Thoughts on this psychedelic experience ?

[Lynnel]

I'v been following "your mate tom" while doing my research on mushrooms and found him very informative.

But he recently posted this new video :

Basically he says that psychedelics are the type of " get the message and hang the phone" and that iboga fucked him over completely.

I see a lot of self-deception, as Leo stated, first iboga can fuck you up big time and more importantly, ego being part of you is also a big self-deception.

Is his ego is just in a self-induced depression because he rushed too far ahead in his work ?

I'm never taking iboga for sure and I'm just wondering since we could all learn from his mistakes.

[Leo Gura]

Every psychedelic can mindfuck you totally. You must treat these substances with enormous respect.

Bad trips will happen if you trip enough times. And they can be really hairy.

My last trip was a bit hairy for about 2 hours until I was able to pull out of the dark side. But man, do those trips grow you.

[Key Elements]

Sounds very informative. 

I like what he said somewhere in the middle, "Be aware of unearned wisdom."

[SgtPepper]

I love psychedelics and I agree with Tom.

Psychedelics are not a joke!

 

 

[Lynnel]

It makes me scared to maybe entirely destroy my reality and not being able to come back or worse being stuck in a sort of transition between different paradigms. To like fall into some sort of existential depression and being stuck there.

While I can also feel the huge potential in there and I feel a need to experiment more with this, especially for emotionnal healing, I'm afraid it might backfire if I were to dig too deeply.

[PsiloPutty]

Lynnel, what's your experience with psychedelics? I hope it's fair for me, based on what you've posted, to assume that you haven't done them often or in non-recreational doses. Unless you've got some mental instability going into it, you're EXTREMELY unlikely to get stuck in some kind of foggy purgatory. They certainly can change the way you think about yourself, your past, your problems, other people, the world and life in general, but we're talking about slight nuances in cognitive changes here; you'll still be "you" when it's over. You won't be stuck in the matrix.  

Since you mentioned that you're researching psilocybin mushrooms (one of my passions), what dose are you contemplating? If personal growth is the intention here, let's rule out just taking a recreational dose of 2 dried grams or less. It's possible to gain insight on those lower doses, but for myself and most other folks who are doing it for more than funny thoughts and cool colors, the potential pot of gold lies in the 3 to 6 dried gram dose.  It may look and sound like quite a bit, but stay conscious of the comforting fact that millions upon millions of human beings have taken that dose before you and come out the better for it.

Also, if you're a newbie to mushrooms, know that they're almost always kind to 1st-timers, especially if your set and setting is positive and calm. It's hard to not fret and bog yourself down beforehand with what-if scenarios, but it's like getting on a rollercoaster for the first time; you can talk yourself out of it, but after it's over, you'll be glad you did it, you'll realize that you displayed a rare and genuine courage, and you'll learn something about who you are. 

If you have any questions, ask away. Like I said, this is one of my passions, and I've obsessively researched the topic and I apply the knowledge and practice to my own life often.  

[Lynnel]

@PsiloPutty Thank you for your answer !

I've taking a 2 g dose before and I even wrote a report about it and this was it. I've been thinking about jumping to a higher dose such as 4g since at 2g I only had very mild effects and could function properly. I felt unable to meditate and it just felt "boring" to some extent. I had a very positive experience overall but nothing extraordinary.  You can read about it here :

So let's consider 4 g right now   That would be my second trip.

I've been wondering about how to make shroom tea properly as I am not sure whether I did it properly or not the first time. Which may or may not explain why my first trip was so mild. Is temperature important, etc ?

What do you recommend "doing" during the trip ? Meditating or just laying down and letting go ?

What I was afraid mainly is just destroying my whole reality and jumping in a non-duality permanent state before I was ready. Or maybe fucking up my mental state and obtain permanent depression. I have no mental instability and I'm doing yoga, meditation daily and have done quite a lot of some other personnal development work.

Also, I didn't feel the need for a trip sitter so I'm wondering if I would ever need one at 4g too ?

[PsiloPutty]

You're very welcome. I love talking about this. 

Yeah, if 2g didn't do much, I'd just say the heck with it and go with the famed "Heroic Dose" which is 5g, but if 4g sounds less frightening, then do that. Whatever method you use, do it after fasting for 6 hours. Food in your stomach will delay the effects and increase your chance of feeling nauseated or throwing up.

Some folks love doing mushroom tea, but it never works as well for me as actually consuming the mushrooms. I got fed up with the tea method after raising the dose again and again and still not getting the effect of eating them, so I'm done with that intake method, but there's not much to it: heat up 1 or 2 cups of water (however much you'd like to drink), put the hot water in a coffee mug, finely grind up your bone-dry mushrooms until it's fine like baby powder in a coffee grinder, empty out a couple regular tea bags and then add the mushroom powder to the empty bags and let them steep in your mug of hot water for 20 minutes, squeezing the bags from time to time to ensure that the actives in the mushrooms are getting into the water.....and drink it. That's straight mushroom tea. 

The method I've found to work better than any other is to grind up the mushrooms as described before, put them in an empty coffee mug, add 2 ounces of real lemon juice, stir it up a few times while 20 minutes passes.....and drink it all down at the 20-minute mark. This is called the Lemon Tek method. It's nasty-lookin' shit, with a taste to match, and you might have to do it little by little to keep from gagging, which is why I keep the volume of what I need to drink to a minimum. The lemon juice activates or potentiates the psilocybin, making the trip start faster than other consumption methods. It's thought that the citric acid in lemon juice converts the psilocybin into psilocin, a process which would happen in your body anyway, even without the lemon juice, but since the lemon juice does it while the mushrooms are in the mug, your body doesn't need to bother with it, thus making the effects appear faster. 

I always do my psychedelic journeys alone at home. If you have a very trusted friend who's willing to sit in a different room and only tend to you if you call out for them, that's OK too. You definitely want some privacy, though. I talk outloud, chant, sing and all sorts of shit that would be disturbing to a sober person in the house, especially if they're unfamiliar with seeing someone on a therapeutic dose of psilocybin. Having a newbie tripsitter is NOT advised. It would be a new experience for you both, and you want at least one of you to have an idea of what's going on. 

"What to do" during a trip: I like to meditate in the dark after I drink my mushrooms, and I keep doing that even while I can feel the trip starting. Don't worry about not getting deep enough into meditation; if you're like me, you'll be too jazzed up to get as deep as during a regular meditation session. The point is just to calm your mind in preparation for the experience. When it becomes difficult to continue meditating after the trip starts, because of what I'm seeing (eyes always closed), hearing and feeling, I talk to the mushroom, expressing my gratitude, asking for its help, its guidance and frankly, its mercy. Might be kooky to do that, but I'm not at all convinced that mushrooms aren't a doorway into another dimension, accompanied by some kind of alien intellect. 

It's not necessary to believe what I believe as far as the alien intelligence goes, but you DO have to surrender yourself to it and acknowledge that you're in the direct presence of something that has it in its power to beat you up mentally if you're too cocky about it and try to exert control over it. That's what I like about the higher doses - they automatically put you in the passenger seat. At low doses, your ego is very much intact and it is petrified to relinquish control. Low doses can be a lot more challenging than higher doses for that very reason; your ego can fight and kick around and cause something of a rotten trip. Your ego is ushered into a waiting room in some ways during a 5g+ trip, and you are more apt to just lay there and surrender, which is when the mushroom can stretch out and do the driving. 

That's not to say that you for sure won't have challenging periods on a therapeutic dose; you sure may, but it's all a part of it. It's Yin and Yang. When I have a rough time, I fall back on Terence McKenna's advice of sitting up in bed and chanting or singing. It oxygenates your brain and can really free up a mental log jam. The last trip I had, I got stuck early on, started chanting and even after I felt better, I kept up with the chanting for 2 full hours because it felt so good and needed for some reason. I didn't know from one moment to the next what sounds were going to come out of my mouth. It was as liberating and cathartic as anything I've done in my almost 50 years on earth. 

Anyway, your fear is normal and GOOD. It signifies that you're serious about it and that you understand that you'll have to drop the reins and surrender to something very different than you've ever experienced. Again, you will still be you afterward. Even while it's happening, you'll still have the ability to go to the restroom, drink water and such, although you should stay in bed as much as possible. If you're like most people, the trip comes in waves. There will be times when the surf's up and all you can do is stay put and absorb what it's showing you, but there will also be low-tide times when you can go pee, drink some water or whatever for a couple minutes before the tide returns. I usually have 3 solid hours of heavy tripping before it begins to leave, but don't plan on leaving the house or doing anything too normal for 6 hours.

If you can summon the courage to do this, it'll likely rank among the most important, and profound activities you have ever engaged in. The potential for personal growth in such a short timeframe is completely unparalleled. All it takes is true courage, curiosity and an explorer's sense of adventure. 

I sure wrote a shit of a lot there. I hope you read it all and find it useful.  

 

 

[Lynnel]

@PsiloPutty Thank you so much for this ! I never got a very complete answer on this and I'm very glad you were so complete. I really appreciate it. Reddit usually is like yeah/no/maybe I don't care much so It feels good for a change I found it all very usefull !

I didn't like the lemon tek method because you get to eat the mushroom entirely and I don't feel that being very healthy I would much rather not eat the mushroom pulp so I feel less intoxicated. I guess adding lemon to the mushroom tea will do the trick too ? I read somewhere that this lemon juice claim wasn't actually valid from scientific standpoint too - thus I prefered to try the shroom tea !

Aside from chanting ( and actually, what would you chant ? "om" or something along those lines ? I really need to read Jed Mackenna) what would you recommend to do if the experience gets quite hairy ? Or if you get scared/paranoid ? Just chant trough it ? I've read that mushrooms can sometimes become malevolent at higher doses.

Also I would love to hear some advice about the endless loop thing - where you get the idea that you're gonna get stuck forever in this strange loop and your mind convinces you the only way out is to die. That sounds quite scary and since I don't wanna fuck up my life I'm taking this very seriously.

I'll try the 4 g. when I get a good set and setting a I'll be sure to report back. I have quite some exploration to do in this domain.

Thank you once more for your effort. I'm sure other people will also appreciate reading this.