Dr. Strassman on "the effects of too much spice" from a recent interview. Thoughts?

[IceKoldpp]

i watched Dr Strassman's interview recently on the Danny Jones podcast and something he mentioned has jumped to the front of my mind a few times recently while browsing new posts/threads here on the nexus. i've also seen a few jokes made here and there on threads to the effect of "uh oh, another spice newbie has just emerged from their initial few months of high use and unlocked the universal truth to enlightenment and is here to shephard us all to nirvana with their newfound wisdom (or book or whatever)".

i'm only maybe 6 mos in to my membership on the nexus and it does seem to be a theme that this is pretty common. and i've even read a few of these writings they share. and there seems to be a lot of kindof common tropes within them. lots of ambiguous esoteric language that you can tell seems to be extremely profound to the author but doesn't actually seem to be saying anything direct or concrete. an example of what i mean is like "the answers i always knew were there but just hadn't been shown that they were inside of me, and outside of me, and you, and all of us... together". yet they never SAY what the answer is. and alot of the time it's written in almost a medeivel narrator type of style. very proper but in a silly kind of way.

this is not in any way meant to shame anyone or anything like that. which is why i'll not provide any direct examples. but i do find it interesting that when asked ab there being no negative side affects from heavy use of spice he mentions this "messianic" effect that we often see play out here on the nexus. often from someone who's account is only a few days old, proclaiming they aren't here wanting to be anyone's guru, yet everything after that kindof saying the opposite. my guess is it's probably just new spice users that have never experienced anything near reality breaking or paradigm shifting as DMT before (bc there isn't anything else) and feeling that it has to mean something profound beyond just for them. or it could be these are the ppl that they say shouldn't be using psychedelics bc of underlying mental illness. and this is the playing out of that mental illness on high use of psychs.

no real direction or underlying "answer" i'm trying to uncover with this. just really opening up a discussion for any thoughts or direct experience with Strassman's "messianic effect".

View attachment Toomuchspice.mov

 

[Voidmatrix]

Yup! Very unique nuance to DMT. It's kinda funny and sad at the same time.

One love

 

[ommani]

A common theme seems to be a kind of verticality of ascension without a corresponding horizontal expansion of compassion, both on a conceptual level and in terms of action… like, I’m sorry but being a life coach and/or spiritual influencer is not exactly commensurate with proclamations about ultimate reality and universal truths, in my view.

At the end of the day, it’s easy for me to see and point out these shortcomings in others because I’ve gone through similar things myself. It can be hard to avoid when taking strong doses of psychedelics (not just dmt, imo), particularly in combination with cannabis.

In one way or another, life has a way of humbling people, which I think is generally for the best…

 

[universecannon]

It can be hard to avoid when taking strong doses of psychedelics (not just dmt, imo), particularly in combination with cannabis.

In one way or another, life has a way of humbling people, which I think is generally for the best…

Agreed. This isn't necessarily unique to DMT. In fact I think cannabis on the comeup of a strong dose of LSD or mushrooms is probably the most risky when it comes to triggering temporary delusions of grandeur or paranoid delusions. You see it at music festivals all the time. With DMT, at least it's usually short lived, but with LSD or mushrooms it can obviously last hours and therefore be quite tricky and dangerous to navigate.

In most people experiencing this (essentially psychosis, in the worst cases), the effects are very temporary. But for some, it lingers even after the trip ends. With the explosion of DMT use I think we are just seeing more examples of people with various degrees of these sort of lingering delusions, coupled with an ego struggling to come terms with a profound experience well outside its capacity to grasp. Perhaps the short duration of DMT combined with the intensity makes it easier for people to buy into these ideations even after they fade...it's perhaps easier to see delusions for what they are after being stuck in them on a long-acting psychedelic for hours

 

[Varallo]

This is something I find very relatable. I think it’s a deeply human thing. You go through something so intense and overwhelming, something of such proportions, that you feel compelled to tell the world about it. You want to share what you’ve experienced. I don’t necessarily see that as a problem. It’s more a natural consequence of a powerful event. It’s similar to making a significant journey or traveling in a way that truly opens you up. That kind of experience is so immersive and impactful, of course you want to talk about it.

Where I think it sometimes goes off track is when there’s little or no real reflection afterwards. Without some form of mental hygiene, the experience can turn into a kind of messiah complex. For some people, that fades. For others, it sticks. Sometimes it fades because it’s understood for what it was, sometimes because others don’t reflect it back, which can make the experience feel frustrating.

In the end, intense experiences need to be shared. Sharing is part of how we process them. The issue is, it’s not really a shared experience and no one can truly see what you saw or be part of what you went through. That’s what makes it such a unique and personal experience, but also one that is difficult to share and relate with.

So are there negative effects? I think so.

One of them is that you have this short, ten-minute experience, but it stays with you. You spend days or weeks integrating it. Especially if you go back to it often, and stack them up in short order, it can narrow your perspective for a while because it becomes so central in your mind. I think that’s a downside, because it can pull you out of day-to-day life. Still, it’s temporary, which helps. Also I think the strain on the cardiovascular system can’t be good in the long term.

When you look back on those experiences and try to share them, but find little resonance, that can be hard. That’s actually one of the reasons a forum like this exists, so you can talk to people who understand what happens in that space. One of the hardest things is having an experience that is so meaningful, but finding very few people who truly understand or can empathize with it, ask a veteran they know this very well. That can make you feel isolated in your experience, and that makes it more difficult to give it a place and to keep mental space open for it in a healthy way. That’s where some of the tension lies, I think.

 

[Voidmatrix]

While this "phenomenon" certainly isn't isolated to DMT, it does seem to have a unique prevalence amongst DMT users especially early on.

If we use the forum as a metric, we see many more people with this affect after DMT more than we do with any other substance in seems.

And while it certainly is an aspect of being human in some regards, these substances are non-descript amplifiers, especially DMT, and I can certainly see why Strassman would consider this to be a side-effect.

One love

 

[Ruffles]

I would rather say megalomaniac than messianic. Gotta keep an eye out for that one... It's tricky. That inflated ego hides itself behind love and care, behind spirit, healing, and wisdom.

But how can we avoid feeling important after seeing the kind of art the mind produces on that state? And the secretive and unshare-able experience it gives?

 

[Jamie01]

There’s a lot of hype around DMT culturally and I think that helps people develop weird or unbalanced…unrealistic views surrounding the whole phenomenon of DMT use.

The 5meo hype is even worse.

 

[universecannon]

I also wonder how much of it is because this is, after all, the DMT-Nexus, so to some degree we are attracting posts focused on DMT more than other psychedelics and perhaps a certain type of demographic that comes with this interest

There’s a lot of hype around DMT culturally and I think that helps people develop weird or unbalanced…unrealistic views surrounding the whole phenomenon of DMT use.

The 5meo hype is even worse.

That's a good point

Related to that - as much as I love people like McKenna, I think there is a massive amount of the DMT community that gets pretty dogmatic and carried away about his ideas and that can lead to some pretty strange places. He is an amazing speaker and did a lot of good but he heavily promoted a very specific interpretation of what is going on with this stuff that took off culturally, and some people really ran with it myself included. People seem to have a hard time remaining skeptical and seeing where he might have went wrong. Obviously who knows what the ultimate reality is but dogma isn't useful either, as I'm sure he'd agree.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I also wonder how much of it is because this is, after all, the DMT-Nexus, so to some degree we are attracting posts focused on DMT more than other psychedelics and perhaps a certain type of demographic that comes with this interest




That's a good point

Related to that - as much as I love people like McKenna, I think there is a massive amount of the DMT community that gets pretty dogmatic and carried away about his ideas and that can lead to some pretty strange places. He is an amazing speaker and did a lot of good but he heavily promoted a very specific interpretation of what is going on with this stuff that took off culturally, and some people really ran with it myself included. People seem to have a hard time remaining skeptical and seeing where he might have went wrong. Obviously who knows what the ultimate reality is but dogma isn't useful either, as I'm sure he'd agree.

Yeah, I've thought about that as well. At the same time, I do feel that we simply hear about it overall more with DMT. I'd be curious to see what it's like on shroomery.

Yep, people latched on and ran with it. We like the feeling of being informed more than we actually like being informed.

One love

 

[universecannon]

Yea maybe that experience, and the instances of lingering psychological issues surrounding it, is more common with DMT given its intensity. It would make sense. Usually it's just so short lived that it seems to be less of an issue compared to being stuck in a delusional state for hours on a longer lasting psychedelic, which I've seen lead to some horrific outcomes myself included.

The strange ideas during the experience seem more philosophical or unrelated to this reality with DMT too, whereas with LSD or mushrooms it can be dangerously tied into the people/environment around them. Like the guys jumping on stage at shpongle because they thought they were chosen to ship off to hyperspace

 

[Jamie01]

Honestly tho the new age psychedelic community is great at this…look at something like rape snuff. The way ppl will spiritualize it as if it’s an entheogen is all hype imo. I know this angers some people when I talk like this and I’m not trying to be disrespectful just honest.

What makes snorting tobacco sacred? What makes a nicotine pen not sacred? Where is that line? Is it entirely made up? There are a lot of myths/narratives in the new age psychedelic culture that I feel people resort to instead of actually thinking.

Maybe if we call psychotic episodes and panic attacks“reactivations” it will be true. Maybe native amazonians have secret powers allowing them to use nicotine and cocaine all day without addiction..maybe plant teas are more spiritual than LSD…but probly not.

 

[Orion]

...as much as I love people like McKenna, I think there is a massive amount of the DMT community that gets pretty dogmatic and carried away about his ideas and that can lead to some pretty strange places. He is an amazing speaker and did a lot of good but he heavily promoted a very specific interpretation of what is going on..

I'm sure you and many here have heard someone who did DMT once or twice say: 'you just haven't smoked enough' because we didn't experience 'X', see 'Y' or didn't receive message 'Z', where 'X Y and Z' seem suspiciously similar to something Terence McKenna said in a talk or Joe Rogan said in a podcast.

The very first time I ever had DMT it was with a friend who got slightly pissed off because I didn't have the exact same reaction. They were convinced nothing mattered any more because they were now 'enlightened'. It got pretty awkward, as if me disagreeing simply wasn't an option.... and this was after smoking DMT once.

 

[universecannon]

Honestly tho the new age psychedelic community is great at this…look at something like rape snuff. The way ppl will spiritualize it as if it’s an entheogen is all hype imo. I know this angers some people when I talk like this and I’m not trying to be disrespectful just honest.

What makes snorting tobacco sacred? What makes a nicotine pen not sacred? Where is that line? Is it entirely made up? There are a lot of myths/narratives in the new age psychedelic culture that I feel people resort to instead of actually thinking.

Maybe if we call psychotic episodes and panic attacks“reactivations” it will be true. Maybe native amazonians have secret powers allowing them to use nicotine and cocaine all day without addiction..maybe plant teas are more spiritual than LSD…but probly not.

Yea people seem to do that with almost anything these days. I think people forget that humans have always just made use of whatever plants and techniques they happened to have available around them at the time. If they had access to high quality LSD and pure DMT would they not have used them? I can't imagine they wouldn't...but the question makes people's heads spin. I think some cultures would've rather had those instead of some of these other things that can be quite an ordeal and not as effective. People sometimes romanticize this stuff to the extreme and if you call any of this out they assume you don't hold any respect for these plants or traditions.

I'm sure you and many here have heard someone who did DMT once or twice say: 'you just haven't smoked enough' because we didn't experience 'X', see 'Y' or didn't receive message 'Z', where 'X Y and Z' seem suspiciously similar to something Terence McKenna said in a talk or Joe Rogan said in a podcast.

The very first time I ever had DMT it was with a friend who got slightly pissed off because I didn't have the exact same reaction. They were convinced nothing mattered any more because they were now 'enlightened'. It got pretty awkward, as if me disagreeing simply wasn't an option.... and this was after smoking DMT once.

You didn't see the machine elves man? Smoalk moar!!

Tbh I think Terence's 5g recommendation has ruined a lot of people's lives. It nearly ruined mine right out of high school. Obviously it was my own fault at the end of the day, but it was still wreckless how he went about it.

The lack of skepticism nowadays is always puzzling. We need more R.A.W. as required reading lol. A surprising amount of people seem to chronically believe their first impression of every aspect of the DMT experience, not even considering how their expectations or psychology could have something to do with it

 

[IceKoldpp]

But for some, it lingers even after the trip ends. With the explosion of DMT use I think we are just seeing more examples of people with various degrees of these sort of lingering delusions, coupled with an ego struggling to come terms with a profound experience well outside its capacity to grasp. Perhaps the short duration of DMT combined with the intensity makes it easier for people to buy into these ideations even after they fade...it's perhaps easier to see delusions for what they are after being stuck in them on a long-acting psychedelic for hours

very well put. my psychedelic experience has been almost exclusively with DMT aside from a few high dose mushroom trips ab 10 years apart from one another. i don't even smoke weed anymore (since high school and in my mid 30's now) but it makes sense that with longer acting psychs you're able to sit in the delusion and follow it to it's end naturally. not so with DMT.

 

[IceKoldpp]

This is something I find very relatable. I think it’s a deeply human thing. You go through something so intense and overwhelming, something of such proportions, that you feel compelled to tell the world about it. You want to share what you’ve experienced. I don’t necessarily see that as a problem. It’s more a natural consequence of a powerful event. It’s similar to making a significant journey or traveling in a way that truly opens you up. That kind of experience is so immersive and impactful, of course you want to talk about it.

Where I think it sometimes goes off track is when there’s little or no real reflection afterwards. Without some form of mental hygiene, the experience can turn into a kind of messiah complex. For some people, that fades. For others, it sticks. Sometimes it fades because it’s understood for what it was, sometimes because others don’t reflect it back, which can make the experience feel frustrating.

In the end, intense experiences need to be shared. Sharing is part of how we process them. The issue is, it’s not really a shared experience and no one can truly see what you saw or be part of what you went through. That’s what makes it such a unique and personal experience, but also one that is difficult to share and relate with.

So are there negative effects? I think so.

One of them is that you have this short, ten-minute experience, but it stays with you. You spend days or weeks integrating it. Especially if you go back to it often, and stack them up in short order, it can narrow your perspective for a while because it becomes so central in your mind. I think that’s a downside, because it can pull you out of day-to-day life. Still, it’s temporary, which helps. Also I think the strain on the cardiovascular system can’t be good in the long term.

When you look back on those experiences and try to share them, but find little resonance, that can be hard. That’s actually one of the reasons a forum like this exists, so you can talk to people who understand what happens in that space. One of the hardest things is having an experience that is so meaningful, but finding very few people who truly understand or can empathize with it, ask a veteran they know this very well. That can make you feel isolated in your experience, and that makes it more difficult to give it a place and to keep mental space open for it in a healthy way. That’s where some of the tension lies, I think.

i definitely find parts of this relatable as well. after first discovering spice (and especially after completing my first extraction) i, like i'm sure many of us probably were, found myself wanting to tell and share this profound eye opening experience with as many close friends/family as we thought would be open to it. getting somewhat frustrated when they're not receptive or fail to grasp the gravity of this gift you want to share with them. which is why, like you said, there is so much value in a place like the nexus bc it gives us a chance to offload and reflect on these powerful experiences with others who will "get it".

trip reports and our ponderings on our journeys are one thing though. where it seems to diverge is when someone pops up saying they've uncovered the "answer" or an ultimate truth of some sort. and one place where i have to push back a bit is where you mention that it's likely from lack of reflection. with the two most recent examples that come to mind that kindof inspired this post, they dropped books. pages of writing that clearly took many hours and sometimes weeks to compile. using their own improvised canon of lore and glossary of words they borrowed from other ideology's. it's interesting.. as i'm thinking ab it right now maybe it's actually the opposite of a lack of reflection. and it's actually obsessive reflection that can lead one into this state..

i'm literally putting this together as i type right now so just keep that in mind. but oddly enough one of these individuals even mentioned getting frustrated with no one in their real life giving them any consideration when trying to express these experiences and even kindof treating them poorly in response. like you mentioned, intense experiences need to be shared. i could definitely see how having these intense experiences and finding no one in your proximity to relay them to, and maybe not knowing there are places like the nexus, how one could almost be forced to sit with this profundity w/ no form of relief valve. so you just start to write. you have to do something right? or tell someone. even if that's just your notebook.. i'm beginning to see how this can spiral

 

[Voidmatrix]

I think some cultures would've rather had those instead of some of these other things that can be quite an ordeal and not as effective. People sometimes romanticize this stuff to the extreme and if you call any of this out they assume you don't hold any respect for these plants or traditions.

Oh, you mean like the tribes in South Africa that prefer 2c-b to their native plants to commune with the spirits?

Romanticize is right. The bludgeon they use it for is also uniquely colonial in its attitude and approach

The lack of skepticism nowadays is always puzzling. We need more R.A.W. as required reading lol. A surprising amount of people seem to chronically believe their first impression of every aspect of the DMT experience, not even considering how their expectations or psychology could have something to do with it

With so many things, people don't even think about how deep it goes or how real it gets.

I notice some of what we're talking about by virtue of my work. I come across my fair share of individuals who love to really behave as though they are the stewards of the space after very few journeys. Many will effectively talk down to me, probably because I'll play coy sometimes until I tell them I extract.

The shit gets real. Many will realize this in due time.

One love

 

[IceKoldpp]

While this "phenomenon" certainly isn't isolated to DMT, it does seem to have a unique prevalence amongst DMT users especially early on.

If we use the forum as a metric, we see many more people with this affect after DMT more than we do with any other substance in seems.

And while it certainly is an aspect of being human in some regards, these substances are non-descript amplifiers, especially DMT, and I can certainly see why Strassman would consider this to be a side-effect.

One love

yes! i agree. surely there is a pattern. i've seen it already as a newer nexan. i can only assume that you and other mods/ long term nexans have known this to be a "thing" for ages.

so odd. here's this thing that some reliable percentage of users will emerge after a period of high use believing themselves to have achieved ultimate enlightenment to the point of guru.. and then as you pointed out by saying "especially early on" and i think i agree, after a bit more use and time will realize how silly that was and how few of the answers they actually have haha.

i'm getting a strong sense of Dunning Kruger effect possibly being at play often here. which can really be something when it's in relation to substances that allow you to peer behind the veil of reality rather than, idk.. guitar?

 

[Voidmatrix]

Dunning-Kruger Effect knows no bounds.



One love

 

[Orion]