Taking LSD & DMT for the first time at 16. Do I need a sitter?

[kamwalker]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

The challenge is to balance survival and truth-seeking, because those two are largely antithetical to eachother. It's wise to get your foundational survival straight before trying to deconstruct your mind, and in an individualistic society, that includes things like finishing high school, becoming economically self-sustained and psychosocially integrated. Deconstructing a mind is tricky business, but it's even more tricky to deconstruct a mind that is still under construction.

Agreed. It's not a game. You are literally toying with survival every time you go deep into this work. Even at my age after using psychedelics for several years I have to catch myself from going too deep and too fast down the rabbit hole because I can feel it affecting my survival (relationships, social skills, finances). Pursuing truth at all costs does not come without consequence. If you do this be prepared that any number of things can happen. It might set you up for the path that benefits you and creates the life you want or you'll end up psychotic and on the streets because your entire concept of reality started unraveling and you weren't able to get a grip on it. I've read hundreds upon hundreds of trip reports on Reddit from kids in the 15-20 range that underestimated the substance and screwed up their life for a portion of time and still deal with lasting effects. Not giving you this information to scare you. If you think you're ready then that's that. 

[Thought Art]

4 hours ago, Insightful27 said:

The goal would be to take advantage of this and go as deeply as I can before I get lost in distractions. Also to have some insights at a young age could be a big advantage as I decide what I want to do with my life. 

I mean, what you think is petty at sixteen... you often end up seeing the grand importance when you are looking back at your folly when you are older.

It's on you in the end. It's your life. You are young and you don't know what it's like until it's too late. But, who knows what will happen. My opinion is to wait and be wise. There is a lot of other things you can do to expand your mind like meditation, yoga, Qigong, breath-work, journaling, reading spiritual and self help books.

But you are lazy are you? Acid is only gonna make that worse. I ask because I thought I read that you are not interested in school. No. Take full advantage of being a good student now because it's your education that will make or break you.

You are at the age to sink your teeth into building a powerful foundation for your life so you can explore these substance from a safe grounded place when you are older. Without the foundation being built now, and diving into these substance you may be jeopardizing what could be an easier, more enjoyable and grounded future as a young adult.

Focus on building skills, discipline, mastery, and a vision for your life. Taking some drugs isn't wise imo at your age. The odds of foolishness or abuse is really high. It was for me, and I tried them in my 20s. I've had to go through a maturing processes of understanding these tools.

A passionate, meaningful, joyous life, is built on life long leaning, clarity, patience, balance and wisdom. You already lack those things often at 16. I know it seems like an exciting and novel thing. It's not really.  

Edited October 3, 2021 by Thought Art

[Insightful27]

54 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

I ask because I thought I read that you are not interested in school. No. Take full advantage of being a good student now because it's your education that will make or break you.

No, I'm actually extremely invested in school, I have a 4.2 GPA, take all the advanced classes, etc. My point was that I feel there is something deeper and more important than simply surviving and I want to explore that. Your thoughts about foundation and not "going off the edge" so to speak were eye-opening tbh and after reading some of the other responses on here I've deciding to not dive into Truth seeking fully until I'm able to be financially independent and have my life set up. My worry is that by that time I will have spent so much time surviving when I realize the truth I'm going to want something totally different and perhaps more authentic than I do right now. I want to use the valuable resource that is my youth to build my life around Truth and not survival. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Insightful27

[Insightful27]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The challenge is to balance survival and truth-seeking, because those two are largely antithetical to eachother. It's wise to get your foundational survival straight before trying to deconstruct your mind, and in an individualistic society, that includes things like finishing high school, becoming economically self-sustained and psychosocially integrated. Deconstructing a mind is tricky business, but it's even more tricky to deconstruct a mind that is still under construction.

Honestly, this is very compelling to me. The need to balance truth-seeking and survival isn't something I've thought about before. My question would be even if I don't fly off the edge with psychedelics, wouldn't it still be advantageous at my young age to deconstruct my mind and survival habits that way I set my life up around Truth and not survival? 

[Tim R]

28 minutes ago, Insightful27 said:

My point was that I feel there is something deeper and more important than simply surviving and I want to explore that.

You haven't even explored survival yet... Do you live on your own? Are you responsible for your own income? Are you standing on your own two feet?

I dare to assume you don't. 

Don't worry about getting "lost" in survival. You seem to be more developed than most 16 year olds and you know that there is more to life than just survival. You have a leg up and as far as I can tell, a bright future. 

 As I said, you don't have to worry on missing out on anything if you experiment with psychedelics later rather than earlier. 

When I was 18 years old, I got into spirituality. I sounded exactly like you; I want to explore more than survival, I want to open my mind, I want to find the truth, etc. And sure enough, I got my hands on some mushrooms. And guess who deconstructed his mind way to quickly without having any proper grounding in survival??

I had to get back into survival just to not lose my sh*t on an almost daily basis and only then learned to appreciate how valuable survival is and that at my age, I didn't have to worry about missing out on "finding truth". 

10 minutes ago, Insightful27 said:

My question would be even if I don't fly off the edge with psychedelics, wouldn't it still be advantageous at my young age to deconstruct my mind and survival habits that way I set my life up around Truth and not survival? 

To be honest, no. At least not to the degree that would justify doing LSD or DMT. Meditation is great, Yoga is great, contemplation is great. Do that. Explore that. And for god's sake, take it easy. 

 

You can't properly deconstruct something which you haven't even fully constructed to begin with. 

[Carl-Richard]

9 minutes ago, Insightful27 said:

My question would be even if I don't fly off the edge with psychedelics, wouldn't it still be advantageous at my young age to deconstruct my mind and survival habits that way I set my life up around Truth and not survival? 

That is where meditation and contemplation comes in. Don't underestimate the power of these techniques. In fact, I would say to be careful with those as well. I managed to overwhelm myself with meditation alone.

[JuliusCaesar]

@Insightful27  Don't allow the irrational fearmongering influence you. LSD has powerful cognition enhancing properties such as neuroprotection. If you give a 100 micrograms to a drunk he becomes sober with minutes. Of course, this is assuming the substance you have truly is LSD. I know you've been careful in utilizing home test kits, but if I were you I'd still subject my substances to GC/MS before administration. You can never be too rigorous in validating chemicals originating from potentially unscrupulous sources.

 

Relative to dosing, start small. Do maybe 100 mics or even less, the state of consciousness it creates does in some ways will inhibit your basic survival capacity. But remember, that enhancing yourself isn't totally inconsistent with survival. Steve Jobs was an avid user of LSD for example, and he did an incredible job of prospering financially. All that is necessary is that you find some productive way to serve society, you need not challenge yourself to do it purely from a human state of consciousness.

 

As for DMT, don't even consider it until you've familiarized yourself with LSD through direct experience. It's on an entirely different level of potency, and can potentially induce some mild psychosis.

[Carl-Richard]

6 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

Steve Jobs was an avid user of LSD for example, and he did an incredible job of prospering financially.

Steve Jobs did not take LSD at 16 years old.

[Insightful27]

17 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

Of course, this is assuming the substance you have truly is LSD. I know you've been careful in utilizing home test kits, but if I were you I'd still subject my substances to GC/MS before administration.

Is Hoffman and Ehrlich reagents good enough tests? 

[JuliusCaesar]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Steve Jobs did not take LSD at 16 years old.

No he did it in college. However, this doesn't detract from my statement in any way. Much of the relevant observational data would lead us to believe that LSD is highly beneficial to the human brain. Naturally, it needs to done in appropriate dosage, but I fail to comprehend this bias towards individuals with "underdeveloped brains" using the substance. And furthermore, why anyone would suggest he do cannabis when there are studies clearly demonstrating that it may curb neural development is beyond me. It seems they've over-prioritized the subjective safety element of things.

 

1 hour ago, Insightful27 said:

Is Hoffman and Ehrlich reagents good enough tests? 

It's clear you've done your homework. Yes it's good that you've used them, as they will at least indicate whether the substance is likely to be dangerous(25-iNbome reacts very differently to these reagents than LSD does for example). I would still GC/MS them to be absolutely certain there aren't any contaminants. But, you're drastically safer taking LSD you've tested with the aforementioned reagents then otherwise.

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

Much of the relevant observational data would lead us to believe that LSD is highly beneficial to the human brain. Naturally, it needs to done in appropriate dosage, but I fail to comprehend this bias towards individuals with "underdeveloped brains" using the substance. And furthermore, why anyone would suggest he do cannabis when there are studies clearly demonstrating that it may curb neural development is beyond me. It seems they've over-prioritized the subjective safety element of things.

The neural perspective is very narrow. While LSD might be friendly to individual neurons, what it can do to a person's behavior is more concerning, especially a young person. I'm talking from experience.

[JuliusCaesar]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The neural perspective is very narrow. While LSD might be friendly to individual neurons, what it can do to a person's behavior is more concerning, especially a young person. I'm talking from experience.

That's a valid point, not specifically for young individuals but anyone considering doing the drug. It holds less water the lower the dose however. And in general it should be overall beneficial unless he does an excessive dose.

[Insightful27]

4 hours ago, JuliusCaesar said:

Yes it's good that you've used them, as they will at least indicate whether the substance is likely to be dangerous(25-iNbome reacts very differently to these reagents than LSD does for example)

 For future reference should I test with both Ehrlich and Hoffman of the same dose? Or could I just use one? I've heard Ehrlich is better for LSD and Hoffman is better for DMT. I don't want to use up too much of a dose on testing. 

[Insightful27]

2 hours ago, Droo_ said:

You should be good, I'm 17 and I do psychedelics. My advice is to just stick with low doses and just be careful of self-deception.

Do you use a trip sitter?

[Ry4n]

11 hours ago, Insightful27 said:

Why did you regret taking it?

it was too intense and I was pretty out of it for literal weeks afterward; wasn't fun. No 16 year old is ready for this, I don't care what they say. I would seriously just leave this shit. Every 16 year old will think "well yeah but that's them I'm more mature and developed I can handle this" and that itself is the immaturity and arrogance of every 16 year old. 

And even if someone says they're fine at 16-17 they don't fully know that yet they're too young to even judge whether or not it's good for them; don't believe them. 

If you hold off despite the temptation that itself will highlight your degree of development.

The world around you will stress you out and make you think you have to rush through everything (especially at school with regards to career) and at your age you may apply that same logic to spirituality which is VERY FUCKING DANGEROUS. There is no rush!!!!

Focus on the mental health/well-being side of spirituality alongside the foundational self help stuff and if you're super keen on non-duality explore it through sober means first. 

All paths to enlightenment are challenging but by setting your future self up with the best foundation you will make the process a lot more enjoyable and peaceful rather than insanity/fear inducing. How you get there is VERY relevant to your well-being. Don't go about it the way you suggested. 

I'm almost like your future self telling your past self: Don't do it! Slow and steady wins the race, fast and overly ambitious leads to burnout and possible failure.

You'd be very wise to follow my advice as someone older who has gone through what you're talking about and can actually make proper assessment instead of 17 year olds saying they're fine with it when they don't know at all where it could lead to in the future. 

11 hours ago, Insightful27 said:

One of the reasons I want to take these is to get my priorities straight and stop caring about the petty things my life revolves around.

And that itself is a subtle form of escapism; not a good reason at all to take psychedelics. Horrible reason actually. That alone will cause a bad trip because psychedelics make you face things you want to avoid. 

[Ry4n]

1 hour ago, JuliusCaesar said:

And in general it should be overall beneficial unless he does an excessive dose.

Stop promoting drugs to a 16 year old, this is incredibly dangerous, foolish and irresponsible. The chances of something like HPPD and depersonalisation are SIGNIFICANTLY higher for someone his age. I'm speaking from experience here. 

@Insightful27 don't buy into what @Droo_ is saying. There is actually no point in you even doing psychedelics at that age. You don't even know who you are on a personality level and already want to dissolve that personality, this could cause a whole host of problems in the future. Not only that but you may struggle a lot with integrating these experiences and want to escape the "petty things" in your life for this stuff (again, not healthy). 

Just have the tiniest bit of patience. It would be best to wait after high-school because from experience trying to integrate all this stuff on top of the stresses of school is not fun (but of course you could just avoid integration and the emotional labour of it, but that itself would make the trip even more wasteful).

Give me one good solid legit reason for doing it @Insightful27 that other techniques wouldn't be better for at your age and then I might hear you out. Don't let the arrogance of your age get the better of you here, it feels like you know more than you do because you have nothing but your past as a reference. Your ability to see that now is a true test of your wisdom. 

[JuliusCaesar]

1 hour ago, Insightful27 said:

 For future reference should I test with both Ehrlich and Hoffman of the same dose? Or could I just use one? I've heard Ehrlich is better for LSD and Hoffman is better for DMT. I don't want to use up too much of a dose on testing. 

For LSD the Hofmann reagent would usually be a secondary test you'd use after testing with Ehrlich. Mind you the Ehrlich alone should be sufficient, you'd use the Hofmann test after just to be thorough. And yes, Hofmann has a specific reaction to DMT, but so does the Ehrlich reagent so I'm not entirely certain if one is superior to the other. But to answer your question in a simple way, no you don't really need to test the substance with more than one reagent.

 

34 minutes ago, Ry4n said:

Stop promoting drugs to a 16 year old, this is incredibly dangerous, foolish and irresponsible. The chances of something like HPPD and depersonalisation are SIGNIFICANTLY higher for someone his age.

At his age his brainwaves throughout the day predominate mostly at the mid beta range(they tend to correlate to age on a 1hz to 1 year ratio). So his ego is fairly concrete, almost as much as a 20 year old. If he were very young, like say 6 years old. Then his ordinary state of consciousness would predominately fall in mid to upper Theta(about 6hz). And because of the highly suggestive state of awareness of Theta, it seems logical to anticipate that such an individual would be at greater risk of developing HPPD. Therefore I'll stipulate that what you're saying is hypothetically possible if unlikely.  And yes, ideally he should probably wait until he's older just to ere on the side of caution. But frankly I fail to see any significant difference between him and say an 18 year old that would warrant such precautions. And perhaps more importantly, he's already endeavored to study these matters to have become knowledgeable about the substances and home test kits commonly used. And he's even acquired the substances themselves. The point I'm making is his actions are consistent with someone who is determined to do these substances regardless of what you or anyone else tells him. So if you want to dissuade him, at the very least you'll need as much assistance as possible. The problem is(for you), that you haven't yet convinced me your argument is solid enough to warrant such behaviour from me.

 

34 minutes ago, Ry4n said:

I'm speaking from experience here.

I don't mean to pry, but I'd like to hear you expound on this. Because without specifics I'm forced to speculate that you did LSD at his age(or at an age comparable to his) and it caused HPPD in you. The issue with this is I don't know what dose you took, or if the substance you did even truly was LSD unless you give me details. And so I can't hardly draw conclusions on the basis of such speculations. And so the only thing I can say that's of value here is that HPPD is a risk an individual at any age is taking whenever they do hallucinogens which modify visual perception greatly(LSD and DMT are in that basket of drugs). And the degree of risk is directly proportional to dose size. At a microdose it's nearly impossible. But at a mega dose in the range of around 1000 micrograms plus it becomes very likely to occur. Even in individuals not predisposed to the condition.

 

34 minutes ago, Ry4n said:

Just have the tiniest bit of patience. It would be best to wait after high-school because from experience trying to integrate all this stuff on top of the stresses of school is not fun (but of course you could just avoid integration and the emotional labour of it, but that itself would make the trip even more wasteful).

Give me one good solid legit reason for doing it @Insightful27 that other techniques wouldn't be better for at your age and then I might hear you out. Don't let the arrogance of your age get the better of you here, it feels like you know more than you do because you have nothing but your past as a reference. Your ability to see that now is a true test of your wisdom.

I advise you not to motherhen him to death, it's very likely to backfire. That last paragraph is logically sound, but I'm uncertain if it'll do any good.

Edited October 4, 2021 by JuliusCaesar

[Ry4n]

47 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

The issue with this is I don't know what dose you took, or if the substance you did even truly was LSD unless you give me details.

Pure LSD 100 micrograms. Granted it didn't last forever, but that could be just my luck. 

I would then go on to take larger doses later in life with zero problems, and what we know about brain development combined with just basic common sense should tell anyone that waiting is wiser. 

53 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

But frankly I fail to see any significant difference between him and say an 18 year old that would warrant such precautions.

20-21. The difference in maturity in that time frame is massive (or at least it should be). The brain changes incredibly fast at that age so you saying you fail to see it ain't convincing. 

50 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

At a microdose it's nearly impossible.

I did mention if he absolutely must a microdose at the very least so he can get a peak at how bad of an idea the full thing would have been, which seems to be the best case scenario if I can't convince him. Combined with meditation he would not need anymore. 

55 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

I advise you not to motherhen him to death, it's very likely to backfire. That last paragraph is logically sound, but I'm uncertain if it'll do any good.

lol true, better than saying it should be beneficial, even if it was that still would not be worth the risk. There really is no actual point in the first place, and like he said himself it was clear he was avoiding "petty" parts of mundane life which is a horrible reason to trip. 

The bottom line is 99.9% of 16 year olds lack the sufficient foundation for a trip. End of story.

[Insightful27]

21 hours ago, Ry4n said:

Not only that but you may struggle a lot with integrating these experiences and want to escape the "petty things" in your life for this stuff (again, not healthy). 

You misunderstand what I'm saying. What I'm taking about is getting a taste for what higher states of consciousness would be like, and realizing that all of my shallow survival habits & priorities (material pleasures, popularity, etc.) are wastes of time. I am not saying I want to use psychedelics to escape, quite the opposite actually. I want to confront my lower self and create change.

 

22 hours ago, Ry4n said:

Give me one good solid legit reason for doing it

Its hard to narrow it down to just one......

But if I had to It would expanding my consciousness and deepening my understanding of God, Reality, Consciousness, Fear  and Truth. I understand that I can do these things sober, and that's what I have been working on. Psychedelics are merely a tool to go deeper than I would be able to go normally sober. As people like @Carl-Richard have mentioned this could backfire and and I could deconstruct my mind too quickly, which is something I'm now very mindful of. 

[Username]

I would discourage you from using LSD if you are that young..

..however I had my first mystical experience (NDE) when I was 7 or 8 years old. There isn't much difference between having a NDE and using LSD. The issue is that it might have an impact on your development. In my case it probably made me dispassionate about education, career and relationships. There is a risk that you will skip stages of development. It might be hard to "go back" and learn lessons that you missed because you don't care anymore. It's up to you.

Trip sitter is not necessary if you do not have any guilt attached to using psychedelics. Also remember, LSD trip lasts very long and it probably will be overwhelming. You have to be sure that you are not going to be bothered by anyone.