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@Bear632 You simply haven't gone deep enough with this work. At some of the deepest levels, the notion of a 'rational-scientific POV' completely dissolves and is seen to be profoundly meaningless and quite frankly absurd. Thats not to say that a rational scientific perspective is not useful in some circumstances. Its great for survival, but its not anywhere near the truth. Rationality and science are just thoughts, concepts, not Reality itself. So yes, to answer your question, elevated states of consciousness do become much much clearer. Thats a very tricky thing because you experience basically everything with a bias. The bias of your self agenda. You mean, how do you know when you are not deluding or tricking yourself? Because the absolute is unmistakable. Once you truly get it, its obviously the truth, without a shadow of doubt. Can't be more absolute than absolute.

Great points here. Once you get over the approach anxiety you quickly realise the biggest challenge is holding a conversation and keeping her interested the entire time. I struggled with this alot and still do. I always tended to ask questions because I was nervous and didn't know what to say. Takes a lot of practise.

@Eternal Unity Probably the Book of Not Knowing - Peter Ralston

I also had this thought. I do believe Lex to be quite openminded. I don't think i've ever seen him dogmatically defend a particular position. He's always quite curious and open to others perspective. However, he is certainly leaning on the side of atheistic materialism. I don't quite know how openminded he will be when it starts going all metaphysical. Most of my other ideas have already been mentioned in the thread I think. Rebel Wisdom - Certainly a higher/integral level channel. Would be interesting to see you and them take it to the next level into more metaphysical topics. Daniel Ingram - He's doing copious talks and podcasts at the moment. He's very openminded about psychedelics and not dogmatic towards the meditative path. I think a discussion on the overlap between psychedelics and meditation with him would be very interesting and productive. Aaron Abke - Doesn't really need much explanation as to why it would be a good discussion. Can't think of any more at the moment.

I think the videos looks great! The thumbnails and titles are a good balance of not being too clickbaity but also slightly more enticing than some of the main video titles. My only recommendation right now would be to potentially edit the intro card. The scissors being off the frame feels a little out of balance. What about something like below: Notice the 'clips' is in italics to help differentiate it from the main title. The intro sound could be slightly different too, maybe even a light 'woosh' sound as the title card transitions onto the screen. Helps to communicate a sense of speed and the video being a quick, short clip.

You should really be going to a doctor about this, rather than asking on the forum. This could be something more serious. Probably need to have scans, blood tests etc.

Impressive stuff! You sound like you know what you're doing. I only questioned you because most people who post about doing solo retreats haven't done them before and they find it to be much more challenging than they originally thought. I recognise the difficulties of surrendering and relaxing on trips. I've been in some hairy situations. Some things that definitely helped me. 1) When you start feeling really lost and ungrounded, feel into your body whilst simultaneously relaxing the body and physically opening it up. I found that helps ground you in something and can move your mind out of the thought loops. And 2) Try using music during your trip. Something about surrendering yourself to the music/sounds that can help a lot. Noise cancelling headphones are great.

@gggkkk So my first question is, have you done retreats before? Either group or solo? And how many days? Don't underestimate the difficulty of doing a solo 9 day retreat in a remote cabin in the woods. Theres a reason no one does it, and also a reason why people quit their solo retreats early on. This will not be a walk in the park (excuse the pun). Or maybe you will love it - I don't know you enough. I personally would not fast unless you have experience with solo retreats and experience with fasting. Your 9 days will be miserable, i'm telling you, if you fast. You want to make it as easy as possible for you to stick to your schedule and do effective meditation. How you gonna do that if you hungry and thinking about food all the time? Nothing wrong with having some nice comforts, good food, snacks etc, to make the experience more enjoyable. Then why are taking mushrooms again? If you've had repeated bad experiences with it you should experiment with other substances. But the way to relax and surrender is by actually relaxing and surrendering to the experience. Intentionally reassure yourself that the trip is not going to cause you any harm and that in a few hours you'll be back to a normal state of consciousness.

Would you say its worth a try even with lower quality meats/products? I did some rough calculations and I literally can't afford to be eating organic beef, chicken, eggs, fish every meal. But i'm hesitant to buy the cheap stuff.

Ah yes of course, thanks for clarifying that. I forgot about the potency difference between fresh and dried.

@SQAAD I've definitely experienced some of the things you've written here. I think the main piece of advice we can give is to just give it time. You might be feeling uncomfortable and depressed at the moment, but you'll soon come out of it and feel better. Bad trips are common, its part of the process. Try not to get too caught up in negative thinking. Re-frame it as a learning experience. Mushrooms are notoriously prone to creating weird, hard-to-understand trips. I feel like its quite easy to have a bad experience with mushrooms. You should consider trying to get some 5-MeO. Also, 30 grams?! Isn't that an absurdly high dose?

Great post, thanks for sharing. I'll be trying to implement the above going forward.

Not really. You can have no thoughts but still be in ego-consciousness. There is still a sense of separation, individuality, and identification with the body when the mind is silent. What you are is also not dependent on a quiet mind. There are also degrees of silence. Anyone can stop their thoughts for a few seconds or longer with some basic meditation. But that doesn't mean they're conscious of what they are. However that silence can be much deeper and longer. Its quite difficult to put into words. The deeper the silence in between thoughts the more conscious you are of what you are.

Seems relevant to post this here. Definitely worth a listen.

Yes I have experienced nausea in most of my 5-MeO sessions. The body feeling on the come up is usually very intense, quite unpleasant and comes with lots of anxiety and fear. But i've found it goes away quite quickly -within 5-10 minutes max. In one session I didn't have any of that, come up was smooth as butter and just slipped into non duality consciousness. I feel that the pre-trip state of mind plays a big role in this. I've plugged 30mg, but be warned, this experience is beyond comprehension and will utterly mindfuck you. Definitely get a good mg scale. You can get a suitable mg scale off amazon.

Dentist x-rays are not dangerous or harmful. They emit a small amount of radiation but its not going to effect you in any significant or noticeable way. Regarding the after effects of your amalgam removal, experiencing tiredness and moodiness is quite common. You probably had some sort of intense anaesthetic which is quite a shock to the system. Just disturbing your teeth, drilling stuff out etc can be quite a shock to the body. You may also have had some mild exposure to mercury during the extraction. I spent 2 weeks after my removal feeling extremely depressed and anxious. Faded after a while. You can also chelate with DMSA soon after your amalgam removal so you can consider doing that as well.

TM can definitely be an effective practise. I'm not denying the efficacy of the technique, just the importance of a specific individual mantra. I'm not sure how the technique works.

@bazera One of the few meditation practises I haven't ever tried. But I know about the teacher charging you money for an exclusive mantra. My best friend does this. To be honest it seems like a total scam to me. A special mantra might be useful or applicable to that top 1% spiritually gifted and hyper sensitive meditators, but for most people the specific mantra you use is probably largely unimportant. Regarding the students, has TM actually changed their lives or are do they just think/believe it has? What are they more conscious of now that they were not before?

@Godishere Says who? Not everyone has an existential crisis. For some the dropping away is quite simple and often filled with joy and laughter.

I was going to lock this because its a poor quality post. But its important that we have discussions around the dangers of 5-MeO. It is incredibly powerful and I would highly recommend not using it during any other activity other than solo contemplation. This is not some low dose of mushrooms we're talking about here. Particularly at the higher doses, the notion of having sex and 'falling in love' would no longer be desirable or even possible.

I feel like this is another test from Leo to see how openminded we are . Similar to when he posted something about the Law of One / Ra a few years ago. Maybe the point here is not whether the footage is legitimate or 'good evidence' but rather an opportunity to look at ones beliefs and worldview and see how self-biased we are.

For those of you who are struggling with finding your life purpose or knowing what you want to do in life I think this video will really help you. In the video Jack Conte (the CEO of Patreon) talks about all of his projects that he started and failed at. He tried dozens of things over many years, different music projects, animation, music videos, youtube videos, podcasts etc. The main lesson that he is communicating is to try lots of different things/projects until one of them works. Don't expect your first idea to be the one and only thing you do for the next 10 years. Experimentation is the key! I'd really recommend watching the whole video.

@paradiseengineering I think if you're going down the music route you need to niche down a lot. Also consider the question, are you just making music for yourself, or are you making it to fullfill and purpose, service or need? Could you make music that people are looking for? For example music for youtube videos, or music for video makers in general, or maybe share your music in an educational way? I see lots of independent music producers on youtube just showing/educating people on the production process.

I'm locking this because I feel that there isn't any constructive discussion going on here, and users are just unconsciously arguing with each other.

Slow and steady is always a better plan of action. Doing 15mg next seems like a good next step after 8mg. But also note that you probably didn't absorb the full 8mg because with snorting at least 1 or 2mg goes down your throat. At least that was the case in my experience. 15mg will be an intense trip but not like infinite god freight-train intense like 28-30mg can be. I had a profound heart opening at around 15mg. I don't want to say that my heart chakra opened up but it literally felt like a massive opening right in the middle of my chest and love just poured out of it like a firefighters hose in all directions. Lots of crying.