Fellow Nexians,

I'm curious as to what a few of your goals are for psychedelic use? Self-improvement/psychoanalysis, understanding of the universe, seeking an answer to that Question, just plain fun, what? Have any of you achieved your goals, and how do these goals relate to your worldview/ the meaning your attribute to life?

Have psychedelics been able to turn your pessimism into enthusiasm,your atheism into deism, your depression into a realization of repression and a will to break free...

Has anyone been left vaguely bemused by psychedelics, unable to find a greater meaning for which they yearned, or just generally unable to feel like they change anything? Is it because you consider yourself too skeptical or a realist?

What would you say to convince a someone who doubts the utility of psychedelics? Which psychedelics are particularly useful for you, or not so much?

Looking forward to your answers, hopefully this turns into a long thread

I initially ventured into psychedelics out of curiousity. When I discovered their potential, I continued to take them for self-improvement. "Know thyself". I don't have any goals with psychs. Having a goal means there is an end. The psychs will never end with me. I consider psychs vital for my health, just like food and water. Healthy body, healthy mind.



It's like you read my mind. All of these things apply to me.



Nope. But I do approach psychs with a healthy dose of skepticism. I know that I didn't turn into Anubis or Kali while on DMT, it just felt like I did. But that's more than enough of a feeling.



I would question them on what they do to improve themselves. If they have something, then I compare psychs with that. It's all about speaking to them in a way that they will understand. I tell them I seek liberation, and to explore my conciousness. The most typical response being "Why do you want to escape reality?". I say "I'm not escaping, I'm exploring". "But why don't you explore in the real world"? "Who says I don't? I go out every weekend, not to clubs or pubs, but to the forests and bushlands. I'm always exploring". But there are A LOT of people who thinks psychs just induce pretty colours. So I talk about the psilocybin studies on cancer patients, the ayahuasca clinics used to treat addiction and the general positive effects of psychs that everyone on the Nexus and myself have experienced. I have converted A LOT of people by talking to them this way. The only people who were not convinced were people too scared to journey within.

To bring flexibility in perception. The regular visit to profound perception shift keeps one out of painful fixative conditioning (that has to break sooner or later).

By avoiding "fixative conditioning", you're referring to the idea that psychedelics can renew what someone has been "imprinted" with? Update the imprint so to speak?

The old blue-print does not necessarily have to leave or change IMO, but it gets quite profound competition due the psychedelics. Like you only saw your neighbor (and his/her voice, opinions etc) and then suddenly there seems to be a street, a town, country, planet. Now the opinion of the neighbor is still there, but also a ton of other voices, perceptions and opinions who are, as you can guess, different from the good ole neighbors one.

Making conclusions gets now pretty more difficult of course, contradictions more than ever, etc. so in that regard it doesn't get easier. But it does get easier in living with contradictions, less need for hard conclusions, more at ease with not knowing, less fear for not having a clue. Less fear for fear in the end. Is what I mean with more flexible.

The old fixative conditioning were like grasping to straws. Nothing wrong, only natural.
The psychedelics learn to not grasp, but let go.
Grasping: one has to constantly fight for it to maintain, it exhausts, and thus hurts.
Letting go: seems like loosing something, yes maybe some "thing" , but this is weird to me: it feels like a way to encompass more, to give a "thing" and gain more, hard to explain

I've no hopes to get something out of psy's. It would imply to gain something I already know. I rather let the course develop itself. Usually I do not get answers to my questions anyway, they fastly look infantile

I work with psychedelics to find complex questions, most of which I will never be able to answer. But for me, it is the search that is the most important aspect. If we could always easily find what we were looking for, life would be bleak and pointless. Funnily enough, it seems exactly that way to some.

I broke away from my family's religion before ever touching a psychedelic. Their views made less and less sense as I grew older. Now, I feel more connected than I ever have albeit slightly confused about some powerful experiences. They (my family) read their Bible to feel "God" but they would laugh at me and label me a loony tune if I ever said that I thought I may have met him once while on "drugs." To be fair, I'm still unsure of anything that happened in that experience.

I know this isn't necessarily a religion thread but that is where it is most applicable in my life. As scary as it may be to not know what is out there, it is equally thrilling and interesting. I feel that psychedelics open up the mind to all possibilities allowing one to be more forward or progressive with their thinking.

I also work with psychedelics because I get to enjoy them with the love of my life. I can't explain the connections felt with her through mere words but "perfect" would be a good start. Don't get me wrong, we've had tough ones, confusing ones, blissful ones, and everything in between but when travelling somewhere far away, I always feel like it is nice to share the moment(s) with someone special. I don't want to ramble on forever but those are just a couple reasons...for me anyway...

Knowledge of self

everything.
its the basis of my existance.

I don't try to convince anyone about anything psychedelic...

(It is futile gesture, and in worse-case scenarios, can land you in the loony bin or prison...
Believe me, I know first hand)

Either you're cut out to be a psychonaut, or you're not.

Only way to know for sure is try once or twice or so & find out.

Actually, this wasn't my original intent. Originally it was just to see what they could teach me, but it's led to that now

Psychs, [especially smoked DMT and ayahuasca] have healed me from addictions to alcohol, tobacco, opiates, and ketamine.

They really showed me what's important and made me realize what I had to do to live a balanced life.

All I do to present the path to others is share my story of HEALING along with some Terence style wacky out-there descriptions. Most people I think it may help and could handle it seem to respond to my conversational tactics. When people say, "i don't know if I'm ready." I say, "YOU will never be ready because in the deep trips YOU won't be there, only the isness." I also emphasize that my descriptions DO NOT even touch the gravity and intensity of the experience. It must be experienced to be ascertained.

Since getting healed psychs have helped me find inspiration, spirituality, and my imagination. I love exploring the rivers, oceans, and mountains of the omniself; taking in the splendor of the omniself as deeply as possible while still remembering that I will never be finished.

This journey doesn't stop at the grave IMO. Psychs are a practical exploration of different dimensions of life and death.

Use of psychotropics and especially Entheogens in a big part of being a human.

We will not pull the world out of the dark age [or rebuild it after the dark age-for the pessimists] without entheogens.

I like this question, let me answer.

Since a very early age I have been plagued by existential contemplation. Strangely I can remember being only 3 years old and having this warped simulation of jesus refuting himself playing through my mind idly. Basically, in my undeveloped little world I was thinking 'what if jesus isn't the real jesus??'

I don't know what sort of structural damage, lesion or infirmity would cause such an extreme inclination to contemplation of this kind, but I have in such a short span of time (26 years) grown prematurely weary of theism, philosophy, psychology, metaphysics.. because my brain has been helplessly glued to those spheres since I was old enough to recognize myself as a seperate entity from my mother. It's for this reason that I can relate as much as I do to psychonauts and psychotics alike, without ever having tried any psychedelics or ever being admitted to a psych ward or assigned a shrink... And that's why my interest in psychedelics differ significantly, as far as I can tell, from what is commonly attributed as the focal point for pursuing them -- existential stability. Something I beleive I've more or less found in my own way, without psychs or shrinks or god.

My attraction to psychs and dmt and mescaline particularly, can be explained simply by the old addage 'variety is the spice of life'. I want to have the visions, the journey, the carnival ride, too. I want to experience it for myself, because other people's descriptions of their experiences on psychedelics are quite beautiful.

tldr After reading Huxley's Doors of Perception my curiosity was piqued.. that was almost 10 years ago now and still haven't found time for it. But I'm getting there!

Seeing patterns that our brains are ordinarily not optimized to see.

Blessings
~ND

Some really great responses It's interesting that DMT really seems to be a favorite in relation to achieving everything the psychedelic experience has to offer, as opposed to shrooms or ayahuasca analogues. I personally find the later most effective.

[I ask this to everyone] Have psychedelics at times shown you certain non-personal/objective truths that have actually had a really negative impact on you?

For me, many of my psychedelic voyages have been beautiful, but many also seem to be pointless... And I find this pointless, when present even when my ego is not, to be a really depressing thing. Has anyone else experienced this feeling of pointlessness, and what in what ways do you cope? (positive nihilism, using psychedelics as a means to convince yourself of anything etc.)

I disagree with that, at least for me.

I find the vaped DMT experience to be way too much, too fast, with too little recall to be hugely useful. It's amazing and awe-inspiring, but I at least don't find it as productive.

Psilocybin mushrooms have always been the way for me.

Blessings
~ND

I have to somewhat agree with ND on this one, although the key word here is "somewhat".

My go-to for the last 35 years has been LSD, hands down...I also do have several hundred Psilocybin mushroom trips under my belt, but compared to the several thousand LSD trips I have undergone, I'll take LSD any day of the week.

That being said, in the last decade I have had very little time or inclination to utilize such relatively long-acting psychedelics like LSD or Psilocybin in the relatively high dosage ranges (what used to be my "norm", i.e. heroic dosages) needed to get to that "sweet spot" of total annihilation of all concepts & ego-related tendencies.

So what I have done is adjust my approach to psychedelic usage & dosage. I use LSD & Psilocybin on a more regular basis in micro-doses these days.

Then, on those occasions, when the calling is in my heart for a reminder of exactly why I began using psychedelics to begin with, I'll pull out my sacred DMT pipe & vape anywhere between say 20-60 mg. In the short, consensus reality time-frame of 10-15 minutes, I can once again be reminded & then I'm through it & do not feel the need for that type of intense-ness again for quite a while (say, like anywhere between a couple weeks or couple months).

IF (and yes, that is a big IF) I actually had the time (which, as I stated previously, I don't), I'd much rather go with anywhere between 500-2000 mcg dose of LSD any day though.*

Talk about a "sweet spot", oooh baby, yeah!!!

Love Surrender Devotion



*Noobs: Do not attempt this kind of dosage range with LSD unless you are a seasoned, well-worn psychonaut. This was stated for constructive conversation purposes only & I nor the nexus cannot be held responsible for any stupid thing you might attempt because you read it here.

Mostly they serve me as a tool for triangulating reality and gaining perspective, which can be great for self-development and general appreciation of existence. Secondarily, they are great for enhancing music and other artistic expressions, general inspiration and further enjoying nature and sex.

To ride the chemical surfboard on the waves of non-determinism.

I agree