The "Reset Button" Effect, a.k.a. Psychedelics Catalyzing Lifestyle Changes

[bickoma]

hey there -

there's a interesting effect that many people experience with psychedelics - the "reset button", where the experience seems to catalyze a spiritual rebirth. i've experienced this with LSD, mushrooms, dxm, and marijuana... all independently.

what is YOUR experience with the "reset button" effect?

did you have an experience, and then all of a sudden you made a drastic POSITIVE or NEGATIVE lifestyle change?

i've been studying under motivational/inspirational figures, and i believe that integrating ideas like proper goal planning, nlp (anchors/neuroassociations), and exploring true belief systems all match up VERY closely with the psychedelic community.

however - it seems that MANY, MANY take these chemicals and don't even REMOTELY appreciate the 'magic in the experience', instead just vibin' out to visuals. you know, time and place... but there is SO much value in the psychedelic experience, why throw it away?

i am becoming more aware that psychedelics CAN be used as TOOLS in SELF-IMPROVEMENT to rapidly KILL BAD HABITS and build new positive neuroassociations to ESTABLISH GOOD HABITS.

so, since these are such incredible mind tools... what is your experience?

-b

 

[Raw Evil]

it seems that MANY, MANY take these chemicals and don't even REMOTELY appreciate the 'magic in the experience', instead just vibin' out to visuals. you know, time and place... but there is SO much value in the psychedelic experience, why throw it away?

This is why, in my mind, there is a fundamental dichotomy between two groups of people who have taken acid:

There are People who have Taken Acid, who enjoy the experience yet remain their old selves...
...and there are Trippers, who embrace every part of the psychedelic change-set and allow themselves to become more than they are

 

[Sykoknot]

^I agree Raw Evil.
Psychedelics are the mold in which my current shape was formed. They are the factory in which I create my reality. They are the reaction that has turned my existence from static and linear, into dynamic and complex.

Enough Said.

 

[tBirdee]

This is why, in my mind, there is a fundamental dichotomy between two groups of people who have taken acid:

There are People who have Taken Acid, who enjoy the experience yet remain their old selves...
...and there are Trippers, who embrace every part of the psychedelic change-set and allow themselves to become more than they are

Well put

 

[malakaix]

did you have an experience, and then all of a sudden you made a drastic POSITIVE or NEGATIVE lifestyle change?

I know when i look back upon my experience's that LSD definitely set me on a path of truth and enlightenment, but it was a breakthrough experience on DMT that changed my entire lifestyle.. and could be summed up by your definition as a 'spiritual re-birth'.

But with everything, it takes time and patience to integrate such an experience into life.. that's the real challenge, some people can have the most empowering, enlightening experience's on different substance's but fail to integrate that experience, and make a change.

 

[bickoma]

So, integration is key. Learning without application is potential knowledge thrown away.

 

[MarkRenton]

First trip on mushrooms was the first thing that reset me. I began to for the first time in my life truly think for myself and see beyond structured pattern into the abstract. For months I continued to grow and then I had my 2nd trip which was on LSD. This trip made me even more introspective and aware of my brain functioning than ever before but I still had some learning to do. I got into heroin for a few months and that became my drug of choice over the previous weed and I had zero interest in psychadelics. Last couple of months I got off junk, started smoking more, decided it was time to trip again and my 3rd trip, also on LSD has catapulted me into an even new way of thinking and I truly feel like I am on the path to enlightenment. I really haven't felt this good since my childhood and I am only looking forward to the future for the first time in my life. I finally feel almost completely reset back to my negativity imprints where I can see the world for all its beauty all of the time.

 

[socalBUD]

Lol yea...LSD made me realize that it was my divine right to live my life as I damn well please...Doing psychedelics makes me feel like I'm waking up from a deep coma...

 

[MescalitoBandito]

Psychedelics cut right through ideological preconceptions and other learned modes of thought. If you're insightful enough, you can benefit enormously, but I sincerely think many, or even most people lack the critical capacity to integrate any of their experience in a meaningful way.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

Psychedelics have an incredible power to show you what you should be doing to become a better person and to live a better, more fruitful life. It's up to you to make the effort to integrate and pursue these revelations though.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Argh. It seems like every time I drop acid, I become convinced that I've finally been gifted with the inspiration I need to permanently change my life for the better. It feels like I'll never come down... and then I do. The problem is that the lifestyle changes I envision during the psychedelic experience demand a compassion and love for others, and a zeal for life itself, that is difficult for me to summon in sobriety.

I hate the feeling of a good dose of a psychedelic wearing off - it's like a cage being slowly constructed around my mind, of which I was so certain I was forever rid...

HELP PLZ. MAKE MY LIFESTYLE CHANGES 4 ME.


I really can't complain though - I'm pretty happy with the way I live my life. That, however, doesn't stop me from wanting to strive for something better!

Doing psychedelics makes me feel like I'm waking up from a deep coma...

Agreed - I often use the analogy of morning sunlight waking one from a nightmarish slumber to describe the psychedelic experience to novices.

 

[Liquid Sunshine]

Mushrooms. I radically cut down my drinking, ate healthier, and in general have had much more motivation since the first time I took mushrooms, the day after of which I felt completely cleaned out and totally renewed.

 

[shikidala]

My first full blown Salvia trip a year or so back REALLY helped me out massively, "Reset Button" effect is a good name, it was sort of Reset, Reboot & Reevaluate for me.

At the time, before the trip I was majorly, I mean Majorly depressed- on another fucking planet depressed (no pleasure, no motivation, total confusion & loss of what the fuck pleasure even was). I felt disconnected from everyone, even my own damn family seemed foreign to me. I knew a lot about the plants history etc & thought what the hell nothing can be worse than my current state I have nothing to loose whatsoever.

The Salvia trip blew everything to pieces, my brain had no option but to reset, my previous perception was blown to smithereens, it made me question everything again, my anxiety even disappeared for several months, I felt a great connection to everything & everyone around me(not while tripping of course lol, but strongly for months after the experience & to this day to a much lesser degree). I'm so glad I tried Salvia, I feel it has helped me create a really positive foundation for the rest of my life.

 

[Mjäll]

This is why, in my mind, there is a fundamental dichotomy between two groups of people who have taken acid:

There are People who have Taken Acid, who enjoy the experience yet remain their old selves...
...and there are Trippers, who embrace every part of the psychedelic change-set and allow themselves to become more than they are

And there are people who sort of questioned everything even before tripping and find it hard to even establish the small degree of dogma needed to "dwelve into" the experience...

Also, how can you become more than you are?

My take on it is seeing how everything depends on things you really do not have to fear. You remove these primitive instinctual associations (for example with societal moral code) which enables you to achieve your goals easier. But it also shows you that many of your proposed goals were lies and that perhaps the biggest possible goal is just existing.

This is an interesting theory and article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration

 

[adrian89987]

I definitely experienced some form of this. First Time I tripped..was on a fairly high dose of DOC. Previous to this in my life I was experimenting with some harder drugs (meth, coke, etc.) not really caring much for school and generally just trying to get by in everything with as little work as possibly. However while tripping and staring at the rainbows flow across the texture in my friend's ceiling I decided that I really need to try and fix up my life a little....Now I mean my life was in Fairly good shape anyway, my grades weren't Bad...just not exactly Good, and I wasn't in the middle of any addictions or anything, just experimenting with some chemicals (Maybe a little too often).

That trip just really helped me to come to the conclusion that if I wanted to go on to college and delve in a scientific field as had been my dream for a while, I really needed to get a move on and show some effort, else what schools would want me. The reset button in my case was really just a realization of my passion to improve myself and seek out knowledge in the world. Now I'm bout to be a senior year chemistry major with a 3.8GPA and doing research at a fairly high ranked research institution and will be going on to grad school to pursue a PhD soon enough hopefully.

Now, again, my life was not in anything that I would call bad shape at all. I was in honors and advanced placement classes, though I was simply coasting by without any real Drive to achieve all that I'm potentially capable of. That first psychedelic trip Did help to catalyze positive life changes in me though. I don't believe that psychedelics are just magic reset buttons though that work to help people change themselves. I just believe they introduce the right new mindstates that allow the possibility of looking at things like you didn't look at them before. Just that new perspective that a large variety of different experiences (chemically induced or not) that can lead to new realizations, some that potentially can be carried out for positive (or negative) change.

 

[Mjäll]

However while tripping and staring at the rainbows flow across the texture in my friend's ceiling I decided that I really need to try and fix up my life a little....

This sentence is so funny

Congrats though.

 

[adrian89987]

hah it is pretty funny when I read it again, but that is the exact period during the trip I remember having these thoughts...otherwise it was a pretty care free trip where I failed at playing pool and even be able to see a damn thing at all while playing Halo.

 

[Raw Evil]

And there are people who sort of questioned everything even before tripping and find it hard to even establish the small degree of dogma needed to "dwelve into" the experience...

I see what you're saying, but do you think there is much of a practical difference between a person of this type and my definition of a Tripper, after their first experience?

Also, how can you become more than you are?

Perhaps I should rephrase: more than you were before the exeperience.

 

[Mjäll]

I see what you're saying, but do you think there is much of a practical difference between a person of this type and my definition of a Tripper, after their first experience?


Perhaps I should rephrase: more than you were before the exeperience.

Okay. I might accept this

I wasn't complaining about your way of phrasing it, but rather using it as a rhethorical question for my proposed answer which comes after that in that post

 

[Obelus]

'reset' is a pretty ridiculous term. it makes me think of someone hopping back from an obe with no knowledge of human language drooling on themselves like an infant. luckily, i've yet to see that happen

most people who approach the experience from a perspective besides 'woo ima gon dew druggs!lets get fucked up!' come out with something interesting to integrate. psychs have an interesting way of showing you what you need to know, so you can't predict a blanket reaction

I've seen a few people pop out with a strange new found egotistic Machiavellian sense of douche-baggery, but as a trend that's people who delve into dissociatives ill prepared. again, thats a super generalization

my 2 biggest 'resets' were post dmt when i snapped out of a fairly toxic mindstate. integrating that took a lot of mindfulness and intent, and it was more or less able to fix everything

I wish I knew how to go into more detail on that, but its frankly impossible for me

my second biggest 'reset' has been occurring over the course of the past two weeks, when I've been able to identify and slowly rectify a fissure that's been mentally and physically affecting me for at least a decade.

although tripping helped me to identify and correct that fissure, it has been just as much, if not more, mindfulness and intention that has helped me to acclimate to this change