• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ

Esoteric Why is writing on psychedelics so weak?

I

Ismene2

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 29, 2018
Messages
2,652
Must admit that after spending the best part of a decade reading every writer on psychedelics - theres practically none of it I would recomend to anyone. Absolutely none of it has ever struck home with my psychedelic experiences.
 
Psychedelics are a very personal experience that even the most talented writer would struggle to convey to someone else in a way they might connect with it.

No two person's psychedelic experiences are ever the same in a way they might write the same way about it, other than describing generic hallucinations.
 
Ismene2 said:
Must admit that after spending the best part of a decade reading every writer on psychedelics - theres practically none of it I would recomend to anyone. Absolutely none of it has ever struck home with my psychedelic experiences.
Click to expand...
maybe you have a book or a long essay to write, maybe you have something unique to share, or a unique way of saying it.
 
Maybe it gets ingrown and sick when the writing is explicitly about psychedelics, rather than a celebratory outpouring inspired by them. Maybe psychedelics connect to an ethos of "show don't tell" and a certain dignity that is above evangelizing. Maybe there is no need to explain psychedelics. Maybe they shine when they help bring forth the personal.

I find that psychedelics enhance creativity. Primarily visual creativity. Dissos are better for writing imo. Could be something that varies.
 
maybe the expectations are too high for text on its own.
that and none of the writing is worth ceremonial use that might raise it to devotional psalms, and the yogic jhanas.
but you can always take another dose and see where you get.
so far it's the blind leading the blind.
 
IME trippin I have a horrible time trying to focus enought to type/write. Just seems so non expressive or something. Like there really isnt a point to express.
idk
been a while oh yeah a few years back I tripped, got on bl to say something but all I could really get out was that I was definitively in bat country. :LOL:
 
I don't even get psychedelics once trip is over. Like, the fuck that even was? Nah, I aint gonna write shit about it.
 
Something I notice with the writing on psychedelics is that they are always contextualized. There are psychological, historical, pharmacological, narrative and spiritual frameworks used, and these frameworks are often personalized by the authors. So much of the writing I've seen includes what to me are limited views that are bound up with the author's identity.
 
I'm confused at this point:

Why would someone try and explain the infinite with a means that is incapable of expressing it ?

You're either on the Bus or off. If you're on it you will catch up(all ready know). If not, it doesn't really matter.

No maps on this voyage, just obscure and sometimes meaningless road signs to possibly suggest the way.

The real trick is... It's already written in your heart.
 
Last edited:
Some people just like writing. Some people that like writing also like tripping. Some people that like both writing and tripping like to try to write about their psychedelic experiences. I like to, for example. Obviously you can't ever communicate a trip anywhere remotely approaching fully through writing (or any medium). For me, I do it half to mark the experience in my memory and integrate it (writing about it is a big part of how I integrate it), and half because I just like to try, to me it's art. And I post them online because I grew up reading trip reports and always loved them, and people seem to appreciate them, which I like, too.

To each his own. I usually don't like to write while I'm tripping except occasionally I do... almost always I write about it afterwards.

TripSitterNZ said:
cause most folks are full of shit and pretend to take psychedelics to look cool. Serious psychonaut heads are to busy going super fucking deep to have the time to write a book.
Click to expand...

Most people who trip enough times stop trying to go "super fucking deep" every time they trip, and start using them for various other purposes. At some point, tripping to the point of ego obliteration over and over again becomes spiritual masturbation. IMO. There are many ways to use psychedelics, one of them is to try to achieve ego death, which is certainly the most valuable experience I have had, the most life changing. You can also take them in different dosage levels, for stuff like enhancing the enjoyment of art (of all forms), socializing, musical creativity, communing with nature, and yes, even writing. There are no rules.
 
Last edited:
Xorkoth said:
Some people just like writing. Some people that like writing also like tripping. Some people that like both writing and tripping like to try to write about their psychedelic experiences. I like to, for example. Obviously you can't ever communicate a trip anywhere remotely approaching fully through writing (or any medium). For me, I do it half to mark the experience in my memory and integrate it (writing about it is a big part of how I integrate it), and half because I just like to try, to me it's art. And I post them online because I grew up reading trip reports and always loved them, and people seem to appreciate them, which I like, too.

To each his own. I usually don't like to write while I'm tripping except occasionally I do... almost always I write about it afterwards.
Click to expand...
After I read this I realized how poorly I expressed myself in this regards.

I didn't intend to say that writing about ones experience was not possible. The Trip reports that everyone posts on BL, for example: These are useful and help folks out. Somehow I think @Ismene2 is speaking to much deeper material such as might be written by Descartes or Thomas Aquinas.

I would definitely not be able to even start to write about that level of experience. In my case the best I can hope to do is integrate the experience into my life.

I did have an experience today (300 ug AL-LAD) that was quite humorous in retrospect and after I sort myself out perhaps I will share it.

But again, don't expect any great revelations. But maybe you all will be able to laugh at and with me as I totally prank myself.
 
I quite like Dale Pendell's "Pharmako/poeia." Maybe it takes a poet?
 
@Pfaffed, gonna look him up:
  • The Gold-Dust Wilderness (1971)
  • Physics for the Heart (1985)
  • Chasing the Cranes, with Steve Sanfield, (1986)
  • City Limits Blues (1986)
  • Rough Cuts & Kindling (1986)
  • Swirling (1986)
  • Mokujiki: Thirteen Tanka, with Kazuaki Tanahashi, (1988)
  • Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft (1995)
  • Living With Barbarians: A Few Plant Poems (1999)
  • Pharmako/Dynamis: Stimulating Plants, Potions, & Herbcraft (2002)
  • Pharmako/Gnosis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path (2006)
  • Inspired Madness: the Gifts of Burning Man (2006)
  • Walking with Nobby, Conversations with Norman O. Brown (2008)
  • The Language of Birds, Some Notes on Chance and Divination (2009)
  • The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse (2010)
  • Equations of Power (2013)
  • Salting the Boundaries (2014)
  • Seeking Faust (2014)
  • Jeremy and the Mantis (2018)
lots of writing,
https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/8/strauss_wilson_pendell.php - a taste - might lead to better writing...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top