Hola nexians,

while forming an integration circle, we asked ourselves "What do people need?", "What is it, what has to be integrated and how do people do?". Therefore, if you want to support our work, please give a short feedback on the 2 following questions:

i) What "challenges / difficulties / problems" did occur after your psychedelic experience?

ii) How did you cope with them?

Thank you, tseuq

[Originally, I wanted to post this in the new member section - "Welcome discussion", but I was not able to open a new topic there. Can some mod please do so? Thank you.]

i) I understand 'difficulty' as resistance caused by a friction between previous patterns of perceiving and relating to the environment, and the new ones. For me, a difficult integration is one that feels like it demands a radical change in behavior. After a psychedelic experience it's the easiest to notice these new patterns, and a choice is presented between creatively exploring new ways or patterns of being and 'forgetting' these new patterns.

ii) Coping with these difficulties is finding a balance between what I called 'forgetting', and growing or expanding. It can be hard because a psychedelic experience caused by a substance can sometimes leave the valve (of creativity, etc) open, so to say, until the substance stops acting.

I will speak for my Changa experiences specifically, but this does find some echoes to my other psychedelic experiences from a longer time ago ~ ~ ~

i and ii) Society. We are not centered around translating deep sacred experiences anymore so there's a giant gap between the meaningfulness and truth that has been lived and the way humans run these days. When society don't provide ways for integration you have to find them elsewhere. There is a a great psychedelic community, vast galleries of artwork and valleys of sound waiting to be felt, an immense library of more or less ancient wisdom, creating a language in which to translate those experiences. Anonymous persons on the internet opened for the chat can help you through this. The reflex was to dive into that - being part of a subculture. Weirdly, getting more information was a way to integrate that overload of information I had received, decipher in a way.

More specifically with Changa, I was left as to: "How can I integrate something so beyond my perception, something impossible?". It gives birth to interesting learning, and I find her to be much about a sinking feeling, very subtle and in the background, but very much present for weeks/months after.

I have started drawing again and it has become a mean of translating those experiences in visions, in which I melt all of my daily life and experiences too. So it has invaded my life. You can be open and see it, a faint residual or just a feeling, everywhere. It has transformed my imagination and I perceive (and transform) the world and myself through that. It has become a transformation, but not in some grandiose way of big and clear understanding, it's more "sinking", a slow groove. An infusion. It's definitely weird, spiritual in a new sense - like "alright, there is this realm of Divine Imagination, why do people have not experienced it ... I want people to access this ... I can't really".

To make it shorter:

i) No providence of means for integration by mainstream society. Having to accept being transformed by something that both gets me closer to people but also distant in some other way from them (and the "ways" of society). Grounding the experience.

ii) Getting in touch with sub areas of cultures. Creating and accepting to change and trust the flow. Grounding the experience.

For me, after a good psychedelic experience, there is always some thought or feeling that just lingers on. Usually it's a sort of lesson. These are often thoughts like "i should be more appreciative of all the people around me, or the beauty of nature", or "i should spent more time with my family".
So then, in my sober everyday life, i try to incorporate that into my daily routine.

But i also recognize what Aikyo says. Sometimes you just want to talk with someone about your experience, because, especially when your memories of it are fresh, it just has been very meaningfull to you.

I often look at everything with new eyes, right after a deep journey. I believe that during these first few days, your mind becomes a bit like an empty canvas again in the sense that you can reprogram yourself a bit. Change some habits. I think it is vital to try to be as positive as you can during this period, because some of that positivity will stay with you for several months. And the same would be true for negativity.

Thank you, guys!

tseuq

1) I have been challenged by psychedelics in many ways. It can be anything from "you love your mom and she loves you, pick up the phone and call her tomorrow" to "is this world real?".

2) With the straight forward stuff I simply take action (call my mom, work out more, spend more time with kids, etc). There is some middle ground stuff where I need to admit to myself that I've been wrong about something and that sometimes that is not easy for me to do, but it has gotten easier with time. For the more complex core shattering items such as questioning the nature of reality or the origin of intelligence, I pause use of psychedelics and reflect and try to remain calm and not freak out about the question posed. I read about the subject and other's experiences and how they coped. I take free online philosophy courses and read books. I struggled with the nature of reality quite a bit, and after a lot of reading and introspection I came to a satisfying state where I said to myself "You don't know, but does it matter? Who are you to understand such a thing? Simply enjoy the beauty of where you are now".

So my answer boils down to "many things" and "many ways". At the end of the day it has been an ongoing beautiful journey that I think has made me moar aware and a better person.

^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^^