Wow - hi everyone, it’s amazing, exciting and inspiring to read here. I feel like there are some serious minds around here and that there’s an incredible atmosphere of learning and openness and freedom.
So about me, where to start. I'm insatiably curious about things I'm interested in, and now that I've reached ripe middle age I'm happy enough to say that I'm most interested in psychedelics, consciousness in general, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology (that is if you can really stick my interests into these label things. I'm just super curious to the point of feeling itchy). I like altering my consciousness and see it as a way to learn about myself and the world we live in. I also find it, at the moment, more helpful than psychotherapy, which has been great for me also. I like thinking about consciousness. I have been studying psychoactives ever since I discovered Erowid as a teenager. The whole subject fascinates me endlessly. Unfortunately I have no academic background whatsoever, being deeply schooled in art and almost nothing else. Didn’t even take chemistry or any of that exciting stuff in HS as I was (ineptly) homeschooled. Completing some parts of that questionnaire just about broke my brain! But I loved it and I'm trying so hard to understand!
I did so much theoretical study before dipping my toe into any psychedelic waters and had my first true psychedelic trip aged 30, on 2CB, and it felt like coming home - I'd always thought there was a possibility I wouldn't like the experience so it was really special to understand the familiarity and peace which comes to me from tripping.
- I'd had a little dose of mushrooms before once, but it was so light that I didn't really discern the effects, between the staying up incredibly late and probably drinking way too much as I was wont to do in those days.
- I started smoking weed when I was about 20, and it became quite the ally for me. I still have it every day, but after a spell of nicotine addiction my relationship to MJ has changed (for the better). Love my vape and love MJ's panacea qualities.
- I love LSD and one of the most heavenly and therapeutic experiences of my life was when I turned off the phone and went hiking in the forest by myself on a warm sunny day having eaten the remainder of my stash, wow, it was like my brain was being cleansed. I have never felt this "bodyload" people speak of wrt LSD. I think it might be my favourite.
- But I also love mushrooms. I deepened my relationship with them this summer and tried my hand at cultivating them, wow, what an incredible experience! What an incredible teacher. Maybe they're my favourite - I need to visit them again and again and learn more. I'm definitely going to grow more.
- I've done DMT twice. I don't think I broke through but the experience was truly special and again oddly familiar. I wasn't ready to go back for a long time afterwards, I was surfing some very choppy life waters, but now... I'm about to do an extraction and go again. Well. We'll see what success I have, I'm not that confident, so I need to read for a few more days or weeks and then go for it, because I believe the intention and the vibe that I have during the extraction will be important too, and if I go into it feeling like an inept idiot I'll possibly create a self-fulfilling prophecy and end up with something that can't even be flushed down the loo.
Oh yeah. I'm also extremely interested in endogenous tripping. Have had a lot of super strange experiences with that. I'm a lapsed shamanic practitioner. I think I'm afraid to journey because when I have done it it has been so intense that I've kind of scared myself.
I don't know what I've got to bring to this community other than my curiosity because I sure as hell don't have the kind of expertise that seems to be floating around here. I thought I was pretty well up on things but then some parts of that questionnaire kicked my ass a bit, so I'm delighted to look forward to learning, learning and more learning!
Until we are all free, we are none of us free.
Emma Lazarus