Prerequisites Before Doing Psychedelics

[soos_mite_ah]

This doesn't include precautions like testing, having a trip sitter, measuring dosages etc. This has more to do with things that I want to make sure I have done before choosing to experiment with psychedelics.  I know this might seem like a lot (or perfectly reasonable) but since I'm waiting til I'm 25 to do psychedelics, I want to make sure I can do as much as I can between now and then to have a high quality trip. 

• Be over 25: Need to have the prefrontal cortex developed. Don't want to mess up my neurological development. 
• Have at least 2 years of mental stability. I don't want to see demons and shit. This means for 2 years there are: 
  • No anxiety attacks
  • no depressive episodes
  • healthy habits are in place 
  • exercising regularly 
  • be mindful of the content you consume
  • Deal with most traumatic events and process them to where they don't hold you back or effect you
• Have basic survival dealt with in a sustainable/ conscious way:
  • can financially support myself without being anxious about money 
  • in a job that I find fulfilling if not at the very least bearable 
  • have healthy and fulfilling relationships (both platonic and romantic) 
  • health wise I'm doing well and not on any medication that could interfere with psychedelics 
• Be firmly into stage yellow in spiral dynamics and be firmly aware in the strategist and construct aware stages in the 9 stages of ego development
  • Exhaust stage green tendencies
  • Deal with any emotional hang ups from the previous stages 
  • Continue quality self education after college
• Educate yourself on mystical traditions, nonduality, and philosophy for at least a year 
  • familiarize with stage turquoise/ unitive aware stage and concepts 
  • watch Leo's videos on nonduality and psychedelic usage (been ignoring them for now because I'm simply not ready) 
• Travel to a place where you can do this with the supervision of a professional and where this is legal 
  • could include/ mean visiting a shaman or doing it in a country where it is legal and regulated (don't want to deal with jail time or any complications that can arise in an uncontrolled environment)

What do you guys think? Is there anything else that I should add to the list? Is there anything that seems a little much? 

Edited November 1, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[lmfao]

Too anxious and planned, steal an ounce of DMT from your cocaine dealer around the corner tomorrow haha

It's like you want to do a psychedelic but have absolutely nothing of meaning changed, this is all chasing and concocting shit within ur current bubble 

I'm mostly just feeling for when to do it, but in terms of specifics yeah I'm waiting to tidy some things, but I don't have your orientation at all 

Edited November 1, 2021 by lmfao

[Jodistrict]

I only take medicines under ceremony in Mexico.   In Mexico it is done openely and part of the culture.  I definetly don’t think people with anxiety should abstain.  I have met veterans of the Iraq war with PTSD at ceremonies.   A Shaman knows how to guide one through a healing experience.  

[kamwalker]

Psychedelics can help with many of the things on your list. I wouldn’t tell someone they need to have all of that figured out before they start tripping, you can still do both

Edited November 1, 2021 by kamwalker

[BipolarGrowth]

Do you think such strict rules for this could be stemming from neuroticism and/or perfectionism? Not telling you to deviate from your plans, but it’s just a question to ponder. 

[Salvijus]

The more developed you are, the better basicly. Your ability to draw benefit from psychedelics will depend on how developed and spiritually evolved you are in general. If you’re not properly developed, psychedelics will only make your life worse.

Mental balance and ability to observe your mind with detachment and equanimity could save you from a bad trip. If your mind starts resisting, things could turn ugly. For this sufficient development in awareness is needed. Meditation practice is good for this.

Age thing is a smart thing to do. Don't get impatient and compulsive about psychedelics. That hastiness and desperatness will make you make many stupid desicions in your life.

Do some hatha yoga. Hatha yoga espesially can prepare your system to take higher levels of energy. This will minimize the damage caused from psychedelics to your system. And will ensure you don't get fused out from too much intense energy. But try to learn high quality yoga like isha yoga, not some white american lulu pants yoga. Only then it will be useful.

Do plant psychedelics rather than lab chemicals, they're less damaging to the system.

Clean your mind, don't watch any horror movies obviously, or squid games lol. You can do a vipassana retreat, you'd be surpriser how much bullshit is there in your unconscious mind.

Stabalize yourself on some kind of spiritual path before you do psychedelics so that they don't become more important than daily spiritual practice of yours. I see that happening to people which is a sad thing to watch.

Practice awareness of awareness meditation because that's where nondual self-realization insight resides. Make your energies in the agna dominant. Otherwise you'll just be fooling around with beautiful colors and shapes in your trips.

And lastly, ask yourself why do you want to do psychedelics? Is it because of exitement and cool experience or do you want to improve your life? If improvement of life is what you're after, I think you'd find many other much better, safer, systematic ways of doing it than psychedelics.

Regards

Edited November 1, 2021 by Salvijus

[Raptorsin7]

2 hours ago, Salvijus said:

The more developed you are, the better basicly. Your ability to draw benefit from psychedelics will depend on how developed and spiritually evolved you are in general. If you’re not properly developed, psychedelics will only make your life worse.

Mental balance and ability to observe your mind with detachment and equanimity could save you from a bad trip. If your mind starts resisting, things could turn ugly. For this sufficient development in awareness is needed. Meditation practice is good for this.

Age thing is a smart thing to do. Don't get impatient and compulsive about psychedelics. That hastiness and desperatness will make you make many stupid desicions in your life.

Do some hatha yoga. Hatha yoga espesially can prepare your system to take higher levels of energy. This will minimize the damage caused from psychedelics to your system. And will ensure you don't get fused out from too much intense energy. But try to learn high quality yoga like isha yoga, not some white american lulu pants yoga. Only then it will be useful.

Do plant psychedelics rather than lab chemicals, they're less damaging to the system.

Clean your mind, don't watch any horror movies obviously, or TV news, lol. You can do a vipassana retreat, you'd be surpriser how much bullshit is there in your unconscious mind.

Stabalize yourself on some kind of spiritual path before you do psychedelics so that they don't become more important than daily spiritual practice of yours. I see that happening to people which is a sad thing to watch.

Practice awareness of awareness meditation because that's where nondual self-realization insight resides. Make your energies in the agna dominant. Otherwise you'll just be fooling around with beautiful colors and shapes in your trips.

And lastly, ask yourself why do you want to do psychedelics? Is it because of exitement and cool experience or do you want to improve your life? If improvement of life is what you're after, I think you'd find many other much better, safer, systematic ways of doing it than psychedelics.

Regards

Do you view psychedelic's  as neutral, or inherently negative?

[Salvijus]

5 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

Do you view psychedelic's  as neutral, or inherently negative?

I don't know. I really struggle to find appropriate words for it right now.

?

 

[soos_mite_ah]

@lmfao @Jodistrict @kamwalker @BipolarGrowth My absolute bare minimum requirements for myself is that I'd be over 25 and that I'm doing it safely in a place where it's controlled and legal. 

In the mean time, I have a few years until I reach that age so I might as well try to get as much as the stuff on the list done to prep well for that time. Considering where I feel like I'm at right now, the things above do not feel too unrealistic as far as goals for 3 or so years go. That's kind of the attitude that I'm coming at.

As of right now (this is subject to change) but I want to have a few high quality trips. I don't have an intention to go super deep into psychedelics because I want them to be a tool rather than something that my development revolves around.  I think it's really important to go slow and steady to build a very solid foundation of integration before jumping to transcendence. I don't think it's healthy to fall into the trap of constantly seeking on this journey. 

I have also jumped into transcendence and existential topics prematurely before and it was counterproductive for me and I decided that it's best that I pace myself on this journey I wrote about my thoughts on psychedelics in a journal post before. Here is a bit of what I wrote back then: 

On 5/21/2021 at 9:37 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

 

Around the 31 minute mark: If truth realization is not your Moby Dick to where you want to sacrifice everything, go for human adulthood meaning the integration of your spiritual, emotional, relational, physical self to be your most mature self. If you don't want to sacrifice everything, point your hunger toward integration and self actualization. Then in the 37 minute mark, Mackenzie talks about her experiences with nonduality how she felt all the love and light in the moment but then she came back down to just being human again and still having all of her problems that she had before the experience and how that can be discouraging and therefore cause people to go on these endless seeking journeys. 

I feel like this is where I'm at with my views on spirituality and self realization. I do care more about integration and building a fulfilling life than simply transcending everything and joining the void. Because based on some of the interactions I've had on this forum, teachers that I have learned about in history, and interacting with Leo himself is that even if they get an enlightenment experience, there is still plenty of human shit and blind spots you'll still have. And I think to go towards actualization is to deal with that in a slow consistent way rather than dealing with nonduality and transcendence.

Around the 40 minute mark: Mackenzie talks about cleaning up her nihilism she encountered from spirituality and how she started building meaning in the form of close relationships, books, etc. to slowly start rebuilding her ego to care about existing. And then she realized that that was the process that she wanted all along and because she grew up in the shadow of new age culture where ego death, nonduality, mysticism, love and light are more a part of the conversation than anything, she thought that was the way to fix herself. But for her it was more along the lines of deep psychological work, embodiment, and healing that she realized she wanted more of a complete human experience instead of transcending the human experience because that was the thing sold to her as a way to deal with being here. In order to deal with being here, you don't have to leave. You just have to be present and accept the present moment instead of constantly feeling like you have to do more and more to reach a higher and higher state of consciousness in order to be at peace with the present moment. In spiritual communities its like there is always some place else to get to. It goes back to the 27 minute mark where Mackenzie talks about how there are two levels. There is truth realization and done. Once you reach done, that's it there is no more self discovery of lets go see what else I can find. Once you're enlightened, the seeker disappears so if you're seeking more experiences, you're still seeking which can get compulsive. 

I love this section. While I never became nihilistic, I've had a point where I got really attached to detaching. I journaled about this before and how it relates to my relationship to actualized.org. Basically it wasn't cute. I had a friend who was like "I don't think you even know who you are anymore" because I got caught in this cycle of even detaching from the healthier forms of my ego like my personality, my hobbies and interests etc. It wasn't this enlightenment thing that people often talk about here. And from then on I took a step back from spirituality and self help in order to be more gentle with myself so I can build myself back up again. This was the post I was talking about and here is the part that I think is most applicable to this post:

 I understand if this post gets some backlash as I was writing about a sensitive topic but this is my way of making sense of things and not using Actualized.org as the only source or turning the teachings into dogma. Here is the whole post if anyone is interested in looking into it: 

 

[aurum]

@soos_mite_ah I think it’s a good list for you. I would follow it as long as it feels realistic.

I think for many people though, it would be asking too much.

For instance, your point about not doing psychs until you’ve had 2 years of mentality. But some of the most promising research being done right now is with PTSD and drug addiction. Telling these people to “get clean” before they try psychedelics would be missing the point. In fact, the founder of Rhythmia was one such person.

Same thing about your goal of reaching Yellow. I would say the majority of people who could probably benefit the most from psychedelics are stage Orange. Psychedelics can help move them past secularism / materialism.

So again, I’d stick your list if it feels right. But I wouldn’t expect it of others.

Edited November 1, 2021 by aurum

[soos_mite_ah]

11 hours ago, Salvijus said:

The more developed you are, the better basicly. Your ability to draw benefit from psychedelics will depend on how developed and spiritually evolved you are in general. If you’re not properly developed, psychedelics will only make your life worse.

Mental balance and ability to observe your mind with detachment and equanimity could save you from a bad trip. If your mind starts resisting, things could turn ugly. For this sufficient development in awareness is needed. Meditation practice is good for this.

Age thing is a smart thing to do. Don't get impatient and compulsive about psychedelics. That hastiness and desperatness will make you make many stupid desicions in your life.

Exactly my train of thought. I have had a couple stage orange friends try psychedelics. While they didn't go on a bad trip, a lot of the insights went over the heads and they didn't know how to deal with some of the things they saw so they almost fell into the religious dogma of sorts for a few days as a part of the backlash which I had to help them out of with my understanding of nonduality and my own religious traditions. Basically, they didn't really spiritually grow from the experience but it was still fun for them because.... pretty colors and patterns. 

Do some hatha yoga. Hatha yoga espesially can prepare your system to take higher levels of energy. This will minimize the damage caused from psychedelics to your system. And will ensure you don't get fused out from too much intense energy. But try to learn high quality yoga like isha yoga, not some white american lulu pants yoga. Only then it will be useful.

Lol. I'm really into yoga but I've been meaning to branch out into trying. I'll definitely look into hatha and isha yoga but if I'm going to be totally honest, I might start out with the colonizer yoga lmao just so I get into the habit of working out and because that's what's currently easily available to me. We gotta start somewhere

Do plant psychedelics rather than lab chemicals, they're less damaging to the system.

The logic makes sense here intuitively, though, I don't have enough background information to come to a conclusion. If it isn't too much of a hassle, can you please expand on this point?  

Clean your mind, don't watch any horror movies obviously, or squid games lol. You can do a vipassana retreat, you'd be surpriser how much bullshit is there in your unconscious mind.

Ooohh I like this idea. I've thought about doing a vipassana retreat in the next few months (there is a retreat center near me but it fills up so fast to where I've been having issues with getting a date that works with my school schedule). 

Stabalize yourself on some kind of spiritual path before you do psychedelics so that they don't become more important than daily spiritual practice of yours. I see that happening to people which is a sad thing to watch.

I've had a meditation and contemplation habit for a few years now and I've actively been working towards clearing out my regular human shit through things like therapy and building a sustainable life for myself to make room for something greater. 

Practice awareness of awareness meditation because that's where nondual self-realization insight resides. Make your energies in the agna dominant. Otherwise you'll just be fooling around with beautiful colors and shapes in your trips.

What does making your energies agna dominant mean? 

And lastly, ask yourself why do you want to do psychedelics? Is it because of excitement and cool experience or do you want to improve your life? If improvement of life is what you're after, I think you'd find many other much better, safer, systematic ways of doing it than psychedelics.

I really like this question as a sanity check prior to tripping. Part of it is that I want that cool experience but the reason why I think it's a cool experience is because I think it's a good way to deeply integrate what I have been learning and really get direct experience of a lot of the nonduality theory I have been looking into. I think it would also be beneficial when I find myself in an integrated place in my life to experiment with psychedelics in order to see how to transcend things and the value of transcendence. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

32 minutes ago, aurum said:

@soos_mite_ah I think it’s a good list for you. I would follow it as long as it feels realistic.

I think for many people though, it would be asking too much.

For instance, your point about not doing psychs until you’ve had 2 years of mentality. But some of the most promising research being done right now is with PTSD and drug addiction. Telling these people to “get clean” before they try psychedelics would be missing the point. In fact, the founder of Rhythmia was one such person.

Same thing about your goal of reaching Yellow. I would say the majority of people who could probably benefit the most from psychedelics are stage Orange. Psychedelics can help move them past secularism / materialism.

So again, I’d stick your list if it feels right. But I wouldn’t expect it of others.

This does feel realistic for me given where I'm at right now. I have been working my way up the spiral for about 3 years now and I have been at at least stage orange for about a decade (have since integrated much of it and moved on). I really want to say that I am currently yellow with a few green hang ups/ trigger points but if I'm going to be honest, I feel cocky just saying that lol. I do agree that people need to be at least orange to dip their feet in because (correctly if this sounds wrong), I feel like if a stage blue person did psychedelics, they would immediately either fall into demonization of the substance or fall deeper into their own religious dogma due to a lack of understanding around the theory of nonduality. 

But idk, there is a part of me that wants to urge people to at the very least wait til they dip into stage green to start experimenting. I feel like a lot of orange people tend to fall into the trap of being entertained by the cool colors instead of understanding and integrating things deeply (unless that's what they set out to do due to exposure to content like actualized.org). Over all, I'm under the general impression that the more conscious you are, the more you are likely to get out of the trip.  

These standards I wrote above are subject to change so I'm not being to rigid with them for my personal uses with the exception of the point regarding age and legality/safety. 

I am intrigued by the whole using psychedelics to a variety of mental health issues especially PTSD and drug addiction. Granted I'm still pretty new to all of this so feel free to correct me or get me more information. When it comes to drug addiction, I guess I would be most concerned about the effects of mixing substances in your body and how that sensitivity can differ from person to person. While this isn't related to addiction directly, I have friends who are on antidepressants. Normally, when a person is on antidepressants, it is highly advisable to avoid alcohol since alcohol can mess with your head and therefore interfere with the medication (to the point where it can cause seizures). This label is usually there for binge drinkers so usually, a couple drinks here and there aren't going to fuck you up. But for some people, even 2 drinks can cause some issues. I'm just using this as an example of how different drugs (prescribed or otherwise) can act within a person's body and how people should really think through things. 

As for both PTSD and addiction specifically, I feel like doing trips in a lab setting or medically monitored environment would be the most ideal choice but then again I don't know how people would go about doing that.

I'm not for or against doing psychedelics when your life isn't together (if anything, I think you can gain a lot of healing from psychedelics) but I do want to lean on the side of caution since these aren't toys to mess around with. There is a video I watched a while back of this lade who took psychedelics and how that bad trip healed her eating disorder. She does a lot of content around eating disorders, the realities/misconceptions of them, the culture surrounding eating disorders, and her personal experiences. I thought it was pretty interesting and I recommend that people check it out: 

 

[Nahm]

@soos_mite_ah

I agree with everything you said except having to be yellow, and listening to Leo’s videos on psychedelics. I think those are both misnomers which you’re better off not hearing, in terms of any connotational beliefs & misunderstandings you might pick up and ‘bring into’ your trips. 

[soos_mite_ah]

2 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I agree with everything you said except having to be yellow, and listening to Leo’s videos on psychedelics. I think those are both misnomers which you’re better off not hearing, in terms of any connotations you might pick up going into trips. 

I was thinking of using Leo's video as a source in addition to understanding nonduality. But I do understand the value behind direct experience (which is why I'm thinking of using psychedelics in the future anyway lol).

 To what extent do you think that's beneficial and to what extent should I let go of the sources and the study and rely on my direct experience? In your opinion, where do you think the line is best drawn and how do you know when you crossed that line? 

[Fearless_Bum]

2 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I was thinking of using Leo's video as a source in addition to understanding nonduality.

@soos_mite_ah the understanding will only get in the way of non duality. Understanding is only necessary if you're in the very beginning of the spiritual process. 

Judging by the way you type your statements you seem to be very smart, and this means that understanding might just make things worse honestly. 

[Nahm]

18 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I was thinking of using Leo's video as a source in addition to understanding nonduality. But I do understand the value behind direct experience (which is why I'm thinking of using psychedelics in the future anyway lol).

That is sort of a testimony, no offense I hope, as to what I suggested. You’re already under an impression there is a second source (might seem tediously semantical, but it isn’t) and that one could understand nonduality. That’s a big one so to speak, a colossal misnomer. You don’t want conjecture like that creeping into your foundation when you’re just getting started (IMO). 

Quote

 To what extent do you think that's beneficial and to what extent should I let go of the sources and the study and rely on my direct experience?

I wouldn’t frame it up as letting go of sources. There is one source, and it is impossible to let it go. That might seem like a small point but imo it’s not at all. “Resourcing” or “multi-sourcing” is undermining of oneself but doesn’t initially readily seem so and makes equanimity harder down the path. I also wouldn’t frame as ‘study’. If you want to read someone’s book about their existential experiences, that’s great… but you’re not ‘studying’ it… they’re sharing experiences… and you’re interested in experiencing that sharing. ‘Studying’ (imo) is applicable to memorizing information for an exam, or similar situations. And direct experience isn’t reliable or unreliable, it’s simply direct experience. That, I would explore until there is not a single question remaining. Until you are so satisfied you’re bliss napping face down on the floor as an orgasmic pile of your infinite self. 

Quote

In your opinion, where do you think the line is best drawn and how do you know when you crossed that line? 

There isn’t really that line. Any studying is ‘in’ direct experience, or, is direct experience. Direct experience is not found in studying. 

Given those distinctions… and a great understanding of the emotional scale… I don’t really think you need a trip guide & facility. Advice wise, yes, absolutely, of course you should be safe and as conservative as possible, take every precaution possible, and utilize every resource available to you. Personally, I prefer a long weekend in a cabin in the woods alone. But, so to speak, my understanding of emotion is astute and crystal clear. You could think of that (if you will) as the actuality for what the belief ‘mental stability’ points to. Or maybe we are actually saying the same thing in that regard, idk. 

[soos_mite_ah]

5 hours ago, Nahm said:

That is sort of a testimony, no offense I hope, as to what I suggested. You’re already under an impression there is a second source (might seem tediously semantical, but it isn’t) and that one could understand nonduality. That’s a big one so to speak, a colossal misnomer. You don’t want conjecture like that creeping into your foundation when you’re just getting started (IMO). 

So going forward should I keep theory to a minimum and take precautions to work on myself until I feel like I'm ready for direct experience? 

Maybe instead of looking into theory before, I should look at it later on after I have my own experience to go off of and can resonate with different traditions and see what makes sense to me(so that the exploration of different ideas comes from a place of resonance rather that me outsourcing experience to other sources)? 

5 hours ago, Nahm said:

 I also wouldn’t frame as ‘study’. If you want to read someone’s book about their existential experiences, that’s great… but you’re not ‘studying’ it… they’re sharing experiences… and you’re interested in experiencing that sharing. ‘Studying’ (imo) is applicable to memorizing information for an exam, or similar situations. And direct experience isn’t reliable or unreliable, it’s simply direct experience. 

I guess this was miscommunication on my part. I normally associate studying with exploring different points of view and I suppose your definition of sharing experiences. 

5 hours ago, Fearless_Bum said:

the understanding will only get in the way of non duality. Understanding is only necessary if you're in the very beginning of the spiritual process. 

I would consider myself at the very beginning (as in barely scratching the surface) of the spiritual process as it relates to things like nonduality and mysticism. I'm guessing you think that I'm over thinking all of this ? 

[Nahm]

48 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

So going forward should I keep theory to a minimum and take precautions to work on myself until I feel like I'm ready for direct experience? 

Studying different perspectives & info like you are is ideal imo. In regard more so to trips, I would be careful about info, expectations, anticipating anything specific, models, explanations, etc carrying over trips. I’d trip only for the experience of it. I wouldn’t think of tripping as having anything to do with anything you’ve heard at all.  Then you’re naturally present, curious, interested, and can focus more on breathing from the stomach, relaxing, and any mood or mindsets like playfulness, fun, etc. Whatever you want. Get the info, but go about it your own unfettered way. 

Also, sorry if I missed it on the list… daily meditation is the most important factor. It’s the difference between the mind wandering into weird stuff and having a great time, swiftly, naturally letting go. The more that’s habitual, in the sense of breathing from the stomach, relaxing, etc, the better.  

[Flowerfaeiry]

I think it's great to do psychedelics consciously so I love where you're going with this. 

One thing is that even with all the planning in the world you never know what you might see. Encountering difficult situations may be what you need. Psychedelics can bring up things that you never in a million years would have imagined without.

[RMQualtrough]

Don't touch this shit. I know what it can do. If you still want to use despite adverse warning, you're probably the right type of person to try them.

With the heavy duty psychedelics you may do everything right and just..... A severe panic attack on DMT is just....... I genuinely fear being dead less because if I'm dead I can't experience "that".