Hi!
If you don't mind me asking, what psychedelics have you tried so far and in what kinds of doses? From your posts, it appears you have experimented with 5-MeO-DMT. Have you tried any other serotonergic psychedelics? Also, can you say more about your experiences with somatic therapy? What led you to try somatic therapy, and does it help you when your nervous system is not frozen?
To be honest, I don't understand what's going on with you and whether psychedelics will help or even hurt or which are more likely to be beneficial. However, if you are looking for drugs to enhance the somatic therapeutic process, I think you will want to look at the phenethylamines. Of those you listed, San Pedro contains mescaline which is a phenethylamine and which I believe can work very well in this capacity. Yes, the experience is 12 hours long, but it shouldn't be anywhere near as overwhelming intense as a 5-Meo-DMT flash. I don't think you want to be that "far gone" anyway. My understanding is that psycholytic somatic therapy was used very extensively in the underground. Here psycholytic refers to the use of doses that amplify the senses but are not so high as to cause significant confusion and/or induce ego loss. The idea is that one needs the ego and mental facilities intact to be able to make sense of what is happening and do the necessary processing. It is also my understanding that the somatic therapists who worked closely with Ann and Alexander Shulgin used 2C-B extensively in their practices. Often they would introduce their clients to altered states using MDMA to test their response, and if they tolerated it well and needed something stronger to go deeper, they'd move on to 2C-B.
Depending on your location and personal connections, you might be able to find 2C-B being that it seems to still be somewhat popular as a recreational substance. I also think San Pedro could be a great choice for you. It is actually probably my all-time favorite psychedelic and the one I feel to be the most healing. Unless the dose is very high, it is actually a very lucid and energetic experience. In my opinion, it's best done outdoors, in nature and during daylight hours. The biggest challenges with San Pedro is obtaining high quality material, preparing something suitable for consumption, and dealing with the fact that every material is of a different strength. This is where help from an experienced guide could come in handy, or you could try and work it out yourself with some research here and other places.
To be honest, I'm not inclined to recommend people to seek "guides" because the quality of guidance is so variable. People on psychedelics are highly vulnerable to abuse, and so it's important to be with someone you can trust to take care of you. A close friend or family member might be a safer bet than a stranger, regardless of his/her apparent qualifications. Also, if you are going to trip with another person around, it might be helpful if the other person understands enough of the somatic process and can gently remind you to keep your attention on this process instead of letting yourself wander off, so to speak.
Lastly, let me say that if this does work you you, it may take many sessions. Perhaps you might feel better, maybe a lot better, after your first good session, but it's not unusual to need a series of sessions to do the kind of deep healing / reprogramming that you might need.
Best wishes to you!
Hi iom,
I really appreciate your detailed reply!
So far with psychedelics I've tried MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, 5MeO-DMT, cannabis and I've done one Kambo ceremony, though that's not technically a psychedelic. Dosages varied - I've done microdosing but it's always been too subtle for me to notice any effect. Psilocybin doses ranged from 4-8 grams, and I've done LSD ranging from 100-300ug. If I'm really disassociated, the best way I can describe my psychedelic experience is that my brain gets rewired, without the part of me that calls itself 'I' being present for the experience. And then afterward my ego structure is confused, and usually I end up more discombobulated. It's kind of like the pieces of my consciousness are not all present and online for the experience.
I was introduced to Peter Levine after years of talk therapy, and when I started looking into his work and trying some of his basic exercises, it became overwhelmingly obvious that the source of all of my unrest could be resolved with the release and completion of an energetic event of some sort, emotional, physical, somatic, etc.
His work really resonated with how I felt internally, and I realized that no amount of understanding would ever help to resolve a physical blockage.
And yes, when I'm not frozen, all of his exercises are helpful, but honestly if I'm not frozen then I don't have to make a conscious choice to do the exercises, the energy just moves as it wants (assuming I'm in a safe space - e.g. if I'm not frozen and I go for a walk outside, I'll suddenly start breathing heavy and grunting and making weird noises and that's all just energy moving that's been stagnant). The difficulty for me is getting unstuck - the exercises are helpful when I'm not frozen, but I haven't found much that loosens that contraction/numbness when I'm in that state, which, I hate to say it is most of the time.
I mainly sought out psychedelics because my condition is so rigid that all other forms of therapy did nothing to help me, and there has been a lot of renewed interest in psychedelic therapy in recent years.
Psycholytic therapy vs 5MeO-DMT rocket ship - I think they both have their benefits and drawbacks. One of my favorite quotes from the PSIP white paper (they utilize the psycholytic approach) is that you have to be someone before you can be nobody. The way I interpret that is that you have to have a stable ego structure that you can let go of in order to have the non-dual experience that most people are seeking when they take something like 5MeO-DMT. It took me a long time to realize that the ego is not so troubling for everyone, but it is for those who have trauma where the ego is forced to step into a role that hinders the person for the sake of protection, etc., especially when that adaptive response is no longer necessary and it's merely stuck and operating autonomously. So I think restructuring the ego is the end goal. The problem is that the ego, or default mode network, is oftentimes recreating the trauma, so having that offline can be very useful for rewiring. The flip side to that, like you're saying, is that you need to have an ego in order to make sense (on a somatic, not an intellectual level) of what is happening. But there has to be a loosening. For much of my life I didn't realize that my whole personality/identity structure was wrapped up in a trauma response, so that's where my ego can get in my own way in terms of being present in the here and now to readjust it's default operating procedure.
The other nice thing about some of these higher dose ego-dissolution experiences is that they can be very neuroplastic. Certainly with 5MeO, my brain physically feels like it's kind of melting, like the diagram in Michael Pollan's book that shows the interconnectedness of all parts of the brain under the influence of psychedelics. Even in relatively small doses, I've experienced what feels to me like an excavator going into my brain. I know that might sound ridiculous, but that's the best way I can describe it on a physical level, like my brain from a rock into peanut butter, and disconnected parts are able to communicate.
I will be trying San Pedro next week. I'm definitely looking forward to it. No guide, I'll just be going solo. I resonate with what you said about guides too. When I was first experimenting with psychedelics, I wouldn't ever trip without one because I was so scared. But now I no longer feel the need to have one. The greatest healing I ever have is when I connect to myself internally on a visceral, somatic level, and no guide can do that for you, or feel for you on your behalf. The benefit of having a close companion that allows you to go deeper into your own experience is valuable, but I find that connecting to my body is the biggest factor in determining whether or not I'm able to derive therapeutic benefit from an experience.
Lastly, aside from san pedro, what other phenethylamines would you recommend?
Again, thank you so much for all of your support and recommendations, really means the world to me.
4-HO/ 5-Meo stuff]