to fully work inside me.

 

[Here&Now]

Wow! That definitely sounds legit in terms of ketamine manifesting a meditation-like state. Many similarities to 5-MeO-DMT as well. It makes me want to go further with ketamine and see for myself lol.

I find the enhanced attention to body awareness interesting. I've mentioned it many times in this thread and others, but I'm convinced there's a lot more going on in our bodies in relation to consciousness than we currently grasp on a scientific level. Please let us know if further experiments bear fruit. Thanks for sharing.

After those strong experiences, I personally haven't had the urge to repeat it immediately. It may be related to the memories phase that I go through, sometimes it has been tough, although much less than if something similar were to happen with a tryptamine.

For a mature person like yourself, I doubt you'll experience those addictive tendencies with it. Or if you do, you'll probably quash them instantly with the part of you that knows better. Based on your posts, it seems unlikely you'll lose control.

I believe that. I have found Pharma/Ayahuasca to be a much superior experience to ketamine. But as they are so different, I find them both interesting.

I feel the same way. At least with what I've seen so far, Pharma is the clear winner. It once made me happier than I've ever been in my life lol. Fulfilled in every way imaginable. Ketamine is interesting, and it touches on some profoundly deep states, but it kind of lacks that certain unnameable something that most tryptamines offer in abundance.

My last Ayahuasca experience seems to have been very conditioned by my previous ketamine experience several days before. It's as if ketamine had opened something in me, and the lower than planned dose of Ayahuasca was then able to fully work inside me.

This is another fascinating clue that ties the ketamine and 5-MeO-DMT experiences together. The ability to color future trips of other substances is one of 5-MeO-DMT's well-known characteristics. It usually causes other psychedelics to essentially become slight variations of the 5-MeO-DMT nondual content. Interesting how ketamine had this effect for you as well.