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How do you know you're ready for psychedelics?

If you have to ask yourself if you're ready for psychedelics and you're unsure, consider your emotional stability and state of mind. If you are happy and content, you're more likely to enjoy psychedelics. If you're troubled but you are well grounded, you might find some insight and benefit from mind expanding drugs. If you're emotionally or mentally unstable, they might not be the best option for you.

Be honest with yourself. There's often a battle going on in my mind between the way I WANT things to be and the way I know things REALLY are. It seems so much easier to act based on how I want things to be. But when that is in direct contradiction to the way things really are, I find myself facing an inevitable crisis. When I listen to my intellect instead of following my emotional instincts I find that I knew the answer all along. But I sometimes do not want to accept it.
 
You don't. You just wanna be totally comfortable with who you are/what you are. If you have any issues work them out first.

Evven then it can still go tits up.
 
You don't. You just wanna be totally comfortable with who you are/what you are. If you have any issues work them out first.

Evven then it can still go tits up.

Why? I've found psychedelics to greatly help to resolve the issues that have been making being a bit uncomforable. Just needs the appropriate choice of chemical. Not to say that worked for everyone. Generally I take psychedelics when I merely feel like it, though the first time I was way too wasted to even realize I was taking them.. :|
 
I don't think there is such a thing as really truly being ready, I mean you can't tell until you tried for sure anyway. I do agree on the feeling comfortable about who you are bit, if you're happy being you the mental trip is much more pleasant then when you're not. I find that goes for recreational trips though; you can also use the trip to work out some problems but if you want to do it 'just for fun' its better to go in with a happy, stable, confident mind.
 
While I don't think many are ever 100% ready for it, there's a couple things that you can look at. One is if you feel confident enough throughout your whole being and another is if you can paint yourself a clear image of what you are about to get yourself into.
Not that you will even have any guarantee, on the other hand you can learn to roll with it even if you were never for it and just got into it on a whim. My first trip was not even on my own whim but that of 2 friends who just wanted me to suffer a little derangement for fun. I had a glorious and very intense experience with mushrooms on a sunny summerday.
The 2nd trip, also on mushrooms I dosed even more and a painfully overwhelming episode caused a major ego annihilation in me, that I could have never been ready for. It's beyond imagination and I thought that was the stuff of fairytales and legends of mysticism.

So, I learned about all that after it actually happened to me. I think being ready equals having learned about the possible extent of such experiences before venturing into it, accepting that and doing it anyway because you basically feel like taking a leap of faith.

It's as ready as you'll ever be, but even then for what you can actually experience there is no preparation. You decide to do it and do it.
 
You'll never be ready unless you've done it. There is no way to be "prepared" or "understanding" of the effects of psychedelics unless you've experienced said psychedelics.
 
Stable emotional and mental state and a willingness to accept the world around you as it IS, not as YOU want it to be.

Well, that's the way I am and the way I was before my first LSD experience. I found that it made it very easy to manage my trip even in it's most challenging parts.

But most of all, just chill, relax, get some good music going and you should be fine. %)
 
It depends on what one is trying to achieve with them. I'm no expert on the medical side, but I imagine psychedelic use before a certain age is probably not the best idea for developmental reasons, and if you have reason to suspect you may have latent schizophrenia or whatnot, then certainly seek professional analysis before considering psychedelic use. Beyond those sorts of concerns, there is no one right answer as to when one is ready or not. So long as you are in a happy state of mind and a comfortable place, you're as ready as you'll ever be.

Typically, when they're not being taken purely for recreation, psychedelics are meant to spur either some personal changes or at least some deep, introspective questioning. It may take time to decide that you are ready for a trip for a particular purpose such as that. I know people who would meditate on a difficult question or personal crisis, then take LSD and try to work through it. The insights gained can be extraordinarily useful, with one very important caveat: don't actually _make_ life-altering decisions until you've had a chance to think them over sober. Tripping won't magically make all of your ideas flawless, but it can reveal things about yourself that you weren't even aware of. There's a reason psychoanalysts were so fascinated by psychedelics for research before they were banned... In fact, the legendary Dr. Shulgin did post-doctoral work in psychiatry before being introduced by a colleague to mescaline (although his interest in pharmacology went back further than that, according to Wikipedia... anyone else curious what is meant by a 19 year old Shulgin "becoming interested in pharmacology" while in the Navy? ; ).
 
For a first time... just a good bright mood and alot of spare time to dose, trip and come down.

tripping is beyond anything you can do before it, aside from really intense dreams.

it's a real throw in the air the first time. but the first times are quite often more fun.
 
A checklist:

If you....
  • Have read AT A MINIMUM two or three of the more detailed trip reports from Erowid
  • Know how to prepare for a trip
  • Know approximately what kinds of thought patterns to expect
  • Know what to expect during the afterglow/comedown
  • Know yourself well enough to keep a handle on things if/when they go bad

You're then ready to trip.

For the record: I'd only met the first of these before my first trip.

Incidentally, I still don't meet the last one, after 4 years of tripping.

Nobody's ever "ready". There are, however, levels of preparedness, both situational and mental. Be prepared, be aware, stay safe :)
 
If you....
  • Have read AT A MINIMUM two or three of the more detailed trip reports from Erowid
  • Know how to prepare for a trip
  • Know approximately what kinds of thought patterns to expect
  • Know what to expect during the afterglow/comedown
  • Know yourself well enough to keep a handle on things if/when they go bad


Incidentally, I still don't meet the last one, after 4 years of tripping.
)

"Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!! Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!! Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!!" x3 hours.
 
"Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!! Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!! Oh my god, what is that 37 foot 2-D dinosaur doing outside my window?! What is this thing in the mirror?! Where am I!!? WHO AM I!? Oh, I'm tripping... I'm only tripping! Wait!!!!" x3 hours.

I was thinking more along the lines of this.
 
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