Hello everyone, I'm glad to be here!

I've been reading this site for a few months now with great interest, trying to gather as much information as I could. I am planning the use of LSD, then DMT and maybe others like mdma in an effort to help with my anxiety and depression, in conjunction with talk therapy. I heard about the benefits of psychedelic by chance, when I first discovered the darknet. Then, the more I've research into it, the more interesting it got, shattering most of the preconceptions I was told about psychedelics. I know many say don't use drugs to fix your problems, but I still feel I need to give it a least a shot (relatively small doses) to see if it could help.

I've been struggling with depression and anxiety for about 12 years now, and went through a bunch of specialist and medication to try to get out of it. At first I was prescribed an SSRI by a General practitioner, which he literally took samples of Venlafaxine (Effexor) from his shelf and gave it to me, like it was candy. Tried for 3 months, didn't help at all. Then a few psychologists, which most didn't resonate with me. Saw a psychiatrist that prescribed a SNRI, Sertraline (Zoloft) which I then took for a full year in a desperate effort to make it work. I finally gave it up, since it was not helping at all, except the side effects were really serious after stopping. I still have them at time, that brain zap, even after 3 years without it. It's only when I'm tired, but when I move my eyes fast with a big movement (like looking strait, then 90 degree to the left) I get a brain zap.. it's like an electrical shock in your skull, and you loose reality for an instant. Pretty annoying, and it seems to be permanent, unfortunately. I wish I never used any of it, or that I was informed of such consequence, which doesn't seem to be rare at all, at least when you try to stop de medication.

I've finally found a good psychologist and saw her for 3 and half year, and now recently changed to two social worker with a different approach, which is just starting to be effective. I'm hoping LSD , DMT and MDMA will help and maybe speed up my journey.

DIY Vaporiser

So here is what I've built so far, it's a conduction vaporizer with a rather simple design. Having read the forum here afterward, seem convection is much better, so I would like your opinion on it, and how should I modify it or rebuild it to improve the design:








The bowl is copper, which I was told can interfere with DMT, but I'm not too sure about that one, because I can't find much information about it. Seems some user use copper wool to retain the dmt in a convection setup (aka the machine), so it seems unlikely to be true. I could try plating the bowl with gold if it's really reacting I guess.

The main goals behind this design was to be cheap, washable (the glass part anyway), and use simple butane lighter. The glass bottle is there to accumulate the vapor, and then you take one "big" hit. I have no idea if it's going to be enough or if it's going to work very well with dmt.

I think I did good for a first try, but I'll probably have to fix the issue the copper and conduction in the future.

Would appreciate feedback

Thank you!

Hi! Did you look at this?

Hi!

Glad to hear you are not looking at psychs as a miracle cure. They can do as much harm as they can be beneficial. They are by no means a substitute for help from other human beings.

You seem to be on a constructive path though so I wish you the best of luck!

O, and I would start with MDMA as it is a means of viewing oneself from a warm empathetic place which is very constructive. MDMA quickly loses it's benefits when abused so when you feel a routine in your MDMA experiences it is time to move on.

I also missed mushrooms in your list. They have helped me as much as any other substance on your list.

Love and enjoy the Nexus.

Hello SwordEdge

I think if You want to approach any kind of therapy with use of psychedelics You need to know some theory on such therapy and as well Freudian/Jungian/gestalt psychology, or any other alike, interpretation of dreams/symbolic language. Have You read any books?

It's good to follow proven methods and not to experiment too much on Your own.

If You have depression and anxiety You'll stumble upon some difficult experiences for sure. Then a sitter is a must. Do You have anyone who can sits You? From my own experience I can tell You that alone sessions on LSD or any other psychedelic would be unwise.

Are You planning to tell Your psychologist about this? I'm also attending a psycholigist and he knows what I do. I've been fixing myself with psychedelic therapy since 2008 though I haven't had too many sessions. From my own experience I can tell that it works, but it's good not to rely only on it. As I said I also attend a psychologist, through the years I practiced yoga and worked with my dreams. I was attending a psychiatrist two times and been medicated for some short time. But my condition was just too difficult for me back then and I didn't know any other methods. Today I believe I would handle it.

Yes it's true, that omega 3 fatty acid thingy.. I did try it at one time, but this is not a magic bullet. It's probably a good idea anyway, and it probably add up to other things to help, so yeah, I'll switch my regular eggs to omega-3 enhanced eggs in the morning.. : ) Kill two birds with one stone! (I use eggs in the morning for weight loss)

Thanks!

I agree that there isn't much that can replace help from other human beings.
I hope I am on a positive outcome path, thank you!



You are quite right, the list was pretty much reverse, I plan mdma (low dose, 75mg) and maybe a higher dose 1 months later if the coming down isn't too bad. I probably have an abuse hazard (been on alcohol for a while now) but I find myself having less and less trouble coming off of it. LSD and DMT are in another category, and quite scary to be honest. I will need to be very careful about those. I don't even know if I'll ever be able to try them, since I need to wait until my situation is in a better shape (currently unemployed) to even consider. LSD Microdosing is quite interesting tho, could help getting out of this hard time, since it seems it help with focus, flow, energy level and even procrastination without much risks or disturbance to your ego and normal self. Almost too good to be true, I'll have to try it myself (10-15ug in the morning).

thank you, it definitly help being here, talking to people that actually aren't 100% closed to the idea of psychedelics. I think I'll stick around for a while.. ^_^

Yes, this is a great place for discussing psychedelics. The level of the comments is unmatched by any other forum I know of. I have been lurking here for years but never felt the need to join up until recently when I started adding DMT to my toolbox.

I know opinions vary on this but in my mind micro dosing is pretty useless. I feel like the value of psychedelics is to crack you open and reset built up habits. In order to crack you open a sufficient dose is needed. If you go too low it is easy to resist effects and that's why low doses for me usually end in frustration, anxiety or irritation. On a sufficient dose I surrender, am in awe, appreciate my return and feel extremely thankful and like my mind has been reset. As if the mainframe has had a reboot.

Opinions will vary, but those are just my experiences. There is nothing wrong with starting slow to test the waters. I just think that continual micro dosing is far less productive than a periodic ass whooping.

About going to a therapy on drugs (from what I've understood you are saying?).. it's not really an option for me. I was seeing psychedelics and mdma as a supplements (a kind of homework) of the ongoing therapy. Like reviewing what I've learned about myself and let me apply some change, or absorb the new information. Both the social workers I see are agaisn't me taking any of those drugs. They printed some info on DMT and highlighted all the possible negative impact to discourage me.

Would you have any favorite read on psychology and dream analysis?

Anyway, I have to agree with a sitter in my case, for any serious psychedelic use. I'm also going to be very, very careful with the dosage, and "waste" some drugs starting with very low doses, ramping up to something I can manage even if the benefits are lower. Maybe it'll render the whole process useless, but I prefer patience versus overdose or a bad trip. I agree there will still be some hard times, and I think I would have to consider them just like side effects of a regular drug, only of a different kind.

I might try also meditation, just not convinced right now but I'm going to try and make an effort to give it a shot.

It's an ongoing process I guess, thanks for sharing

My ultimate goal will definitely be ass-whooping experiences, there is no doubt about it. It's just the current situation, where I'm walking on eggs, mentally. Think I need to test the waters like you said, to to get up close and personal with the substances, and gradually gain confidence. Get over others opinion is a bit of a pain for me, so I think it's a part of the long term ritual to test and verify my decision to go against society accepted behavior.

I didn't mean to go on drugs to Your therapy, I also thought about it as a "homework" - a parrallel thing You could be doing along with Your standard therapy. And possibly incorporate Your findings to it.



When it comes to psychology and especially confronted to psychedelics/entheogens I would recomend "LSD Psychotherapy" of Stanislav Grov. Apart from describing the methods, different approaches of such therapy (not only with LSD) and their effects it presents a consistent theory of human psyche that can be used while working with any material that comes out of ones psychedelic trips. This theory is based on various psychoanalitical frameworks. I guess it's not the only theory that can explain psychedelic experiences but I personally like it. Author of this book is a psychiatrists who has worked with the substances when they were still legal and were investigated for their medical use.

From some more practical point of view "The secret Chief" of Myron Stolaroff is a good lecture. It tells a story of Leo Zeff who was doing psychedelic therapy underground with many many people in the USA. It's in a form of an interview with him.

When it comes to dreams interpretation I found "The dimensions of dreams" of Ole Vedfelt very useful. It presents a multidimensional approach to dreams, mixing various schools of psychology to understand their content. It's a very didactic book. Its author is a Jungian therapist. And when I had problems with unerstanding any specyfic symbol I would go to http://www.dreammoods.com/ to find what they might mean.

I don't know about the last one but the first two books You can easily download if You google them.

Sigma&pi, thank you so much for validating what I planned to do, the "homeworks". It's reassuring in my situation to know I'm not totally nuts on the way I'm trying to duct tape myself.

It's also very good references, I honestly didn't know much about all this, and you showed me by example what could be done, this is very positive. I will definitely try. I've heard a few things on the radio the other day, a treatment of schizophrenia, that used the dream analysis, since it's the unconscious showing up. Looks like I have a lot of work to do tho. : )

Many thanks, I appreciated it very much, hope I can return all this help one day, definitely was a good decision to register on that forum.

Is this stress related ?
The reason i ask, is knowing the exact problem can help find the cure.
If you are sure it is from a trauma 10 years ago or something, then its not physical.
I help people with vitamins and herbs sometimes, and have been researching them for 25yrs.
I was actually going to mention Omega-3 as well...

Being low in Electrolytes can cause depression also.
potassium, magnesium...
A few years ago i went from eating no fruit, to having 3 a day.
My mood swings stopped completely.

That's good to know, but yeah, I handle stress very poorly, and I'm currently unemployed, so it's a high stress situation. I've tried 1h brisk walk per day for 3 month last year when I was also unemployed, with low sugar diet (lost 20 pounds) but didn't help with the mood. I don't sleep well, because of anxiety and untreated moderate sleep apnea, so it probably is the main physical culprit, plus the rest is all psychological issues, with the sudden death of my father 16 years ago and the following years where my mom was drunk to the level of multiple self injuries (she broke a few bones and whatnot falling).

I guess most people have these trauma too, so I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the reason. Maybe I just need to work on myself and grow up. The 3-4 years of psychologist did make me progress, but it's very, very slow (I'm stubborn?). I just hope psychedelics could shatter a few shields I protected myself with, and go to the next level.

I might try st-john wort herbs in the next weeks, since I never did. Do you think it can help with anxiety and sleep?

thank you

Try taking a bit of magnesium and Valerian root supplements to help with anxiety and sleep. It has worked really well for someone I know who says it helps them relax. When taking supplements be mindful if they are water or fat soluble. Some people don't understand vitamins and just gobble them which can lead to complications.

I would also advocate not microdosing. I wouldn't start off strong but I personally feel like MDMA is really great for beginners. It was my first and helped me out an extreme amount.

Like you I am also a long time sufferer of the blues. I am fit, I have a job, a lover, but no matter how great life can be going sometimes it just hits. I believe its how some of us are simply wired. I personally view psychedelics as a reset switch for your mind and soul. It doesn't last forever but it gives your mind the tools it needs to help itself. And by tools I don't mean more, but more like you can remember that feeling of light and beauty and kind of know that life is filled with it... I don't know its hard to explain, haha. I am glad that you are approaching this wisely as your mindset going in helps out a lot.

I also suffered from depression and anxiety. I do agree that omega-3 supplement is very useful for mental health in general. It enhances concentration as well as supports your mental well-being.

That's very nice of you, thank you. I wouldn't say I am in the same situation as you, since all my life spheres are empty, but it still resonate with me. I also think that all the psychotherapy I already did, and the mindset I already put myself into, will definitely help with psychedelics. Mdma is definitely on the list, but I might try salvia first, cause a friend want me to try it while he sit this one with me so I can see how extreme it can get.

I also think, like you said, that I need to add some magic sparkles to my life. I'm so much into science, rationality and ideals that it eventually kills your will to continue, especially when you apply all those rigid concepts to a human being, which is everything but. I still believe I need to get rid of the bullshit (sorry) in my life, and replace it with more creativity, light, imagination and hope. What I mean by that is not starting to believe in Jesus, or the lotto, which I think can be more harmful than beneficial, but in my own talents and spirituality, even if sometimes it's not totally accurate.

Anyway, I'll have to see. I did try dmt already, because of a problem with a transaction on the darknet and had to try the product asap, but I didn't experiment much, except very mild visual distortion. I had trouble breathing for 2 days afterward but I found that I had energy all day, something I haven't had for years, without particular problem to sleep. I also tried small dose of lsd yesterday. It felt like a body high, emotional magnifying and a bit more of anxiety, because of environment (neighbor was using his circular saw just under my window, eh). I think I am getting significant benefits since, I'm not too sure what happened. Seems everything fits where it should in my head. I'm applying all I know I should apply on my interior dialog, and the brain "storm", or bad thoughts noise that I couldn't control is gone. Why is this thing is illegal again? wow.

I am quite scared of mdma cause of the come down (depressive), but I shall see. With careful dosing and knowledge on it's effect, I'm sure it's much safer, still.

For valerian root, I will put it on the list, but for magnesium, I already tried, and it did nothing, I still have the bottle on my kitchen counter..

cheers!

@SwordEdge

Do you sleep well at nights? Because production of melatonin hormone in our body happens at nights and this hormone is of vital importance for depression. It is converted from serotonin - the happiness hormone. You can support your melatonin level by buying melatonin tablets can be found in pharmacists, it is sold for balancing jet-lag problems. But of course please search well before frequent use.

Hey, Sky Wolf, and welcome to the nexus. I have found this place ( most of the time) to be a source of valuable insight, intelligence and compassion. It has been a great resource to me and a community of like minded folks-people who see the power of psychedelics and who use them to become better people.

That said, remember that if you are not talking to a professional, then please be careful with the advice given. I have not read all the responses to your post, but there's a couple things i did see that bother me and prompted me to answer this beefier i did.

There are many people here ready to tell you what your course of action should be. I can tell you though, it should NOT include keeping toads in captivity to extract drugs from them. For one thing 5meo is probably the most powerful thing you may experience outside of dying. Without exp, or a sitter, DON'T DO IT. The stuff saved my wretched life, and put me on a path to becoming a better human, but I was 42 when i did it and had lots of trips under my belt. Read up. The other thing is, well, keeping critters in cages to extract drugs from them.

Also, for anxiety and depression, psilo micro dosing is something I've found extremely useful.
the point is not to have some earth shattering experience, but rather to use the psilocybin as one would any other type of medicine. The doses are sub threshold. I experimented with this technique for a period of nearly a year with i when I was able to come across enough mushrooms to do so for several months . ( unfortunately, the last and current season have not allowed me to find as many. I don't think it has been researched to discover how it works, but it seems to modulate serotonin in some way and it stabilizes one's mood.

I'm not trying to come across as a dick, you are just having what could be or become some serious problems, problems that have led some friends of mine to commit suicide and nearly put me there as well.

like I said psychedelics changed my life and have helped make me a better person and you will find a plethora of great information and great people here. I'm sure there are some great responses in this thread. I just want you to take it easy and take your time and be careful.

Peace Skywolf best of luck.

Taking b6 before dark also aids melatonin production, improves quality of sleep (sometimes a main cause of depression),. b6 also converts to testosterone too I believe (another cause of depression is low testosterone) and 5-HT.

The thing Ive found about deprression in the past is if it's rooted is in your immediate environment then it doesnt matter how many pills you pop, how good your diet is or what vision quests you go on you just have to put yourself in a different environment that is more suited to you as a person.
Things to consider.. childhood/repressed anger? Stress turned inwards? Repressive environment? DEpressing environment? Boring environment? Synthetic or false environment? Inadvertent empathy? (As in you absorb a repressing/depressing signal from something or someone without realising until you actually focus on it and reveal its connection to your mindset)

I dont recommend MDMA for depression in unprofessional settings its more and more revealing itself to be a powerful substance thats shouldnt be messed with without the proper support network.

Exercise , eat well, sleep well try and achieve something every day, visualize a future where you are contented and make steps tyowards it.
Work on unravelling the tendrils that are suffocating your inner peace, take small steps to unravel them, sometimes they may get tighter and more tangled up but eventually they'll come loose and unfurl.
If its proving difficult to budge then likely you are on the right track.

Regarding entheogens, I only have experience in using harmalas and DMT for depression. DMT gave me a jolt, like my brain had been jetwashed or rebooted and in turn spurred a fresh perspective from which I built my future.
Harmalas alone were great, I was able to see my unconcious with ease during sleep and on the verge of sleep and the reason I particularly liked these were because it works 2 fold, firstly it allows you to explore the subconcious
in a comfortable cushioned slightly detached manner and secondly its biologically an anti-depressant in its MAOI action. Its not just a pill you use to squash the issue down out of sight and out of mind which never really works. However for some repressing the issue is the only way out there is no doubt for many they are effective at eliminating symptoms.

Hi SwordEdge and welcome to the Nexus.

Effexor is actually a SNRI and Sertraline is a SSRI; psychedelics can be of benefit but then again, they can potentially compound your problems. Best of luck!