Freeotrope
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2009
- Messages
- 160
First I have very little experience with the dissociative drug class and don't know what those experiences are like. I am referring to my experience and knowledge of trauma related dissociation, and my observations of something similar in the general population in America. I hope my use of the word dissociation isn't confusing or misleading.
I think it is common for people to learn to avoid and suppress aspects of their direct experience, for example fear. By focusing on a conceptual model of the world and ignoring the sensations of fear in our bodies, we can sort of pretend like we don't feel the fear. The exact things that people dissociate from may vary from person to person. Sometimes we are socialized to be a certain way at a young age and dissociate from parts of us that don't fit with that socialization. We can ignore this in the conceptual model, we can conceptualize ourselves to fit with the social expectations, but we can't stop the feelings or impulses or direct experience in the body/emotions.
I've done a lot of meditation, which is a practice that tends to focus on direct perception of sensations. If I have lost track of myself and lost touch with mindfulness of the body and senses, meditation is at first anxiogenic. There is stress and tension and pain in the body that is related to dissociation from the body, from chronic habitual avoidance of things like fear and even the sense of intimacy with the sensory fields. By further paying attention, the tension and pain of avoiding things fades, and the direct experience of the sense fields is left and there is much less reactivity. It can be difficult to go through because there is a period where the pain appears to intensify. After getting through this hump, I can relax into a deeper acceptance of the things I was unconsciously avoiding.
I think psychedelics work much like this, except that rather than directing the mind to the sense fields, psychedelics turn up the volume on the sense fields to a degree where they can no longer be avoided. I experience a similar pattern with psychedelics as with meditation. I take the psychedelic and soon the stuff that has been habitually avoided or ignored gets louder and louder. This is the discomfort of the initial stage of taking a psychedelic. This intensifies until I allow it, and then there is a similar transition to a more grounded, less reactive state. One of the traits of this state, both with psychedelics and mediation, is greater clarity and insight because the avoidance/dissociation creates a lot of confusion and obscures a lot of what is really happening and enables a lot of projection.
Does this resonate with anyone else? Is this completely different than your experience? I'm curious to know if other people experience this, or not. Also please let me know if this just doesn't make any sense at all
I think it is common for people to learn to avoid and suppress aspects of their direct experience, for example fear. By focusing on a conceptual model of the world and ignoring the sensations of fear in our bodies, we can sort of pretend like we don't feel the fear. The exact things that people dissociate from may vary from person to person. Sometimes we are socialized to be a certain way at a young age and dissociate from parts of us that don't fit with that socialization. We can ignore this in the conceptual model, we can conceptualize ourselves to fit with the social expectations, but we can't stop the feelings or impulses or direct experience in the body/emotions.
I've done a lot of meditation, which is a practice that tends to focus on direct perception of sensations. If I have lost track of myself and lost touch with mindfulness of the body and senses, meditation is at first anxiogenic. There is stress and tension and pain in the body that is related to dissociation from the body, from chronic habitual avoidance of things like fear and even the sense of intimacy with the sensory fields. By further paying attention, the tension and pain of avoiding things fades, and the direct experience of the sense fields is left and there is much less reactivity. It can be difficult to go through because there is a period where the pain appears to intensify. After getting through this hump, I can relax into a deeper acceptance of the things I was unconsciously avoiding.
I think psychedelics work much like this, except that rather than directing the mind to the sense fields, psychedelics turn up the volume on the sense fields to a degree where they can no longer be avoided. I experience a similar pattern with psychedelics as with meditation. I take the psychedelic and soon the stuff that has been habitually avoided or ignored gets louder and louder. This is the discomfort of the initial stage of taking a psychedelic. This intensifies until I allow it, and then there is a similar transition to a more grounded, less reactive state. One of the traits of this state, both with psychedelics and mediation, is greater clarity and insight because the avoidance/dissociation creates a lot of confusion and obscures a lot of what is really happening and enables a lot of projection.
Does this resonate with anyone else? Is this completely different than your experience? I'm curious to know if other people experience this, or not. Also please let me know if this just doesn't make any sense at all
