DocDred; I'm getting more than a little tired of your gutter language. I'm not the first mod to ask you to clean it up. This is an official warning, not an invitation to converse about it.
Psychedelic substances and spiritual development
- Thread starter Vereya
- Start date
DocDred; I'm getting more than a little tired of your gutter language. I'm not the first mod to ask you to clean it up. This is an official warning, not an invitation to converse about it.
Don't assume you know things about me you don't. I grew up in the 1960s surrounded by the drug culture of the day, and what I say these days is not what I would have said then.
Little off topic, but on the matter of apes and monkeys, according to the best available modern evidence, chimpanzees and humans diverged from a common ancestor (yes, it would have been classified as an ape) about 6 million years ago, gorillas split off from the line about 7 million years ago, and orang utans about 14 million years ago. Together those critters are the group now called the great apes. Lesser apes left that lineage about 18 million years ago, and about 8 million years ago diverged again into siamangs and gibbons. The monkey lineage split off from the common line about 25 million years ago. See Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale if you want a really detailed explication of it.
I never assumed anything. I asked. Seeing someone else do something isn't doing it yourself. With all due respect, telling me that any enlightenment I feel I might have gotten while under the influence of a drug is nothing more than I would have gotten from a bat in the back of the skull is a hell of a lot more assumption on your part than what I've said to you in here.
True enough, but you are again implicitly assuming I have no experience of what I'm talking about. I see no need to share the details of my foolish youth here, but I assure you I do know what I'm talking about, and it was about as enlightening as concussion-induced hallucinations. You may well believe drugs can contribute to spiritual development, I believe that to be magical thinking, subjective validation, the post hoc fallacy, and a variety of other errors in logic and perception.
In context with the outlandish claims the pharmaceutical industry make, the "syndromes" they invent to wrap marketing campaigns around, and the payoffs/bribes they make to doctors in the name of business development it doesn't sound so far-fetched!
Muz
Ah so you have some experience but don't wish to share it here. Your personal life is you own mate, I've no wish to pry. The point being that your experience doesn't invalidate my own. Just as my experience doesn't suggest that you too will have the same result. Rather that under the right circumstances, the right person may have a similar experience that they can interpret themselves to be as profound as they like or not.
This in no way means that I think I have magic abilities, can predict the future or ascribe to some mumbo jumbo snake oil salesman pitch of a claim that can't be backed up. But it does give some indication of why I think of some things the way I do. Because to me, taking the drug and having the experience happened to be the time of that revelation or catharsis or epiphany. Spiritual or otherwise.
The difference is that I'm not claiming this or that is true, and to the point of the OP, that some psychedelic drugs, when used in a specific time and place or more importantly mood and company have the possibility to lead to something enlightening or at least fun.
Abuse and addiction are only an aspect of the whole. If that isn't a factor, then what?
Good, and thanks for respecting that. There are some things I prefer not to talk about because I've put them behind me, and on the top of that list are some of the dumb things I did in my foolish youth.
Agreed, but other things might. The transcendental experiences commonly reported by psychedelic drug users have also been reported by people suffering physical trauma, starvation, diabetic coma, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation or overload, epileptic seizures, high fevers, and direct electrical stimulation of the brain during surgical procedures. The evidence, in other words, strongly suggests that these are pathological brain conditions that have nothing to do with anything outside the brain.
I do not, and would not, deny the reality of your experiences, but I do challenge your interpretations of them. To put it in the simplest possible terms, you think they mean something transcendental, I think they're just an artificially induced electrochemical state in the brain that has nothing to do with any external reality. Read this, for instance.
Have to be careful about those repressed memories. Sometimes they are merely fabrications. Weren't there a pile of wrongful convictions a few decades back based on false repressed memories of child molestation? I too think that we are using more and more brain power, but I think that has to do with our genetic development than with untapping some unknown potential. Also, people are exposed to more facts and less superstition nowadays, I think that is important for our intellectual development.
Two questions Dexter:
1. Do you think that any spiritual experience is anything more than "... an artificially induced electrochemical state in the brain that has nothing to do with any external reality."?
2. Are you denying that "real spiritual experience" may occur during drug induced intoxication, or merely suggesting it is no more special than other forms?
One thing I did want to point out is that the "transcendental experience" is not a guaranteed effect of taking drugs. The first reported people to take magic mushrooms in western society thought they were being poisoned and went to the doctor for stomach pumps and atropine injections. This book documents it quite accurately. Only after Gordon Wasson did people actively look for these mushrooms for spiritual purposes and in large part because of Wasson's obsessive mushroom cult theory biased his perception against actual anthropological methods.
Niflmir
You write:
Ah...the old daddy diddled me which became popular fodder and wrecked many families.... repressed memories have to be treated like delicate crystal because memories, especially childhood ones, are often misinterpretations of real events and when a popular theme begins to make its way through society such as the child molestation one. Unfortunately some well meaning people actually believed a hug meant more, a kiss was incest, and so on.
The key here is the repression which can do much damage is repetition of negative behavior throughout one's immediate life for which there can be no explanation until a journey inward becomes an exercise in excavation of buried thought, avoidance behavior and refusing to acknowledge weakness in certain areas, etc. with the goal in mind of freeing oneself to some measure of relief.
I am now a bore listing everything here as you obviously understand the routine... I am pleased more people are aware of the possibilities of what we ourselves can accomplish and overcome - the more we learn and experience on a personal basis, the more enriched our lives can be.
Whether drugs can pave the way is still an unanswered question for me personally.
You write:
Ah...the old daddy diddled me which became popular fodder and wrecked many families.... repressed memories have to be treated like delicate crystal because memories, especially childhood ones, are often misinterpretations of real events and when a popular theme begins to make its way through society such as the child molestation one. Unfortunately some well meaning people actually believed a hug meant more, a kiss was incest, and so on.
The key here is the repression which can do much damage is repetition of negative behavior throughout one's immediate life for which there can be no explanation until a journey inward becomes an exercise in excavation of buried thought, avoidance behavior and refusing to acknowledge weakness in certain areas, etc. with the goal in mind of freeing oneself to some measure of relief.
I am now a bore listing everything here as you obviously understand the routine... I am pleased more people are aware of the possibilities of what we ourselves can accomplish and overcome - the more we learn and experience on a personal basis, the more enriched our lives can be.
Whether drugs can pave the way is still an unanswered question for me personally.
After I stopped using drugs I even gave up the "little" drugs like acetaminophen, alcohol and caffeine for the longest while. I basically drank water and ate normal foods but no more. It was a long time before I slowly and carefully re-exposed myself to these chemicals. To this day I stay away from Tylenol and Advil because I can do with out it and I don't want to be dependent on a pill to deal with a headache.
The fact that I was prescribed risparidal to overcome the psychosis had a large part to do with my decision. When you come right down to it, I was told, "Drugs caused this problem and drugs are going to solve this problem." I decided to get out of the loop on my own.
The fact that I was prescribed risparidal to overcome the psychosis had a large part to do with my decision. When you come right down to it, I was told, "Drugs caused this problem and drugs are going to solve this problem." I decided to get out of the loop on my own.
Niflmir
Well said! We are products of the mass advertising age - when instant relief is mandatory - rather than checking out the message of the 'nagging problem' and finding a solution which involves a bit more time and some self-care.
In your case however, it would seem the cure worked and you are back with us.
(As I sit here pretending I know so much drinking my decaf wondering if there is any caffeine lurking in the mixture??? :angry3: )...
There is always something new to learn about ourselves and often we think we are being too insecure or worse - indulgent when some self-reflection could make the day more comfortable.
Well said! We are products of the mass advertising age - when instant relief is mandatory - rather than checking out the message of the 'nagging problem' and finding a solution which involves a bit more time and some self-care.
In your case however, it would seem the cure worked and you are back with us.
(As I sit here pretending I know so much drinking my decaf wondering if there is any caffeine lurking in the mixture??? :angry3: )...
There is always something new to learn about ourselves and often we think we are being too insecure or worse - indulgent when some self-reflection could make the day more comfortable.
You were absolutely right to point this out to me, Unforgiven. I am here talking to everyone, basing on my own approach to psychedelics and on the goals that I pursued while tripping. But this is just my approach, and just my goals.
All of my trips have taken place in a shamanic setting. Each time I had shaped a definite goal before going on a trip - to do that and that thing, or to change myself in that or that way. I did have a lot of fun, and I experience a lot of positive emotions in a trip, and I saw a lot of interesting things, in no way connected to these goals of mine, but most of the trip was real serious work. And before tripping with a substance I didn't try before, I did quite a lot of reading, and asked people who've done it, so as to know what to expect, at least in a vague way. But this is how I do it.And I have some questions to everyone here, I hope you won't find them too personal. When you trip, what is your approach? What do you want from a trip? What first made you go on a trip? Did your opinion of psychedelics change after a trip or several trips? In your opinion, what is the scariest thing about tripping? And what is the greatest benefit? If you stopped doing psychedelics after a time, what made you stop? And how often do you trip? What is the time that should, in your opinion, elapse betweent two trips? Another questions is - why is that that psychedelics are such a controversial issue? Even when it comes to harder drugs, like heroin or cocaine, the controversy is much less. Why is that, what do you think?
After reading all the thoughtful and interesting replies in this thread, I will be really looking forward to your ideas.
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I totally agree, Curiosity. Being too insecure, being too indulgent towards our shortcomings or weaknesses, and another great danger - being too sure of our own perfection. These traits are so subtle at first, it's easy not to notice them at all, until they grow into something really huge. And a little daily self-reflection and self-analysis is the very thing to nip them in the bud.
This passage reminded me of Castaneda. I am not a great believer in Castaneda, by the way, but I have read several of his books at some period in my life. One of the basic notions in the books that I have read was the "assemblage point". If I still get it right, the point is that the way you perceive reality depends largely upon the position of your assemblage point. The usual kind of awareness and perception is caused by a certain position of that assemblage point. If you move it - your perception changes. The assemblage point can be moved by taking psychedelics, after a lot of training it can be moved according to your wish, or it can change its position under the influence of some stressful factors, such as - physical trauma, starvation, sleep deprevation, and all of the factors that you have mentioned. So, if you agree with what Castaneda wrote, you won't find any controversy here. There are a lot of truths in this world...
There you are Vereya
You are to be congratulated for a great topic - it brought out so much thought and diversity and sharing - well done.
You are to be congratulated for a great topic - it brought out so much thought and diversity and sharing - well done.
I would have to say that spirituality is one of the most internal things we can experience. The brain is in a constant electrochemical state. Some people lack a chemical balance that leads to irrationality and often treated with chemicals to balance out the brain's cocktail.
Transcendental is not the right word or at least the context is wrong for my meaning. If I dream of something and then make it happen, how is that not a physical reality of what I have in my brain?
If I experience some insight into something I haven't considered before while under the influence and in discussion with someone else who also is high, then what's to say that the physical manifestation of that idea isn't real?
We rationalize things in a way that makes sense to us. So if someone who has a deep spiritual interest finds some idea they feel is enlightened and rationalize that as God coming down from Heaven and touching their mind, isn't that their interpretation of what is essentially the same as a electrochemical flush of some sort in the brain that effects this insight?
You were absolutely right to point this out to me, Unforgiven. I am here talking to everyone, basing on my own approach to psychedelics and on the goals that I pursued while tripping. But this is just my approach, and just my goals.
And I have some questions to everyone here, I hope you won't find them too personal. When you trip, what is your approach? What do you want from a trip? What first made you go on a trip? Did your opinion of psychedelics change after a trip or several trips? In your opinion, what is the scariest thing about tripping? And what is the greatest benefit? If you stopped doing psychedelics after a time, what made you stop? And how often do you trip? What is the time that should, in your opinion, elapse betweent two trips? Another questions is - why is that that psychedelics are such a controversial issue? Even when it comes to harder drugs, like heroin or cocaine, the controversy is much less. Why is that, what do you think?
After reading all the thoughtful and interesting replies in this thread, I will be really looking forward to your ideas.
I'd like to get into this more but for the time being will have to beg off. I'll formulate an answer though and pass that along in due course.
I agree with the observation that Castenedas story depicts a frame of mind or a propensity to regard existence in the light of the entirely subjective.
If we're capable of creating stories and erecting imaginable 'heavens' and 'hells' and ascribing supernatural qualities abilities and skills to imaginary figures....when we're sober and un-influenced by drugs of any kind....when we give this consciousness over to deeply seated fears and unreslolved conflicts in an altered state of consciousness can we reliably depend on the images the messages and the "voice" that we see and hear?
Any decent scientist would hold the door open on possibility, but do our experiences or the experiences reported by anyone consuming mind-altering substances with respect to visions and voices proceed to choices and actions that have manifestly improved the human condition?
If an altered brain wave, jouncing along on a stream of neurotransmitters buoyed in a bath of artificial "enhancers" provided access to and motivation to act on this artificial "clarity" for the betterment of the human condition, wouldn't it be reasonable to suggest that we'd have empirical evidence and oberveable outcomes that have influenced humanity?
Many wild creatures "self-medicate", and if we subscribe to the idea that animal consciousness is different yet parallel to human consciousness, is there anything beyond the changes to body chemistry and chemicals that stimulate the pleasure centers behind this behavior?
Is it reasonable to entertain the idea that the affect that these animals find pleasing...can or ought to be utilize as rationale in searching for some "higher-awareness" out of using human consciousness altered through similar kinds of behavior?
I don't think so.
If we're capable of creating stories and erecting imaginable 'heavens' and 'hells' and ascribing supernatural qualities abilities and skills to imaginary figures....when we're sober and un-influenced by drugs of any kind....when we give this consciousness over to deeply seated fears and unreslolved conflicts in an altered state of consciousness can we reliably depend on the images the messages and the "voice" that we see and hear?
Any decent scientist would hold the door open on possibility, but do our experiences or the experiences reported by anyone consuming mind-altering substances with respect to visions and voices proceed to choices and actions that have manifestly improved the human condition?
If an altered brain wave, jouncing along on a stream of neurotransmitters buoyed in a bath of artificial "enhancers" provided access to and motivation to act on this artificial "clarity" for the betterment of the human condition, wouldn't it be reasonable to suggest that we'd have empirical evidence and oberveable outcomes that have influenced humanity?
Many wild creatures "self-medicate", and if we subscribe to the idea that animal consciousness is different yet parallel to human consciousness, is there anything beyond the changes to body chemistry and chemicals that stimulate the pleasure centers behind this behavior?
Is it reasonable to entertain the idea that the affect that these animals find pleasing...can or ought to be utilize as rationale in searching for some "higher-awareness" out of using human consciousness altered through similar kinds of behavior?
I don't think so.
I promised to share some of the adventures I had while I was offline, and so here goes – the experience of my life! J It was my first trip with LSD, and I hope that wouldn’t be the last one, and that I’ll be able to experience that substance once again, as I was very much impressed by it, in a good way.
I already had quite a considerable psychedelic history, but this substance was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I read books, listened to other people’s experiences, but you can never understand a psychedelic substance unless you try it yourself. It is even more so with LSD.
I had some issues to work through, before I went on that trip. Actually, the last few months before it had been quite hard, I went through s kind of a loss of perspective, a loss of a part of myself, if I can say so. Now I can see that it was my own fault, but at that time I thought that I was a very unhappy person, caught in unlucky circumstances, and that added to the general feeling of unhappiness LOL
So, off I went, eager to see what was in store for me, but never expecting the amount of happiness this experience was to bring me. I went tripping in the same setting I always had, not far from our place of worship, and with the same guide I always had, a very experienced person I could trust. Throughout the whole trip I was very cold, even shivering sometimes. In our spiritual tradition ice and cold is associated with consciousness and awareness, and heat with emotions. So I guess I can say that the entire trip was devoted to the “aware” part of myself, the emotions didn’t even come close.
The first unusual feeling I had after taking the substance was the feeling of being “stuck”. I was stuck in some sticky and viscous substance. I was like a fly in honey, that’s the association I had at that time. At the same time I could close my eyes and still see everything that was around me. Moreover, I saw everything breathe, I saw the life in surrounding objects, flowing through them, animating them. Then, by the middle of the trip the colors came. I expected them to be very bright, like what they call the “acid colors”. But the colors I saw were all in a very tender, pastel, subdued shades. I saw pink that gradually faded, and turned first to silvery-grey, and then to white. The white color at first looked like pure white snow sparkling under the rays of sun, and then it flowed into bright, intense, high-tech white. And about the same time the feeling of being stuck faded away, and I experienced something that I can only describe like swimming, from underneath the water, up to the surface, to the light. I felt surrounded by the light, saturated by it. I now know for sure that I belong to the Light, there is very little Darkness in me.
Beside these physical experiences, I had some very serious job to do in this trip. I had to concentrate on accepting myself as I am. It was the greatest enjoyment of my life to finally do it, to love myself, to go deep into myself. What I realized then was that all the standards and clichés, both physical and mental, are meant for pieces of meat. And I am no longer just a piece of meat. I am a personality. I have no limits, no boundaries and no rules, excepting those that I set myself. I can do what I want, be what I want to be, and I don’t have to fit myself into someone else’s limits. From now on, I am my own standard.
There’s one thing I came very close to understanding before this trip, but only while tripping I managed to grasp the total significance of it. This thing is – happiness is not a sum of external factors or circumstances, happiness is a person’s inner quality. If you concentrate your inner power upon yourself, if you put yourself into yourself and stay there, you will wake up happy each day. Happy to be alive, happy to be you, enjoying yourself, “getting high”, if I can say so J on just being what you are. And this is something that cannot be taken away from you, something that stays in you unless you give it up.
The great thing that LSD showed was that I am the whole world. Or that the world is mine, which is basically the same thing J The world is mine, and I am the one who controls what is going on in it. And the situations just have to fit themselves to what I need in my world, because I am the one who decides. It is the absolute, the ultimate freedom.
At the end of the trip I went outside to the worshipping place, and looked up at the stars. They just took my breath away. I saw the life, the motion, the activity that went on in the sky. It was truly awesome! J A couple of weeks ago I watched the Matrix once again, and I was reminded of that moment. Remember the episode when Neo stopped the bullets by raising his hand? At the very end of the movie? They showed traces from the bullets, moving space apart. Well, the traces of the stars moving in the sky looked just like that J It was absolutely indescribable!
I spent some time outside, feeling the world around me, experiencing its harmony and integrity and balance. Just watching all the different elements of this world working together to form one harmonious whole…
That was almost three months ago. I’ve had some time to think this experience over, to integrate it into my life, to try living the new way and see if there would be any changes.
After this experience I realized, why LSD is a forbidden substance, and I partially understand the motivation of those, who had made it forbidden. In my opinion there are two reasons for this, one of them good and the other not quite so good. The good reason is that LSD is dangerous. There’s no denying that. To take it and to remain adequate you have to have a very good understanding of what psychedelics are, what they do to you, and how to fit the knowledge you get from them into your life. And that understanding’s got to be practical, not just theory. You have to go through several trips with several different substances before you try LSD. You’ve got to have control over yourself, you’ve got to have the understanding of what is true and acceptable and useful, and what is just your fancy. If you don’t have this kind of experience and control, it would be very easy to lose touch with reality. I encountered this in a very small way in the first days after the trip. The first time I had to go to work after it, it took me about 15 minutes to convince myself to wash my hair – I was looking at myself in the mirror, and wondering why should I do that, since I look gorgeous just the way I am LOL But I have had the previous experience, and I have the necessary control to tell common sense from common nonsense, so that was the biggest problem I had to encounter. But I can imagine how easy it is going to be for someone who believes that there are no boundaries for him, to jump off a roof, or do something of a similar kind. So that’s probably one reason for banning LSD – concern for people’s safety. The second reason, that is not quite so good, is that after LSD people become a lot less predictable. They are less manageable. And a society made of such people is much more difficult to rule…
Another thing I realized is why so many people who have ever taken LSD reached such professional heights and achieved so much later in life. LSD gives a tremendous feeling of self-confidence. This world is yours. You rule it. You can’t fail, unless you choose to. There is no such thing as failure for you. And since you cannot fail, you’ve got no choice but to succeed. Besides, if you have any talents or skills, LSD improves and concentrates them. They become more pronounced, they expand, and you can now do a lot more and a lot easier. I’ve noticed this over the last three months. The tasks I have to do at work, that used to require a lot of effort and concentration, are now a lot easier to do. New things are easy to learn. I have always had a talent for languages, but I remember that learning new languages was always hard, up to a certain limit. Right now I am learning Arabic, I will probably need it for my work. However, I am learning it without a teacher, just by the book with an audio course, but it does come so much easier than before!
Personal relationships and all the relationship-related issues have changed to the better, as well. Understanding other people comes in a natural way, and I no longer force my way and my vision to others, and that makes a huge difference Just a better understanding of personal boundaries, I guess.
Well, this is longer than I expected it to be J I was glad to share this with you, and I do hope we’ll have an interesting discussion. I’d love to hear any one who had a similar experience. And I’ll be glad to answer any questions, if there would be any J
To sum up everything I have written here, the most important thing, THE thing that I brought from this trip is – the Ultimate Freedom!
I already had quite a considerable psychedelic history, but this substance was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I read books, listened to other people’s experiences, but you can never understand a psychedelic substance unless you try it yourself. It is even more so with LSD.
I had some issues to work through, before I went on that trip. Actually, the last few months before it had been quite hard, I went through s kind of a loss of perspective, a loss of a part of myself, if I can say so. Now I can see that it was my own fault, but at that time I thought that I was a very unhappy person, caught in unlucky circumstances, and that added to the general feeling of unhappiness LOL
So, off I went, eager to see what was in store for me, but never expecting the amount of happiness this experience was to bring me. I went tripping in the same setting I always had, not far from our place of worship, and with the same guide I always had, a very experienced person I could trust. Throughout the whole trip I was very cold, even shivering sometimes. In our spiritual tradition ice and cold is associated with consciousness and awareness, and heat with emotions. So I guess I can say that the entire trip was devoted to the “aware” part of myself, the emotions didn’t even come close.
The first unusual feeling I had after taking the substance was the feeling of being “stuck”. I was stuck in some sticky and viscous substance. I was like a fly in honey, that’s the association I had at that time. At the same time I could close my eyes and still see everything that was around me. Moreover, I saw everything breathe, I saw the life in surrounding objects, flowing through them, animating them. Then, by the middle of the trip the colors came. I expected them to be very bright, like what they call the “acid colors”. But the colors I saw were all in a very tender, pastel, subdued shades. I saw pink that gradually faded, and turned first to silvery-grey, and then to white. The white color at first looked like pure white snow sparkling under the rays of sun, and then it flowed into bright, intense, high-tech white. And about the same time the feeling of being stuck faded away, and I experienced something that I can only describe like swimming, from underneath the water, up to the surface, to the light. I felt surrounded by the light, saturated by it. I now know for sure that I belong to the Light, there is very little Darkness in me.
Beside these physical experiences, I had some very serious job to do in this trip. I had to concentrate on accepting myself as I am. It was the greatest enjoyment of my life to finally do it, to love myself, to go deep into myself. What I realized then was that all the standards and clichés, both physical and mental, are meant for pieces of meat. And I am no longer just a piece of meat. I am a personality. I have no limits, no boundaries and no rules, excepting those that I set myself. I can do what I want, be what I want to be, and I don’t have to fit myself into someone else’s limits. From now on, I am my own standard.
There’s one thing I came very close to understanding before this trip, but only while tripping I managed to grasp the total significance of it. This thing is – happiness is not a sum of external factors or circumstances, happiness is a person’s inner quality. If you concentrate your inner power upon yourself, if you put yourself into yourself and stay there, you will wake up happy each day. Happy to be alive, happy to be you, enjoying yourself, “getting high”, if I can say so J on just being what you are. And this is something that cannot be taken away from you, something that stays in you unless you give it up.
The great thing that LSD showed was that I am the whole world. Or that the world is mine, which is basically the same thing J The world is mine, and I am the one who controls what is going on in it. And the situations just have to fit themselves to what I need in my world, because I am the one who decides. It is the absolute, the ultimate freedom.
At the end of the trip I went outside to the worshipping place, and looked up at the stars. They just took my breath away. I saw the life, the motion, the activity that went on in the sky. It was truly awesome! J A couple of weeks ago I watched the Matrix once again, and I was reminded of that moment. Remember the episode when Neo stopped the bullets by raising his hand? At the very end of the movie? They showed traces from the bullets, moving space apart. Well, the traces of the stars moving in the sky looked just like that J It was absolutely indescribable!
I spent some time outside, feeling the world around me, experiencing its harmony and integrity and balance. Just watching all the different elements of this world working together to form one harmonious whole…
That was almost three months ago. I’ve had some time to think this experience over, to integrate it into my life, to try living the new way and see if there would be any changes.
After this experience I realized, why LSD is a forbidden substance, and I partially understand the motivation of those, who had made it forbidden. In my opinion there are two reasons for this, one of them good and the other not quite so good. The good reason is that LSD is dangerous. There’s no denying that. To take it and to remain adequate you have to have a very good understanding of what psychedelics are, what they do to you, and how to fit the knowledge you get from them into your life. And that understanding’s got to be practical, not just theory. You have to go through several trips with several different substances before you try LSD. You’ve got to have control over yourself, you’ve got to have the understanding of what is true and acceptable and useful, and what is just your fancy. If you don’t have this kind of experience and control, it would be very easy to lose touch with reality. I encountered this in a very small way in the first days after the trip. The first time I had to go to work after it, it took me about 15 minutes to convince myself to wash my hair – I was looking at myself in the mirror, and wondering why should I do that, since I look gorgeous just the way I am LOL But I have had the previous experience, and I have the necessary control to tell common sense from common nonsense, so that was the biggest problem I had to encounter. But I can imagine how easy it is going to be for someone who believes that there are no boundaries for him, to jump off a roof, or do something of a similar kind. So that’s probably one reason for banning LSD – concern for people’s safety. The second reason, that is not quite so good, is that after LSD people become a lot less predictable. They are less manageable. And a society made of such people is much more difficult to rule…
Another thing I realized is why so many people who have ever taken LSD reached such professional heights and achieved so much later in life. LSD gives a tremendous feeling of self-confidence. This world is yours. You rule it. You can’t fail, unless you choose to. There is no such thing as failure for you. And since you cannot fail, you’ve got no choice but to succeed. Besides, if you have any talents or skills, LSD improves and concentrates them. They become more pronounced, they expand, and you can now do a lot more and a lot easier. I’ve noticed this over the last three months. The tasks I have to do at work, that used to require a lot of effort and concentration, are now a lot easier to do. New things are easy to learn. I have always had a talent for languages, but I remember that learning new languages was always hard, up to a certain limit. Right now I am learning Arabic, I will probably need it for my work. However, I am learning it without a teacher, just by the book with an audio course, but it does come so much easier than before!
Personal relationships and all the relationship-related issues have changed to the better, as well. Understanding other people comes in a natural way, and I no longer force my way and my vision to others, and that makes a huge difference
Just a better understanding of personal boundaries, I guess. Well, this is longer than I expected it to be J I was glad to share this with you, and I do hope we’ll have an interesting discussion. I’d love to hear any one who had a similar experience. And I’ll be glad to answer any questions, if there would be any J
To sum up everything I have written here, the most important thing, THE thing that I brought from this trip is – the Ultimate Freedom!
Very good indeed! I'm glad you found that aspect of yourself while tripping. What a refreshing read and some very interesting insight of yourself and your life have come of it. I have to add that you probably have the text book example of how to try LSD for the first time. You now can see where it is that some people can go off the rails under the influence. And I agree that it should not be available without having that first hand experience of psychedelics under your belt. That and a good guide make all the difference in the world.