Hi guys :-)

I´m new to this forum and I have a general question. (i´m no native english speaker, if my english sounds bad, sorry for that :-) )

I really love psycedelics but i have a small issue.

My experience i had in the past with them were always great, even when there were hard experiences, last year i was in south-america some weeks in columbia and working with shamans and ayahuasca, had several ceremonies (9times), in the past i also took some magic mushrooms (3-4 times) but never a big dose. I´m also doing meditation and general shamanic techniques by myself - learning that stuff now since 2 years. Good progress everything is fine. So as you see, from that point, this stuff is really a part of me and my life.

Next thing, I never took LSD, but i´m interested into it.

Now i come to the point of my question, at the moment i have lot of stress at my work - this situation now lasts since some months, but i can manage this, it´s not a problem for me, i can work against this stress. I´m also feeling great most of my time, very motivated, never sad, also my life is really nice.

But for me it´s like i´m stuck in some kind circle which is always the same.
Each new week i´m planning to have a good time at the weekend, to take some magic mushrooms or even some LSD or smoke DMT
(these 3 options are available for me on the weekends).

Each week i´m looking forward to it, than when the week is nearly over, for example thursdays - i´m exited that the weekend is comming...

And then when the lovely weekend starts and i have the time and no stress to start a psycedelic experience, i´m not doing it.
For example on saturday evening, i started to overthink the situation, what is if that happens, or what is if these and that, this overthinking is now crashing my planned trip since ~2months.

The end is, that the weekend passes away, i´m not taking any psycedelic and the stressfull week starts from the beginning, as i said, like a circle.

What can i do to stop this overthinking when i´m planning to take psycedelics?
I´m not really afraid of it but this situation is holding me back.

It reminds me of standing at a cliff, i can jump down into the water, i know nothing will happen or that there is no chance in getting injured, but i´m not jumping of this cliff, just standing there and looking down into the blue water.

Ha, I know that feeling, out of a 2 week waiting period, 4 or 5 weeks arise. Most of the time I just wait until the time is right. You can "force" the right time with Benzodiazepines, if you like. They use diazepam at the emergency to tone down bad trips, so predosing with a 10mg diazepam (equivalent) helps me, especially with new drugs I'm not familiar with. Harmala MAOIs and diazepam are okay together - nontheless, get a 2nd opinion - e.g there's a whole thread about this issue on the Nexus. If the trip gets to weird, pop another 10mgs of diazepam.

Thank you for your reply, yes i already read about the diazepam solution,

but i would be more interested to know how to solve this without diazepam when this overthinking starts again. Just do it?

Never had a bad trip, so i think some part of the anxiety in taking the psycedelic is the imagination of what a bad trip can be... i really hate this overthinking - it´s my only problem i have

Well planing ahead can be beneficial. Do you have any vacation time? I am in the same position with full time work. Weekends I am burnt out & have headaches. I feel the call but have not brought myself to trip just yet.

I work monday-friday so my solution is to take a vacation in the warmer months starting on a Wednesday & running thru Friday so I have 3 days off + the weekend to relax & reflect.

With brews in particular I find I need 4-5 days at least of worry free time. That way I can rest & get energized while setting intention, dieting healthy & light, & arrange a quiet, comfortable, secluded place with a sitter I would feel comfortable with in any possible situation.
The last few days are needed for recovering mentally & relaxing before going back.

It seems like a bit much, but that formula has proven time & time again to provide me with the best experiences.

As for over thinking, it seems to cause some anxiety initially sometimes. But if you have enough experience tripping & do not get in over your head dosage wise, working through anxiety during the onset & being able to pull yourself out of tough or un-wanted thoughts should come easy.

Hey...

Being afraid of psychedelics is a perfectly natural, and I'd risk that "the correct" attitude. Fear is good, it makes you cautious and prevents you doing stupid things.

I'm also afraid of psychedelics, even though I love them. I've had many situations when I decided not to drop a dose I planned, out of fear that the integration period may mess up my ability to focus on some upcoming task in my civilian life. I've had innumerable cases when I postponed a dose because of sub-optimal set and setting.

The few cases when I overrode such worries ended with my least enjoyable psychedelic experiences. Using medication may be a possibility to force the right setting, but the strongest "medication" I've ever used is Saint John's wort tea, and I have a level of fear about "forcing" settings.

Here's my suggestion: treat psychedelic journeys as a ritual, as a holy festivity.

When I was a kid, preparing for the Christmas festivities took about a week. Getting all the food, cleaning the house, planning the meal, inviting guests. A festivity, same as a ritual, is a prepared and delineated time and place for experiencing something out of the ordinary - be it a few hours of intimacy with your family, or a communion with the spirits.

Prepare for your trip similarly. Clean up your apartment. Finish any unfinished work. Make sure you won't be disturbed. Get a tripsitter or journey partner. This will not only help ease your fear, but also lower the chances of a bad trip.

Up until about an hour ago, I was in the same boat as you. I haven't smoked DMT since the early fall, and each time I would get the opportunity to smoke, I would squander it on excuses, like I would rather smoke weed, or there would be a particular stressor in my life or something. Some advice I can give to you, is to try and make occasions out of the whole thing. For example, I knew that Martin Luther King Day was coming up, and I thought, "I don't ever remember smoking on MLK day," so the process of making a whole event out of the smoke session gave me the will to go through with it.

The other piece of advice I can give you is that there are times when you just need to push through all the fear and excuses. I've smoked DMT over a thousand times. It's usually quite tense mounting up to each time. There's no getting around it. Is it uncomfortable to push through fear? Of course. But once I have the vapor in my lungs, that's all out the window. Have some faith in yourself that everything will work out just fine, even when conditions may seem a little less than ideal.

I also have been overthinking a lot. A member of this Forum replied on one of my posts with the simple words ‘less thinking, more smoking’.

He was right and I acted accordingly. From that moment on everything accelerated and I smoke DMT now so easily that I sometimes cannot believe it myself.

If you train yourself to enjoy every moment, being present to the here and NOW, then you will come to appreciate the moment when psychedelics do come into fruition and you can have a more intimate experience with that moment.

Maybe your constant projection into the future, the looking forward towards the weekend, is subtly creating a constant looking ahead in your mind, so when the moment comes, it doesn't reach the expectation which ones mind was continuously grasping at, for you haven't trained the mind at being present, but rather, looking into a predicted future, creating an expectation which may or may not be as climatic as the imagined event.

CazmanO43, very well said. I agree with your words for 100 %.

Cazman043 is right. Expectations have tarnished a lot of experiences for me, its like if a film gets really hyped up I start to create imaginary and often unrealistic hopes, and when they inevitably don't get reached I end up disappointed whereas if I had just watched it with a blank mind I might have enjoyed it a lot more.

Future thinking is really over rated, its like your brain is creating a fantasy version of an event that hasn't happened yet and inducing emotions from this non existent experience. This ends up, for me at least, as a self sabotage exercise and results in me just staying in my comfort zone only to then torture myself later with what I could have done!

But if you don't want to trip then you don't want to trip, no need to force it. I get the odd day where I really feel like its the right time, like there's something in the air and everything feels in balance.

Also maybe try breaking up the week a little with other small things to look forward too, going to a different city to see a show or something on a Thursday for example so there isn't so much pressure for you to make the most of the weekend. Also I always find reading the first time trip reports on erowid gets me in the mood for tripping, they are so articulate.

I would say if you go the diazepam route, only take 5mg as I find 10mg is overkill. 10mg is the biggest dosage they make in a single pill, most people would only get prescribed 2.5-5mg to start. I find 2.5mg under the tongue is enough for me. No need to build a tolerance if you don't have to.

This definitely hits home for me. I find that having a tripping partner can really help alleviate the jitters associated with planning to trip. So for me, I trip with my GF (we live together) and it always feels better knowing you aren't going into it completely alone. And that is saying something because before I met her, I didn't really like tripping with anyone but that is likely because I really have to trust someone fully before taking the plunge with them. That being said, I had a few dark mushroom experiences involving people I didn't know very well which led to uncomfortable situations. Needless to say, I learned my lesson(s).

Tripping is very personal so sharing those experiences, or personal moments, with unfamiliar faces can be unsettling. This is why it always comes back to proper set and setting...

I can relate to a lot of the comments here, I do tend to overthink it and have expectations of the 'perfect moment' to smoke. The desire to do it is there but I can talk myself out of it because such and such isn't right, or the neighbors dogs might be noisy and put me off...etc.

Try not to focus on one particular day to do it, like others have said, some days you just know it's the right time. There's always a bit of anxiety/nerves and it's that that makes your mind talk you out of it, but if set and setting are good and the call is there then like Global says just push through the nerves. This is different to forcing yourself to do it. Personally I would avoid the diazepam route as it might mask your nerves but I think that dealing with them is all part of the experience. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, it's just my personal opinion.

What I find sometimes helps me is just starting off with a low dose such as 15mg or so (in a GVG). I find that this can be a very positive experience to ease you in if you're considering a larger dose. Each time I do this straight away I think to myself "what was I worried about?" Then I'm far more relaxed about the next one, whether it be the same day or a couple of days after.

Good sitter - invaluable