outlandish

What do you mean "beats"? What criteria are they looking at?

Would anyone object to me going through this thread and pruning out the off-topic stuff? This could be a lot more useful to newcomers without all the banter. I'll move all the junk (including this post) into a separate thread for safe-keeping.

Funny I was just thinking about this yesterday. It's called Nominative Determinism and it's a running joke in the New Scientist magazine. But despite it being a joke, it really does seem like there's some truth to this!

Waiting until you're 25 strikes me as an excellent plan given your family history, and the uncertainty around psychedelics' interaction with genetic risk factors for mental illness. There's really no rush. ?And like everyone is saying, if you do decide to get into it, proceed in small steps, and check in honestly with yourself along the way. On a population scale, psychedelic users show a higher degree of mental health than non-users - this is shown in controlled studies. I think it's because psychedelics tend to point people in the right direction, face their shit, grow up and so on. Kind of like low-budget, hyper-effective, self directed psychotherapy. However, there is a pretty strong possibility that psychedelics don't play well with schizophrenia and psychosis prone minds.

Tolerance resets quickly with 5-MeO-DMT, so physically you should be ready within hours or a day. @Leo Gura seems to recommend going into it fairly regularly if you're ready and up for it, hopefully he'll speak for himself on the matter. I might be a bit more conservative, and feel that once a week is about the maximum frequency I'd ever recommend. The most important thing is that your previous experience is adequately integrated from one session to the next. To me, integration means that I have implemented the insights I've gained from the previous session, and am ready to build on them, or look from a new angle. In practice, at this point in my life, integration takes me weeks or months. There is merit in going for one deep session after another in quick succession, with intent and intensity, so this is something you ultimately have to figure out for yourself. It probably depends a lot on where you are at in your life.

Too complicated I think. The idea of the lamb taking away the sins has it's roots in ancient practices of sacrifice - animals (and especially lambs in the fertile crescent) were sacrificed to the gods in order to make them happy, take away disease, make the crops work. By giving something up (the lamb) to the gods, the sins that displease the gods were cleansed. A transactional arrangement with the gods. Then Jesus came along and died on the cross for all our sins, so the transaction became sublimated, abstract. Nowadays we don't have to sacrifice actual children or lambs anymore, we just have to ask Jesus to forgive our sins or something like that. It was a bit step forward for humanity to be able to put blood sacrifice behind us! Something we don't appreciate much these days...

I've actually skimmed that book a long time ago, so I'm realizing I probably regurgitated that from the depths of my brain thinking it was my own original thought Either that or it's a self-evident pattern.

@Tony 845 I haven't gone through this whole thread, but I would agree with your statement that psychedelics are another tool. They're a *really good* tool, but definitely not the only way to move towards enlightenment. They certainly aren't for everyone, but they're a good fit for many more people than current societal norms allow for. This is why I think it's worth while for those who have benefitted to share their experiences, gently. The idea that there's "one case of confirmed enlightenment" from 5-MeO-DMT (Martin Ball) is really twisted to me, on multiple levels. It's a mindfuck to even begin to unravel that, so I'm just going to leave it alone, and say: perhaps you need to question that whole ball of yarn.

It's over IMO. Sounds like it's time to let go of her, and move on, in order for both of you to grow as individuals. You're both young, she probably needs to experience other loves, you're saying in love in the past tense, you're probably attached to a person she isn't anymore, and it sounds like you don't even live in the same place. If you do decide to end it, make very sure of your decision, and when you do it, be decisive about it, no waffling.

I propose that there are different stages to Financial Independence: Stage 0: Dependent. No financial independence, completely dependent on a provider for livelihood. Examples include children, developmentally challenged being cared for by social systems, prisoners. Stage 1: Employee. Participating in the workforce and economy as an employee, earning own livelihood via wage/salary/commissions. At this stage you are completely able to provide for yourself and your dependents' livelihood, via your earnings. You work for a company, you are an employee. Stage 2: Self-Employed. Solo entrepreneur/consultant/business owner. You own your business, you call your own shots and control the direction of your enterprise. You have multiple clients, and no employees. Stage 3: Employer. You own a business that employs others. You're running the show, but your business has some independence and possibility of portability from you. Your business is probably incorporated. Stage 4: Investor. You own property, stock, intellectual property and are able to survive purely and permanently off of passive revenue sources such as rents, dividends, royalties. There are grey areas between these stages; a young adult living at home and working part time, going to school might be between 0 and 1. They stages are not necessarily linear; a common pattern is to be Stage 1 almost their entire life, but be buying stocks and bonds on the side, and retire at stage 4. One stage isn't "better" than another; Stage 4 isn't necessarily the goal for instance. What do you think of this as a model? I just made this up, so I'm probably missing things.

^ this! And as @Knock said, be consistent.

I support this! Chronic (so when your body has become used to it) coffee drinking correlates with lower rates of depression and much lower rates of suicide, and a host of other health benefits. It's worth questioning the conventional narrative around places like this that coffee is a naughty habit. When you do start drinking it, pay attention to how it works for you, if you like it or not. You can avoid the problems with breath and teeth yellowing by brushing your teeth in the morning after you have your cup. It's a good habit to brush your teeth in the morning anyways.

@F A B do you have that expression in Italian? It's a sad waste, too bad they couldn't make butter out of it to give to the hungry and still get their point across.

Don't cry over spilt milk

Yes inevitability is a good descriptor. It's like "of course, of course, how could it be any other way?".. It always surprises me how much variation there is in sensitivity to psychedelics. We're all wired a bit different!

Thanks for sharing @dimitri! Isn't it amazing that it is possible to experience this!? Also, that's a huge dose, especially for vaporization. I imagine you must have lost some of the vapour along the way, or else you must have a very high natural tolerance.

@MM1988 I would be really surprised if your HR was at 140 for the whole trip. It was probably just that high when you were measuring, partially because you were freaking out about it a bit. I find my heart races on LSD when I start paying attention to it, and this causes a feedback cycle. This is mostly just conjecture, but I believe LSD reaches a dose saturation point where it no longer increases HR and BP beyond a certain safe point, whereas the heavy stimulants like cocaine keep pushing your system further and further into more dangerous territory as the dose increases. But maybe more importantly is that cocaine ends up being chronically consumed at high doses, and this chronic stress ends up being really hard on the heart. LSD on the other hand is more like once every week or two at the most, so it's not chronically stressing your heart. I'm a leery of micro dosing LSD for this reason, I think it could potentially present a risk to heart health. We don't really know if it's safe for the heart to regularly micro dose psychedelics like LSD, and there are a few reasons it could be dangerous. Personally, I avoid micro dosing LSD etc.

Well put

I've taken a peek or two outside the matrix .. I'm very satisfied with what reality is, it's a great game. Bring it on, bring it on!

Getting so sick of the incel/red pill shit on this forum. Guess what? Looks are an even bigger factor in women's sexual success. Welcome to the human condition. Now go deal with it.

Agreed with what Leo said - you want to keep it simple, just say you're flattered but not interested. This is the kindest thing you could do to yourself and the guy. You won't get tangled in complexity, he gets the message clearly and knows he can move on.

@Amun PM me with a confirmation tomorrow and I'll do it.

In my culture, many of the things that are considered "bad" I would say I align with in terms of my values. I'd say I'm Iucky to live in a pretty "stage green" corner of the world. Here are some examples: Judging people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on Excess displays of wealth, status Public displays of anger Spanking or hitting your children Sexual harassment, cat-calling women and so on Smoking Using plastic bags, straws, disposable packaging Driving a bigger car/truck etc than you really need Burning fossil fuels unnecessarily in general Wasting food, clothes, possessions Watching TV Leading a physically unhealthy lifestyle, diet and so on

I tell my children the truth of what I believe, which is that we don't really know what happens when you die, but we might find out once we do. I explain that it's possible that we just stop being, or that there might be something else after death, or something else entirely. But regardless, at some point everyone will die, so it's important to live your life. And once someone dies, their life was still real.

I don't see a way to do that, nor do I see a way to delete my own account. Perhaps other mods know how to do this? Optionally I could suspend your account if you would like.