Is integration overstated?

[caputo]

The concept of integration presupposes that psychedelic trips have functional value and information that is capable of being integrated into ordinary life. This has always struck me as odd and probably leads to many trippers doing the equivalent of reading tea leaves, believing that they make sense, and then structuring thought processes around said nonsense. It's as if many trippers have an experience and then through impressive acts of mental acrobatics extract meaning from the silliness and almost sanctify it.

I understand people have epiphanies but I think they happen in spite of the drugs rather than because of them. Billions of wild thoughts, at least a few are decent. Odds are against you though.

I've found that many trippers reject traditional religions but then create their own Frankenstein spirituality using arbitrary magical thinking inspired by their trips. Between this forum and the shroomery, it seems there is a woeful lack of skepticism and critical thought applied to trip experiences. I've noticed many long time trippers tend to get embedded into wild ideas that seem to fail every rational sniff test.

I understand materialism is just another reality tunnel, but it seems the most sensible and the safest for those of us who enjoy the fruits of being able to navigate consensus reality.

Anybody else come to similar conclusions?

 

[TGO]

Grateful One, you are exactly right: There's not much difference between believing and following an organized religion and someone who feels connected to a higher state of being by using psychedelics. I have difficulty understanding both of them as they both use the same type of magical thinking and align their lives to superstitious beliefs.

I can dig that, to an extent. I feel connected to myself and this world through the use of psychedelics but one must be careful about the potential of delusional thoughts and actions. For instance, on DMT many people encounter entities or beings that seem to have messages or things to show them/us. If we get too caught up in what it means, one can start "going off the deep end." But having wild thoughts, speculations, or criticisms is different than taking everything at face value and as some form of "truth."

This is where integration comes in handy, to sort out what may or may not be important to apply to everyday life. You use psychedelics just to get high and that is fine. As I said earlier, to each their own. But there are two sides to every coin and I don't think that you should discount what others have stated here. It may not be important or useful in your eyes, but it is to a lot of us, no question.

 

[Psilociraptor]

My personal insights are usually straight forward: stop being a dickhead, eat better, exercise more, love more, face 'X', come to terms with 'Y', and so on. Its not always so clear, but often it is. Everyone is different though...

This. It's a little disheartening the tendency to devolve to such a monochrome understanding of what constitutes a valuable experience. Psychedelics are powerful drugs, and while our reductionist western perspective tells us they are just drugs that don't inherently contain knowledge, it doesn't mean that the subjective experiences had on them are without value. I can only speak for myself, but these drugs bring me closer to truth. Not knowledge of random factoids or solutions to unified field theory. Just simple every day truths about what it means to be a human which i constantly gloss over in my busy day-to-day life. If i stray from these truths i get my ass kicked. If I embrace them my animals literally open up to me more, my fiance and i share more intimate moments, etc. Everyone feels safer in the presence of my humanity and I get rewarded with feelings of revelation and god-like imagery. But the revelation isn't simple stupid one-liners i could keep in my notebook for whenever I'm having a bad day. It's not the things I already know that I'm tricking myself into believing are novel insights. The revelation is in realizing just how capable I am. In realizing how far I've strayed. In realizing how much love i deserve to give myself. And all those things that are necessary to get back on track. Things that I truly do lose sight of. Integration is about waking up the next morning and making steps towards that.

 

[Animistic]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings on the matter Caputo. I think it is important to remember that first and foremost in the cultures that traditionally use plants they are medicines and respected as teachers. For me these medicines are all about ints. Intention, interplanetary travel , integration etc. Are these ints overstated? Well in my experience that all comes down to the original int..intention.

Your intention is vital to what you experience and if you just want to get high then that will set the space for what you will experience. Certainly no judgement on my behalf if you choose to use them in this manner but what you get out will be vastly different, no better or worse just different. For me these medicines have helped change my life for the better. For me this wouldn't have come about if I had taken them to get high. You take drugs, that's all well and good that's your intention. Others take medicines and that is all well and good because that is their intention. Now I know it's not as cut and dry as that but I'm just trying to illustrate how intention defines what you are doing. Can one who takes drugs see how they could be medicines? Maybe not and visa versa.

Let me give you an example of integration in the form of a personal narrative from an experience I had over the time of doing a dieta with Chiric Sanango. My thoughts were going wild and my head felt incredibly heavy, snot was dripping out of my nose and tears rolling down my face. I then saw a big humanoid fly being in my head which I got the message that it was making a lot of noise clouding my thoughts and slowly eating away at me. In the course of the dieta this fly being got ejected from my head but for several ceremonies after this I noticed flys (from hyperspace that is not real ones) would buzz around my head. I found this quite disturbing to say the least and this was when integration came in handy.

Upon a lot of reflection I pondered about what it might have meant. I thought well flys are attracted to feces and rotting things and so I felt like I needed to do some cleaning but had no idea what. First time drinking after dieta I felt my dreadlocks and they had a really sticky energy and felt like poo. I got the message that my dreadlocks carry with them a lot of the habits and energy that I carried before I turned my life around, the old me got dreadlocks with a certain intention and since I am coming into a new way of being the old me was decaying and becoming rotten hence why my dreadlocks attracted flys. After realizing this I shaved my head and have had some big shifts since then.

I know to you you'll probably read that and say this guy is fecking bonkers and not really get it, that's cool I totally get it. Maybe one day you'll change your intention and see things differently and maybe those who think they need integration will change their intention and see things differently. Diversity is the spice of life so just embrace it

A.