Can Psychedelics Help With Discovering What I Want?

[kieranperez]

Can psychedelics help me uncover what it is I TRULY want? I feel so lost in my mind that I can’t tangibly feel what I want deep down. The truth is that I’m lost with no direction and I’m fucking tired of being frustrated not knowing what I want. To be honest, yeah I’m depressed. I do have to have moments almost each day to shed tears of built up frustration and confusion from lack of direction. I think I can set up a trip in a setting where I’m in a good space but if it leads to a “bad trip” and I run across some deep shit in my life, so be it. If I discover what it is I deeply want, awesome! If I have a “bad” horrifying trip where I finally fucking face and see all my inner demons, then it’s about time because I’m tired of being run by them and running from them, EVEN BETTER. I want clarity and I don’t really care what form that comes in anymore. I’m tired of guessing games. I don’t want to join some cult to give me my vision and purpose in life. I don’t want my ego to give my vision and purpose in life. 

If psychedelics are a good tool for this, please recommend. I’ve yet to do them and I’m currently looking at LSD. I was going to go gung-ho and just say fuck it and go research and find 5-MeO-DMT, face my egoic death cause that’s honeslty all I really want at this point. I don’t want to play games, I’m tired of suffering, lying (to myself and others), I want to know what’s on the other side and what I’m after so that I’ll also have that intense drive and motivation too and so forth but I feel like that might not be ideal for where I’m at just yet maybe in terms of the potential after math of a trip from a substance like that. 

[Joseph Maynor]

I think you have a tendency to get caught up in these disempowering narratives and you don’t realize you’re stuck in them.  You don’t realize that you're stuck in all these stories about your life.  Enlightenment is supposed to help you get out from underneath those kinds of debilitating narratives.  I’m surprised that hasn’t really clicked for you yet.  Your mind has you by the balls.  You take every negative thought and emotion personally!  You compound your own suffering by clinging too much to the mind and getting personally offended by reality.  That is exactly what Enlightenment Work should be fixing in you.  And until you can do that you don’t really know what Enlightenment is.  Enlightenment will take away your neurosis, that’s the first tell-tale sign that somebody is getting it with Enlightenment Work — they become calmer and more grounded.  

It could be that psychedelics could help you.  I think what would help you though is just to get out of your own limiting-beliefs and shitty stories that you cling to about yourself.  You’re obsessed with the mind’s stories, and you keep re-recreating them too.  Your mind is trying to protect you on some level, so if I were you I would try to find out why your mind is always trying to hold you back.  The best thing to do is realize that what the mind is doing is trying to protect your Ego.  The mind is like a very over-protective neurotic mother that you gotta keep at arms-length.  You should be able to better detach from your mind at a certain point in your Enlightenment Work.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[kieranperez]

20 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I think you have a tendency to get caught up in these disempowering narratives and you don’t realize you’re stuck in them.  You don’t realize that you're stuck in all these stories about your life.  Enlightenment is supposed to help you get out from underneath those kinds of debilitating narratives.  I’m surprised that hasn’t really clicked for you yet.  Your mind has you by the balls.

As though I couldn’t really figure that out for myself... This is why I’m why I’m asking about psychedelics. You don’t seem to appreciate how some people (god forbid you) may have had the good fortune to trust themselves, are well integrated, have good integrity, and so forth whereas some other people and all they have is disempowering narratives, beliefs, stories, etc. and breaking free from that can sometimes be a lot harder for those people even compared to a lot of other people for whom this is already a big enough challenge as it is. 

You’re half right on your initial point. I get caught in these disempowering narratives and I’m aware I am but that doesn’t solve the issue in terms of stopping and putting an end to it. This isn’t going to make sense or be understood to the degree that I’m talking about to someone who can’t relate to the depth of this issue in their own life (hisyory). 

So, please contribute to answering the question I posed above and not just state the obvious. 

I made this post because I’m tired of goddamn guess work, wasting money on goddamn therapy that just wastes my time and money. I’m tired of guessing what I want out of life only to be lead to more confusion and frustration. I’ve been doing this for 10+ years and I’m tired of not having direction or clarity. My situation isn’t going to get solved just from  some self-esteem sentence completion work from a personal development book or from positively affirming bullshit to myself or visualizing something that I don’t even know I actually want to begin with. I don’t want to waste more damn money and time on therapy I likely can’t even afford if I don’t have to. I don’t want more psych pills and I don’t want to articulate my complaints, frustrations, suffering, and trauma anymore. It’s what I want out of life that I want to know. I want to work hard again and commit myself to working hard and giving everything to 1 thing, but to what? My life has no direction and I’m tired of people who have no business giving people life advice nor know me to guide me. I’m tired of being guided. This is my life. I want to know “what do I most want out of my life? What do I want to put my life on the line for to know the truth of, actualize, master, and offer to people? What do I want to know so bad I’d risk everything for? What impact do I want to have on the world that’s most meaningful to me? What would I risk my life to know?” The truth is that I don’t know what that is. The truth is that yeah, my mind does have my mind me by the balls and I want to know if there’s technology (psychedelics in this case) that can help me with discovering the answer to any of the questions. If all I get is some horrifying thing but I finally can see all the shit I’ve been hiding all my life, AWESOME because I want this shit to come out from under the rug quite frankly and I’m tired of it driving my life. 

[StephenK]

@kieranperez Psychedelics have shown me that what I want is not necessarily what I need. The ego-structure with its false narratives can have you chasing all kinds of meaningless, distressing, self-defeating and downright ridiculous shit -- as I'm sure you're aware -- and psychedelics can give you that space to see that, " Oh yeah, this shit is painful, false and not needed". I think it's healthy to view psychedelics as a tool to better inform your life, rather as a quick fix. They give you the ability to see through the clouds, towards the sun (temporarily), to know that there is something beyond the constant barrage of the ego-mind. 

[Bluebird]

@kieranperez 

There is a section in the book 'Loving What Is' by Katie Byron which goes into belief about purpose and feeling lost. Could be very useful for you since it can be easy to get stuck in the belief that I need to know what I want to do. Which is just a belief that causes suffering, perhaps by letting it go you will find your answer. The answers are often where we least want to look.

Quote

face my egoic death cause that’s honeslty all I really want at this point

Won't fix anything man. You'll come back down to your ego after the trip and everything will basically be as you left it.

That being said, if you want to trip, go for it. It has helped me clarify what I want to do with my life in terms of both purpose as well as smaller development things.

Would recommend it, but also facing your demons as I have to some degree isn't always therapeutic you know. Sometimes you've faced them and they're still there, so it won't always help. But you should trip on LSD for yourself and get your own answers. 

Edited January 7, 2019 by Bluebird

[Leo Gura]

Of course

[now is forever]

@kieranperez what i discovered when i was in a similar situation btw. what i know now what it was i searched for is: i really wanted to know how life really is without all the bullshit, i wanted to know how it is to live with people who have healthy relationships and i wanted to learn from them, i wanted to know how it is when you love your work and what kind of work that might be i wanted to live life healthy. you could also say without trying to kill what’s true and beautiful about me - because that’s what we truely are and want.

but now you are standing in front of a  blanc paper and don’t know how to use that tool in your hand yet. you only know what you don’t want to draw (i think that’s pretty much already). the situation is frustrating and you are afraid that what you are drawing will be not good. of course it might be not good on the first try - maybe you don’t have a good idea yet or you don’t have the right colour combination or you don’t have a motive you can use as a model to draw. but you know what, you don’t have just one blank paper, you have a lot of them and before you bring them into reality you can make scetches, a looooot of them. 

if you use psychedelics or not for that is your decision, it could help you to loose the paralysis, because that’s what happens if you don’t know where to start, you get into paralysis.

one thing is sure though, you start to fill a paper by putting the first line or dot on it and then the next one and the next one and they all want to be placed well, but not overly stiff, some lines are off but they make it more vivid. don’t think about everything, think about where you could realistically start searching for that what you want to discover/learn/be and then bring your body there, not only the mind.

Edited January 7, 2019 by now is forever

[tarax]

They might, but they also might not. I know some people who have felt more or less cured from depression after taking magic mushrooms a few times.

For me, I still don't know what I really want even after taking shrooms more times than I can remember. I also feel like it matters less, it's less about what I do in life and more about my mindset.

[Nahm]

@kieranperez

Psychedelics can reveal the actuality that you are behind the pattern of visioning & doubting. The vantage point, or “view”, can free you from it, but is not necessary. Therapy can shine clarity on the conditioning appearing to drive this pattern too. In cognitive understanding, you’d also be freed from it.  

Writing down what you want, outlining simple steps, and following through - and feeling into discomforts which arise - will also free you, in a one day at a time fashion. The opposite would be to continue to get angry, without inspection, justifying conditioning, “pushing” taking action into the future - “when you’re more level headed”.

Writing down one simple step to be accomplished each day would serve you well in either case. Consider spending one hour a day, early in the day, taking action. When you do decide to make the changes you desire, it will be in surrender, in silence and peace, not in conversation, nor intensity - it will not be remarkable, but extraordinary.

And by all means try some psychedelics.

[Giulio Bevilacqua]

I have a similar situation . I was very interested in philosophy but now after knowing all the spiritual world it became meaningless , so i don't have any idea what to do in life , i wanted to became a philosophy professor.

The problem is that we are serching for the BEST thing to do, but this classification is pure illusion. The is no best thing to do , we waste out time in mental analysis , this creates anxiety and confusion . 

Try this exercise : Try to be totally involved with something you are not familiar with . For example a science book or history , geography. You can aply this to every field . You will see that with total involvment everything you do is beautiful and joyfull.

No matter what you choose , important is to be decisive .

Edited January 7, 2019 by Giulio Bevilacqua

[Sidra]

42 minutes ago, Giulio Bevilacqua said:

The problem is that we are serching for the BEST thing to do, but this classification is pure illusion. The is no best thing to do , we waste out time in mental analysis , this creates anxiety and confusion . 

Try this exercise : Try to be totally involved with something you are not familiar with . For example a science book or history , geography. You can aply this to every field . You will see that with total involvment everything you do is beautiful and joyfull.

I can relate !!

Total involvement sounds a bit hard tho cuz I tend to be drifted away by thinking n mental analysis too often

Any advice on how to let myself delve deep into an activity without wasting most of the time stuck in my head ?!

Or does it only take time n practice ?

[outlandish]

Yeah I think they can help you discover your direction, what you want. They sure did (and still do) for me anyways. There are no guarantees, psychedelics aren't causative, they are facilitative. But they're very good facilitators!

They can also help you see what you don't want, thing like neuroses, unproductive thought patterns, low quality habits can become painfully obvious. Fresh awareness of stuff we've trained ourselves to tune out which makes it easier to make the changes that we need to move forward. Sometimes it's these things that are blocking us from our direction.

Personally, I think your idea of using LSD is spot on, it seems like a good fit for the kind of question you have. 5-MeO-DMT is more metaphysical in nature. LSD is so good at helping people to become more of themselves, pointing people in the right direction. 

"LSD is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be."

--Albert Hofmann

[SgtPepper]

@Joseph Maynor makes a good point here my dude.

I fall into negative scripts and stories myself, so no judgment here! Psychedelics CAN definitely help. They're powerful and amazing and what's crazy is if you haven't even tried it. you don't even know what you're getting yourself into it because its wild. and you will surely be amused and amazed, possibly frightened at the realism behind it. 

[Aakash]

@kieranperez There is a paradox at play here: going down the path of enlightenment you become detached to everything. The problem i think people think is that your going to have something left that your going to love wholeheartedly however i don't feel this is the case. What you have realised here is that there is no conditional love/ point of view from the ego perspective that you would stake your life on. 

i THINK what would happen next is you have to find something that you love unconditionally and work to love it unconditionally that it springs you into action and the now you wish to live in becomes actualised. 

What do you think?

[Girzo]

I would choose a visionary psychedelic for life purpose work. LSD is probably the best fit.

Tripped on 5-MeO-MET (which holds a close resemblance to 5-MeO-DMT) with a similar goal in mind and it wasn't too helpful. 

Basically higher intelligence has devaluated my worries and told me to focus on Enlightenment. All else in life is just a decoration, so don't overthink it.

Which is cool, but monkhood is for sure not my path, and that means I still have to figure out the details of what I want to do for a living.

 

[electroBeam]

16 hours ago, StephenK said:

@kieranperez Psychedelics have shown me that what I want is not necessarily what I need. The ego-structure with its false narratives can have you chasing all kinds of meaningless, distressing, self-defeating and downright ridiculous shit -- as I'm sure you're aware -- and psychedelics can give you that space to see that, " Oh yeah, this shit is painful, false and not needed". I think it's healthy to view psychedelics as a tool to better inform your life, rather as a quick fix. They give you the ability to see through the clouds, towards the sun (temporarily), to know that there is something beyond the constant barrage of the ego-mind. 

so in other words, it doesn't show you what you want, but shows you what you TRULY want.

@kieranperez yes, of course they do. 

[StephenK]

@electroBeam In a sense, yes -- if your 'wants' are coming from the ego structure, psychedelics can/will pretty much destroy them (for a while), depending on the dose. Psychedelics, for me, create the desire/force to liberate myself from the ego structure, and this force stays with me after the trip and energizes me to do whatever practices are need (self-inquiry, meditation, etc). Psychedelics are like enlightenment steroids -- take too much and you may 'die' ?. If you take just enough but don't do the required 'exercise', you'll see little benefit. 

[MisterMan]

Be responsible etc etc Do your own research etc set Intention etc. YES

[karkaore]

I have found out what i really want in life while on LSD. Well, i have remembered what i really want in life would be more accurate. It was a long forgotten dream of studying architecture. So yeah, they can definitely help you figure out your purpose. ✌️

[Gabriel Antonio]

Yes, they can.  Psychedelics help you tune more with being, and that’s where your authentic motivations and desires are.  

Just remember that psychedelics are not the only way, and is not for everyone. So be careful.