How have psychedelics affected you?

[Flickering]

In the long term, since you started, what's changed? Are you better or worse off?

I've only been tripping since April this year, but I can attribute a few things to the substances I've used. First, they contributed but weren't wholly responsible for my recent recovery from a depression of four to six years. This resulted from an epiphany that I probably wouldn't have come to without san pedro and LSD. I've also found that I appreciate colours and simple things a lot more. It's like I used to take everything for granted, but now I can sit outside and look at the trees and they're not doing anything, yet it's better than the highest quality CGI movie or videogame. Life is just generally more interesting and I can keep myself occupied with things others don't even notice - lighting, music, textures, flavours, it doesn't have to be so complex.

I also feel I've been far more honest with myself (san pedro), taken life less seriously and become more easy-going (LSD), opened my mind to philosophical thoughts I might never have considered before (all of them), and have become a lot more confident (LSD and san pedro).

On the dark side, the latent / mild derealisation disorder I've always had in the back of my head, especially around when I started getting chronically depressed, has gotten stronger. It now comes in very powerful flashes that last less than a second ("Reality is real, yep, all is normal - HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS REALITY IT'S ALL JUST MEANINGLESS PERCEPT AND IT'S ALL IMAGINARY - aaand we're back to baseline, well that wasn't very nice") or a less powerful dissociation that tends to last hours, where it feels like I'm watching life on a TV screen; everything becomes less than real. I attribute this mostly to weed, which I've only smoked twice and will never touch again, but also partly to mushrooms (bad trip; reality became a solipsistic dimensionless illusion) and to DXM (bad trip; amped the derealisation scale to 12/10 and to this day, I get mild anxiety when I drift off in a daydream because I'm scared I won't be able to tell the difference between what's happening in my head and what's happening in real life.) I hope these negatives symptoms don't last, or get worse, and I'm actually in some foolhardy way looking to possibly alleviate them through further psychedelic revelations.

Pitch in your own thoughts and experiences - I'd think Bluelight would have a lot enthusiasts, but I bet there are those of you with HPPD or other lingering conditions.

 

[AlyDrops]

Well well Flickering, we meet again! I'll try to keep this short and sweet this time since I've already spoken much on this before.

Despite all of the horrible things I've described going through related to my hallucinogen use and abuse in a variety of threads that you've both started and responded to, I consider my overall experience with tripping to be largely positive. I used my first psychedelic, shrooms, about two and a half years ago, and I had only rolled for the first time the week before that, and smoked weed for the first time a couple months before that. I can definitely agree that as a result of everything I just appreciate life and all of its sensory brilliance much more than I ever did before psychedelics, and I've moved on from things that seem shallow or less interesting now. I've also experienced several more philosophical thoughts, but that's kind of a given.

Unlike you, my problems with dissociation started from abuse, but I've been over that so many times now. Using deliriants and deliriant combinations, the HPPD thing, etc. I used to absolutely love weed but now I can't smoke it because it brings me to that state of mind, as well as giving me massive anxiety. *sigh* Oh well, I'm recovering. Something which is undoubtedly related to the abuse, but which I actually credit more to genetics, I am very happy for though. Apparently, it runs in my family to have a very level head on hallucinogens (I may have mentioned this before...), something that I've only learned for the most part after all of this. I've never lost control of my actions on any drug experience I've ever had, not any salvia trip, not 20 hits of LSD, not 1000 mg of diphenhydramine. Back when I was doing all of this stuff, I wanted to escape reality so badly that often my reason for taking a drug was to try to lose control. Never worked, no matter how hard I try, not even the psychedelic + deliriant combos. That, combined with the increasing derealization and side effects like anxiety, is what forced me to accept that I would have to just face my problems rather than trying to escape from them. As a result of that and what I has become of it, my life has become much better.

I'd say the only thing that's truly negative, in that it hasn't helped me at all, came from using deliriants combined with smoking large amounts of weed nearly every day for two years, and also the HPPD thing again: my memory is noticeably worse than before any of it. Not in a hugely substantial way, like it doesn't really prevent me from doing anything like I normally would, it's just noticeable. It gets annoying at times.

I would be careful about using psychedelics to get over your dissociation, but I do think it can be done. I would certainly stick to ones like LSD and mescaline that you've been using though, as it seems you've already come to discover, dissociating trips clearly don't help much with that.

 

[Efoj]

In my experience, after a trip, when I'm back to "normal", there are two ways of seeing reality, one positive, one negative.

Negative one: "Wow, that trip was amazing, how dull is that thing people call reality... And how boring it is to live most of the time in this reality, now I've seen there's much more to this world."

Positive one: "Wow, that trip was amazing, and now I can see, hear, feel the world in a completely different, beautiful way. Who needs psychedelic dreams when reality is so fascinating and psychedelic in itself?"

I try to lean toward the positive one, and I've been successful until now.


PS: about bad trips, I've had some, none lasting for more than 2 hours though. IME they can be some of the worst experiences imaginable, but once the trip is over, they've always brought me knowledge, I've probably learnt more with the bad parts of my trips than with the good parts.

 

[Efoj]

If you haven't read this topic, I recommend you to read it:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/445146-The-most-important-lesson-psychedelics-have-taught-you