Psychedelics and enlightenment.

[dezz]

Just wanting to start a thread on this whole subject as I think disgussing it would be rather interesting.
I'll start off with my opinion. I have tripped a fair few times, and have been interested in psychedelics for quite a while, but to be quite honest, I think they are nothing more then pleasure and mentally jacking off.

It's quite disturbing how I see more and more people believe and live by these "trips" without ever questioning the substance of said experience. Talking to god? Really? I have taken high doses and I have never talked to god, simply because I don't believe sober. The sense of enlightenment is so magnificent you don't really realize how stupid and fucked up you really are while tripping. In my opinion psychedelic drugs shouldn't be taken too serious, or they could have quite severe delusional effects.

Psychedelics have it all, they tell you what you want to hear, makes you feel what you want to feel, fuck you where you want to be fucked and gives you a (fake) sense of enlightenment and wisdom. Psychedelics are like a hot white chick, cunning sly, attractive and sweet at start, but the more you fuck her she will want to marry you, change you, take all your money, and then you're basically not the same person anymore.

Let me finish this by saying I don't hate psychedelics, I appreciate them for what they have to offer, but in the end they are just drug induced experiences, with little rational thinking involved, and I think some people really need to take it easy and stop buying into the fairytale.

 

[omicamushroom]

When you use them all the time, they become less serious. However, at various points in one's life they may make it easier for one to have a revelation. So, for some, when they beginning tripping all the times, they are in search of these revelations. Some people get into the party aspect of psychedelic use. It makes the party, rave, festival, sitting around with friends, etc. more intense and exciting. So we have these 2 most general groups.

THe party people who consume psychedelics and don't really think of it. I feel that this will tend to dissociate me from reality. I like going to parties and dancing on good doses of psyches. I lose myself in the music and it can be really cool. And sometimes the music can lead me into certain questions that I have arising in my life. I introspect as the music carries me and gives me a drive compelled by the psychedelic to journey within myself.

However, as of lately, I stopped consuming psychedelics at parties. Only on occasion. I don't do strong doses when I am out in public any more. I don't eat shit multiple times in a week.... (well, sometimes). I don't eat chems just cause someone asks. It try to be more careful with them. I've seen some stupid shit at parties. And I feel that a lot of times people chase that psychedelic buzz too much.

Many people believe it be more rewarding to space their trips out more. This can be really nice. I'll binge, then I'll stop and have a month between each trip, then I'll binge again. When I am binging it is usually reasonable doses... nothing too high and not usually more than 2-4 times a month. Then I'll hit a big trip and stop for a month or so. my patterns run kinda like that....

Most of the time I am not searching for revelations. I have a good amount of friends who enjoy psyches. SO i try to trip with everyone at some point. I trip with people who use psyches more frequently than me and I trip with people that use em less frequently than me. IT can be a nice bonding experience. I always generally have fun with people. Sometimes, in strong trips with certain people a lot of issues are tackled... with frequent trippers and the occasional trip seeker.

I don't see god really. Either that or god is the cosmos. I've felt as though I surfed the cosmos. I have felt as though I was a tiny microbe on a distant planet swaying to the same cosmic energy everything swings to. I've been in some far out places... especially with the stronger, more dissociative experience (high dose mushrooms, DMTs, and K.

It is all kind of hard to understand... At the end of the day I think you benefit to space out the heavier trips. You don't think about them if you do em all the time. The buzz is never good enough and you want to do it sooner. I like too trip so fucking hard that I am afraid to trip for a little while...

THen again, I love my 2cb... 16-18mg at concerts, shows, theatrical performances, etc.... so awesome.

Conclusion: Psychedelic confuse me, but so does most drug use, and so does human existence, and existence in general. But I do it. I participate. I live. I exit. And I am an extension of the becoming of all being.

 

[villian]

All I'll say is I have tripped hundreds of times and I've had one experience that stands out from them all. Just because you have yet to have such an experience that complete destroys your materialist world view does not mean others have not. It is possible to completely transcend duality, but it is not something you can explain to someone, it has to be experienced as language is completely incapable of describing such an event.

 

[dezz]

I've watched my own body sitting and my soul floating away, being engulfed in a wave of swirly thingy's (dunno hard to remember excactly), but isn't that enough? Yes I did feel enlightenment from the whole experience, but did it had any significance whatsoever? I believe not, the enlightenment passed, and I was back to my old self again with the only thing left the memory of the experience. I think something that fucks with your mind the way psychedelics can shouldn't be taken serious AT ALL. The revelations you are getting are happening when heavily intoxicated. I think we give psychedelics way too much credit, the way the universe and reality works is probably WAY more astounding then messing with your mind and seeing visuals.

 

[Rorthron]

The Psychedelic Experience is individual. It is not communicable. If you feel you had a Spiritual Revelation, that's up to you to find how meaningful it is. On the other hand if you had not nor even search for it, that's fine also. To each his own. Do not expect to convert or convince others of your point of view, so this will be a really moot discussion.

 

[SirTophamHat]

you call it mental jacking off, that's sort of like an easier more fluid introspection to me. on a high dose of LSA I have found my thoughts to go spiraling out into waaack places. enlightenment can be something you already knew but weren't aware of. now that just sounds dumb and lame but the feeling at the time is not exactly the most effable so that's the best I can do to describe it.

 

[dezz]

I believe that happens to you, I've had that happen to me.

What I'm talking about is how much credibility users give to these things... It becomes like a religion when the user becomes obsessed with things happening in trips. I've whitnessed far too many people getting rediculously spaced out because they somehow think psychedelics show a more raw and true version of reality. This isn't even during use either, even after months of abstinence the obsession continues. I do believe in a benefit gained from the experiences themselves, ofcourse, you can learn alot about yourself, but those things were already IN YOUR MIND.

Psychedelics somehow have the ability to bring that to the surface. What I DON'T believe however, is mushrooms being a tool by aliens to communicate with us... or that it let's you interact with other beings in another universe, just like with dreaming, the mind is incredibly creative in letting you have an experience while creating it at the same time.

 

[Psychodelirium]

What I DON'T believe however, is mushrooms being a tool by aliens to communicate with us... or that it let's you interact with other beings in another universe, just like with dreaming, the mind is incredibly creative in letting you have an experience while creating it at the same time.

There's a big difference between believing in stuff like this and just taking the psychedelic experience seriously. Not everyone who claims to have had mystical/spiritual experiences with psychedelic drugs is talking about aliens and other dimensions and all that shit. It's not like "aliens" and "delusion" are the only possible interpretations.

 

[2c-goinsane]

imo everyones different and has there own unique way of viewing things, also i have seen some pretty amazing things on psycedelics that i remember pretty clearly years after it happened and to this day i still dont feel no where close to like i did before the experience so i know it does something to you mentally overall to where you can use it as a tool in life because how i felt deferently after the trip rolled into my everyday life and became a part of me, theres was ZERO escaping the feeling i felt so i had to work with it and use it to my advantage and that right there is enlightenment imo.

 

[dezz]

Can you elaborate further 2c? What excactly did that feeling include? What did you realize that was so important that it changed your life?

 

[omicamushroom]

Can anyone elaborate on the types of trips where you end up having to take care of someone the whole time.

Or when someone has a really bad first trip and they swear off psychedelics forever..... but more than the psychedelic being bad, it was poor set and setting that destroyed the person's trip. Regardless they swear off psychedelics forever.


For what its worth, I think psychedelics need to be taken seriously... A lot of people do not know how to let go. I, honestly believe that psychedelics can help a person let go of their worries, anxieties, beliefs, past experiences, etc.. On the other hand psychedelics can enhance and makes these things stick out even more.

When introducing someone to a psychedelic, I think it is serious shit. I've seen too many people fear psychedelics because of one mean trip (which generally happens to be their first). I have convinced some of these people to go back, and they have had wonderful experiences. It may not be spiritual, but I think it all depends on what we believe spirituality to be.



Also I wanted to reply to villain who was saying something about materialism and dualism. Very basically, materialism is the view that everything exists as a physical process. This view claims that the empirical sciences can provide explanations of things. Dualism is the view that there are two distinct essences - mind and body. Dualism usually leads to a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo, and is used as an argument for why our minds survive our bodies after death. Dualism was first discovered by Rene Descartes (at least it was first written by him in full length). Spinoza car after him and had the materialist view that all is one, and that the oneness is god, and everything that exists is a mode or attribute of god. The word god confuses everybody, but I think Spinoza was talking about the cosmos, the big bang, fate, etc. The debates between dualism and materialism rage on today. With the recent advance in cognitive sciences and neuroscience, it seems to becoming more and more evident that the "mind" is a physical process developed by the brain. A lot of people believe that "consciousness" is an emergent property, springing forth from evolution... but ultimately it remains a physical process.

When I trip I get an overwhelming sense of materialism. Especially trips with 5-meo-dmt and DMT. They put me out of the world, but keep me so far in the world. THey really paint Spinoza's picture. I've seen everything as one with the 5-meo-dmt and i've seen the multitude of energy that is n,n dmt. I think more often that not the materialist view is not what is destroyed, it is the dualist view. Our sense of ego can be completely obliterated by psychedelics. This usually happens in high doses. Sure, at small and medium sized doses you can introspect, and reflect on the I... but I believe that if you haven't been there,, and you go the itch to keep exploring the heavier side of psychedelics, your world will be turned upside down.

"It is possible to completely transcend dualism." "Destroy Materialism" I don't get what this is supposed to mean. I feel like to transcend dualism is to beyond the dualist principles of mind and body.... to put a third group in the mix. mind, body ___. And if psychedelics can do that, then gosh darn, that must be a religious experience. However, I think it is a brain process.... doing drugs will generally provide the same experience every time you use the substance at a given dose. Of course they are each a little different... but that is because our lives are a little bit different each and every day. So of course our trips will evolve alongside our own evolution, all against the backdrop of the evolution of all things.

And on and on it goes.

 

[2c-goinsane]

Can you elaborate further 2c? What excactly did that feeling include? What did you realize that was so important that it changed your life?

i didnt realise anything specifically, the experience it self left me with a overall very different outlook on life and everything on a day to day basis whether i wanted to look at it that way or not and its stuck with me ever since, same with 2 of my good freinds that experienced the same thing. i feel slower, im alot more calm and content im alot more logical i care about alot more things i once didnt, i dont believe just anything someone says anymore. the down sides is i always feel like its hard to get happy, im a bit emotionless and at times i feel as if im being bombarded with noises and all this commotion going on on a daily basis.

was a experience of dieing on lsd was very real to me, i forgot everything i once knew and imo i had to reteach myself alot of things and remind myself and while doing this i changed myself which changed my life imo. coming out of the trip i felt like i was really reborn straight out of the womb, imo since this happened it changed me alot overall id be lieing if i didnt say that lsd has changed my life completely.

sorry if i cant put it to words better its very hard to try to explain to someone about it which is the reason i dont even bother to try to tell individuals.

 

[dezz]

Very well said omicamushroom. Although the people I introduce to psychedelics, yeah I tell them they are in for a heavy experience. What I do not tell them however, is what they should do when they have a bad trip, how to avoid it or otherwise.

I've never seen anyone have a bad trip their first time that way. When you're warned for all the bad, I think you tend to go south way more easily. With psychedelics, sometimes, ignorance is bliss. My first attempt was 5 grams of mushrooms, outside in public. I had the best trip ever. I have a few bad ones under my belt aswell, would I do 5 grams now? Hell no, I don't think I can handle it quite yet. Now that I know of the bad it's alot more difficult to let go and simply observe, which you NEED to do if you're taking high doses.

What amazes me however is the undeserved "safe" reputation psychedelics get. Sure physically there is not much harm done, but I can honestly say I've seen people buying way too much into the whole experience, dropping from school, not giving a shit about anything all for the "higher cause" or other conciousness mumbo jumbo. For the mentally sensitive psychedelics are among the most dangerous drugs there is in my opinion.

In the end you're mind is your only defence, common sense and rational thinking are keys to integrating experiences in your life. We all know psychedelics drasticly change you're way of thinking and I think common sense and rationality changes along with it. So how can you be so sure that you are really enlightened? Most of the time the feeling is there but there is never an actual explanation of what knowledge you actually gained. Perhaps it's all a joke, perhaps it's just a feeling (similar to the euphoria of ecstacy) produced by a drug induced state.

If that is the truth then wouldn't frequent tripping pull you in further and further in a delusional state of "enlightenment" and alienate you from society all together? To be honest some people are better off doing a little coke or drinking a beer like "normal" people.

 

[Sepher]

Dezz, depends on how much you dose how often to an extent, and that's certainly influenced by what you bring to the table as far as you're expectations go and what you want from it. Even so I think the whole point of 'LSD as mystical experience' is that at an ego-dissolving dose all the mental conditioning we've accumulated over our lives that tells us what we are, and how to interpret the universe and our place in it, that's informed by our close relationships and our sense of self loses its grip.

Once free of the conditioning, even right down to the language we use and its subject / object dichotomies etc you seem to experience things as they are, in the moment, as energy and infinitely connected infinite possibilities, all the wiring in your head laid bare to be inspected and played with as a funny little toy held together by language, a shit-load of irrational beliefs, distorted perceptions and half-remembered memories.

This bit I completely agree and disagree with in equal measure:

Psychedelics have it all, they tell you what you want to hear, makes you feel what you want to feel, fuck you where you want to be fucked and gives you a (fake) sense of enlightenment and wisdom.

Yeah, if you can direct it down a road of your own choosing and imagining then sure, you'll probably get what you want from the experience in spades, but acid has a habit of wandering off down its own little path into the deepest, darkest places of your mind throwing out things that stop you in your tracks. Can be immensely profound making discoveries occasionally that turn your worldview completely upside down, or lets you trace back something in your present mindset all the way back to its origins in the past, and this is why acid is not for some, because they can't handle the sudden awareness of themselves and their innermost workings, all their secret fears and repressed secret desires revealed, and find the whole thing shattering to their sense of self. Those of us who react with interest to what they see finding nothing to be fearful of will often find that the real difficulty is hanging onto the discoveries they make there sufficiently to drag them up and out into the real world for later examination, but not impossible by any means. That's enlightenment I think right there if you can but hold onto it long enough to make a difference later on.

I'm not saying I deliberately set out to do anything other than see where the acid led me as I bathed in the CEV glow every time I took a trip by any stretch, mostly doing it for fun socially with mates but acid has a habit of turning round when you least expect it with something so startlingly novel and profound as to turn things instantly a whole lot more serious than that.

 

[billdeserthills]

Many times while taking mushrooms, lsd, extasy, usually boosted with hash (eaten & smoked) I had realizations, not by or about God, as he has some more important work to do, heh heh. I mean while taking this stuff I gain very helpful new perspectives on my life, and my actions in general. Losta times I trip and feel so refreshed with a new angle on dealing with whatever problem I am currently having.

 

[!!4iV4HF9R34g]

I think psychedelics only shift your perceptual mode so that instead of thinking in a linear way, we think in the psychedelic modes (duality/One, materialism/All, existentialism/None).

Like, it's just another way of viewing things. That's why you can work out problems and explore your world and contact aliens lol.
Who's to say that it wasn't real? Who's to say you're real for that Mr. Internet Person? I don't know.

I do think people should take these drugs seriously. Otherwise you're gonna really muck up your brains. Also, you can do a lot with the psychedelic process, including integrating the headspace into daily life and utilizing learned psychedelic talents.


Oh, and omicamushroom, the third thing is the act of observation.
there is the observer, the observed, and the act of observation.. Lol.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

If that is the truth then wouldn't frequent tripping pull you in further and further in a delusional state of "enlightenment" and alienate you from society all together? To be honest some people are better off doing a little coke or drinking a beer like "normal" people.

You speak as though rationality and belief in society were compatible! It's quite arrogant to assume fancy-primates are capable of some Platonicly pure logic. Plus I don't trust rationalists who aren't nihilists, and if you're an nihilist you'd see there's no reason to put rationality ahead of all else, and let people be, since one Golden Calf is as meaningless as another.

The "enlightment" offered is only the relinquishment of the ego-delusion's illusions, and an appreciation for what you (or the non-self as some would prefer it) really are, something the Universe is doing, an extricable part of That Which Is.

Normality is no thing, it is a symbol for the mode of behaviors and beliefs for some (fundamentally arbitrary) group of persons. It doesn't really exist. Likewise with society (at best we can call it an emergent system). But people don't even realize that these words are just placeholders useful for dealing with the grim meathook realities of existence, they think they are the reality, and exist in some Platonic idealized state (that their essence precedes their existence).

Realizing the alternative, your being the cosmos, partaking of the Is-ness of a truly unified whole, can profoundly affect a person. It can set them on the path to themselves, and let them live authentically and in accordance with their Will. And sure this might have side effects like some delusions (different from the societally approved ones), but who can avoid that? We just have to do our best to correct them when they ought to be corrected, but when it comes down to it we all end up the same way, six feet under.

As Crowley (say what you will of him) put it:
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will".
And if you don't like him, let's go way back to St. Augustine, "Dilige et quod vis fac"

 

[2c-goinsane]

i think the ability of being able to think in a very different way you can better your self by teaching your self or learn about things you once wouldnt ever even think about.

say for instance i had zero drive for learning about alot of things before the trip and now i soak information up like a sponge and i have goals and i have intrests in learning and going to school. I gain enlightenment on a day to day basis just because my different interests.

imo if it wasnt for lsd i would be a loud, naive, simple individual.

 

[dezz]

You speak as though rationality and belief in society were compatible! It's quite arrogant to assume fancy-primates are capable of some Platonicly pure logic. Plus I don't trust rationalists who aren't nihilists, and if you're an nihilist you'd see there's no reason to put rationality ahead of all else, and let people be, since one Golden Calf is as meaningless as another.

The "enlightment" offered is only the relinquishment of the ego-delusion's illusions, and an appreciation for what you (or the non-self as some would prefer it) really are, something the Universe is doing, an extricable part of That Which Is.

Normality is no thing, it is a symbol for the mode of behaviors and beliefs for some (fundamentally arbitrary) group of persons. It doesn't really exist. Likewise with society (at best we can call it an emergent system). But people don't even realize that these words are just placeholders useful for dealing with the grim meathook realities of existence, they think they are the reality, and exist in some Platonic idealized state (that their essence precedes their existence).

Realizing the alternative, your being the cosmos, partaking of the Is-ness of a truly unified whole, can profoundly affect a person. It can set them on the path to themselves, and let them live authentically and in accordance with their Will. And sure this might have side effects like some delusions (different from the societally approved ones), but who can avoid that? We just have to do our best to correct them when they ought to be corrected, but when it comes down to it we all end up the same way, six feet under.

As Crowley (say what you will of him) put it:
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will".
And if you don't like him, let's go way back to St. Augustine, "Dilige et quod vis fac"

I believe there are many ways of finding yourself apart from psychedelics. Like you said yourself we all end up the same way, six feet under. I wonder if this type of thinking really helps you in life. Eventually when it comes down to it you pay you're taxes, go to work every day, so on a basic level you ARE part of this society.

I must admit that I used to live in that bubble, thinking that this is it and I DO believe psychedelics made me realize otherwise but on the other hand I would have come to this knowledge eventually without them, in my own time without a tidal wave of thoughts and realizations hitting me all at once. Maybe some thoughts are hidden for a reason, to be discovered later in life, I think this is the reason why most bad trips occur.

 

[billdeserthills]

I haven't had many bad trips, at least not from the lsd, shrooms & e I have tried, actually I always have felt the bad trips I have experienced were from bad chemicals, not as a result of my accidentally finding out something my brain was not yet supposed to reveal to my waking mind. Then again, most of the stuff I have tried had already been vouched for,
as to it's purity & function, at least.