OCD and DMT (Stan Grof)

[GoldenEye]

Hi everyone!

I read LSD psychotherapy a long time ago and always remembered a bit about OCD and LSD. The text is attached as an image for you all to read.

I have now met someone who recognises her LSD experiences in this description and has OCD tendencies.

She is looking forward to try DMT as she expects this substance to be so powerful that it would be impossible to fight it and stay in control.

So my question here is what people's experiences are with OCD and DMT? Does anything match with Stan Grof's description of LSD and OCD?

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

Interesting. This doesn't line up with my lived experience at all -- I have pretty bad OCD (of the primarily obsessive type) and I find psychedelics to be a really wonderful medicine. Under the influence, I tend not to have as many intrusive thoughts and in the days and weeks after, there is a definite reduction in the intensity of my symptoms.

To be fair, I use almost exclusively magic mushrooms, which are pretty different from LSD, in some ways.

There was a paper that showed psilocybin having pretty much exactly the effects I've experienced, in a controlled lab setting.

Blessings
~ND

 

[GoldenEye]

Thanks for sharing!

I have heard of the positive effect of mushrooms on OCD symptoms before.

The study only seems to look at reduction of effects during the experience however.

More importantly, it doesn't say anything about the quality of the psychedelic state the subjects experienced. It doesn't mention wether they resist effects more than other users of psychedelics.

So, my question remains, could there be truth in OCD being such a control issue that a very high resistance to LSD can be observered? If so, does this translate to DMT as well?

And a question for you Nathaniel, do you recognise the description of Grof? Do you experience limited visual and mental changes and predominantly physical effects? Do you feel like you need higher doses than most to achieve psychedelic effects?

 

[jamie]

I think oral ayahuasca brews or mushrooms are ideal for canceling out obsessive behaviour or negative thought patterns etc. Vaped DMT for me is a different ride that I approach with a somewhat different objective.

 

[Akasha224]

I think oral ayahuasca brews or mushrooms are ideal for canceling out obsessive behaviour or negative thought patterns etc. Vaped DMT for me is a different ride that I approach with a somewhat different objective.

What is the objective in question if I may ask? I also suffer from pretty bad OCD, (mostly obsessions and thoughts patterns as opposed to physical rituals, like nathaniel.dread), and I feel that a DMT journey is kind of a "jolt" to my brain and leaves it almost feeling reset. Sometimes the message I get from a DMT experience is "Stop complaining." That simple.

 

[RAM]

I also suffered from bad OCD for a time, and the tendencies that remain cause many issues in my current life. Psychedelics have helped me tremendously with this.

I still suffer from bouts of intrusive thoughts, many of them horrendously sexual in nature. For a time I was worried that under the influence of psychedelics, I might be inundated with these thoughts or act them out somehow. However, what I have found, is that they totally disappear for the duration of my trip. I have even been tripping and thought, "Wow, it's amazing how I'm not having these thoughts!"

This happened with mushrooms, LSD, and mescaline. I recognize the thoughts, patterns, etc. as an unfortunate consequence that my sober primate self experiences. I was not afraid to try psychs either as Grof seems to describe in his passage. And with DMT, I find that after a couple hits I hardly know who I am, let alone these OCD problems I face. And most people, especially on the short vaped DMT sessions, just stay completely still.

I have realized that a lot of my problems stemmed from my ego. It was like I was (and still am to a point) challenging myself with horrible thoughts, images, and repetitive actions to make my ego stronger for life in the real world. But once you let go, these obsessions and compulsions become so much less important, and when you don't feel the shame and eliminate the habitual pattern, they tend to go away. I'd say a lot of people suffer from these thoughts because they feel shame, but once you accept that your internal thoughts are private and allowed to be anything, you become the master.

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

And a question for you Nathaniel, do you recognise the description of Grof? Do you experience limited visual and mental changes and predominantly physical effects? Do you feel like you need higher doses than most to achieve psychedelic effects?

It's a little hard to say, but I would say that my experiences do tend to be less visual. I recall one experience where I was out in the woods with a friend (both of us on a pretty high dose of mushrooms), and he was going on about how the leaves were arranging themselves into letters and words. At the time, I remember thinking that he seemed to be 'seeing' a lot more than I was. When I looked around, the only striking visual change was the intensified colors.

So maybe there is something to this, I'm not really sure.

Blessings
~ND

 

[GoldenEye]

It's impossible to test right, you can't compare internal effects between two individuals :d

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

It's impossible to test right, you can't compare internal effects between two individuals :d

It's asymptotic. If I tell you I'm visualizing an apple, you have some sense of what's happening inside my head, but not the whole picture. I can tell you I'm visualizing an red apple, on a stool, the apple is about the size of my fist and has a stem about an inch long, and that gives you a more accurate representation, but still not the whole thing.

I could write a Moby-Dick-length treatise on my internal apple, and while you might, ultimately get really close, you're never getting there.

So, when my friend says he's seeing letters everywhere, or that the bark of the trees seems to be revolving, I can get some sense that he is perceiving something that I'm not, because I see no letters, and have no perception of any kind of movement. I'll I'm getting is the usual psychedelic 'HD Vision.'

Blessings
~ND

 

[HippingTrippY]

It's challenging to scrub the cieling clean with a toothbrush when you are blinded by colors.



"That's all I got to say bout that thare"
Forrest Gump

 

[concombres]

And a question for you Nathaniel, do you recognise the description of Grof? Do you experience limited visual and mental changes and predominantly physical effects? Do you feel like you need higher doses than most to achieve psychedelic effects?

It's a little hard to say, but I would say that my experiences do tend to be less visual. I recall one experience where I was out in the woods with a friend (both of us on a pretty high dose of mushrooms), and he was going on about how the leaves were arranging themselves into letters and words. At the time, I remember thinking that he seemed to be 'seeing' a lot more than I was. When I looked around, the only striking visual change was the intensified colors.

So maybe there is something to this, I'm not really sure.

Blessings
~ND

The variation of effects psychedellics can have on different people has always baffled me.
I've tripped many times on different substances, & only had vivid colors, the occasional waves, & depth perception being skewed, even with higher doses while the mental & physical effects were over the top.
There was one time i entered into another dimension completely on lsd but aside from that dmt is the only thing that has truly shown me the visuals everyone else i've tripped with has always talked about.
It's almost like there is no inbetween. Either very light visuals, or i go into full loss of control & enter another reality, but that is extremely rare with anything other than spice.