Am I immune to the visual effects of psychedelics?

[Alliedwolf]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. 

I had my first experience with LSD in December of 2016.  Since then I have become a completely different person.  Fast forward to today and I do not experience what I would consider a psychedelic trip using psychedelics. 

On LSD I get clarity of mind and I would describe it as peaceful and being able to operate with no anxiety.  I am able to look at the moment without judgement and really just enjoy the day.  However, I do not see visuals or have any problem functioning on a normal day to day level.  My wife is fascinated that they don't affect me as they do her.  It does not matter if I take a tab or 5.  Also, I recently took 7.5g of shrooms (Only 3rd time taking mushrooms) and experienced no visuals.  I had an Ayahuasca experience in February as well.  I did not really trip visually, but again was able to go deep in thought and figure something things out internally for myself that has helped my growth.

The only other thing I have to add is if I add weed in I can trip my balls off.  Visuals and all.  I choose not to do this though because the pure stream of thought and the ability it gives me to really analyze my internal dialogue is what I want. 

Maybe I have taken too many I don't know, but everyone else that takes a psychedelic around me has the world melt around them at times.  I have never experienced anything like that without adding in marijuana.  

Just looking for the opinion of other psychonauts.  I feel like @Leo Gura has the most experience with psychedelics out of anyone I have read or studied.  So figured this forum was a good place to start. 

Thanks again for taking the time to read this and I appreciate any insight you all might give me.

[electroBeam]

Yep exact same here. 

It doesn't really matter what other people experience. What other people experience is literally made up/isn't real, so trying to replicate that is silly. 

[Alliedwolf]

10 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Yep exact same here. 

It doesn't really matter what other people experience. What other people experience is literally made up/isn't real, so trying to replicate that is silly. 

Yea, not really trying to replicate, just curious why I am so different.  Nice to hear I am not the only person that experiences psychedelics this way.  Thanks for the quick reply.

[Carl-Richard]

This might seem like a very odd question, but are you on the spectrum? In my experience, people with autistic traits seem to experience psychedelics differently. A friend of mine who took LSD with me 5 years ago was extremely lucid and functional, meanwhile I couldn't even keep a coherent conversation. He even went home and talked to his parents while still tripping (incidentally I also talked to my mother for a couple of seconds through her car window, but luckily I had sunglasses on and was able to tell her were I was going. I can't remember where she was going though or whether or not I was even able to understand what she was saying haha). 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Jhonny]

Ram Das once gave LSD to a buddhist monk and monk said , he did not experience anything.

[Carl-Richard]

Just now, Jhonny said:

Ram Das once gave LSD to a buddhist monk and monk said , he did not experience anything.

I also heard another time he gave LSD to a monk and he tripped balls.

[Jhonny]

Do you have a history of brain injury?

I was smart kid in school but one day a boy knocked my head with full force on ground, i felt something disc like vibrating in my head , there was not blood only swelling because of that but after  that day never felt that sharp or competitive.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Jhonny

[Alliedwolf]

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

This might seem like a very odd question, but are you on the spectrum? In my experience, people with autistic traits seem to experience psychedelics differently. A friend of mine who took LSD with me 5 years ago was extremely lucid and functional, meanwhile I couldn't even keep a coherent conversation. He even went home and talked to his parents while still tripping (incidentally I also talked to my mother for a couple of seconds through her car window, but luckily I had sunglasses on and was able to tell her were I was going. I can't remember where she was going though or whether or not I was even able to understand what she was saying haha). 

You have me thinking now.  I have not been diagnosed on the spectrum or even been assessed.  I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on a drug back in the late 80's early 90's, but I stopped taking it in the mid-'90s.  The interesting part is my son was diagnosed as having Autism when he was 3 in 2014.  Not qualified to make any correlations, but it is hard to hear your story and not pass up a possible relation.   

 

Thanks.

[Alliedwolf]

2 minutes ago, Jhonny said:

Do you have a history of brain injury?

I was smart kid in school but one day a boy knocked my head with full force on ground, i felt something disc like vibrating in my head , there was not blood only swelling because of that but after  that day never felt that sharp or competitive.

In the 4th grade, I hit my head after stepping on a soccer ball in the parking lot.  Full feet swept off the ground motion.  I had a lamp fall on my head and break around the 5th grade.  Nothing serious that I can remember.  My memory is horrible though,  My history fades as I age.  Comparing myself to others that I know I feel like I should remember more details in my life.  Memories to me are more like looking at a photo album that actually recalling events.

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, Jhonny said:

I was smart kid in school but one day a boy knocked my head with full force on ground, i felt something disc like vibrating in my head , there was not blood only swelling because of that but after  that day never felt that sharp or competitive.

I've been knocked out from falling 4 feet and banging my head into a rock, splitting my head open, bleeding like a motherfucker - decently big scar on my scalp. I was 6 years old.

I also have a tiny scar on my forehead from running down a hill, tripping and falling and smashing my forehead into tarmac, which knocked me out for 1-2 seconds. I was probably 7-8 years old.

I've also had a ski accident where I flew through the air and banged my head into the hard snow and got knocked out for a considerable amount of time (I remember hearing an echoing metallic noise as my head hit the ground and my vision went black and was filled with stars and colours for what felt like 7 seconds). I was probably around 10 years old.

Is this an excuse for me almost going insane by abusing drugs and skipping classes in high school? Nope, but you gotta wonder  

Edited September 22, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Jhonny]

Exactly and meditation did not help me  either. i did 1000 hours of STRONG Determination Sitting in 6 months(see how desparately i want to be smart) approx. During that time i felt happy and focussed but  i did not feel any change in me after 20 days after i stopped doing meditation. I was back to being distracted all the time.
 

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Jhonny said:

Exactly and meditation did not help me  either. i did 1000 hours of STRONG Determination Sitting in 6 months(see how desparately i want to be smart) approx. During that time i felt happy and focussed but  i did not feel any change in me after 20 days after i stopped doing meditation. I was back to being distracted all the time.

Meditation changed me forever. You shouldn't really stop meditating though (even though I did).

[Jhonny]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I've been knocked out from falling 4 feet and banging my head into a rock, splitting my head open, bleeding like a motherfucker - decently big scar on my scalp.

I also have a tiny scar on my forehead from running down a hill, tripping and falling and smashing my forehead into tarmac, which knocked me out for 1-2 seconds.

I've also had a ski accident where I flew through the air and banged my head into the hard snow and got knocked out for a considerable amount of time (I remember hearing an echoing metallic noise as my head hit the ground and my vision went black and was filled with stars and colours for what felt like 7 seconds).

Is this an excuse for me almost going insane by abusing drugs and skipping classes in high school? Nope, but you gotta wonder  

Self Love maybe the answer. Reprimanding myself has failed me for years now i took the path of self love and forgiveness for myself.

[Vittorio]

Not everyone has visual under LSD. Many other people (you included) get their insights from other kinds of feelings. It's totally ok, you're note "strange", just different than "normal"

[Dorje Chang]

I've taken magic truffles and Ayahuasca many times, including high doses, and never had any visuals beyond mental images. It's even hard to imagine what is like to experience the visual effects that people talk about. This kind of thing is totally outside my experience. I've always wondered how rare or common that was. 

[Mohammad]

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

I have had many psychedelic experiences now for past 8 years. I also used a lot of weed when I was younger. I meditate, but not very regularly in recent years.

I have experienced weird stuff on psychedelics, and some weird images and scenes in my mind, I even experienced ego dissolution (something like that I guess) on LSD once which was a very strong and spiritual experience, but I never experienced visual hallucinations or trips in physical reality. My highest dose has been 3 grams of mushroom, I have not used DMT yet. just LSD, Mushrooms and edible weed (edible weed is more like LSD than normal smoking weed).

Psychedelics give me clarity, and sometimes crazy thoughts, but I have never experienced weird hallucinations and visual experiences.

Maybe I need higher dose. Dose does make a difference.

[halfknots]

@Alliedwolf In a sense the visuals are just a pretty light show. I wager that there are some traditions who hold in high regard those who don't experience visuals. For me, they are a relatively small and almost incidental part of the experience. Have you smoked DMT?

[something_else]

I don’t think my open eye visuals are as strong as others, I get like mild open eye visuals.

But my closed eye visuals are pretty intense and frankly it’s the closed eye visuals where all the mind-bending shit happens.

Most of the time I go into like 4 or 5 really long trances when I trip where all the most interesting stuff happens. The open eye visuals are just icing on the cake