Lauritz

@Leo Gura @phoenix666 Thanks for both of your answers. I am looking forward to what AL-LAD will reveal to me. My last big mushroom trip was 4 years ago. Since than I have done a lot of spiritual work and had many insights. It also took me a long time to understand what I actually experienced. But now I feel ready again and what to see what the psychedelic experience is like now. I want to trip at least a few times until january. Because I have planned a two week silent dark room retreat then. In my experience, psychedelics open up the consciousness for quite some time after the trip is over. I hope that this will accelerate whatever process unfolds during that retreat. And it should also give me more insights and experiences which I can relate to and think about...

Nice Trip Report! I am also waiting for a good opportunity on a weekend to take AL-LAD. I think I will also go with that dosage of around 100mcg. Did you have a tripsitter? Or would you say it was save all the time if you have taken it alone. I am a little afraid to take it alone, as I experienced a mushroom trip where I really was not sure if I would continue to be able to make the distinction between appearances (e.g. distinction between the depth under my balcony and a save ground to walk on).

I do not quite understand your point here. How is wanting to live together with like-minded people any different from living together in a family? The community would still have connections to the larger society. As I mentioned, I would like the community to offer services to humanity and be open and accessible to outside people. It is not about turning society down. It is rather a matter of who you choose to be your direct neighbors. That might be the tricky point... to choose the people wisely and being able to judge their degree of enlightenment. And not get side-tracked by ego-games and false believe-systems which are not based on direct experience. Can you share which communities you have visited? Thanks for the tip on searching on helpx. Regarding the self-sufficiency, I would also not try to become 100% self-sufficient. There are today just many products which are available at such low cost that it does not make sense to grow or produce them by oneself. Regarding food that means only growing vegetable and fruit and buying things like potatoes, grains and beans. In my experience that is attainable with remarkably little effort if you get the basics right.

I planned to do something similar. But my plan involves becoming financially independent first. That means having saved up enough so that the returns of the investments can cover whatever little is left that I want to buy with money. In theory (early retirement extreme) this should be possible with 5 years of working a moderately high paying job if you are living in a western country. But after 1,5 years I could no longer stand my job which I got after graduating university and I switched to a lower paying but more enjoyable gardening job. So it might take longer but I still have that as a long term goal. And after that having a place to live and a garden to grow most of my food is also the plan. And the savings to pay for the essential expenses. So I can focus most of my time on pursuing enlightenment and other personal interests in a relaxed way.

I could only find this one guy talking about the topic in many of his talks. His name is Mantak Chia and he is leading dark room retreats. https://www.universal-tao.com/dark_room/enlightenment.html You can also find his talks and presentations on youtube. I do not really believe in his "research" though. He claims dmt and even 5-meo-dmt will be produced in higher quantities by the brain after several days in absolute darkness.

This is exactly what has been going through my mind lately. Through increasing my awareness and my level of general mindfulness, I have already come to a place where I would consider myself to be deeply happy regardless of external circumstances (to a degree). Meaning, the only thing that actually bothers me is this enlightenment work I think, do I have to realize this? (I think mushrooms already showed me Truth once and I got it) After all, wouldn't all those realizations bring me back to where I am now? Enjoying the illusion of my life? I have read and heard so many theories and it just feels like way to much (distraction) for me right now. Leo, maybe you can answer this? In your last allad-trip report video you mentioned you got to a point where you are satisfied with the answers and your level of understanding. How do you feel about that now? And what are the concrete benefits for your life? I am reminded of your video "true versus fake growth" here. Wasn't that just an external fix for your internal questions? You satisfied the need for answers by answering them, but you did not drop the need to have answers in the first place. (I might just describe my own current situation here)

I probably have to mention that I was hooked on the idea of doing such a retreat from the first time I have heard about it. I experienced many moments where I just wished for an extended time of doing nothing and just being totally free of any obligations. Usually my life is filled with activity and a lot of thinking and planning. On the other hand I feel that I am unusually happy just doing nothing. Just sitting and not even meditating, just doing the do-nothing technique resonated with me right from the start. The only problem I have with extended "meditation" sessions is not boredom but discomfort in my body. So if I allow myself to change positions frequently, I think I can mange the time in the darkness. Interestingly, just yesterday I had a lucid dream in which I was thinking of this upcoming retreat. I imagined how this experience is very similar to what will happen during the retreat: Having visions (in that case a dream) while being fully conscious and awake. I imagine the transitions will be fluid between waking, sleeping and dreaming. Maybe there will come a point where the states will be hard to distinguish. Scary to imagine that I will not have my usual sensory environment to check whether I am asleep or awake...

@egoless How would you do it at home? Build a light and sound-proof room for that? And then someone has to do all the cooking for you. After talking to those people, I think I am able to judge whether they want to harm me or not. You probably just watched one to many horror movies.

http://www.terapietmou.eu/index.php/en/therapies-services/darkness-therapy#cenik it is a retreat in Czech Republic. Meals are provided and also daily consultation if wished. Thanks for all your replies. I will make sure to report on my experience. I will also take a recorder with me into the dark. A USB device which only has on button for voice recording. It is sure going to be intense. I have seen the video from vsauce. But I would guess it is actually not that relevant. He did not spent anytime contemplating or meditating. He also said he is a person with an overly active mind. And the light probably makes things worse. In the darkness the first three days are reported to be rather easy as one tends to sleep a lot. Without light falling onto the eyes, melatonin has no way to be cleared. But than I am also kind of afraid of it. When the full don't production starts and maybe even 5-meo-DTM, than it probably will not really have mattered where it came from. The experience is probably intense no matter if it was smoked or internally produced. As I have 3,5 month until the retreat I am going to acquire the skills to practice different kinds of meditation techniques. Just to be sure and have variety. I had a few crazy mushroom experiences. I hope those will provide me with some background experience to relate to and better be able to surrender when I face difficulties.

On a deeper level the dream of life creates the feeling of a perceiving one in the center. But actually you are not there. Part of the illusion is that this whole things revolves around an "I". On the one hand, it does not make sense to abandon the idea of other individuals experiencing this one illusion from different angles. As physical reality is stable and observable so are other people. And if my properties are the same as other peoples, than I have to assume that they also have this same consciousness at their center. It is a concept. But it seems to apply to reality just as much as other concepts that we need to navigate the world and develop all the technology and knowledge that we have. Not finding a direct experience of other peoples consciousness in ones (limited) experience, does not mean it does not exist. I think this is a trap one can easily fall into with self inquiry. It can help one to understand ones own mind and reveal illusions. But one is never able to go beyond the mind. For that, concepts are needed. And as long as they can be verified, they are valuable to transcend the boundaries of ones direct perception. What I want to say is that you can argue for both sides, but in the end they will all be joined and contained within direct experience. The only difference is, the first one is something you can see, hear, touch or smell, and the other one you can think about. Ultimately, neither of those two ways to attain "knowledge" are any more real than the other. As "you" create reality, a solid concept can just be as much reality as any of the other senses.

Thanks Leo for your reply For my part I can say, I enjoy reports of his personal experiences. Actually I do not feel there is much difference to other videos where he teaches on a specific topic. He creates a lot of value both ways.

So I just read Leos latest blogpost. And it gave me an instant flashback. Leo, you took mushrooms! Right? ? I was actually planning on a psychedelic trip next weekend. But maybe the flashback from reading that post was already enough for me at this point. I know it again. I feel it again. It is that always repeating pattern of forgetting the psychedelic experience again only to find myself in it again to remember what cannot possibly be remembered. Anyone feels the same way? I mean for me it feels like once I am in that state and I am the one and the world stopped existing, there is no difference between the world actually existing or not. At least on shrooms it feels like you are sliding down that infinite string of experience for infinity. Never actually hitting rock bottom. Never getting back to reality either. But craving it so much. Only to suddenly be back, without knowing how you did it. Feeling more alive and blissful than you have ever been. Crying in tears on the beauty of being alive. Hope you are okay Leo ?

Just eat chili if you like to suffer. It will feel even hotter. And your ego cannot say that you are going to die?

Maybe leave room for the possibility that your mind just came up with transforming some of your imaginations into a very real feeling memory. I am saying this because I had to remind myself of this as well. I was thinking I had memories of the place where we lived until I was one year old. But than it looked very different when I visited it years later. But still the memory feels very real to me. So the mind has probably mixed something up there.

You are just putting constructions and concepts on top of concepts for which your direct experience is not even holding any clue. As Leo said, do self-inquiry and first see through many of your illusions and then you will start to see those questions in a much different light. You gain a perspective you probably cannot even imagine now. The Idea of death is just another believe you have been building up on top of many other believes. Which you will uncover and identify as false. The most important one is the realization of no-self. You can then come back and tell us about the answer you discovered about life and death. Can you get it? No, not intellectually. So there is work waiting for you to do if you really care to get answers. (I speak for myself here as well )

But isn't that your sober mind speaking? Anyways I also think that some theoretical background helps. My last trips were without a prior concept of what to expect, what to do and without having a concentration and meditation practice. Leo also once mentioned that he knew how to label his experiences on psychedelic based on the spiritual concepts he studied beforehand.

I cannot speak from personal experience with 5-Meo-Dmt, but I just read Martin Balls newest book "Entheogenic Liberation" and it impressed me. Especially how practical and basically concept-free this book is. There is nothing really in there that one has to believe. I guess, if one wants to work with 5-Meo-Dmt to become liberated from the constrains of the ego, the book is the best resource available on the topic. But personally I am not willing to take the substance (yet). I do not see it necessary for the moment. I feel very much at peace with myself right now and have too much fear of taking it, which comes from several tough mushroom trips in the past. So I know hellish experiences do exists and I don't want to find myself in there again, thinking to myself "you idiot did it again" Anyone here who has dealt with that feeling of eternal hell on 5-meo (or any other psychedelic)? Maybe one has to work through it... As I have now intellectually understood, these experiences were my egoic attachments, identifications and rejections of the experience arising. My question is does intellectual understanding help me in my next psychedelic encounter? I did not have that understanding last time. But then also, in those experiences all concepts go out the window anyways.

Just going to bed each day and realizing how amazing it is to be in a human body and being hold by this beautiful soft bed, feeling with the softness of skin... That fills me with so much joy. Especially if I was running around all day. Or, coming down from a crazy mushroom trip once (4 years ago) tought me how fucking amazing it is that everything has order and appears where I expect it to be. That I can make sense of my world and take time to analyze it. But the number of things that can make you happy is really endless if one cares to look.

I thought this challenges the same topic, if seen from the perspective of enlightenment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHVdFLti6UI It gave me goosebumbs when I watched it so it might be worth something...

How has your practice been developing since last year? I would be particularly interested in hearing your further results with strong determination sitting.

Ok so after Leos last video I got quite a good grasp of the "concept" of infinity. I had several powerful mushroom trips a few years ago and have been working on integrating the experiences since then. But Leo's last video really seemed to be the last missing piece in my understanding of reality. (And at the same time I know it cannot be known) But here is an interesting thought I have come up with and would like to hear your input on. The infinite nature of reality also means that we are all living our lives exactly how they are, again and again for infinity. We just forget about it. If that wouldn't be the case than infinity wouldn't be infinite, right? "I" of course also lives through all other possible experiences as well... forever. That was basically my first and most shocking insight I had on the mushroom trip. But I could not make any sense of it because I hadn't learned anything about enlightenment or the nature of reality beforehand. That was sending me down a road of false concepts of reality for a long time. Until now I think. What are your thoughts on this? I must be right, right? ?

I can recommend the book Buddhas Brain by Rick Hanson. It is basically all about requiring the brain for positive self talk and positive emotions. It is very well grounded in science. From my personal experience I can attest that it works very well. I think I am a completely different persons thanks to applying some of the techniques for several years now. Mit takes conscious effort and a lot of repetition to rewire your brain. But then the reward is equally great. It basically reshape a how you perceive everything.

Where do I have to go? I already experienced more than I was able to handle on the mushrooms. I am only experimenting with AL-LAD for the moment and I do not feel ready for 5-Meo-DTM or whatever it takes to really go there. I can get glimpses into the infinite on already 60mcg of AL-LAD. It feels like my mind is already very close to crack open to such an experience. And ultimately, what is "Integration" other than transforming those experiences into human concepts? That in the end should lead to the permanent state of enlightenment. Please correct me if I am wrong. ?

I have only been working at this job for about a year. I started working at this company because the job makes use of my mechanical engineering degree. Even though I knew that I did not want to work in this field before I started, I just wanted to give it a try before doing something unrelated to my degree. Now the job turned out to be meaningless and boring to me. I work in an industry I do not like and the work itself is not growing me personally. The only reason I consider staying with the job is financial freedom. In Four years I could be financially free and my investment would provide for a minimalistic lifestyle. After that I could pursue enlightenment for example more fully. I would like to quit now and then do my own thing. I already have an idea and know how to pursue it. It would give me a sense of purpose and motivation. But of course, first I have to make sacrifices. The income is much lower and I will move back into my parents house. It is big enough and i get along well with them. I guess no one can help me with my decision, but I just wanted to hear some of your opinions on the situation. Should I quit a meaningless, low consciousness job in order to grow myself and pursue what I know to be better for me and everyone around me, even though it is a more difficult way? For me the only true answer must be yes. But what is your opinion?

I seems like this decision will turn out to have been a good one. I got a job offer in exactly the field where I want to work in. I will be able to learn from that experience and than probably apply it to my own projects later on. So i can still pursue my longer term goal of financial independence and have work that is meaningful to me at the same time. Making this decision has somehow made me much less fearful of the future. Although right now I am integrating many insight which I had on mushrooms years ago. That might also contribute to that change in perspective.