• The Dark Side 💕 Welcome Guest 💕
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Notable Threads Urgent Hotlines
    Bereavement Mindfulness
    Suicide Support Anger Management
  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

A cure for desensitization?

Flickering

Flickering

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
Messages
1,114
Location
Antarctica
I'm looking for a way to make life fun again. I want to be genuinely interested in the simple things. Drawn into fantasy worlds unselfconsciously, allowed to be dazzled at without reserve or cynicism, like when I was a kid. I'm a sucker for nostalgia. No, that's an understatement; I'm obsessively nostalgic to the point I'm sure it's some disorder or another, to add to my PTSD and major depression. But I wonder if that's simply because I'm recalling from my childhood a time when I felt genuinely enthusiastic, alive, and excited about things. Things haven't been that way since; gradually, the world stopped being a big game, it started to feel bland and threatening and I was distanced from it, muted, no emotions.

My friends take LSD, and they run around looking at a tree for an hour and falling back into childlike wonder at everything they see. I take a strong dose, and... eh. It's a glorious mindfuck and a giant philosophical quandary, and things move and look beautiful, but even a powerful psychedelic drug isn't enough to crack my desensitization.

I realised today that it's a big part of the problem. Once, it was a symptom of depression, but it's become the cause. So how do I train myself out of it? How do I resensitize myself? Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Has anyone managed it? Got any clues? If I tried using psychedelics to reprogram myself, what would be the best way to go about that?
 
i have vivid memories of being a kid and pondering the nature of reality and existence. That sense of wonder is amazing but it's perfectly normal for it to go away as you get older. For example, i got a new kitten a few months ago and have another cat who is 1.5 years old who i had since he was a kitten as well. The kitten wants to experience everything, smells, tastes, see things, play with everything, and picks up everything so fast, just like a child. Now that my other cat has grown older he has calmed down and lost that sense of wonder that he had when he was a kitten. lol i know this isn't a great comparison but that's exactly how i see thinking as a child vs. thinking as an adult.

life is new for a child, like novel stimuli; once you are used to everything, you lose that sense of wonder and probably think about other things, like higher rational thoughts. It's a shift in thinking and outside of psychedelics you aren't going to get that wonder that you had when you were a kid.

Though, sometimes when i am intensely passionate about something, i will dive into it like i would if i were a child, just explore everything, learn everything and absorb as much as possible. Maybe you can find something like that to fill this void you have. Psychedelics won't fix this issue but may point you in the right direction. I think you just have to realize it's a part of life that this happens.
 
Inside of psychedelics too, it seems. I think it's too extreme, I don't think it's supposed to be quite this full-on. And I seem to want it to badly. I get flashbacks to that state of mind and feel an unbearable yearning to have it back, but I can't find that genuine excitement anymore. When I look at artists drawing awesome fantasy monsters or sci-fi scenes, I mean, surely that had to come from some childlike sense of those things being fucking awesome, And not just, "Eh yeah, I can see how that's kind of cool."

I get what you're saying about the cat though, I've had the same thought. I'm sleeping and eating fairly well, could do with more exercise, but I'm doing more than the average desk slave.
 
Are you taking any drugs on a regular basis?

One thing i noticed, really no matter what the substance (cannabis, gabergics, opoids (kratom), stimulants), they really fuck with your sleep when abused/overused chronically, and more importantly dreaming.

Once i realized good sleep and dreaming especially was very important to enjoying life a whole lot more, with diet and exercise changes of course, some of that childish sense of wonder and excitement came back. I'm hesitant to use psychadelics recently, after a few months break after a summer of psych abuse (coupled with 2-3x weekly hard exercise), i noticed a desinsitization like what you describe. At first it was a doorway back into that childhood state of mind, but soon just only was happening when i was tripping.

To summarize if you are (not saying you are) abusing any kind of drugs, including psychadelics, not getting enough sleep/dreaming (cannabis is a major factor that fucks with my ability to dream, or at least remember them), exercising bi-weekly or working a physically active job, and getting a proper diet, any one of these have caused what you describe in me personally. If any of the above apply to you, perhaps give it a go at working on whatever it may be, and see what comes of it.

Personally, dreaming is very, very, important to me. After a night of dreaming, sometimes 4-5 different themes, i notice life becomes more magical, fun, and how it was like when i was a child. Nootroptics, (noopept, citicholine, aniracetam) combined with a low dose of b. caapi tea, provided the most profound change in my lifestyle. This was not an awake trip, it was a dream, many dreams in one night. The next few days, something changed in me. Its hard to put into words, but psychologically i would describer the event as extremely therapeudic. On par with some of the most profound ayahuasca, and other high dose psychadelic expirences i've had over the years.
 
Good question - no, I'm not taking any drugs frequently, not even coffee. I take LSD, mushrooms or mescaline once every month or two. I work in an office, which is an environment I utterly hate, and lately I've gone from using psychedelics as a tool for self-discovery, to something that gives me the strength to endure another month.
 
Working in a job that you hate is no doubt a large source of the disillusionment you feel with life. The older we get the more we start to "accept reality". But reality is totally malleable, or at least way more than most of us are brave enough to try. I met a 73 year old woman that had lived in a 4 story treehouse in Guatemala for the last 17 years. She left a corporate job that she hated and redefined her life. She wanted to make music. She didn't want fame, she she just wanted to play. She found a place in the world where she could afford to do that. Now she grows a few coffee plants for a basic living and plays music. I have another friend that saved up for a few years to outfit herself to hike the length of the Pacific Crest trail from Mexico to Canada. She said that she needed to know that she could do anything she wanted without fear. She needed to reset. I think the kind of soul death you are describing calls for really honest soul searching. What are you saying "no" to? What needs to change? You don't necessarily need to live in a treehouse or go to the wilderness, but what do you need to do?

For me, when I feel trapped in any way, I know that I have to look at fear. My own fears of changing something in my life that I am unhappy with but that creates stability for me. It could be a job, a relationship, a place or all of the above. It could be a mindset. Whatever it is, it is changeable. But it takes courage and the willingness to live with uncertainty.
 
maybe reconnecting with nature would help? i know you've done some tripping in nature if i remember correctly. Sometimes i get so disconnected while working a shitty desk job inside a building with hardly any view of the outside world. Only to go home and do the same thing and the whole cycle really throws me off. Sometimes just a simple 20 minute walk helps to ground me and i try to do that every day or i feel messed up.

i'd like to be that 73 year old woman, that is how i want my life to be but it's hard to change. I have family that count on me, girlfriend, and tons of material stuff i am attached to (including my instruments). That uncertainty that it wouldn't work out and i'd have lost everything scares the shit out of me. I often feel that what i'm working towards is not actually what i want but what is expected of me.
 
While exercising, sleep hygiene, and diet are all essential to feeling good, I don't think they are the big fix for your issue. All of those things do wonders for encouraging your neurochemistry to function at its baseline, but it doesn't sound like your issue is chemical; it sounds experiential. I read a book on memory a few years ago, and one theory presented in it was that you can slow down subjective time by adding variety to your daily regimen. Minor things could include eating at different places, or taking a different route to work. On a larger scale, I think the best thing for someone in your place would be to persistently strive for fresh and novel activities and surroundings. Meet new people, take up new hobbies, travel, explore new music - see, hear, smell, taste, and touch as many new things as you can.

I like what RobotRipping was saying about the childlike sense of wonderment, and I think it ties into this. As we adjust to the details and rigors of life (ie office work) time perceptibly dissipates. Our brains are not stimulated by "same shit, different day," and as life goes on one needs to stay vigilant or complacency via passivity will lay claims.

Finally, I don't think you will lastingly reclaim a sense of wonderment, or the past, or whatever perspective you desire through hallucinogenic drugs. They are an experience like any other, and thus subjected to the same laws of banality as anything else. They may assist you in contriving a method for enjoying new experiences, or promote some sort of open-mindedness or willingness. Beyond that, it will be up to you to include new experiences and innovations to your life. If you do, I'm willing to bet the nostalgia will recede b/c you will be again engaged in the time and place in which you belong ;)
 
You're asking for ways to change the way you view the world and in the same post talk about using LSD.

I would say you already have your medicine... now you just need to let it do its job and bring you to what you need to work on.

At higher doses I have found that LSD completely deconstructs any blockage I have, in any area. It brings it up, makes me see it for a time, makes the situation highly multi-faceted in ways I hadn't considered before, and then the thought integrates.

I can't think of many medicines as good as LSD for this kind of deep inner work. It's just a matter of deciding to look. I'm not a fan of forcing people to re-live their traumas in order to get over them. I'm not convinced this is always necessary and LSD has shown me how it can be done differently.

All you have to do is increase neuro-plasticity ("mental malleability") by doing LSD, and then start making changes to your life that can stick around once the plasticity becomes more concrete again.
 
Foreigner said:
I can't think of many medicines as good as LSD for this kind of deep inner work. It's just a matter of deciding to look. I'm not a fan of forcing people to re-live their traumas in order to get over them. I'm not convinced this is always necessary and LSD has shown me how it can be done differently.
Click to expand...
When I had taken 25i-nbome I reconnected with myself and the world around me. Nature and all its wonder became useful and fun. I realized how much drugs have stunted my mental growth. I didn't need to understand what happened to me to cause my current lifestyle. I was totally fine with life after my 25i experience until I had taken large doses of Methoxetamine. I relived every horrible and pleasant experience in my life; everything that led to my seclusion and drug addiction. The entire experience lasted days due to redosing and, possibly, alcohol withdraws. I'm still having a very hard time getting over everything. I'm at my wits end. I'm trying to decide if I should go to a mental hospital or drug rehab. Something, anything. I feel hopeless. I wish I could have just stuck with the 25i and never taken methoxetamine
 
herbavore said:
What are you saying "no" to? What needs to change? You don't necessarily need to live in a treehouse or go to the wilderness, but what do you need to do?
Click to expand...

I think I know, but it's hard, and I've been trying, and what seems to hold me back is my frame of mind keeps lapsing into the total energy-draining despair of depression.

Motherofearth, I think you're right, the problem isn't predominantly neurochemical, it's psychological. I guess that's what I'm getting at - what psychological training can I put myself through to recapture that sense of real excitement in life? I do like to go walking in nature and have these kind of adventures; I even bush-walk at night, which tends to be an unsettling and otherworldly experience. Still the connection isn't quite there, things just don't feel the same as they used to, or nearly as good.

Definitely, mixing up the routine would be a good place to start. And I am always trying to do new things. At the start of last year when I began using psychedelic drugs, this was a big reason for that; I wanted to change my perception of myself, and reality, and do something completely different. It helped.

So, Foreigner, in the near future, I'm going to take a strong dose of LSD, which is something I haven't done before - only taken high doses of shrooms and DXM before. I may take the four or five hits of acid in my favourite place to trip: the desert. And see what happens. All that clear space and dilated time to myself might just do what you say, and help break through those barriers. My intention with using psychedelics is, precisely, to make my mind more malleable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top