Are suicidal thoughts almost expected with psychedelic use?

[Soul Flight]

Hello all 

I am a healthy, happy, professional, semi-contemplative, spiritual person. I have taken up to 8 grams of dried penis envy from time to time. 3.5 grams seems to be plenty.

Does everyone have suicidal-like thoughts, fears, or panics on psychedelics from time to time when taking heroic doses? I feel very healthy, well, and not suicidal at all. These thoughts seem reasonable when one is tripping and the veil of reality is peeled back. It seems normal for the mind to wander to deep profound thoughts. The cosmos seems so meaningful on some trips and so meaningless on other trips in a beautiful yin yang way. Sometimes we get disassociated from our bodies or surroundings. The ego death. All boundaries and barriers and the mind itself seem to dissolve. Or do psychedelics amplify or expose our internal issues? Is there a suicidal impulse buried deep inside me?

My hunch is everyone encounters these thoughts or philosophical musings in bad trips or panic attacks or when losing touch with reality while tripping. But why don't Joe Rogen, Terrance McKenna, or Graham Hancock ever mention the dangers of suicidal thoughts? Many media people seem to promote psychedelics but I never see any warnings of suicidal thoughts or almost assured encounters with this thought. But in my opinion that does seem to be the big trick of psychedelics and maybe the Eleusinian mysteries. It is the sudden confrontation with death/suicide which gives insight and new meaning to life. It is the joy at returning to sobriety and reality which is a huge relief. Surviving the trip is the fun part. "There is no such thing as a bad trip." Is everyone recommending psychedelics with a wink and a nod almost hoping you bump into the suicide skeleton lurking in your closet? Are suicidal thoughts the secret gimmick of psychedelics? Is suicide a taboo and no one wants to talk about it, or is everyone embarrassed they had this thought and keep it secret or at least do not connect it to psychedelic usage?

Switching gears, have any of you had what you consider to be the ultimate revelation of reality or just a horrifying idea which you keep to yourself? I have. It reminds me of the Radiohead video for "Just" or the movie "Birdbox." PM me if you had the revelation and want to hear my revelation, but I beg all of you not to ask me for it. Watch the Radiohead video and the movie "Birdbox" before contacting me. We can share revelations, but I feel it is best if you come to this revelation on your own. If I tell it to you, it will only delay your enlightenment or transcendence. It is a paradox. You cannot be awakened. You must awaken on your own. I am happy with my revelation, but it is a very unpleasant horrifying paradoxical thought and you may regret hearing it. I feel too guilty simply posting it or writing it down or telling anyone about it. I don't want to put bad vibes out there.

Thank you all for reading. Thanks for any replies. I feel I am posting in the correct forum and topic. Please send me links to alternate forums where I can re-post for more views or discussion about my post. I am a rookie at online psychedelic forums.

[bmcnicho]

I don’t think suicidal thoughts are guaranteed in the same way someone with depression would have them, although it’s not uncommon at high doses.  I think it has to do with the way the relationship between life and death can be recontextualized.  Like I’ve definitely had the thought “Death is Goodness” but with “Death” being a spiritual notion not related to the destruction of the body or unhappiness with oneself as it’s conventionally thought of.

The one experience I had that veered into that territory was actually motivated by pure contentedness in the present moment.  I viewed reality as inherently perfect, and the thought popped into my head that if I randomly wandered off into traffic, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.  Because I wasn’t able to conceptualize anything as being bad at that time. I still had the presence of mind to not take that thought seriously though.

A more negative version of these thoughts are definitely possible and worth taking seriously.  But I don’t think someone who’s otherwise psychologically healthy needs to worry too much.  Trip sitters can definitely be helpful at high doses, even though a lot of us prefer doing these things solo.

And yes, I have had some profound revelations, I don’t know if they’re the same ones that you’ve had.  I understand now that words can be dangerous.  I see people enjoying their realities, and know that language can rewrite reality.  It’s difficult, because I see Truth as being the birthright of mankind, but maybe some things should be left to those willing to actively seek it out.

Edited June 1, 2023 by bmcnicho

[Leo Gura]

The way it worked for me was, I went through a phase of toying around with those ideas, but then emerged out the other end and now when I trip I have zero suicidal thoughts because I just see them as silly nonsense. My mind has stopped even "going there" because I am focused on much grander things.

But there was a phase of maybe a year where my trips would include some suicidal thoughts. Not too serious, but still unnerving. It's a hump I think everyone will have to get over at some point of they trip a lot. Because you cannot avoid facing your own human mortality in this work. At some point you have to confront it. The key is simply to make a commitment to yourself never to physically act on it.

Edited June 1, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Husseinisdoingfine]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

 I have zero suicidal thoughts because I just see them as silly nonsense.

Suicidal thoughts are ''silly nonsense''? Really?

Pls elaborate because I'm curious. I have struggled with these desires for a while and I'm wondering what causes them? Like, is it a trick of the ego? self-deception? Based in falsehood as death is an illusion?

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Suicidal thoughts are ''silly nonsense''? Really?

Pls elaborate because I'm curious. I have struggled with these desires for a while and I'm wondering what causes them? Like, is it a trick of the ego? self-deception? Based in falsehood as death is an illusion?

To clarify, I meant the suicidal thoughts that arise during trips. I was not speaking about depressed people who are suffering in normal life and want to kill themselves for serious reasons, like health problems, financial problems, abuse, etc.

There is a specific case of trip-induced suicidal ideation.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Leo Gura

[puporing]

There's prob always going to be some link between that and awakening imo. Just because you are dealing with the existential matter (with your contemplation also and depending on where you are in your "spiritual journey" overall) and your sense of identity/relation with the world, etc. And things can get shuffled a lot as you awaken (on or off psychedelics).

The nature of Awakening sort of requires you to zoom out of the matrix of humanity bit by bit, have some level of detachment, and everything you knew as reality and face what "life and death" is. So you're already in a "detached" kind of state to do this work.

It's possible that if you really have no connection with this planet at some point after awakening (eg people or goals/meaning or just too much suffering to survive) that you could just want to mahasamadhi out of here coz you know what lies "on the other side". I am not encouraging that, it's just a possibility/ideation that could come up as you go. I think it's a very personal choice though.

It also depends (if you fully awaken), what your primary sense of purposes are and if there's an "outlet" for it. For example if you then see yourself at least partly as a "messenger" or "teacher" of some type but live in a society that would not allow or demonize such that would be a tricky situation, because you might have a strong desire to speak up (that feels almost out of control ). But hopefully with the internet there's less and less of that happening.

Edited June 2, 2023 by puporing

[Juan]

4 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Suicidal thoughts are ''silly nonsense''? Really?

Pls elaborate because I'm curious. I have struggled with these desires for a while and I'm wondering what causes them? Like, is it a trick of the ego? self-deception? Based in falsehood as death is an illusion?

Yes, as someone who dealt with it years ago, I’ve become aware of how silly it is actually but when you’re in that state of mind it doesn’t feel that way, it feels as tangible as touching yourself right now. My insight about it coming out of it is that you will have to do some deep deep reprograming because those thoughts are sometimes beyond our control, not even doing daily affirmations helps depending how hard wired is your brain right now, so you have to somehow “allow the light penetrate into you, like when the sun hits the flowers, so you can see through the illusion”, I quote it because it’s the poetic way I see it now. You’ll have to find practices and methods that allows your mind first to calm down, allow whatever trauma you have to release, is ok if it looks even like a exorcism lol, been there, and by the end of the storm, the sun will comeback at you and you are gonna be more conscious now.  

Now what causes suicidal thoughts that is gonna vary for each person. It could be a trauma from childhood, it could be because of a consumption of a drug and it programmed your mind to be negative about life, etc. And very important have FAITH that healing is possible and PATIENCE, take it easy on you, you’re doing your best even if it doesn’t feel that way right now, each solution(s) is vary for everyone. 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Juan

[Soul Flight]

Wow! Thank you all for your deep wisdom. I am of the belief of the one consciousness/awareness and an eventual reduction of duality to unity. So, it is so strange to think we are all one and really I am just talking to myself on this forum. I'm on my journey and you all are helping me. But there is no "I" and there is no "journey." Lol!

I just find it strange in all the hours of interviews I've listened to of Paul Stamets, the McKenna brothers, Joe Rogen, Allan Watts, Tim Leary, etc only this site and Leo really mentions the suicide specter lurking in psychedelics. But maybe telling people this stuff causes suicidal thoughts is not the best marketing campaign. So this information about suicide is something which must be pursued and sought out to be assured you have not gone off the rails. And I am pretty sure given the huge numbers of recreational usage, there have been very few suicides while high and still only a few due to a crossover Venn diagram of those unlucky souls with mental illness (which could be part of their own journey).

Psychedelics are like an initiation ceremony and you can't tell the initiate about the challenges prior to the ceremony. So suicidal thoughts are the first challenge to overcome with a little ego loss and new perspective and re-framing of life.

I do feel like suicide is the first hurdle to overcome on the journey with psychedelics. I feel it is the first firewall the ego throws up to scare you straight. Maybe deep down I want to live and paradoxically the ego is so smart it uses suicide to spook me and scare me off psychedelics so the ego can maintain control. The ego would never want me to carry out the suicide. It's just a scare tactic.

Thanks again for the heartfelt replies.

[Florian]

12 hours ago, Soul Flight said:

. I have taken up to 8 grams of dried penis envy from time to time. 

 

What the fuck is dried penis envy?

I only ever took shrooms once, like 0,5 grams, and I didnt have suicidal thoughts as in negative thoughts of wanting to kill myself but I was thinking about what it would be to jump off a cliff and that it would just be nothing and everything would still be the same afterwards and I got kinda cursious about doing it. However I was still aware that that would be a bad idea for me. It's kinda scary to think that if I take a higher dose one might actually do it.

[Princess Arabia]

From what I understand, our thoughts are not our own and we receive them from the etheric based on our vibration and the state of consciousness we're in. Doing psychedelics (don't know, never done them) might put you in a state where those thoughts match that particular frequency you're vibrating at. There are forces at play and they get energized and feed on these thought patterns; and being in an altered state may induce suicidal thoughts in someone in a particular mental state upon doing psychedelics. I also understand that we can receive thoughts based on ancestral background. Someone in the ancestral family probably committed suicide and you are receiving these thoughts through that invisible chain. They might not be your own but from the superconscious mind floating around in the etheric space and they come to you because of the state you're in.  I don't know, its just something to think about and ponder upon and I would love to hear from anyone who is knowledgeable about thoughts and their origin to hear another perspective. 

[enzyme]

If you have a background with mental health issues or traumatic past events - both avenues can lead a person to the concept of suicide - then it's possible for a psychedelic substance to bring that out in you during a trip.

This isn't necessarily bad imo.  It's an opportunity to face it from an elevated state of consciousness head on if it pops up in your head.  It's when a person doesn't consider this a possibility that could occur during their trip that can lead to them feeling disturbed/freaked out.

To give a personal example, my first trip was 1g of ecuadorian cubensis mushrooms.  I had a long record of passively thinking about death and feeling like my day-to-day life was numb and shitty before taking them.  Not once did my mind throw me anything like that during the trip though.  It was surprisingly smooth sailing all the way through and I came out the trip feeling restored and healed.

As long as you set reasonable expectations (go with the flow, don't fight whatever thoughts come up) you'll be fine.