**NOTE THAT EVERYTHING IN THIS ESSAY IS BASED ON DAO's *PERSONAL* BELIEF AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS AN INSULT OF ANY FORM**

FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN, IT SEEMS A LOT OF PEOPLE HERE TAKE PSYCHEDELICS QUITE OFTEN.

I understand taking a psychedelic is a personal journey and each has their own schedule which works for them, but I have noticed that people are taking them for non-spiritual reasons and are not too sure on what they are meant to do, even. They seem to come at these medicines with out an aim. Also there seems to be an abuse and use which is too often from my own personal experience. In the following paragraphs I will describe in my best detail to share my knowledge on why I have these views.

Psychedelic purpose. Humans create purpose, and humans create right and wrong. Although some taught methods have been passed down from generation to generation through past trial and error. I understand some people haven't learned about shamanic ritual and such and are confused on what to do while under the influence of these medicines. I do believe, however, that there is a more healthy and beneficial way of going about things no matter the situation. Having a genuine intent and goal in going into one of the experiences is KEY. I see so many people saying they want certain things and they go into the experience then to forget about things.. These substances can used to in-fact remember old traumas that NEED to be revealed and healed in order to move on in life. I believe these substances can give you a deeper understanding of yourself, your world, and the world you occur in. Although to access these abilities one must engage in thought about these topics during the experience, which may seem scary. Going into a psychedelic experience without a genuine intent can lead to a pointless and a simply mood lifting experience, which some would argue, but I feel is a waste.

Psychedelic use. I understand some people may benefit more from these substances in different ways then others. I have noticed, although, people talking about taking these medicines every week, every day even. I believe this can be damaging to the psyche and perhaps damaging to the brain itself. These medicines should be used, as said by an amazonian shaman herself, about every 3 months. Some people take them less. Some people take it once and never again, and during that one experience they gained all the knowledge a psychedelic seems to have to offer. Others on the other hand seem to take it very, very often and lead to a pointless, endless, non-growth oriented experience. I believe the use of these should stay to a minimum and used in times of change or right after change. It can open you to a new way of looking at problem solving and the challenges you have faced and that will be sure to come ahead. Doing it at these times, from my personal experienced, has shown to be the most healing.

I hope you have taken the time to read my views on this topic! Remember I am not advising anything to anyone. I, myself, am NOT an expert by any means. I am only, and it's all I can do, is sharing my experience and knowledge about these substances.

*wave* DeDao

"These medicines should be used, as said by an amazonian shaman herself, about every 3 months."

Who said that? Definatly not the norm at all. The norm in the amazon is to drink every single day for a long period of time while training, and then some continue that way. There are some very highly reguarded curranderos who claim to drink every single day for life..most drink at least once a week.

Same with san pedro.."La Gringa" is one of the more well known and highly reguarded huachumeras and she claimes to have drunk san pedro 2 times a week for an extended period of time while training.

People have these notions of some kind of noble indians etc who dont pary with psychedelics or dont use them often etc..you go to the amazon you will find tribes of people who snuff psychedelic tryptamines every single day of their life while otu hunting, sitting in huts..whatever..you find people who drink ayahuasca frequently, sometimes daily..some mix it with alcohol and get drunk and party with the tribe all night.

These things are also not just "psychedelics". This is a false view IMO based on the ideas of western psychedelic culture. In traditional societies these things are medicines and daily use can have some very important aspects below the levels needed for any "psychedelic" effects to manifest.

"Some people take it once and never again, and during that one experience they gained all the knowledge a psychedelic seems to have to offer"

You sure about that? I find that statement weird.. no offence. I dont think anyone can take ayahuasca once, or even 10 times and gain all the knowledge it has to offer. Tell that to any currandero they would probly laugh.

I think you are assuming many things here.

I do agree that many people use these things recklessly though.

**NOTE THAT EVERYTHING IN THIS ESSAY IS BASED ON DAO's *PERSONAL* BELIEF AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS AN INSULT OF ANY FORM**

I would add, but i pretty much would say just what jamie said.

I also agree that psychedelics is not fully descriptive of the true purpose of these plants

There is an enormous difference between frequently misusing psychedelics in a reckless manner... and frequently engaging in dedicated and judicious use of psychedelics in a beneficial way.

and to think that someone can gain "all the knowledge a psychedelic has to offer" in one single experience is just ridiculous imo. I mean the message i often get is the exact opposite of what you said; i could explore psychedelics for lifetimes and still not attain all the information they make avaliable.

its unhealthy in my opinion to believe that those moments where you felt you had it all figured out was the end all be all of experiential psychedelic gnosis..Its good to be open minded, but not so open minded that the wind can whistle between you're ears

The rabbit hole only gets deeper and deeper and weirder and weirder, afterall

My own journey has passed through periods of both frequent and infrequent use. It's a process that has unfolded very naturally for me, and I don't question it. The lessons can be very deep and challenging, and there can be times when frequent experiences are simply necessary to get the work done.

You will read posts from Nexians who go through periods of vaping daily. In my eyes this seems excessive, but mostly because the stuff can be so intimidating. In all cases, though, the person will come to a point where they are either scared off from that behavior or have learned what they needed from it and moved on to a more moderate usage pattern. The spice won't let you abuse it indefinitely, simple as that.

You talk of being a novice... So in that spirit, try opening yourself to the possibility that you may one day enter a period of more frequent usage. If and when that happens, it will make sense to you and you'll understand why.

this gives a new perspective to the term "breakthrough"

From personal experience, i feel like i've expanded my thinking and perception tremendously through the use of psychedelics.
However, it hasn't been tied to just one mind blowing experience, it hasn't been from 2, or 3, or a breakthrough, or a specific lesson that i've learned from a certain trip.
It's happened as an overall lifestyle of incorporating psychedelics as a means to expand consciousness and understanding.
I haven't learned a specific moral/lesson/thing like a subject in school; it's a transformation, and in my opinion, and evolution of the mind that has happened over longer period of time through the use of psychedelics.
I've only been experimenting for about 3 years with mind-altering substances and am still young... i can't imagine what the long (hopefully) future ahead of me has to offer and teach.

I think proper integration is needed between each experience, although everyone's ability to do so varies drastically. Hence why some people think when they're done in a successive nature with not much time in between that it's not proper usage of these substances....which I don't understand.. Everyone varies.

Although I agree that there are most definitely individuals out there that either smoke dmt every day ina row/multiple times a day or do some said psychedelic every day or every other and probably dont have the best intentions beside "trippin' sum ballz mann".

With that said...honest intention is everything.

Long post alert...

"honest intention is everything."

I'd personally modify that to 'honest intention, tempered by wisdom, is everything' for one can honestly intend to just tripz-some-bawlz-man and wind up doing it to a disadvantageous or even harmful excess.

Everyones capacity for what they can productively and safely do with psychedelics differs, regardless if the intent is recreation or spiritual seeking. Some really may be able to do them every week as recreation as casually as listening to a Mozart CD and not see any harm done just as some spiritual or psychological seekers may find advantage to using them frequently. From what I've seen tho, such people are the minority and many who try just blind themselves to the harm that is occurring, just the same way abusers of alcohol, pot, heroin, or meth can.
Back in the 90's when acid was $2 a hit my trippin mate and me got into this rhythm of extracting some acid into a pot of black coffee, drinking it down, and then hiking out into the woods after sunset (talk about good coffee.. but I digress..) I gained lots of benefits from those glorious nights and some of our experiences, adventures, and contemplations helped shape my life. Eventually tho, hedonism got the better of us. It evolved (degraded) into a wild and fun pleasure seeking pass time we did every weekend. The acid was right there whispering in my ear that I was disrespecting it and myself. I ignored that, smoked some pot, and had more fun. Eventually on one trip the acid must have tired of whispering because it just straight up and kicked my ass. I've never had a bad trip on acid, not even that one because that taught me a lot. It was a challenging trip and thats where I finally began to awaken to harms I had been doing myself- not just that summer but all my life.
I was raised by a loving and seemingly well intentioned father who detested and feared life. His coping mechanism was to try and escape life by any means he could, and those traits seeped into me. "Lifes a bitch, and then you die" was the family manta. It led to me trying to loose myself in alcohol, pot, TV, depression, and eventually LSD. After some honest work to explore the realm of human consciousness with my new toy LSD I degenerated into my default learned mode- escapism. I took it too often and it hurt me. Then unlike other types of drugs it taught me better, the 'self limiting' aspect of psychedelic usage.
Was it wrong for me to over-use it in escapism attemps? Of course it was, just as it was wrong for me to try to dissolve away into a bottle of vodka or a sack of ganga.
Do I wish I hadnt? Hell no, because after LSD kicked my ass for using it in escapism and mundane pleasure seeking I gained appreciation for what psychedelics could do. I started using it less than once a month to examine living, thinking, and BEing and I continued to benefit.
In the fullness of time I went into a dry spell and didnt use hallucinogens hardly at all for almost a decade. At that point my fathers folly had caught up to him and his health was degenerating rapidly. His hate of life had come more to the surface and he fully intended to die at 66 just like both of his parents, I also had not expunged all of that hate and loathing which I absorbed from my upbringing. I was a smoker that ate nothing but junk food and had heart disease and no stamina, I was his care giver and the stress of watching him rot away by his own volition was eating away at my soul. I also have aspergers syndrome so emotions are not easy for me to access or comprehend fully. I was dieing inside while he was dieing outside.
I remembered when LSD kicked my misguided ass back in highschool. It hurt but I learned from it and grew. So while I was caring for him I dove head first into mushrooms because Something was wrong but I didnt see a way out or even see the problem for what it was. The mushrooms kicked my ass repeatedly. I was taking too much too often, or under more normal circumstances it would have been so. In the course of a year I rocketed my hippie ass into hyperspace becoming a psychedelic pink play-do brick dissolved into the castle of everything, regressed back into the womb, paralyzed myself with fear and loneliness, and experienced clear and pure love for the first and only time in my entire life. It was an unprecedented psychological strain but I wasnt trying to escape and I came out the other side with a far better understanding of what was going on in me and my family. Right around my dads 66th birthday I made it through that psychedelic gauntlet with a realization of how on some level we were destroying ourselves with nearly every action we engaged in. I tried to share it with him but by that point he was suffering from dementia resulting from cardiovascular disease and massive drug abuse, it was too god damned late for him, he died 1 month later. The only time I clearly and comprehensibly felt love for anything in my life, and he died 1 month later.
But it was not too late for me.
I quit smoking and started meditating daily, I rapidly inhaled 20 medical books and several hundred articles from scientific journals, I quit eating candy, quit eating junk food, quit drinking anything sweet, built a huge garden, lots of other stuff, even reversed my heart disease... not halted, reversed! The veins in my arms now feel different to the touch ffs!
I've still got a long way to go but its quite likely I now have the time to do it in.
I'm also no longer resentful of my father, he just followed the lead of his parents who followed the lead of theirs, etc. its extremely difficult to fundamentally change a family legacy.

So have I taken psychedelics too often or abused them? Sure nuf, I have.
Did that get built into the architecture of my life and ultimately, with a bit of good intention added, lead to some good? I think so.
Was their an easier way? Well fuck, almost certainly, but thats just not the way the shit went down man

Honest intention- tempered by wisdom, and some self respect on top... you might fuck up now and then but with these three things you just might find your way through this mindfuck called life.

Thats my thinkin', and a bit of my story.

Great read... Thanks!

Nice post Auxin.

One small point of order- veins don't develop atheroma, unless used as a graft to function as an artery as in a coronary artery bypass graft.Im sure your change in life-style has improved your health, but to conclude youve reversed any coronary artery disease which you may have by how your veins feel is not correct.

Once more, very nice post.

Yes 'heart disease' was a clumsy phrase as I had broader cardiovascular disease and that symptom I specifically refereed to was indicative of the phlebitis in my arms. Sort of stiff hard sensitive ropey veins. My dad had that symptom too and giving him injections was just crazy.
The high cholesterol and high blood pressure (also now fixed) I couldnt feel so much but the phlebitis is gone now too.

Good to see people are kept on their toes here

Well hey, i've taken alot of psychedelics very often, i don't use my spice that often when i get it but thats another story entirely, i think like anything people should know how to regulate their use of any substance.. although if i could get a LSD prescription for once a week use that would be awesome...

Me and a friend have come to the realization that DMT in particular is psychological therapy for us. Yes, I have a history of psychological illness, yes i was heavily medicated throughout most of my teenage years. In my early twenties I stopped taking all medications and shunned the psychologists that never really helped me. Many years passed where I struggled to maintain a sense of clarity with the world. Since discovering DMT, I have blossomed. Negative emotions I used to have are all but gone. I use it when I need it. If I am in desperate need of some therapy DMT is there to help. Sometimes that means using it frequently, other times I go 6 months without using it. Although doing it every day for a week or two does occur it causes no harm, quite the contrary. It gives me all the help I could need.

Swim realized that for him dmt is a sort of mental cleaner.
Swim use it like a medicine (it's asperger) in some moment of overburning, or some kind of anxiety or crisis. Just a little dose 10-20mg change the setting of the day.
I think swim use it from more then 1 year all day or more.
he don't smoke cannabis, and other psychedelic medicine don't work like dmt.
often he practice yoga and meditation in a wood and in this mental state of stillness sometimes he smoke and something of magic happen.
Often it give the answer from a source of love and compassion,
swim is a little warned about physical damages of daily use, but until now lungs are ok, he practise a lot of yoga and run, and mind it's more or less ok :-)
Sorry my bad english, advice are welcome.

Funny, I've been thinking lately that I don't do nearly enough psychedelics. Dap, you speak of revealing and addressing traumas and other issues through psychedelic use, what I call 'conscious' or 'practical' tripping. You seem to only understand it through a very narrow focus however, that of "shamanism"- a very broad term applied rather loosely here.

I for one am auto-didactic in my approach, while I respect and admire the indigenous practices that utilize the medicines I use, I do not resonate with them and consider them to have revealed to me said medicines.

Getting the most out of a psychedelic in one, or a dozen experiences, as others have said is ridiculous if one is considering a practical approach. Speaking for myself, it's a continuos process, and trips tend to lead into each other. Whether it's the more spiritual nature of DMT trips (ime), revealing deep mysteries of the universe or the more introspective nature (again, ime) of psilocybin, it's a process I don't see ending anytime soon.

And that's to mention why I've really been thinking I don't do them enough. Tryptamines are the most -no, only, effective pharmacological aid for depression for me. A single dose is long lasting, they don't have the horrible side effect profile, they provide deep, meaningful, life affirming experiences, and the only side effect, which some people do have a pretty hard time tolerating, is that they make you feel good and are a hell of a lot of fun!

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LONG POST WARNING

PSYCHEDELICS AND MENTAL ILLNESS



Let me first preface that I come from a family with a colorful history of mental illness. My aunt (mother's sister) committed suicide in her 40's after a long battle with opiate dependence and depression. Two of my aunts on my father's side of the family seem to be suffering from much the same sort of illness; depending on the doctor/diagnosis, schizophrenia or bipolar. Both are alcohol and drug addicts. Aside from that, almost every single one of my father's 10 siblings has struggled or still struggles with alcoholism.


Psychedelics, to me, open me up to the underlying patterns that influence such illnesses. I am an alcoholic myself; severely depressed (most of the time, at least) and anxious, and often times wrought with visual and auditory hallucinations. For me, these symptoms started to appear around the same time I started (ab)using pot regularly, which was very close to the same time I started my almost religious experimentations with psychedelic drugs. This is a pretty controversial statement, as illnesses like bipolar/schizophrenia tend to appear in late adolescence/early adulthood. Chicken or the egg?

People talk about HPPD. From what I have read, I would technically exhibit symptoms of this syndrome. This is a really tricky sort of situation, as I was always aware of similar "flaws" in my cognition even before my psychedelic usage. For documentation's sake, most of my psychedelic usage of this time were with my dear friend, lysergic acid diethylamide. Acid, for me, was both an escape from my everyday perceptions and also, deeply, a motivator that inspired me to make the most out of my life that I possibly could.

I was a nihilist from day 1, but acid seemed to inject purpose into my life. The more I took it, the more I appreciated just existing in the first place. I saw what a terrible person I had been with certain actions; I saw the unconditional love that lay in family and close friends; and most importantly, I saw the way that I was wasting my existence on pursuing hedonistic pleasures that ultimately detracted from any sort of accomplishment or purpose I had ever sought. This is a lesson that I still ignore, but understand and strive to master completely. Addiction is a conniving bastard. I finally understood what straight-edge, christian types were living for; a longer lasting, reliable sort of satisfaction that arises when one can reflect on their life and realize that if nothing else, one brought joy and happiness into others' lives. The joy that you receive from improving other's lives is a high that truly, no drug can compete with. I have also found this a potent cure for depression. If you are depressed, try being righteously loving and wonderful to everyone you meet. The love you get back is 100x the love that you gave out.

This is a profound lesson that I still try to encompass today, and I very much believe that one of the best cures for the blues is to make other people happy. Love is a glitch in the deterministic cogs of reality.





However nothing gold can stay as one insightful poet once put it. I began to seek out this relief that these psychotropic substances provided. I began to realize that every action one takes is bound to these same principles. What really started getting to me was at first symptoms that could be likened to schizophrenia. Not audible voices but internal dialogue that criticized every single action/thought. Suddenly, I was hyper-aware of my influence on other human beings.

The more I took acid, the more I evaluated every single action, even whilst totally sober. For me, I began to suspect that every action I did was being watched by others, in an impossibly inclusive record-keeping sort of way. Yeah, there is some validity to this. But most of it was profoundly disproportionate.


The more I took acid, not only did these symptoms exacerbate, but I was also confronted with adjoined psychotic symptoms. I have perma tracers. I see shadowy figures in darkness. I have an almost unparalleled amount of paranoia (most of which is warranted, but exaggerated).

The acid began to be a cure for these symptoms, while at the same time worsening them (sound familiar?). Acid became a means of escape and at the same time, self-affirmation. When I was tripping, my symptoms took on allegorical meaning and presented themselves as wisdom. I don't disagree with this now, totally sober, but who wants to be plagued with these sorts of thoughts and experiences all of the time? I try to be the best person that I can, but that doesn't mean that I require hallucinations and other mental illness as requisite.

Psychedelic drugs are incredible things. You all know this. They gave to me not only the most mind-bendingly surreal and beautiful experiences of my life thus far, but also a point in being alive in the first place. But I think things can absolutely get TOO REAL. You don't need to be Jesus Christ reincarnated to be a good person. Yet psychedelics tell me otherwise.

The reality alterations continue to be more and more severe. Sometimes I cannot tell what a person is really saying, with my own internal dialogue projecting so much into it. I have problems falling alseep, reflecting on arbitrary comments I have made throughout the day, judging them like a court trial between god and the devil.

I mention mental illness because I believe it to be the primary factor in drawing me to these substances in the first place. Yet, while they help me make meaning in my suffering, they exacerbate and prolong it as well. I am quite sure that I wouldn't have auditory/visual hallucinations outside of the use of these substances. I might be wrong, but after heavy trips is when the symptoms are most severe.




I deal with the symptoms and remain thankful for what these substances have brought into my life. But overuse/abuse can really do some psychological damage.

Everything in moderation.