Originally posted by shavixmirI have to disagree here. About 4 years ago I went to a rave in Rochester. I was seeing this girl at the time who didn't really 'do drugs'. This was at the height of the Magic mushroom craze that swept England recently (a loop hole in the law meant that mushrooms were available to buy in the shops as possession of fresh, unprepared shrooms was not deemed illegal).
That psychadelic drugs alter the way you see life is absolute rubbish.
Yes, you see things that aren't there. But you also watch films, have various lighting (like stroboscopes and blue light) and wear orange sun glasses whilst driving in winter; these all give an "alternative" experience on life and how we see it as well.
Any lessons you need in not ...[text shortened]... luding child birth), so it's always a precaution to wait until your older to try them.
My friend bought some and, after consideration i had two caps. I didn't want to scare the cr@p out of my GF by losing it, so i took a very small dose. Boy was i wrong! Within an hour i was experiencing full astral projection... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_projection
I had a profound experience were i met my spiritual self. Yes, this does sound very 'hippyish' and no, i don't really care what people think of me as a result of disclosing this.
The event was out doors in a forest, just at the zenith of spring. As the effects of the drug became more manageable, i experienced a deep feeling of empathy for all things Natural. For the first time in my life i truly appreciated the plants and animals that surround us as everything was literally bursting with life. This experience has remained with me ever since. Having lived in a City my whole life, my connection with the Natural cycles of the planet were distant at best, this experience gave me a psychological connection and compassion of all things living that simply was not there before. I'm not condoning drug use, far from it! I have had some terrible experiences with LSD in my youth, psychedelics are unpredictable, sometimes being left alone with your own mind can be a terrifying experience, but any experience is always born from the individual themself. If you are living a lie, or you are leading a life that is dishonourable (and deep down you know it) psychedelics will cut you open and leave you drowning in your own unhappiness. I think people are too quick to accuse the drug itself of causing mental problems, if you are an honest person who is true to themself and others around you, you have nothing to fear. A 'bad trip' is always introspective and born from personal failures or regrets.
Originally posted by MarinkatombThis is the closest thing I've seen to an accurate description of (most of) my experiences with psychedelics. I've always thought of it as the "Lookin' out my back door" feeling (Creedance Clearwater Revival) due to the fact that I used to sit in the backyard watching the birds and "happy creatures, dancing on the lawn."
I have to disagree here. About 4 years ago I went to a rave in Rochester. I was seeing this girl at the time who didn't really 'do drugs'. This was at the height of the Magic mushroom craze that swept England recently (a loop hole in the law meant that mushrooms were available to buy in the shops as possession of fresh, unprepared shrooms was not deemed ...[text shortened]... fear. A 'bad trip' is always introspective and born from personal failures or regrets.
After a while, it got old. The mind-blowing realisations about life, the universe, god, and everything started to be the same realisations over again (what I think of as re-runs) and I stopped. In the end, I think being distracted from the real world, watching the world and not living in it actually detracted from any real mind-expansion. I could have spent the time doing a lot of things that would have enhanced, or enhanced the experience of, life much more effectively.
You'll believe what you want to believe, you'll do what you want to do, and hopefully you'll get through without too many negative side-effects. Just for the record, I'll be thirty this year, my use and abuse of "street" drugs were between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, and they included pretty much anything you can think of (I used to think of it as exploring my mind and actively sought out new ways of screwing with it.)
Originally posted by st00p1dfac3I am the same, i think everyone goes the same way TBH. I was inspired to be the best person i could be, as many of my experiences were of regret. You can't lie to yourself, it's as simple as that. We live in a World were everything is feeding off everything else and it is in our nature to be opportunistic and selfish. This tendency creeps its way into our relationships and we often end up hurting or disrespecting people as our minds are fundamentally wild, no matter how civilised we convince ourselves we are. My experiences with psychedelic drugs opened my eyes to my own failings. It was an extremely painful experience, but an equally valuable one.
This is the closest thing I've seen to an accurate description of (most of) my experiences with psychedelics. I've always thought of it as the "Lookin' out my back door" feeling (Creedance Clearwater Revival) due to the fact that I used to sit in the backyard watching the birds and "happy creatures, dancing on the lawn."
After a while, it got old. T ...[text shortened]... k of it as exploring my mind and actively sought out new ways of screwing with it.)
Originally posted by Marinkatombvery well put marinkatomb.
I have to disagree here. About 4 years ago I went to a rave in Rochester. I was seeing this girl at the time who didn't really 'do drugs'. This was at the height of the Magic mushroom craze that swept England recently (a loop hole in the law meant that mushrooms were available to buy in the shops as possession of fresh, unprepared shrooms was not deemed ...[text shortened]... fear. A 'bad trip' is always introspective and born from personal failures or regrets.
i was 18ish and had friends around me who would trip and then talk about their crazy times the day after. i was intrigued but figured that they had to be grossly exagerating their experiences like people often do when they reminisce after a night of drinking. when i finally took acid, i realized how badly i had underestimated the power of the drug and i fought with utter futility to remain in control... of my thoughts... my feelings... my sense of self. it ripped me right from my cozy nest of thought patterns and revealled the world -- of which my infintesimal self was just a tiny fragment -- as it really was/is... a limitless, inter-connected, living, flowing energy, free from the restraints of time and entirely incomprehesible to the human mind under normal circumstances. to me it was enlightenment... there was no question that i was seeing the world under the light of truth. all of my petty problems instantly became trivial and were replaced by a desire to be simply... a good person.
i'm now 35 and still clearly remember the impression that i was left with after the best of my trips.
the "self" of course, was rebuilt with new thought patterns and habits, but little things are different, like the fact that i don't kill bugs. i know that may sound silly, but for me it just doesn't feel right. that being said, i do eat meat..... with guilt đ but hey, i'm a work in progress.
in my experience i've found that people who have tripped (or, who at least have had a good trip) share something that is tough to describe. i believe the only other way to attain such an experience is by way of the slow road... meditation.
Originally posted by MarinkatombLast time I ate mushrooms. I had my more than my mind blown by an attractive Calfornian girl on a beach in Hawaii.
I have to disagree here. About 4 years ago I went to a rave in Rochester. I was seeing this girl at the time who didn't really 'do drugs'. This was at the height of the Magic mushroom craze that swept England recently (a loop hole in the law meant that mushrooms were available to buy in the shops as possession of fresh, unprepared shrooms was not deemed ...[text shortened]... fear. A 'bad trip' is always introspective and born from personal failures or regrets.
If I didn't have some photo's I would think my mind and my memory had been playing tricks on me.
One of my very first trips with what had to be acid, in Denver, at a new gf's apt, another girl knocks on the door, asks if we had an extra heater, and as it turned out, this apt. had a spare room full of the things so I just gave her one. She came back a few minutes later and gives me this little blue pill and said take this, it'l make your day go well. So totally unfamiliar with LSD, I took it and gf and I went to a local coffeehouse before it started coming on. So it came on big time at the coffeehouse, I was playing my guitar and the world sort of shrank to a sphere of regognizablity kind of like if you were in a big clothes dryer set to spin? Outside that zone, the universe segwayed into something unrecognizable and I found myself trying to concentrate on the activity of just playing the guitar, not even knowing what I was playing. I remember a waitress coming into my sphere of influence and saying my guitar playing was beautiful and she disappeared into the outer universe like I was in my own personal black hole. I had a brief moment of panic but knew it was the pill and it would eventually pass. So I just held on sort of like I was on a bumpy rollercoater ride and after about an hour that sphere merged with the rest of the universe and I noticed my new gf playing chess and her red hair was like on a Van De Graff generator and soft flames of her intellect shooting out like her own personal aurora, a bit like those plasma globes that the plasma goes out to the inside of the globe and is attracted to your hand, a bit like that. She was immensely intelligent and thats what appeared to me was her brain activity in totally stomping this guy on the chessboard. So the acid had toned down to reasonable levels by that time and we hung around for a few hours and went back to the apt to have a nice love making session then the next day I was off to try to reconcile with my ex-wife, the reason I had gone to Denver in the first place. So I met with her and a priest/shrink and even 24 hours later the acid was still doing its thing, the edges of the priests face was like those digital outline programs that seek edges and those edges were flowing around, quite amusing, he was probably thinking I was nuts or maybe high on drugs...Who ME?đ The reconciliation did not work out so I skipped town with new gf in arm and drove back to Alexandria, Va. I did not notice any leftover effects and I don't think it altered my life much except I lost a really good job at Goddard Space Flight Center because I had been smoking grass before and after a really advanced class on lunar ranging and atomic clocks, screwed up my chance to be part of a big NASA team out in Burmuda, so I realized I had to mend my ways in the drug department. That clarity of getting canned, or not selected anyway, was more meaningful than anything supposedly gained by doing acid.
I believe I'm gonna
Shut down my chakras, shift Shiva offa my shelf
Take down my tie dyes, my Tibetan bells
Cool down my karma with a can of O.P.T.
Ain't no call for Casteneda in my frontline library.
There's one thing I know, Lord above,
I ain't gonna go,
I ain't goin' to Goa, Ain't goin' to Goa now
Ain't goin' to Goa, Ain't gonna Goa now.
Ain't dancin' trance, no thanx, no chance to t-t-tranquilise me.
Ain't sippin' no smart bar drinks, you, that don't satisfy me.
Dosing up my dharma, with a drop of gasoline,
I ain't down with Mr. McKenna, tantric mantra talkin' don't move me.
I don'tn need no freaky, deeky, fractal geometry, crystal silicon chip.
I ain't walking on lay lines, reading no High Times put me on another bad trip.
Timothy Leary, just check out this theory,
he sold acid for the F.B.I.
Well, he ain't no website wonder, the guru just went under,
you can keep your California Sunshine.
'Cos the righteous truth is, there ain't nothing worse than
some fool lying on some Third World beach wearing
spandex, psychedelic trousers, smoking damn dope
pretending he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want
consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle
an' I sing!
Alabama 3-
Originally posted by cadwahWhat's O.P.T.?
I believe I'm gonna
Shut down my chakras, shift Shiva offa my shelf
Take down my tie dyes, my Tibetan bells
Cool down my karma with a can of O.P.T.
Ain't no call for Casteneda in my frontline library.
There's one thing I know, Lord above,
I ain't gonna go,
I ain't goin' to Goa, Ain't goin' to Goa now
Ain't goin' to Goa, Ain't gonna Goa now. ...[text shortened]... ess expansion, I go to my local tabernacle
an' I sing!
Alabama 3-
Originally posted by shavixmirSo, is your argument that we have enough stimuli as it is to provide "'alternative' experiences on life?" That another stimulus is just one too many and therefore "rubbish?"
That psychadelic drugs alter the way you see life is absolute rubbish.
Yes, you see things that aren't there. But you also watch films, have various lighting (like stroboscopes and blue light) and wear orange sun glasses whilst driving in winter; these all give an "alternative" experience on life and how we see it as well.
Any lessons you need in not bustling, living in the now and comprehending what's really important can be found in any good book shop. I recommend "The Tao of Pooh" because it's an easy read and Winnie is actually a very mellow character.
Again, are you merely offering an alternative? What about people who can manage to both read good books and use psychedelics at certain occasions through her/his life?
Psychadelic drugs (LSD, mushroom, etc) are like any other drug...they're recreational. And reading up on the bad and the good is always a smart thing to do.
No one is denying the recreational element to these drugs. In fact, recreation is an intrical part of the human experience, and should not be rejected. You, like all humans, partake in recreation.
Something else, I may add, is that psychadelic drugs do have a history of triggering various mental disorders. Most of these disorders will have been triggered by the time you're 25 (excluding child birth), so it's always a precaution to wait until your older to try them.
This is a legitimate concern when it comes to psychedelics, but it is worth noting that there is no causal link between the drugs and creating the disorders, only that they may worsen them or make them more apparent. Always use precaution--do not use psychedelics if you are not mentally stable, and stop use if you begin to feel unstable.
After a while, it got old. The mind-blowing realisations about life, the universe, god, and everything started to be the same realisations over again (what I think of as re-runs) and I stopped. In the end, I think being distracted from the real world, watching the world and not living in it actually detracted from any real mind-expansion. I could have spent the time doing a lot of things that would have enhanced, or enhanced the experience of, life much more effectively.
I can certainly see how this would happen, but it also comes down to how the substances are used. It is not the chemicals themselves that are causing specific thoughts in your mind--the chemicals merely allow your brain to operate in a different manner. The thoughts you think and the realizations you find are 100% dependent on your own mind. If you aren't explorative in a sober mind-state, then once enough psychedelic journeys are reached and you've finished exploring the box, you will continue to just walk around in circles.
What I'm saying is you control your thoughts, the psychedelics just help with the thought process. Stagnant thoughts can occur in a sober and psychedelic brain-state, you just notice them more while tripping.
It also depends on frequency of use. Tripping once a year is going to yield much different results than tripping twice a week. At once a year, it is unlikely that you would become bored with it because of repeated realizations because your life and thinking process will have changed so much throughout that year. Your life situation is typically much different from year to year, and using psychedelics in such a low frequency is much like consulting a different part of you for reflection/introspection. It can be a self-counseling session. Rejecting the frequent use of psychedelics is one thing, but frequency is a highly changeable variable, and it is important that we acknowledge that.
Originally posted by avapxiaWhat exactly do you want? Someone to give you a cookie because you use drugs? You started off your thread like this:
So, is your argument that we have enough stimuli as it is to provide "'alternative' experiences on life?" That another stimulus is just one too many and therefore "rubbish?"
[quote][b]Any lessons you need in not bustling, living in the now and comprehending what's really important can be found in any good book shop. I recommend "The Tao of Pooh" becaus y is a highly changeable variable, and it is important that we acknowledge that.[/b]
"First I would like to simply ask those with experience concerning altered states, especially through the use of psychedelics, what your overall impression is of those altered states? How have these substances affected your own journey through life?"
And then try to dismantle shav's opinion because he's sick of getting high? Seems a bit disingenuous.
I used to take lots of magic mushrooms because a field of them was by my house. I would eat them in the field and get to the point where my internal dialogue would stop functioning, in other words i couldn't even talk to myself. A kind of trance really. It was always a strange moment as i started coming down and i would have my first thought. A sort of rebirth as my life started to return to me, the positives and negatives of my life circumstances. I used to use this process to try to permenantly reorganise my thoughts as they came to me, hoping that it would result in a new outlook on life, a new me. I was trying to rewire my mind in a positive and constructive way. I did this every mushroom season for several years.
Actually it never really worked, so don't try this at home kids. The only things i ever learnt through psychedelics were forgotten about 1 second later. I should have gone to the free parties or clubs instead!