pfletcha

I wont bog any of yall down with too many details of how much more "outside the ego" i am lately: lets just say that the spiritual aspect of the lsd trip stuck this time, and I now feel capable of utilizing my brain properly, including much more energy, more clear headed , and able to organize my thoughts in a VERY timely manner . This means i am willing to put in the time and effort it takes to try a variety of approaches in tackling this incredibly peristent problem once and for all. Ever since high school when i used to abuse the shit out of my adderall script and play piano/computer games for 12+ hours a day when i wasnt in school, i developed quite suddenly this pain in my hand and forearms that feels like the very surface layer is being "pulled" in a way that just...hurts.. hard to explain. 5 or 6 years later i developed a similar extremely distressing "tightness" in the middle of my "low" lower back area, near where the uh 2nd chakra is supposed to be (doctors labeled it nonbacterial prostatitis). Then a couple years after that when i was 21 i started getting classic symptoms of tmj. Now heres a small list of additional strangeitudes that i pray will resonate with somebody on this forum .(as if this werent already odd enough!) 1. The pain in all three of these spots comes and goes, sometimes completely at random, but other times for reasons i can trace pretty easily, such as stress and attempting to sit at a computer again for a stretch. 2. This "triangle" of pain is almost always evenly distributed i.e. if my arm hurts really bad the other spots will be fine, and if two spots are lit up at once, it will only be about half as bad 3. I love drugs of all sorts , and ive been cycling through bouts of addiction most of my life. Whenever im on a "run" , where downers such as alcohol and heroin are in the mix, this pain without exception lies almost entirely dormant. Even during intervals in the day where im not high and/or in withdrawal! 4. The importance of the psychological component cannot be stressed enough. Lately i havent even been able to follow along with piano sheet music without my hand flaring up the moment i begin to imagine im playing the notes! Please , all you holistic minded thinkers out there. Give me all that you've got. I need this buried. Ive been bad about starting a lengthy thread in the past and not following up on the advice , but this time i mean business

So I did some "intuitive" thinking earlier in response to this, and something struck me first about the root of the incidents themselves. Each one is rooted in a different version of impotence. With the original incident with the hands, I had already been pounding away at both piano and actual keyboard for close to two years on adderall without any problems. Some context: I didn't have many friends at this Christian high school I went to. I had grown to resent people and authority (and christians) , completely isolating myself... but in the realm of piano I was GOD to my teachers and classmates , and for good reason (not trying to brag :P). Due to my inflated teenaged ego and limited Southern upbringing, I had held myself to a ridiculous standard, like I was the best in the country or something...this changed when I started talking to this asian kid on a piano forum who was both younger AND was playing the most ridiculous piano repertoire that exists, with relative ease. This deep down enraged me so much that I set out to learn an even more challenging piano etude that I was CLEARLY not ready for, but obsessively pounded away at regardless. It's not like I was really straining my muscles that much more than I already was, (which was a fucking lot), but there was now this anger and unhealthy energy eating away at me. And that is exactly when the pain started. Then I did some thinking about the prostate pain...this was in college when I was 21 years old and still a virgin...well I FINALLY got with a chick, and as soon as we tried to fuck, I completely dissociated due to the stress, and its like I completely forgot what a sexual impulse was supposed to feel like...Very shortly thereafter, I developed the 2nd pressure/pain point. The jaw pain was the trickiest to figure out, so heres my best guess. This one started when I was at this drug rehab-esque house for men, where I routinely was made fun of for being a virgin and just easy to tick off in general...to build up my self esteem, I started working out with a couple of the guys at this gym we had out in the garage . While my determination was great at first, it soon waned off and I never gave working out the proper chance it deserved , I guess. Shortly after (or maybe right at the end?) the TMJ shit started. My emotional pain/impotence started in middle school. I was always kind of spacy/in my head a lot, never had a lot of common sense, and I cried really easily. So I made up for it by forcefully flatlining my emotions whenever someone made fun of me. And when trying to talk to my peers and make friends, I would go out of my way to obsessively chronicle every detail of whatever I was talking about. Instead of just speaking in a more down to earth manner. I'm sure a lot of people have had a similar struggle and turned out relatively OK, but my theory is that there's something about how much more sensitive I am than most, and how much stronger my brain processes information, that has forced me to repress a ton of shit inside, just to be safe. So I think I've got the root solved , but now what? My point is that I'm starting to come out of this dissociative state and have a lasting spiritual state of consciousness throughout the day. I mean it really has been miraculously lately, it's like I see through the eyes of a child again. However my derealization/dissociation/anxiety/pain still persists; theres at least two or three times a day where I have to live out my old self again, more or less. I'm definitely getting more confident that things will continue to get better, but my question is what to do now with this self knowledge? Meditation and yoga, obviously, but do you think a massive dose of shrooms or 5-meo-dmt would be in order ? would that possibly solve it sooner? Your thoughts, and thank you for taking the time to read this .

I had an awakening recently via daily meditation practice followed by an amazing lsd trip, and now that im not so trapped in my anxiety and thoughts, the world is now a generally brighter place and my sex drive is through the roof again (im 30 and have had very similar issues) Had to throw in my 2 cents because for me, i saw every doctor, had everything checked (normal, including testosterone) , and tried every vitamin and supplement under the sun, to no avail. Again, ymmv.

@Zigzag IdiotYes, ive been noticing since starting yoga, just how restrictive my breathing has always been (cant get much more than 3 or 4 seconds on the outbreath). I assume youve encountered this problem in some way in the past. What are your favorite techniques for expanding lung capacity? Also what is your reasoning for how being more spontaneous can help?

Leo we need your 2 cents. Leo leo Leo! @Leo Gura

It is the weirdest thing, and my friends and therapist are baffled by it...I noticed one day when I was breathing out , that's when I get the tension and feeling like I'm holding my breath, and as I inhale..well that's when I get the relief ! Aside from that, exhaling seems to be much more stunted then inhaling, which I can do 2-3x as long ; it's like something is getting stuck on the exhale , and I'm having to forcefully pump all the extra air out when I get halfway down. Not cool. Not cool at all. Insights ? I'm gonna do my best to participate fully on this forum from now on. Not just try this work for a week and give up like I normally do! (When I take lsd , this problem is completely alleviated , and everything flows as it should. Which gives me hope)

Frankly I've been pretty confused ever since Leo posted the video about "the importance of real yoga," in opposition to the Westernized yoga, whose benefits lie mostly in increasing flexibility and overall vitality. Or do they? I bought a book on kriya yoga and gave it a good shot ,( not enough to really give a solid opinion so bear with me!) but it just didn't seem like there was enough body movement going on. Body awareness or more specifically the mind/body integration thing has always been something I struggled with, and my intuition seems to tell me that traditional "static" meditation wont be enough to help make significant gains. In fact the only time Ive ever seemed to notice meditation working is when I've done it (focused on breathing, awareness) during an asana yoga session in a class with a teacher. By the end of the session , I was in a state I could only describe as being surrounded by a beautiful , peaceful energy. I remember looking around at some of the more experienced practitioners around the room and being in awe of this display of "human origami". This all leads me to believe that i need to integrate mindfulness with a form of yoga which involves more movement than the purely "spiritual" yoga. Thoughts, anyone?

As a recovering drug addict that's somewhat accustomed to a life of deception, I've recently acknowledged that old habits truly die hard. To this day I've never stolen from anybody personally (besides 60$ from my parents like 10 years ago), and yet I'm still struggling not to shoplift small pocketable items (mostly food) from retail establishments. And just yesterday I managed to scam both kroger and western union out of 30$ due to an error on their part. However I've had a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach all day today from it. I'm not telling you any of this because I'm proud of it. at this point it's become something of a pathological urge to steal, even when I have money or don't need it in the first place. To me stealing candy and burritos is akin to pissing in the ocean, ie its too petty an act to actually negatively harm society in any way. I've never been able to snuff out my guilty conscience entirely with it, but isn't the guilty conscience, ethics, social norms etc. all just an illusion born from a lifetime of conditioning and being raised in a conservative family? So Is it possible to lie and steal while doing the enlightenment work? I remember Leo saying you could become enlightened and still rape children if you wanted (!) But someone try and talk some sense into me if possible. And would I eventually need to make amends to these businesses, like they do in the 12 step AA program? Your thoughts plz

This lesson video is AWESOME, exactly what I was banking on! hopefully someone else catches this vid

I'm confused. where is my thread? lol

I'm gonna have to disagree with even Leo this time; mixing LSD (or shrooms) and MDMA to me is way better than either separate for personal growth and sows the seeds for a beautiful afterglow/rebirth that can sometimes last for weeks

@Leo Gura @see_on_see also , it feels like whenever i inhale i'm relaxing , and when i exhale is when i tense up . any experience with this "paradoxical" breathing? or am i just a freak

does anyone here struggle with the out-breath of diaphragmatic breathing? even as i've begun the aspirated "shee" sound upon blowing out, it still feels like an extended struggle to get all the air out of my lungs/belly. i can't breathe out for even half as long as when i breathe in, and i'm soon quickly out of breath. i can't even make it back to the 1st chakra when practicing 1st kriya pranayama

is the talabya kriya really necessary? stretching the tongue out for enlightenment reeks of dogma to me

is this the kriya yoga series everyone has been following here lately? (in response to leo's yoga video)

Not gonna get too in depth with the trip report here; just gonna say that taking acid after a month or 2 of solid daily meditation has effectively curtailed my consciousness work by a ridiculous margin. Were talking some effin game shark shit right here, folks! Before when I was meditating, I would get the tiniest glimpses of peace and alteration of consciousness or whatever, yet still subconsciously would doubt the the validity of meditation the whole time. I was actually getting to where I could focus on nothing but my breath for large stretches of time , precisely because I was so " low consciousness" to begin with, and wasn't able to get much pleasure at all from pondering life stuff. I was so dulled out and anxiety ridden, I resented everything about life , so I guess I kinda enjoyed the escapist aspect of focusing on the breath... But flash-forward now to post-lsd (ok and i took 150 mg of mdma too lol) , i feel like a fucking kid again! Everything looks and feels picturesque and aesthetically pleasing to the max !!! I've been rummaging through all my old thoughts , ideas, music , videos , everything , and perceiving it through this profound new prism, and the excitement and energy is completely mind blowing and surreal . It's been nearly impossible to sleep at night . When I try meditating now , it all seems to make perfect sense this time. Here's the issue though ; I've become so attached to this new modus operandis (sp?) , that paradoxically enough , it's become twice as hard to focus on the breath or to become mindful of things when I sit and close my eyes . My brain has now become obsessed in reinterpreting old data from the past and transfiguring it into some new miracle , ad nauseum. It's difficult to even go a few seconds without thinking something along the lines of "Holy shit, why was I never able to appreciate the newest fast and the furious movie for what it was , to just let go and have fun for a little while instead of judging it !...". So IMO if there was ever a drawback to hacking your brain via psychedelics and going from level 1 to 5 with zero gaps in between, it would have to be this . I would love to hear others' thoughts on this Ps. Leo if you're reading this , I can't fucking thank you enough for inspiring me to do this type of work again . Alcoholics anonymous is spiritual but deeply flawed and was only able to take me so far . You da man.

Does anybody else get the paradoxical experience of it being significantly harder to get thoughts going than normal during "do nothing?" It blows my mind, no pun intended.

For those who have never suffered from it, it's basically like...the world has been stripped of its emotional coloring, a feeling that one has constantly lost his train of thought, like the mind is stuttering all the time. When it gets really bad (especially in social groups, or typing this fucking thread out), i start to deeply question free will; it feels like pretty much every decision I make has already been premade for me via some sort of "behind the scenes" action deep in the subconscious. A concrete example for you guys: About four years ago i had a job interview at this decent paying place. it went pretty well from what I remember, neither terrible nor great, whatever, just left and went about my business. A bit later that day, I started to feel on the verge of panic, as if it had come completely out of the blue, without rhyme or reason. I continued to get this random anxiety for the next week. Then I got the call saying I'd gotten the job, and instantly the anxiety went away, as if by magic. I mean obviously its nearly impossible to explain psychological conditions in words, but that's the best I've got. Now i wish to state that I've had some brief stints with spiritual practices in the past , such as yoga and the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous (even though my problems were mostly hard drugs). Every time I had a breakthrough, I mean an actual "altered state" breakthrough, I instantly felt that sense of "connection" x10, as if the presence of "god" was all around me, every stimuli bursting with life, quite similar in fact to the peaks of some of my better mushroom and acid trips. And I've had some brief breakthroughs on a much smaller magnitude, kinda feels like being a kid again, and what I imagine the average person experiences every day , yet takes for granted. This is what I drank, smoked weed , and did opiates for, chasing an experience similar to this, yet without the clear headedness that deep down I really want. Depersonalization has been described as enlightenment's evil twin. I've started regularly meditating the "Leo way" for the past month or so. Occasionally theres a glimmer or two of that same shit I described in the last paragraph. But all too often , especially when I start doing the self inquiry shit, I get instantly sucked back into the DP vortex, just obsessively looping on the thoughts of the nature of free will and who I really am. e.g. "How does my brain control this body?" It doesn't seem healthy. So back to the main question. Do I continue to approach this terrible , disempowering vortex in the state I'm in lately? Or should i try to distract myself with all the frivolous things Leo and others always warn about, you know, learn to feel like an average chimp again, and then take on the consciousness work? Perhaps a balance of both ? Hopefully I'm closer to the truth than I think.

Any form of self inquiry or meditation appears to make the dp worsen quite rapidly, without fail. The questions of "what am I?" and all the various exercises in the enlightenment techniques thread lead to completely obsessive "pointless" looping and mind stutter, akin to a hamster running on its wheel, desperate to gain yardage yet painfully self aware that he's getting nowhere. As a result of this anxiety and frustration , the mind and "self" start to separate , but in a disturbingly lifeless sort of way, just as I'm already used to . Its basically shielding me from unpleasant stimuli . This can't really be good , can it ? Or is this a necessarily painful part of the process ? Like the saying "it's always darkest before the dawn"? It seems lately that the dp lets up whenever I achieve small goals I would normally have never thought myself capable of, thus boosting my self esteem, and also just humbling myself (showing people that I resent acts of kindness, serving people food, etc) and learning to not give a shit what people think of me...getting out of my social comfort zone, facing my fear of life head on , etc. It doesnt matter to me if anyone here has personal experience with this horrid condition or not . I just value any insights which could lead to some new insights of my own. Anybody?