Psilocybin, MDMA and Salvia divinorum have had a profound effect on my life and the person I am today. Of course it’s impossible to say who I would be, had I not tried these.
Has it been for the better? Maybe. For the worse? Maybe.
I do know that they are experiences I would not want to be without. They taught me a great desl about myself and helped shape my perception of the inner and outer world surrounding me. Am I smarter and more enlightened, probably not. May be I even shaved off an IQ point or two in the proces.
But having my reality altered, even totally disintegrated (salvia) certainly paved the way for acceptance of other states of mind that people may exist in. This is very valuable to me, as it helped break down a black and white coccon I see many people live in (some break free by orher means, some never escape it).
To me, it was bungee jumping for the mind but from the comfort of my own home. It certainly has helped me take on and be comfortable with opposing viewpoints, being very tolerant in general and able to reach further into the corners of my mind.
It’s been decades since those first jumps, but the effects will last me a lifetime.
In all seriousness, Salvia is horrible and fits the layperson’s perception of a bad trip much better than any psychedelic hallucinogen (aka serotonergic (Psilocybin, LSD), as opposed to glutamatergic dissociative hallucinogens - (Ketamine, PCP) - or cholinergic delirant ones (Benadryl, Datura), with Salvia uniquely acting on Kappa opioid receptors) could.
I’m lucky in that all I’ve gotten from it was strong dysphoria because the one time I attempted to try Salvia, the brand I ordered was bad and I got something that must have had a very low potency instead of a concentrated extract. I got off merely with rolling backwards and breaking my bong covering myself with bong water, then worrying about a leaf in my hair and thinking I might find myself snapping back to reality for a while.
Given the sense of dread and anxiety I felt afterwards while in the real world, being in that state through a fast paced cartoonish fever dream of a trip must be absolutely awful.
You will never be able to tell how you wouldn’t change had you not tried these. But I feel the same as you and I still feel the impact of my only LSD trip I had over 15 years ago like it just happened over the last weekend. However, I know someone who tried LSD for a year here and there every other weekend and I could tell that they incurred some dammage in their brain. They’ve grown in a way but feel fragmented and a bit broken in some other way.
IMO a healthy relationship with LSD is one where, after a certain point (usually single-digit experiences), you can very confidently wish the substance a heartfelt goodbye, and thank it for it's service.
After my third experience, I woke up the next day knowing I'd learned an enormous amount about myself, and learned to think in ways I couldn't previously.
At the same time though, I just... "Knew"... I'd learned everything LSD had to teach me and that any further experiences with it would be like trying to over-optimise my brain, causing more harm than good.
That was ~4 years ago, and I've had literally zero desire to even consider touching the stuff since then.
I'm glad I did (3-4 times), but I'm VERY confident I'll never do it again.
I’m not confident i’ll never do it again ever but after fifteen years I don’t need to trip yet since I’m still drawing from my last one. I feel that it’s useful when at a certain stage in life one needs a stir.
Other than a couple changes to the drug line-up, I feel like I could've written this. Surprisingly comforting. Do you ever struggle with the narcissism inherent in pondering how the world might be different if everyone experienced similarly serendipitous alignment of circumstance and constitution?
I took a fair number of trips when I was 16 and I think it literally brought my consciousness online. There was a pretty stark contrast between the me before who who just wanted to play video games and hang out with friends, and the me after who was overwhelmed by natural beauty and my smallness in relation to the vastness around me. It might have been responsible for the next 5+ years of my life where I shirked school/career in favor of delving pretty deep into hallucinogens and a hippy type lifestyle in search of some "Truth".
I don't know if it was just timing and it jump started a natural part of aging, or if it triggered something that would not have occurred otherwise. Either way it definitely did a number on my 16 year old brain, still unsure if it was a net positive or negative.
The sad part is they don't have such a profound effect on me anymore, it can still be pretty interesting but the life altering trips seem to be reserved for the first few times. My only expectation from them now is to feel nice and have some pleasant visuals. I don't approach it seeking some lesson or greater truth, just have a nice time, which is maybe the final lesson lol.
>I don't approach it seeking some lesson or greater truth, just have a nice time, which is maybe the final lesson lol.
I relate to this a lot. After a friend died in 2020, I started down that rabbit hole increasing dosages for look "perspective" or "truth" that ended up cumulating into an overdose and an overnight hospital stay. At that point, I realized that going into these things searching for something / using as a coping mechanism is fruitless and it's a more "enjoy the journey" type of thing. I was hoping for an epiphany that would set me on some steel-willed journey, but that never came.
Seems to me like you did learn something. That you were not a steel-willed journyman prone to epiphanies. I know it may sound silly, but there is some true value to that. Who’s to say those experiences didn’t speed up something you may orherwise would have spent even more time and resources on pursuing.
Disclaimer: I of course do not know you or anything about you except for your comment.
Highly agree with this take. It’s best if it gives you a fuzzy and unclear image to steer towards. Overdone doesn’t seem to be leading to anything, like steering in circles and exhausting your fuel.
> At that point, I realized that going into these things searching for something / using as a coping mechanism is fruitless
One failure does not prove something is not possible.
When under the influence, have you ever encountered knowing that the reality we experience here is not what it seems to be? Bringing these things back (especially in a persistent manner) is tough, but most people can recall the phenomenon abstractly.
Lol depersonalization and derealization and dissociation and DMT elves are awesome, but the reason the ideas are so fleeting, consulate, vague... yet determinate; is because they are completely fabricated illusions of abstract collective unconscious archetypes.
They are no more or less real than the rest of our artifacts from evolution.
But attempting to give any more credence to these phenomena than to dreams or intrusive thoughts is essentially a dragon hunt of sorts.
my layman viewpoint is that psychedelics make things that seemed immutable more…mutable. Everyone has some short list of things they are endlessly hung up on. Mushrooms might make you realize there are more viewpoints and more options.
But after you’ve taken them a few times, there isn’t so much resistance. It’s just a goofy light feeling for a few hours. Chasing that feeling when you first took them and realized that “borders are just like, made up man!” is just like chasing any other high.
There's no need to call what he says bullshit or esoteric. Maybe he's wrong, most of the time he's not precise enough to be wrong. I read his words as a sort of existential poetry.
Personally this drug in not real heavy doses helped me tackle some issues in my life when I was younger that helped me become more psychologically free.
I recall having a bonfire on my lawn in the middle of the day while burning my taxes. Sounds weird but it did help
You sound like you got what you needed from it and not more. More could be like taking the bus and not getting off at your stop because you just started to like your bus. Eventually it will force you at a stop you may not like.
Psilocybin, MDMA and Salvia divinorum have had a profound effect on my life and the person I am today. Of course it’s impossible to say who I would be, had I not tried these. Has it been for the better? Maybe. For the worse? Maybe. I do know that they are experiences I would not want to be without. They taught me a great desl about myself and helped shape my perception of the inner and outer world surrounding me. Am I smarter and more enlightened, probably not. May be I even shaved off an IQ point or two in the proces. But having my reality altered, even totally disintegrated (salvia) certainly paved the way for acceptance of other states of mind that people may exist in. This is very valuable to me, as it helped break down a black and white coccon I see many people live in (some break free by orher means, some never escape it). To me, it was bungee jumping for the mind but from the comfort of my own home. It certainly has helped me take on and be comfortable with opposing viewpoints, being very tolerant in general and able to reach further into the corners of my mind. It’s been decades since those first jumps, but the effects will last me a lifetime.
For anybody curious, I'm well-traveled and would NEVER recommend anybody use Salvia divinorum — true devil weed – not even once.
Try anything (and everything) else before S. divinorum.
“Anything and everything” includes Datura.
In all seriousness, Salvia is horrible and fits the layperson’s perception of a bad trip much better than any psychedelic hallucinogen (aka serotonergic (Psilocybin, LSD), as opposed to glutamatergic dissociative hallucinogens - (Ketamine, PCP) - or cholinergic delirant ones (Benadryl, Datura), with Salvia uniquely acting on Kappa opioid receptors) could.
I’m lucky in that all I’ve gotten from it was strong dysphoria because the one time I attempted to try Salvia, the brand I ordered was bad and I got something that must have had a very low potency instead of a concentrated extract. I got off merely with rolling backwards and breaking my bong covering myself with bong water, then worrying about a leaf in my hair and thinking I might find myself snapping back to reality for a while.
Given the sense of dread and anxiety I felt afterwards while in the real world, being in that state through a fast paced cartoonish fever dream of a trip must be absolutely awful.
You will never be able to tell how you wouldn’t change had you not tried these. But I feel the same as you and I still feel the impact of my only LSD trip I had over 15 years ago like it just happened over the last weekend. However, I know someone who tried LSD for a year here and there every other weekend and I could tell that they incurred some dammage in their brain. They’ve grown in a way but feel fragmented and a bit broken in some other way.
IMO a healthy relationship with LSD is one where, after a certain point (usually single-digit experiences), you can very confidently wish the substance a heartfelt goodbye, and thank it for it's service.
After my third experience, I woke up the next day knowing I'd learned an enormous amount about myself, and learned to think in ways I couldn't previously.
At the same time though, I just... "Knew"... I'd learned everything LSD had to teach me and that any further experiences with it would be like trying to over-optimise my brain, causing more harm than good.
That was ~4 years ago, and I've had literally zero desire to even consider touching the stuff since then.
I'm glad I did (3-4 times), but I'm VERY confident I'll never do it again.
I’m not confident i’ll never do it again ever but after fifteen years I don’t need to trip yet since I’m still drawing from my last one. I feel that it’s useful when at a certain stage in life one needs a stir.
Other than a couple changes to the drug line-up, I feel like I could've written this. Surprisingly comforting. Do you ever struggle with the narcissism inherent in pondering how the world might be different if everyone experienced similarly serendipitous alignment of circumstance and constitution?
I took a fair number of trips when I was 16 and I think it literally brought my consciousness online. There was a pretty stark contrast between the me before who who just wanted to play video games and hang out with friends, and the me after who was overwhelmed by natural beauty and my smallness in relation to the vastness around me. It might have been responsible for the next 5+ years of my life where I shirked school/career in favor of delving pretty deep into hallucinogens and a hippy type lifestyle in search of some "Truth".
I don't know if it was just timing and it jump started a natural part of aging, or if it triggered something that would not have occurred otherwise. Either way it definitely did a number on my 16 year old brain, still unsure if it was a net positive or negative.
The sad part is they don't have such a profound effect on me anymore, it can still be pretty interesting but the life altering trips seem to be reserved for the first few times. My only expectation from them now is to feel nice and have some pleasant visuals. I don't approach it seeking some lesson or greater truth, just have a nice time, which is maybe the final lesson lol.
>I don't approach it seeking some lesson or greater truth, just have a nice time, which is maybe the final lesson lol. I relate to this a lot. After a friend died in 2020, I started down that rabbit hole increasing dosages for look "perspective" or "truth" that ended up cumulating into an overdose and an overnight hospital stay. At that point, I realized that going into these things searching for something / using as a coping mechanism is fruitless and it's a more "enjoy the journey" type of thing. I was hoping for an epiphany that would set me on some steel-willed journey, but that never came.
Seems to me like you did learn something. That you were not a steel-willed journyman prone to epiphanies. I know it may sound silly, but there is some true value to that. Who’s to say those experiences didn’t speed up something you may orherwise would have spent even more time and resources on pursuing. Disclaimer: I of course do not know you or anything about you except for your comment.
Once you get the message, hangup
Highly agree with this take. It’s best if it gives you a fuzzy and unclear image to steer towards. Overdone doesn’t seem to be leading to anything, like steering in circles and exhausting your fuel.
> At that point, I realized that going into these things searching for something / using as a coping mechanism is fruitless
One failure does not prove something is not possible.
When under the influence, have you ever encountered knowing that the reality we experience here is not what it seems to be? Bringing these things back (especially in a persistent manner) is tough, but most people can recall the phenomenon abstractly.
Lol depersonalization and derealization and dissociation and DMT elves are awesome, but the reason the ideas are so fleeting, consulate, vague... yet determinate; is because they are completely fabricated illusions of abstract collective unconscious archetypes.
They are no more or less real than the rest of our artifacts from evolution.
But attempting to give any more credence to these phenomena than to dreams or intrusive thoughts is essentially a dragon hunt of sorts.
> yet determinate; is because they are completely fabricated illusions of abstract collective unconscious archetypes.
Thing is the we need these from time to time to push us off the rut.
my layman viewpoint is that psychedelics make things that seemed immutable more…mutable. Everyone has some short list of things they are endlessly hung up on. Mushrooms might make you realize there are more viewpoints and more options.
But after you’ve taken them a few times, there isn’t so much resistance. It’s just a goofy light feeling for a few hours. Chasing that feeling when you first took them and realized that “borders are just like, made up man!” is just like chasing any other high.
McKenna would argue that's how apes became humans
I love listening to McKenna but quite often I realize he’s just an excellent bullshitter with an esoteric twist.
There's no need to call what he says bullshit or esoteric. Maybe he's wrong, most of the time he's not precise enough to be wrong. I read his words as a sort of existential poetry.
Personally this drug in not real heavy doses helped me tackle some issues in my life when I was younger that helped me become more psychologically free. I recall having a bonfire on my lawn in the middle of the day while burning my taxes. Sounds weird but it did help
You sound like you got what you needed from it and not more. More could be like taking the bus and not getting off at your stop because you just started to like your bus. Eventually it will force you at a stop you may not like.