outlandish

I don't think you should actively try to hard to move your friends along the spiral. It will probably backfire, come off as preachy/evangelical etc. But if you do notice them moving in one direction you can be there to help support and foster that growth. You can be the environment that the growth happens within. Embody the next stage yourself, and it will naturally have an effect on the people around you. You can't help a flower blossom by opening up the bud, it all comes in it's due course. But when that flower does begin to open, appreciate it's beauty and give your buddy some good water.

Please go ahead and ask questions directly, that's the whole point. It's not rude at all. Lol. gross

@Eric Tarpall if this forum was full of female virgins making these kind of complaints on a daily basis, I would crack down on it. We don't have that problem here. You've specifically said that you haven't come here for advice. If you want to have incel/mgotw/red pill discussions with no intent of moving forward in your life, there are numerous forums on the internet that welcome that kind of thing. These types of discussions do not belong here. This is a forum for self actualization and self-improvement.

@Scholar it's kind of in jest, but it's something I've heard other people say too, and there's some truth to it. The thing is that psychedelics are essentially content-free, and you get out of them what you put in. They don't specifically do anything to your mind, and sometimes while tripping it can be pretty hard to put your finger on what it is exactly that's different. Psychedelics can be compared a hi-fi, hi-res amplifier for your mind, so if your mind is fully empty and neutral in meditation, you've just got silence turned up all the way, with no added noise floor.

@Eric Tarpall please don't use this community as a platform to vent, it's not what this is about, and is considered borderline trolling. It's a waste of attention spans and degrades the quality of this forum. It would be more productive for everyone if you could look at the small steps that you could take to improve this department of your life, share your progress, or come for specific help in these areas.

Yes I would agree for sure. On a related note, there was an informal poll put out I think by Tricycle magazine some time ago, and IIRC, it found that while most modern western zen monks don't encourage people to take psychedelics, most of them had in fact taken them at some point, and for many of them it was an acid trip that sent them down that path in the first place. It's a controversial thing, and it definitely mostly meets disapproval in western zen buddhism, and there's definitely no formal place for it in the practice, but it's hard to deny that "it's around" at least in the past for many monastics' lives. This legend has been well questioned. Many people say the dude just palmed the acid and never really took it. If he did actually take, it would definitely be possible for an experienced meditator to sit it out and feel like it did nothing, or claim that at least. Psychedelics are just an extremely powerful placebo after all.

A quick 5-MeO-DMT trip report: 8mg intranasal Was feeling the pull to reconnect with 5-MeO-DMT for a few days now. Took this pretty, pretty late in the eve after everything had quietened down. I expected it to be a very light dose, but it turned out to be more than sufficient, and the perfect dose for this moment in my life. I'm not sure if it's because I'm so freaking old (compared to most on here apparently anyways), or if it's cause I've tripped so much psychedelics in my life, or if I'm just plain sensitive, but this was a very powerful, sub-breakthrough trip. Mind slowed all the way down, allowing a perfect bridge between my subconscious, heart and conscious mind. Monkey mind was basically shut off, allowing long periods of near-perfect stillness, advanced meditation. Near the beginning of the trip, a pretty big problem that I hadn't been consciously aware of became salient. I didn't probe it, but after a long period of peace and silence the solution bubbled up spontaneously. This trip was filled with a joy. Spent most of it very still, huge smile pouring joy out of my face. I think they got the names wrong and that 5-MeO-DMT is the real Ecstasy. This trip felt akin to the captain/navigator going on deck in the night with the wind filled in the sails, taking readings of the stars and correcting the course, while the crew and passengers slept soundly below. I happened to have a heart rate monitor, and my HR was very low the whole time, at around 48-50bpm. This is reflective of the deep peace that I experienced on the trip. Part of the purpose of writing this report was to show that you don't need to hit yourself over the hammer with a massive breakthrough dose all the time. There's a lot of talk of the larger end of the dose spectrum on here, and there's definitely a place for that, but I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that the lower end of the dose spectrum can be very valuable as well. For me personally, 8mg was plenty powerful. Everyone's different, and every moment of your life will be different. 5-MeO-DMT is amazing material.

I've got a lot of friends having kids with the woman in their very late 30s, even one in her early 40s. A lot of the fertility data that's floating around is very old data apparently, we're younger at an older age than we used to be if you know what I mean. 40s is pushing it for sure, but it seems like a lot of people are making it happen later than we're being told you should. Basically I'm saying, you got time. Maybe you won't want kids. Maybe you'll be like my wife and I. We're not really into kids but it's completely different when they're your own. It's hard for me to imagine feeling like I've had a full life without kids being part of it. There's not a greater love you can experience imo.

Magic mushrooms vary wildly in potency. They can easily vary 2-3x in strength (per weight) from one batch to another. It depends so much on the species, strain, probably even growth medium, and degradation of the dried mushrooms. Just something to keep in mind while discussing dosages.

@Etherial Cat better save up, Bhutan travel visas are very expensive at around $250/day! It seems like a pretty special place but don't put it on too much of a pedestal. Like most places they have dark history. There has been widespread ethnic cleansing against Nepalis over the last few decades. There is not freedom of religion, only buddhism and hinduism are recognized. However, the people who I talked to that have been say it is an amazing place and culture to be in. Nowhere is perfect. There is always some tradeoff in being open and liberal vs. preserving and protecting culture. Bhutan has tended far right on that spectrum.

Something something dog-buddha nature? Moo!

I'm trying to get at just what your saying; trying really hard to be "truly" authentic can lead to a complicated mess because it can become overly intellectualized or contrived. So an example: take the scenario where I have just been introduced to someone new at a social gathering. I extend my hand to shake and proceed with my default niceties, asking the person how they know the host and so on. If I cut through that I might realize it's a bit put on, that I don't really like them that much yet, and I'm really behaving in a slightly socially manipulative way to try to gain rapport with this person. Questioning it deeper I realize that I don't really like social gatherings because they make me nervous and uncomfortable, and that I am trying to mask this fear with social pleasantries. Analyzing that nervousness I realize it's coming from a place of fear, due to a concern with protecting myself from social rejection. Looking at this fear I realize that it's unfounded and not a risk, however the fear authentically is still there, and that complete social rejection really would be devastating.. however unlikely that I could embarrass myself to that degree. Realizing that the most embarrassing thing would be to appear inauthentic, I resolve to be completely authentic, and therefore double down on the niceties in order to communicate to my new acquaintance that I am authentically interested in them. However, realizing that this might come off as overly eager and that it might have the opposite effect, I decide to dial it back, feign disinterest and go grab some more nachos. So how to behave authentically in this situation? Maybe I decide simply to peel that onion back just a little bit and shed one fake layer in the interaction, drop some resistance, don't try so hard to like the new person and to learn something I actually find interesting about them. Making a habit out of peeling back one layer of inauthenticity all the time feels productive to me, rather than trying to be "100% authentic" all the time, which can end up backfiring. After a while, shedding that layer becomes the habit and the norm, and then you can go a little deeper next time around.

@Serotoninluv wow thank you for sharing that. I have so many comments/thoughts, but for now simply thanks!

I love this question because it's something I'm striving for in my life right now. Authenticity to me means honest expression, nothing concealed. Not hiding intention, not suppressing actions. It means making space to allow true action and reaction to occur, without hunting for the right answer. Not trying to please some idea, or bending a situation to one's preconception or bias. I think authenticity is something to strive for, a process. There are layers upon layers of twisted karma to un-entwine. The best way forward is to unpeel these layers one at a time. Trying to go all the way to a true authentic core will be inconsistent, impulsive and confused. I think of a ball of rubber bands. If you try and grab the core of it, you'll find you'll make a big tangled mess, and you won't even find the core because there is none. Better to go about the job removing one rubber band at a time. A pattern I've noticed is that authentic being happens more slowly, and is prone to more humour.

I like your choice. My first thoughts go to the "eastern" non-monotheistic places, so it's refreshing to remember the place that has fostered Christianity and Islam side by side going waaaaay back. It's impressive that to this day Muslims and Christians still live together in relative harmony. They use a beautiful script there! On that tangent the middle east must be the most spiritually rich part of the world. Maybe too much for it's own good, like a magnifying glass concentrating the suns rays. Origin of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i faith. All of these faiths concentrate on the region, and people so devout to their religions. India comes to mind for me, the motherland of eastern spirituality, the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism (well it could be Nepal depending how you look at it), Jainism, Sikhism, home to many Muslims, Christians. Mathematics, philosophy, physics, these are all very highly valued and strong in India. There's a whole lot of bullshit there too though that's for sure!

@Serotoninluv I only grasp that paper at a pretty coarse level, but this is fascinating stuff. Really amazing that there are measurable changes in the brain post-actute psilocybin treatment. The fact that this can be detected in brain imaging points out that seemingly subtle subjective experiences can have physical correlates. This idea of psilocybin triggering a DMN reset is very attractive. It certainly feels like that when you take psychedelics. vmPFC-ilPC RSFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex inferior lateral parietal cortex resting state functional connectivity, to the layman) does my head in lol. I'm glad you wrote your interpretation of the paper above, it helped me gather meaning from the read Really cool that this got published in Nature. It's also really cool that psilocybin can be effective in treating depression, it brings me joy that we live in a time when this is starting to be explored (again).

@Serotoninluv I thought DMN was agnostic to content, that the content of DMN isn't necessarily reflected by specific repetitive or negative thought. Isn't it characterized more by a fixed ego mode of thinking rather than specific thoughts? My model of how the DMN relates to subjective experience was that it's the persistent sense or illusion of "self" rather than the stories we wrap around this ego. Although I can also see how like the invisible man, there's nothing left once you remove these stories. This isn't rhetorical questioning, it's a question because I'm sure I don't know what I'm talking about! I'm not even sure there is an answer to the question "what does the DMN feel like".

This is damn interesting. I've heard that the muse headband is a bit hokey/gimmicky - too simple and too few sensors to be of any use. Not speaking from personal experience at all, just that I looked into it at one point and that was my impression coming out of it.

1p-LSD is great because it comes from very well vetted sources. For all intents & purposes it's the same as LSD, with the advantage that it's quasi-legal in many jurisdictions, easy to access over the internet without needing to find a dealer on the ground, and of reliable purity and dosage. Mushrooms are a really great beginning psychedelic because they can be easy to access, people tend to be very comfortable taking a "natural" psychedelic, it has a goldilocks duration window - not to long, or too short. Disadvantage is that it can be hard to dose accurately, and the drug itself can be a bit wild and tricky. LSD (and 1p) is great because it has a big positivity built in that tends to steer people in the right direction on a first trip. Disadvantage is that it can be very long lasting, which can be hard work if you're new to it. AL-LAD is great because it's a bit shorter than LSD, and a bit more jovial and light. Disadvantage is that it can be more confusing and unfocused than LSD. San Pedro is great if you can get ahold of it and stomach it. As Gabriel^ says, "Whichever you choose, take a low dosage, and be in a good mood." +1 on that.

Yes, however I was surprised to Rick Doblin to come out in support of self-medication with MDMA for PTSD. As he first started talking about it, I was pretty shocked and was thinking .. "oh no don't go there, this is dangerous turf". But as he explained his rationale, I can totally see why he is cautiously giving self-medication a thumbs up. To cut a long story short, MAPS recognizes that there are vast numbers of people who suffer from PTSD (in the USA alone) and that they have a huge challenge in scaling up to train therapists to address this massive issue - it will literally be impossible to scale up fast enough to save a lot of lives that will be lost to suicide. He told a touching story about an individual who was suffering from PTSD and tried to get into one of their trials, but they had to deny this individual for some logistical reason. Two weeks later he killed himself and left a suicide note addressed to Rick explaining that MDMA would have probably saved his life. It wasn't meant to condemn MAPS or Rick at all for not letting him in to the trial, but as a beacon to draw attention to the problem with this bottle neck. The fact of the matter is that people do successfully self-medicate. MAPS has their protocol and approaches for therapy well documented and freely available online, so it's an option for people who are genuinely suffering and for whom this is their best option. I could dig up a link to the talk if anyone is interested. Yes and a lot of scientists are closeted trippers too. Let's see how it unfolds.

Yeah I was thinking that about cannabis too.. it's really nuts. It's so crazy about how hard it is to gain permission to research this stuff. On the other hand it's waaay easier now than it was in the 80s and 90s. I agree that social support is about where cannabis was 20 years ago, but I feel it will take less than 20 years for PDs to get the point where cannabis is now. I think there's some real momentum happening right now with the way being paved by cannabis, and because of the promising research that's going on rn. Time will tell. If I had to wager right now I'd say 10 years.

@Serotoninluv sweet thanks for the details, this is good stuff to know. When it goes stage IV, does that imply that the drug will become re-scheduled since it will have an accepted medical use?

@Outer yeah the drug laws in the USA (and most of the world) are so backwards it's absurd. I think MDMA is on the verge of being approved as a prescription medicine, and I think this means it will have to be re-scheduled. Let's hope this is the first brick to fall in this ridiculous wall. I heard a talk from Rick Doblin and according to him MDMA is one of these rare non-divisive issues in the USA currently. People on the right and left are rallying around approved MDMA therapy for PTSD.

Gay people are at least as diverse as straight people, so some will be into feminine men, some into "bears", and so on.. Maybe some gay people fit into the category you describe of repressed heterosexuality, but it seems to me like that's a lot more rare than the other way around - "straight" people with repressed homosexuality. Most gay men (and women) I know are just gay. They're just into the same sex, simple as that. I don't think you need to have "done gay stuff" to speak about this topic.

@Outer I know what placebo means, and how double blind experiments work and all that, but my question is: are researchers simply looking if people can differentiate between a microdose vs. placebo, or are they looking at whether or not people demonstrate measurable improvements vs placebo on some cognitive tasks such as IQ, memory, creative association and so on.