Weed useless for spirituality?

[MrDmitriiV]

By now I had 5 edible experience (once a week last 5 weeks). I consumed in different ways. Biggest lesson is not to eat it on empty stomach.

3 of them barely felt anything, 1 hellish (https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/45020-ate-candy-went-to-hell/#comment-566010), and last one was weird.

So yesterday, 2hr after eating last time, I put in my mouth about 15mg of THC dosed candy, let it melt. I ate some fruits 30min after that. At about 30-60min I felt a little warm but not much, I thought that this another experience where I’ll barely feel anything.

So 3hr after taking the candy, I ate some food. Just as I was preparing to wash the dishes, it hit me so fucking hard. For a few minutes I was just standing like a vegetable, not understanding wtf is going on, what I was doing and so on. After that I recognized that it must be the weed, so I just went to sit in my room. 

Thankfully, this time it wasn’t hellish. There was still some anxiety, paranoia. One moment I was cold, the other moment I was hot, one moment shaking a little. There was some paranoia that the food I ate was spoiled and this were the symptoms of poisoning and not weed. But of course, other part of me knew it wasn’t the case. I was also pondering if I should just throw all remaining candy down the toilet.

The most annoying part that all my muscles relaxed too much. I was peeing so much, my bladder just would refuse to hold even a drop of pee in it. So I had to spend 15min at the sink and peeing a little each few minutes. Before that I was paranoid of peeing in the pants. Drinking 1L of water because I felt dried out.

After that I took a paper towel and with it under my penis (to soak any pee drops) while laying on my back with pants down. The lightbulb on the ceiling felt so bright, I covered my eyes and it felt like I was sunbathing on a beach. Very sedated and sleepy. Like I was some burger on the grill.

This high lasted for 4hr+, until I just went to bed. 

In 5 experiences I just can’t find much use with weed. Only brings up anxiety. So fucking unpredictable too. One time it hit me with a wave of anxiety in a bus, I thought I’ll loose my shit in public.

With LSD I never had one single bad experience for example.
 

Should I micro dose with the rest or just throw them away?

 

[ttm]

12 minutes ago, MrDmitriiV said:

In 5 experiences I just can’t find much use with weed. Only brings up anxiety. So fucking unpredictable too. One time it hit me with a wave of anxiety in a bus, I thought I’ll loose my shit in public.

With LSD I never had one single bad experience for example.

Someone else could easily be saying the same thing with compounds reversed. "I tried LSD 5 times, only brings up anxiety. With weed I never had bad experiences."

How many times have you ridden bus on LSD, btw?

12 minutes ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Should I micro dose with the rest or just throw them away?

There is no right answer for that, it's totally up to you.

This is a bit like "I hit myself in the head with hammer. Now it hurts, should I throw my hammer away or use it to only remove nails instead of hammering them?" kind of situation.

[MrDmitriiV]

3 hours ago, ttm said:

Someone else could easily be saying the same thing with compounds reversed. "I tried LSD 5 times, only brings up anxiety. With weed I never had bad experiences."

How many times have you ridden bus on LSD, btw?

I’ve read many edible reports, feedback about weed consumption and other observations which make me conclude that overall, it’s not a very effective tool for spirituality. Negative effects like anxiety/paranoia are very common with weed. Some users might find a use to it ofc.

On LSD I know that 6hr after taking a moderate dose, I’ll be back in almost full control. But with weed in that case, I felt almost nothing for 4hr, and then when riding on the bus it just hit me with a wave of anxiety.

4 hours ago, ttm said:

There is no right answer for that, it's totally up to you.

This is a bit like "I hit myself in the head with hammer. Now it hurts, should I throw my hammer away or use it to only remove nails instead of hammering them?" kind of situation.

Well, maybe micro-dosing it will minimize the negative effects?! But consuming thru the gut (especially weed) seems like very unreliable. I tried 4 different consumption methods in total. Like I also consumed 15mg in a proper manner before and nothing, yet yesterday the same 15mg hit me so hard. The same piece of candy btw.

The hammer example...

Anyway, the purpose of this post is for me to share my results with weed edible. Definitely wouldn’t recommend it for spirituality, considering the other vastly superior substances.

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

Touching on your "hellish experience", from my own extensive use of edibles in the past and more recent experiences with mushrooms, a high dose of edible is much more likely to put me in a bad state of mind, promote negative/paranoid thoughts, than the mushroom at also a moderate to moderately high dose. There is something about cannabis that, while in the past has helped me raise my consciousness, has a ceiling-like effect where I no longer get much use out of it and nowadays.

[hoodrow trillson]

This is actually my first post here even though I've lurked ever since this website opened and waaaay back when I watched Leo's actualized youtube videos (still do).  I just love reading things about experiences.

In a funny way, edibles actually made me see "me" once.  Moreso than shrooms or LSD.  The big I.  It wasn't even a relatively high dose either, it was pretty mild and I was very conscious.  I was watching Leo's "Shocking truth" video about Enlightenment and then it hit me HARD.  He said "Look at your hand, realize that there is no one actually looking at your hand.  It's just a hand" and BOOM, I got what he meant.  Then all of the teachings, videos, writings, etc made sense all in one big swoop. It was hilarious, because you actually think you're actually real.  It was mind-blowing shit.  I was shocked yet it made perfect sense and I felt like I knew this already, innately somehow.

Now, I don't wanna beat around the bush because I hate language and how people always blueball you with this stuff:

Basically what happened, was that the "THING" that's looking at this screen RIGHT NOW reading this, isn't actually there.  ZIP.  NADA.  You're literally hollow lol. The place behind your eyes is void.  It's like the opposite of what's in front of your eyes.  But, it seems like there's a person there--and there IS, it's just not how you think it actually exists.  Think of the back of your eyes as similar as being the darkness of space.  Just nothing.

If you look straight ahead, you notice you're looking almost like in an "oval orb" of experience--like a round TV.  If you keep looking straight ahead, try to realize your peripheral vision.  How is it that stuff exists, in front of you right... but the outer edges and behind your eyes it's like this weird invisible void?  Almost like a blindspot that you take for granted.  Like, almost as if your experience is couched within in this thing.  And that thing is YOU.  GOD.  

I realized who my friends, family, coworkers, fuck buddies, etc were:  They're the same me that's "watching" this experience but we're playing a game of being a human on earth.  We think we're other people--and we ARE...just not that the same way we grew up thinking.  The earth is full of phantoms and we believe our little life stories lol.

Of course this moment fleeted when I began to sober up... and I've been "chasing" that experience every since with meditation, which is kind of funny lol because I know it's useless.  I also jotted down tons of notes while I realized this, to keep me afloat later on in life and remember this experience.  I also realized that you can get to this state RIGHT NOW by literally dropping *everything* and staying in the present moment like a laser beam.  

It made me respect edibles and cannabis in general.  It's absolutely insane that a mild piece of chocolate made me realize God far more than the nuclear bombs such as shrooms, LSD, etc.  And I wasn't even looking for an answer, I just decided to watch one of Leo's videos after I was watching some video game playthrough while the high was kicking in.

[Swagala]

For me, it works. I've been smoking CBD (basically legal weed) this last few days and I've gotten very mystical experiences. In fact, I had what I can confidently call my first Awakening experience. Total not knowing and nothing made sense.

Adding in meditation and some shamanic breathing really helps out.

[ttm]

17 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

I’ve read many edible reports, feedback about weed consumption and other observations which make me conclude that overall, it’s not a very effective tool for spirituality. Negative effects like anxiety/paranoia are very common with weed. Some users might find a use to it ofc.

Yes, it's of course different than classic psychedelics. It is still not uncommon to people have anxiety/paranoia in class psychedelics too.

17 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

On LSD I know that 6hr after taking a moderate dose, I’ll be back in almost full control. But with weed in that case, I felt almost nothing for 4hr, and then when riding on the bus it just hit me with a wave of anxiety.

I suspect that it didn't hit you with a wave of anxiety, but that it just hit you, and you reacted with a wave of anxiety to the fact that it hit you by surprise in the public. Not to say that you couldn't have had anxiety if you had stayed home, but still the anxiety/paranoia is generated by your thoughts and responses.

That is true though, that onset and duration of cannabis edibles can be more unpredictable, but that can easily be solved by "assuming the worst". And it's not like they are totally random - you didn't say where you got those candys, but that 15mg could be +/- something, for example. You said that you have experienced cannabis these 5 times by eating, but did you have smoked it before? Cannabis could have this weird thing that first time/few times do not do pretty much anything. And so first time it really hits could be very confusing.

18 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Well, maybe micro-dosing it will minimize the negative effects?! But consuming thru the gut (especially weed) seems like very unreliable. I tried 4 different consumption methods in total. Like I also consumed 15mg in a proper manner before and nothing, yet yesterday the same 15mg hit me so hard. The same piece of candy btw.

Micro-dosing could minimize the negative effects, but it also minimizes effects altogether. And so with the weed as other psychedelics, I don't necessarily think that difficult psychological effects should be classified straight away as "negative effects to be avoided". They can be really insightful if handled in safe environment. 

It could also be helpful to use it smoked or vaporized. Not those candys but weed in general.

It is exactly same thing with other psychedelics: LSD or mushrooms can easily "cause" anxiety, and micro-dosing could help minimizing those negative effects.

18 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Definitely wouldn’t recommend it for spirituality, considering the other vastly superior substances.

Classic psychedelics of course are much more to the point, but that does not mean that weed is useless. Also, if you want to avoid "negative psychological effects", you shouldn't do any psychedelics.

[MrDmitriiV]

2 hours ago, ttm said:

I suspect that it didn't hit you with a wave of anxiety, but that it just hit you, and you reacted with a wave of anxiety to the fact that it hit you by surprise in the public. Not to say that you couldn't have had anxiety if you had stayed home, but still the anxiety/paranoia is generated by your thoughts and responses.

I’ve had many LSD trips and can tell the difference between hitting an ego barrier or ego backlash. It’s just RAW awfulness with weed in my case. 

2 hours ago, ttm said:

you didn't say where you got those candys, but that 15mg could be +/- something, for example

I’ve got one batch of candies dosed at 40 each. The thing is, the last candy I took I split it in equal parts. Consumed them in almost exact same manner, yet very different reaction. So even if the candy are dosed wrong, I consumed equal parts of the same candy with varying effects.

2 hours ago, ttm said:

And so with the weed as other psychedelics, I don't necessarily think that difficult psychological effects should be classified straight away as "negative effects to be avoided". They can be really insightful if handled in safe environment. 

I didn’t experience going into some dark corners of my psyche for you to label them “psychological”. There’s a difference between a substance causing raw awfulness and it exposing some unwanted parts of the psyche. The other 4 edible experiences were at home the whole day.

2 hours ago, ttm said:

LSD or mushrooms can easily "cause" anxiety

Yes they can cause anxiety, but certainly not “easily “.

It’s like comparing that both fighting and having sex can cause equal anxiety. 
 

2 hours ago, ttm said:

Classic psychedelics of course are much more to the point, but that does not mean that weed is useless

I did not say it’s useless for everyone, read what I wrote before arguing against it. Noticed words like “overall” “seems” and alike?

2 hours ago, ttm said:

negative psychological effects", you shouldn't do any psychedelics.

I’ve had 8 LSD trips and 2 MDMA, not a slither of problem across the board with them. So why are you saying I shouldn’t take psychedelics? Don’t just blindly throw words around. 

Why are you labeling me not being able to hold pee under weed as psychological effects? Or having fucked thermo regulation? That’s called a physiological effect, go learn basic biology.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by MrDmitriiV
Typo

[ttm]

47 minutes ago, MrDmitriiV said:

I didn’t not say it’s useless for everyone, read what I wrote before arguing against it. Noticed words like “overall” “seems” and alike?

I didn’t experience going into some dark corners of my psyche for you to label them “psychological”. There’s a difference between a substance causing raw awfulness and it exposing some unwanted parts of the psyche. The other 4 edible experiences were at home the whole day.

Why are you labeling me not being able to hold pee under weed as psychological effects? Or having fucked thermo regulation? That’s called a physiological effect, go learn basic biology.

No need to get offended. The title is "weed useless for spirituality?", and I addressed that question. If you mean that your whole anxiety/paranoia was about pissing your pants, and unability to control your bladder is consistent effect, then sure, maybe you shouldn't use it. But that does not have much to do with the question, it's separate issue. Also, it isn't that common.

47 minutes ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Yes they can cause anxiety, but certainly not “easily “.

Uh, ok.

47 minutes ago, MrDmitriiV said:

I’ve had 8 LSD trips and 2 MDMA, not a slither of problem across the board with them. So why are you saying I shouldn’t take psychedelics? Don’t just blindly throw words around. 

MDMA is surely different, although it has psychedelic effects, it's empathogenic properties makes it easier. It's great that you had not had any negative effects from LSD, yet. I don't think it's impossible, that if you decided to proceed to the point where you have had hundreds of trips with LSD, cannabis, mushrooms etc., the whole situation could appear to you differently.

I didn't mean that specifically you shouldn't use psychedelics, I used "you" in that sentence interchangeable with "one" or "a person".

But yeah, if you talked about anxiety/paranoia in general, then what I said is applicable. If you talked about anxiety caused by consistent unability to control bladder, conclusions from that is not generalizable to common folk, but you and very small minority to whom, for some reason, weed seems to cause that effect consistently.

Anyhow, I didn't mean to offend you. And actually, I have myself experienced that thing, although, I don't really remember if it was just a feeling that I'm pissing, or did I actually. That has happened something like 3 times out of 10 000, and last time was ~10 years ago. If it had stuck as consistent effect, surely I would've been forced to quit using weed altogether, there's no doubt it would've been kind of a deal breaker there.. but still, it would've had nothing to do with the question about the potential of weed in spirituality.

Edited February 22, 2020 by ttm

[MrDmitriiV]

1 hour ago, ttm said:

The title is "weed useless for spirituality?", and I addressed that question

Nope, you wrote that bit as an answer to quoted bit of text, not directly to that title. Scroll above and look:

23 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Definitely wouldn’t recommend it for spirituality, considering the other vastly superior substances.

1 hour ago, ttm said:

If you mean that your whole anxiety/paranoia was about pissing your pants, and unability to control your bladder is consistent effect, then sure, maybe you shouldn't use it.

I meant that you took a bunch of mostly physiological negative effects and put them under the label psychological. If weed made some bad memories surface up and me react bad to it, then it would be appropriate to call them psychological. Anxiety/paranoia is a common theme for weed users.

1 hour ago, ttm said:

I didn't mean that specifically you shouldn't use psychedelics, I used "you" in that sentence interchangeable with "one" or "a person".

Even in that case, with the right psychedelics, and used properly, one can do enormous healing and strengthening of the mind. 
It’s like salvia, the majority seem to have a negative experience with it, but that doesn’t mean it’s their psychological problem or that they shouldn’t do other psychedelics like LSD.

[ttm]

2 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Nope, you wrote that bit as an answer to quoted bit of text, not directly to that title. Scroll above and look:

The sentence before comma was answer to the quoted text, and it was mostly agreeing with it...

2 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

I meant that you took a bunch of mostly physiological negative effects and put them under the label psychological. If weed made some bad memories surface up and me react bad to it, then it would be appropriate to call them psychological. Anxiety/paranoia is a common theme for weed users.

I was referring to anxiety/paranoia when I said psychological effects. Do you mean that anxiety/paranoia is physiological effect instead of psychological? You didn't specify what the anxiety/paranoia was exactly about and said things like "anxiety/paranoia is common with weed", so I didn't understand that you was referring with it to your peeing problem. When I used terms anxiety and paranoia, I was speaking about anxiety/paranoia in general.

2 hours ago, MrDmitriiV said:

Even in that case, with the right psychedelics, and used properly, one can do enormous healing and strengthening of the mind. 

I did not say that it cannot be done. I meant that even with the "right psychedelics used properly" one can find himself in very difficult mental situations.

[MrDmitriiV]

@ttm Well, I could go another round debunking that, but I’ll pretend I didn’t see that :-D

[Litaken]

It definitely works  There is a couple of type of stuff that happens to me:

One of the first times I got really high (fainted, barely could walk through doors), I got home and laid down and for just hours I felt generally bad but didn't understand. I felt like I'm disconnected from the world, lost reality, just a little nothing sitting inside what I thought my body was somewhere I called my room. Then a couple of hours passed, and I've gotten better, and I've had the best time of my life doing nothing in my room at my computer. That was very rare for me at that time, now I see how much guilt and fear I've hoarded, so didn't have too much of that. I've had the same or similar a lot of times. Now I understand what was happening, I often get to the same state after decent meditations. This definitely sounds something like an enlightenment experience, so I'd claim useful for spirituality.

When I first understood what this idea of reality being imaginary means, (not heard but really understood, the final cut was made by Occam's razor), I was shocked for weeks. After some days you kind of get back to the ordinary life, but getting high after that event had very radical experiences, the deepest existential crisises, where I've seen everything we observe as a code combination of 0 and 1, silly stuff like that, but the definite feeling that I had is that my world is torn apart. I like that this happened because with time you can figure out that it's just pure fear, and you can work it through to realize it. So it definitely helps with discovering what fear really is, another spiritual topic.

Another event that time to time happened is hard to put into words but was like I got a burst of consciousness, like from the regular me, I've become someone who is overseeing me, who was sleeping inside of me all the time but now awoken, and just thinking about my past, objectively, how my life is going, but not from a self perspective, rather a temporal controller perspective. So it definitely helps with discovering the ego, another spiritual topic.

Also I've always had a lot of insights from just a couple of minutes after getting high, which got levels deeper after learning about actualization stuff.

Also I'm seeing the trend that THC doesn't affect first timers. I haven't seen anyone get affected by it the first 2-3 times.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Litaken

[lionrock]

A real case.
My friend and I were sitting at my house and we got really good weed. Everything always depends on the mood and the amount of weed and sativa or indica prevails. The very first time I had just fun everything was beautiful, the sun, the air, my skin, everything! During the second visit, we turned on music from minecraft and then I began to think about the deep, I did not understand where these positive thoughts came from, that I so transparently see the truth, I thought about my existence whether I am a consumer:?
But the third time we drank pu-erh tea, then I began to realize that I want to bring this world only good. The fourth time it was weed and kratom maeng da it was the best feeling of my life. I could just let my mind open all the doors who has had a similar experience ?

[lionrock]

On 1/14/2021 at 9:52 PM, lionrock said:

A real case.
My friend and I were sitting at my house and we got really good weed. Everything always depends on the mood and the amount of weed and sativa or indica prevails. The very first time I had just fun everything was beautiful, the sun, the air, my skin, everything! During the second visit, we turned on music from minecraft and then I began to think about the deep, I did not understand where these positive thoughts came from, that I so transparently see the truth, I thought about my existence whether I am a consumer:?
But the third time we drank pu-erh tea, then I began to realize that I want to bring this world only good. The fourth time it was weed and kratom maeng da it was the best feeling of my life. I could just let my mind open all the doors who has had a similar experience ?

Recently I smoked weed after a heavy quarrel with a girl , I did not start to brawl , we decided very peacefully, then we smoked and flew into space

[Michal__]

Try edibles and Leo's guides excersise for realizing you're God.

[BipolarGrowth]

I’ve had some crazy deep awakenings smoking large hits of concentrated THC with low tolerance. It works better if you’ve already used psychedelics before. Previous psychedelic experiences can turn weed into a psychedelic as long as you don’t run into tolerance problems. THC can be better than many other psychedelics once you’ve had other trips to break down that wall in a sense. 

[WonderSeeker]

@MrDmitriiV I'd say weed is hit-or-miss. It can amplify new insights you had just before using. But psychs usually do a better job of that.

[Intraplanetary]

When I smoke weed I get deep realisations. But only if I smoke maybe every 2-3 months and in between, I do other things such as meditation and psychedelics. Only then, weed takes me to a very deep contemplative state.

[The Lucid Dreamer]

I had my first real spiritual insights due to weed(dabs more specifically, so my experiences were probably more psychedelic than most people’s first experiences with cannabis).  I was an atheist-materialist obsessed and steeped in western philosophy at the time, so my mind was very philosophically charged. I was absolutely obsessed with trying to figure out reality, so when I started smoking dabs, my mind just became a philosophizing machine, lol.  Way before I had ever heard of Leo, Alan Watts or any other spiritual teacher, I realized on my own (with the invaluable help of cannabis) many of the main insights.

I realized that the idea of the self was an illusion 

 I realized I was God(Though I called it the Universe out of bias),

I realized reality must necessarily be absolutely infinite because there is nothing outside of it that could limit it and that the finite must necessarily precipitate from an infinite source otherwise there couldn’t be anything.

I grasped how the map is not the territory and how symbolism can never directly represent what is actually there,

I realized that I was going to live every single life possible and that everyone was me separated by death. 

I started talking to my brother about my thoughts on all this because I was so excited about it naively thinking that I was the first one to think of these things and that I was on the cutting edge of philosophy.  While talking to him about all this he was just kinda staring at me wide-eyed and then finally said “Uuuh... have you ever heard of Alan Watts?” 
I said no

”Weelll, you should probably check him out.”

And so I did, and as I listened to him, I started to hear him repeat back to me all the same insights I had been having(albeit in a much more eloquent and articulate way) and I was floored. I had no idea people had known these things for thousands of years. On one hand I felt vindicated, but on the other hand disappointed that I wasn’t the first to think of it.  

So yeah, I think weed can be incredibly valuable for spiritual insight, at least during the beginning stages.  It can help, but only if you give it something to work with. Your mind has to be primed to some degree and you have to have an actual deep desire for truth.  I don’t smoke it hardly at all anymore as it has basically shown me everything it can for now. I have since moved on to the heavier substances for deeper realizations.