Hey there to everyone who might be reading this. I just wanted to introduce myself and explain why I'm interested in joining your community here.

I've been interested in psychedelics since my late teens, and had my first experience with san pedro soup just before my 21st birthday, followed by various experiences with lysergamides and psylocybin over the next few years (I'm in my mid twenties now). The san pedro experience was intense, and quite difficult, as it wasn't facilitated or guided by anyone except for my slightly irresponsible younger friend who had suggested we do it in the first place, but I was able to integrate it over the next few months and it helped me get started on a path which I think has been good for me, involving meditation and greater openness towards others.

I didn't go into any of those experiences with any sort of goals towards bettering myself; just curiosity and a desire to experience something beautiful that could provoke a sense of visceral awe. I feel like the experience of that sense of beauty and awe can have beneficial effects in itself though.

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In the past 18 months I've only used psychedelics recreationally (or at all) once, as I'm kind of trying to focus on being a functional and productive person, since I want to be able to better the lives of those around me and society as a whole in some way, and that requires a basic level of functionality. However, now I'm sort of stuck at an impasse. I have a bunch of chronic health problems, both mental and physical. I have ADHD, and have since I was a child, which makes developing and maintaining healthy and productive habits incredibly difficult, as well as impacting my ability to work effectively at university. I had blood cancer as a teenager, and though it was cured (as blood cancers are one of the only ones that can be), the treatment left me with some joint problems which make exercising painful and possibly harmful if I'm not careful, as well as leaving me with an under-active immune system that leaves me prone to getting seriously ill a few times a year, along with a general sense of pervasive fatigue. I also have depression that comes and goes, leaving me listless and apathetic, which seems almost insurmountable to overcome with my own effort in combination with all of the other issues I have.

I know that the way to overcome all of those difficulties will involve a lot of effort, and for the last 18 months or so I've been making serious efforts to shape my habits and affect those things I do have some measure of control over so I can take steps towards being functional and feeling good in myself. Unfortunately, because of the depression and the ADHD (which as per Dr Russel Barkley, should really be called Self-Regulation Deficit Disorder rather than Attention Deficit Disorder), it's been very hard to be consistent, as I often lack the energy to do basic tasks, and I find it intensely difficult to stick to the habits and goals I set for myself.

So I'm sort of in a catch-22 situation. To overcome the apathy and fatigue which is impairing my ability to do the things I want to do, the most effective things are regular exercise, consistent sleep patterns, and a healthy diet. I'm pretty good with the sleep, but all of my attempts to exercise have failed after a couple of weeks or a month, due to pain or fatigue or apathy or falling ill, and a healthy diet requires having the energy to cook yourself a meal and the forethought to buy ingredients in advance, both of which I often lack. I have a good friend who is trying to help me, but there's a disconnect between my desire to be functional, which is constant, and my motivation to take the steps needed to do so, which fluctuates with my mood.

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What does any of that have to do with DMT? Well, from the research that I've read, DMT is likely to be very helpful for depression. I've heard anecdotal reports of people who've smoked DMT throughout the day, just at threshold doses, and it's cleared up their depression the next morning. Part of that maybe be because of action on the sigma receptors, which DMT has a high affinity for, and which the most effective antidepressant, Amitriptyline, also has a high affinity for; on top of that, DMT is thought to have neuroprotective effects and promotes release of BNDF, both of which are thought to be effective antidepressant mechanisms.

The sort of deeply meaningful experience offered by an ayahuasca ceremony has also probably got antidepressant effects in itself, outside of the pharmacological effects of DMT and Harmalas(as evidenced by those studies with psilocybin which showed the antidepressant effect resulting from the experience was directly proportional to how deeply meaningful or spiritually significant it was). Depression has a pretty strong existential component which I feel tends to be ignored or written off as incidental to the apathy and low mood, but I think the existential aspect of depression is just as important as the other aspects of it, since your existential outlook shapes your basic approach towards the world.

I'm attracted to the idea that maybe if I attend an ayahuasca ceremony I might receive a healing or blessing of sorts that would allow me to make use of myself towards productive ends and overcome this pervasive apathy. This doesn't have to be an explicit healing; just an experience that would reconnect my experience of my lived actions to a sense of meaning and purpose, or something close to that. An impetus. I don't know how realistic of a hope this is, and I'm not pinning all of my hopes of bettering myself on that possibility or expecting a magic bullet, but it's something I'm interested in trying.



So I'm interested in DMT from a personal perspective. I study Neuroscience at university though, so I'm interested in it from an academic perspective as well. I'm also very into cognitive science, the philosophy of mind, and science and philosophy in general. I very much like the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in the phenomenological analysis of experience, and the work of Evan Thompson in the phenomenology of meditation and dreaming, and his work Mind in Life, about embodied cognition and the foundational basis of subjective meaning as arising from a self producing and maintaining system.

Anyway, I hope that wasn't too much information. I look forward to learning from all of you and I hope I'll be able to contribute something worthwhile to this community during my stay here

Hello, thanks for telling about yourself.

It sounds like you have alot of interesting things going on, what with university and everything else.

The Nexus has tons and tons of good resources and helpful folks, it may end up being a good support area for you.

I hope you enjoy your adventures.

Taking long walks is just as effective as intense physical exercise, but it doesn't have the same impact on the joints. It can also be helpfull when you're studying, because when you walk, you can reflect on things as much as you want. When i studied philosophy, i always took a long walk whenever i had a presentation or an exam, and i just rehearsed the stuff in my mind during these walks. And it realy helped.

True that, and can be combined with one of the wonders of modern technology Geocaching too! Nice circular walks with a treasure hunt in between help with focusing and give that childlike buzz of knowing you could have to hide from other people to not get caught logging the cache as well as setting up your own. Relieves boredom alongside making one sleepy and keeping fit without the pain.

Interesting intro post too, learned some stuff regarding DMT and depression. thanks.