Why is taking psychedelics so scary?

[The Day Tripper]

This is thread is making me ask a more basic question: Why do we do it?

No one here describes anything enjoyable, so why so we put ourselves through this? Hard to integrate, hard to go on with normal life, hard to go back... why do we do it?

Interesting question, Shiva... I have been asking myself the same question as of late. I am 100% miserable lately, something which I only partially attribute to my DMT consumption. Actually, it is a symptom of the same disease that led me to smoke DMT in the first place. Now that I have smoked it, I am made more acutely aware of the things in my life that I need to address, the ways I earn my living that I need to change... The only problem is that the DMT didn't really give me the courage to make the change, and now I'm miserable because I KNOW I need to do something different to be happy, but I'm not brave enough to do so.

You and me both brother.

Knowing what needs to be changed, and not being able to muster the willpower to do so is one of the main reasons i am taking a good long break from psychadelics. Its not the same knowing i have work to do before i can learn more, and often times counterproductive to the reasons we trip in the first place, to improve our lives (well some of the time ). I guess continuing to trip without "integrating" what you learned, is by definition crazy. But you can also do that to beat the lesson into your head, but i don't reccomend that, it diddn't work for me, and believe me, i tried.

For me, Everything was fine, until i got into the heavy stuff, and your mind has to deal with it, or know what you have to do and not be able to change it for whatever self-limiting reasons.

But, it could be the greatest lesson ever learned from tripping. The thing that changes your life the most. Sometimes you have to accept that you can't change something you want to, and learn to live with it as well.

Cognitive dissonance is one hell of a mistress.

 

[CatholicPsychonaut]

Cognitive dissonance is one hell of a mistress.

You want to talk about cognitive dissonance, DT...? Look at my screen name! That's some fucking cognitive dissonance... And the acute awareness of such is one of my biggest issues right now. I felt it creeping on the surface of my life about a year ago, which is what prompted me to seek out this illusive teacher DMT in the first place. Now that we've been down the rabbit hole, that which was poking at me but not really causing me deep distress now looms so large in my mind that I cannot escape from it... Like the monolith... COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!!!!!

So, did we make a mistake by taking the blue pill (was it the blue or the red one? I haven't seen The Matrix in like 10 years)? Should we have just kept ignoring our Soul's calling and drudged on till retirement? Maybe... But I don't think so. I'm not young anymore, but I'm not too old to make a change in my life and do something great. I guess that's what they used to call a "mid life crisis". I just call it going batshit crazy from being surrounded by Hyper Conservatives when I became Catholic because of the Mystic tradition and the Eucharist.

 

[AmadeusD]

For me, when i truly reflect on my experiences the fear that sometimes comes to me with psychedelics is the same fear that comes to me in day-to-day life. It's just that in the psychedelic mindspace it is amplified to a level that makes it unavoidable topic of exploration for that time period. It is the issue of honesty. The fear of other people's reactions to your true nature. Your true thoughts and feelings, rather htan whatever i've put on for the outer world to experience.
In a psychedelic state i am faced directly with the consequences of the darker parts of this dishonesty but also faced with the absurdity of fooling yourself or denying yourself the right of true expression. If only I had really practiced it my whole, the dark parts might be be so dark.