How to use psychedelics for development

[Ora]

I'm wondering how you all use psychedelics for spirituality. In my case I've tried 10 tabs of lsd (first time using psychedelics) combined with psilocybin music therapy playlists with an eye mask, mdma with the music playlist and eye mask, insufflating 45mg 5 meo freebase (went with 45mg instead of 30mg because I thought there may be a tolerance because immediately before i tried vaping 15mg but I didn't get a breakthrough dose because of technical problems, but my body did start moving on its own and I had this whiteness and rainbow in my vision), and also vaping 15mg 5 meo and achieved breakthrough. The vaping was just a very short version of my insufflation experience, and while it had the same general trip guidelines as the insuflation, it felt less impactful because it was so short. After it was over I only had an afterglow for an hour or so while the insufflation lasted days and some mild reactivations.

In each case except the mdma i experienced what felt like eternity and the infinite rounds of death and rebirth then reaching the ego death state where I thought I was the creator and everyone was just part of my imaginings. That there was no one but me all along. I felt how silly and small all my problems and worrys were when it was just a spec in the vast length of time within infinity. 

After comming out of these experiences I always had an afterglow for a day or two where I was super compassionate and understanding towards others and I felt I could forgive people for their flaws because I could understand it came from deep fears and insecurities that all people have hidden within them. I felt like I understood that everyone is just alone in this universe and that they aquire ways of coping with this deep sense of dissatisfaction and insecurity towards life either through lust, greed, hatred, or pride.

But after a week I'm usually back to normal and I wonder to myself what use was all that if it doesn't last? People here talk about how they see the oneness of the universe or that they know they are God or a part of God, but what exactly does that do for your life? I'm wondering how you guys use psychedelics besides just for the experience of oneness or bliss or whatever. Personally I'm just not attracted to those temporary states and am wondering if there's any reason to continue psychedelics for spirituality. 

 

 

[Consilience]

5 minutes ago, Ora said:

Personally I'm just not attracted to those temporary states and am wondering if there's any reason to continue psychedelics for spirituality.

If the whole of your spiritual work is using psychedelics, then yes they are temporary states and nothing more. However, if you have a grounded, rigorous spiritual practice such as contemplation/meditation 1+ hours per day, these experiences slowly start to soak in at extremely subtle levels of your mind and even body. Sometimes not so subtle. 

For example, I've done enormous amounts of healing work using psilocybin mushrooms. If I had the position that all of those mushroom trips were just useless temporary states, I would be missing the fact that those experiences helped open my mind up to many, MANY, hidden layers of trauma, attachment, and other unconscious aspects of my mind and further, helped facilitate a space wherein I was able to integrate and heal from these different unconscious wounds. So while it's true those states are long gone, their effects are actually what is generating my present moment experience. The healing work is undeniable. 

More generally speaking, repeatedly accessing these higher states on psychedelics can be thought of as planting seeds. For sure the state will come and go, but as we meditate, we can start to become sensitive to the fact that these experiences do leave energetic traces deep within our being. These traces, or "seeds", can then later be accessed in their own way through the process of manual practice. We can think of manual practices as providing the nutrients, the sunlight, and the water for the blossoming of these powerful experiences into our every day, lived experience. This is not to say that we will be tripping balls 24/7 in our grounded, sober state of consciousness. Yet we will begin to see how these 'higher frequency' feelings of bliss, love, peace, joy, gratitude, kindness, expansiveness are increasingly available while sober. Merely by accessing them at deep levels allows us to more easily access them while sober, yet this takes genuine work (i.e. meditation practice) to access. On the other hand, we will also begin to find the underlying unity between profound mystical states, and the mundane sober state such that we no longer need to be tripping balls to feel a deep oneness, a deep unity with all things. We realize this moment is none other than a complete, perfect expression in and of itself, needing nothing else. That perfection we find with all things while blasted off on a trip begins to ground itself across any and all states through the systematic training provided by manual practices like meditation. 

The trap of never using psychedelics is that we may very easily start to form blind spots within our own minds, with our spiritual practices, self-deception can run more rampant and we may begin to bullshit ourselves with how "spiritually developed" we think we are. The trap of misusing psychedelics is that we get caught on a hamster wheel of always feeling like we need to introduce an exogenic substance to the body in order to deeply understand and experience the unity of all things, accessing higher frequency states/God. 

The most holistic approach would be to keep using these substances with deep reverence, appreciation, curiosity, and humility while also grounding their use through manual practices like meditation. Eventually one comes to see the distinction between tripping and not tripping is imaginary, and therefore all one needs to do is see clearly into experience to see the truth across any and all states. 

As one deepens their meditation practice, the psychedelic experience begins to deepen as well. As one deepens in their psychedelic experiences, one's meditation practice will deepen as well. They are absurdly synergistic when both are practiced with diligence and intelligence.

[Forestluv]

29 minutes ago, Ora said:

Personally I'm just not attracted to those temporary states and am wondering if there's any reason to continue psychedelics for spirituality. 

I would engage in other spiritual activities - both solo and with groups. For example, online breathwork groups with a facilitator. There are all sorts of facilitators - some are into personal development, healing, mystical experiences, shamanism etc. Also: yoga, meditation, creative writing, time in nature, reflection etc. These types of activities can help stabilize the higher states of consciousness you speak of. 

[Ora]

Wow that's a really good response, thank you. So when you uncover unconscious attachments or traumas during a trip. How do you go about resolving them? I already practice meditation on the breath, but I can't yet rationalize how meditation will unfold the trip experience and help integrate it. Do you mean contemplate your experiences or does understanding spontaneously come to you. Because my definition of meditation is concentration on one point, not the type of free flow of thoughts or letting go type of meditation.

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ora

[Consilience]

5 minutes ago, Ora said:

Wow that's a really good response, thank you. So how when you uncover unconscious attachments or traumas during a trip. How do you go about resolving them? I already practice meditation on the breath, but I can't yet rationalize how meditation will unfold the trip experience and help integrate it. Do you mean contemplate your experiences or does understanding spontaneously come to you. Because my definition of meditation is concentration on one point, not the type of free flow of thoughts or letting go type of meditation.

I've uncovered many by going into the trip with the intent to let whatever happens, happen. Often times with mushrooms specifically I've found it's useless trying to have an intention. They show me what they want to show me. And much of what they've shown has involved processing trauma. To access these wounds, I usually listen to emotionally provocative music. 

Yeah it's a really tricky, subtle topic with discussing the relationship between meditation and psychedelics... Because the integration into one's sober state is happening at an incredibly subtle level. A level well below the normal veil of awareness. Meaning, it's happening in parts of the mind we don't typically have access to while sober, bopping around living life. What I can say though is that as one develops a high level of mindfulness (concentration is an aspect of mindfulness) one starts to have an increasingly fluid, spacious day to day experience. Psychedelics actually induce a high level of mindfulness - they drag the attention into the present moment, sometimes so deeply the ego-mind no longer has any ground to stand on (the ego requires the illusion of time to maintain itself) and this can create openings into God, Unity, No-self, Emptiness, Love, etc. We can begin to recognize that our trips are actually showing us, in a sense, what it would be like to be a highly developed meditator. Now this isn't a perfect comparison by any means. There are certain mental qualities only a sober mind could pull off, and there are certain mental qualities only a tripping mind could pull off... But generally this is the principle. More Mindfulness = More God Consciousness. Please know this is a pitiful overview and the best way you'll discover the relationships between meditation and psychedelics is through personal direct experimentation. 

I would explore other forms of meditation besides simply breath concentration, although that's great too! The types I work with are:

1. Breath awareness (what you're doing already essentially)

2. Insight meditation (Shinzen Young's See Hear Feel is a good place to start)

3. Loving Kindness
4. Do Nothing

5. Self Inquriy

I've found that the synergy between building proficiency with different meditation techniques to be very powerful at integrating psychedelics. Don't just stick with one, train, explore, play with multiple techniques and trust your intuition to guide you with what is best or most appropriate. Just by having a solid daily meditation practice you are already passively integrating your prior psychedelic experiences. 

[Ora]

@Consilience I think I'll experiment a bit more with psychedelics. What is your opinion on 5 meo? I feel like lsd and shrooms would be better to unveil these subconscious states that influence our actions, but I'm not sure about 5 meo. It's just so short, even if you insufflate or plug it. Have you any experience of it exposing these undercurrents of the mind? Granted I've only done it twice, but both times it just seems to show me death, and only in the come up do I get this extreme state of awareness or mindfulness where I can analyze my relationships and attitudes towards things in an unbiased manner. But this is more from reflection than how shrooms and lsd (with music)  would just take you there.

 

[Consilience]

@Ora I've never used 5-MeO. Still setting my foundation with weaker psychedelics. But from what I've heard across pretty much everyone is 5-MeO shoots people straight into God through psychological death. I don't think much mind activity would be available at higher 5-MeO doses. I've talked one on one with an advanced meditation teacher (50+ years, serious monastic training) who's tried 5-MeO and he said yeah it was pretty much just like a really deep meditation state and was "very impressed." He said it was like having a near death experience on demand. 

LSD and mushrooms seem more appropriate for gaining insights into the relative domains of life. 5-MeO is just sling shotting you into the absolute. Although actually one of my most profound LSD trips WAS such a sling shot... I literally lost the ability to think, or conceptualize in any way shape or form haha. 

So in regards to:

23 minutes ago, Ora said:

I feel like lsd and shrooms would be better to unveil these subconscious states that influence our actions,

That seems to be my impression as well. I'd be interested to hear other's experiences who have done a lot of work with 5MeO. 

[RMQualtrough]

@Ora Why would you want it to last? I would say MDMA is more enjoyable and seems to do the opposite (bolster the ego).

MDMA makes external reality hyper-real. Psychedelics make Mind hyper-real.

I absolutely cannot understand that anyone would ever want to remain in ego death etc. You cannot live that way.

Anyway, I found LSD and mushroom analogues uncover very real parts of your subconscious mind. You are not one "self", you are more like a board of directors. On 4-AcO-DMT specifically I experienced a mental split and had numerous thought threads running simultaneously... It was very confusing because I could not differentiate memories from the present very easily.

LSD can be more recreational.

DMT is not recreational. It's too severe. And I would not even have the courage to touch 5-MeO-DMT. Maybe "babby" tier amounts at most. It fascinates me to no end, but DMT traumatized me the last time I used it. The appeal of 5-MeO is that I doubt there is any Salvia-tier mind rape, but still it sounds too much.

[Ora]

@RMQualtrough well without ego you cannot identify with suffering. This is the ultimate state in Buddhism. I want to make an end of suffering. Since I have access to some psychedelics atm I was curious as to if it would help the process or is it just a temporary state it invokes. Because I don't use them in a recreational sense, I just wonder how useful they are on the path. From what it seems like, the most effective way is to make sure to integrate new routines after the trip while you still have that "reset" of the nervous system that psychedelics give you. So whatever you take away from the trip, you need to integrate it into your life or you just fall back to old patterns and the trip will just be a "memory."

For me, I don't feel too intimidated by any fearful experience that can arise, I mainly worry if there's any physiological damage that can be done, like I balancing neurochemicals or creating some kind of disturbance in energy flow of the body. Some psychics say it creates energetic blockages some say it frees blockages so who knows.

My 5 meo trip was suffering, but the key is to surrender and just accept what will happen, with the knowledge that no real harm will come to you. I think if you have this mindset the bad part of the trip will not last long and you'll be sucked into that bliss oneness state. Some people jump straight into that bliss state without touching the fear part. But even if you do experience the fear part, if you understand it wasnt "real" then you recover pretty fast. It's all about acceptance of the experience that determines a good or bad trip I think. If you try to resist wherever it's taking you, it will create more and more bad feelings. If you can just flow with the experience and just accept it as an experience, it'll take you to good states. 

I recently read the psychedelic experience by Tim leary and the way he explains his method for using lsd is pretty good. Basically if you try to resist where it's taking you, you will encounter more hardships, but if you just surrender to the experience, it will generally guide you into those bliss states.

[RMQualtrough]

10 minutes ago, Ora said:

@RMQualtrough well without ego you cannot identify with suffering. This is the ultimate state in Buddhism. I want to make an end of suffering. Since I have access to some psychedelics atm I was curious as to if it would help the process or is it just a temporary state it invokes. Because I don't use them in a recreational sense, I just wonder how useful they are on the path. From what it seems like, the most effective way is to make sure to integrate new routines after the trip while you still have that "reset" of the nervous system that psychedelics give you. So whatever you take away from the trip, you need to integrate it into your life or you just fall back to old patterns and the trip will just be a "memory."

For me, I don't feel too intimidated by any fearful experience that can arise, I mainly worry if there's any physiological damage that can be done, like I balancing neurochemicals or creating some kind of disturbance in energy flow of the body. Some psychics say it creates energetic blockages some say it frees blockages so who knows.

My 5 meo trip was suffering, but the key is to surrender and just accept what will happen, with the knowledge that no real harm will come to you. I think if you have this mindset the bad part of the trip will not last long and you'll be sucked into that bliss oneness state. Some people jump straight into that bliss state without touching the fear part. But even if you do experience the fear part, if you understand it wasnt "real" then you recover pretty fast. It's all about acceptance of the experience that determines a good or bad trip I think. If you try to resist wherever it's taking you, it will create more and more bad feelings. If you can just flow with the experience and just accept it as an experience, it'll take you to good states. 

I recently read the psychedelic experience by Tim leary and the way he explains his method for using lsd is pretty good. Basically if you try to resist where it's taking you, you will encounter more hardships, but if you just surrender to the experience, it will generally guide you into those bliss states.

I'm of the curious type, not into spiritual development. If I wanted to use them for actual development, I'd say I have found n,n-DMT very good at its best but very much a dice roll. The effects are VERY unpredictable. I have many many trips on DMT and I have found various distinct places it can take you. I will ignore the visual element because that is not important for what you seek... But for example it was rather a dice roll as to whether I would get a nondual experience with little visuals, or "feel like a clown" or weird disturbing things, or have a trip similar to Salvia.

If it was directly after a trip I could more accurately describe the weird headspace and what's happening.

On only a few occasions did I experience a more typical DMT trip but it was still 100 mph.

What I found is that higher doses of LSD combined with DMT was able to skip over that mind-rape and stupid jester shit. There weren't really entities then it was more of a headspace shift.

I do not plan on using them again. Three times DMT has replicated a Salvia trip. Two of the times were good trips (I get on well with Salvia). The last had me rolling around out of control yelling and having flashbacks unable to sleep for a week. I've used Salvia many times, so I'm used to those trips, and the last one I had on DMT was like a bad version of that.

That is the dice roll... There is also a possibility that you will be unable to let go at all, because sometimes like Salvia it might be the case that you don't even know you are tripping etc. and don't know any of your life, you then run on pure instinct... 5-MeO-DMT sounds more dangerous and mentally severe, but also 10x more sober in the trip. I have not heard a person experience that Salvia type of mind-rape on 5-MeO-DMT so much. But on DMT and even LSD I have felt similar vibes.

[Loving Radiance]

On 20.5.2021 at 1:37 AM, Consilience said:

For example, I've done enormous amounts of healing work using psilocybin mushrooms. If I had the position that all of those mushroom trips were just useless temporary states, I would be missing the fact that those experiences helped open my mind up to many, MANY, hidden layers of trauma, attachment, and other unconscious aspects of my mind and further, helped facilitate a space wherein I was able to integrate and heal from these different unconscious wounds. So while it's true those states are long gone, their effects are actually what is generating my present moment experience. The healing work is undeniable.

How do you go about this? Do you just write down intentions, or do you do something else?