Another new term. Though to be fair, I have been using it and the related concepts/ methodologies for almost 30 years.


Mental Backflip

Not quite ego death, but the process necessary to get on top of a wild trip experience. It is akin to throwing oneself backwards into the unknown purposefully in order to flip one's egoic mind and come out the other side more confident, empty and in control. Generally, it involves some form of quiet sitting meditation where one detaches from the stream of thought and becomes an observer of the flow. In this way, the content of the flow ceases to be directly experienced as happening inside of one's mind or happening to one, but as a parade of, often meaningless, external stuff. Anything truly valuable that floats by can be easily retrieved, but it is generally mostly garbage. Very polluted or disturbed minds can be like sitting by a sewage canal.

Like physically doing a backflip, it works best if done with concerted effort, because any hesitation or resistance can slow or stop the flip. If done correctly, one flips sufficiently to see the ground before even finishing the ascending thrust of the jump... while upside down. At this point one can be 100% sure one will finish the rotation, and is confident that one will land on one's feet, with a clear idea of where that landing will take place. Done wrong, one can flip so slowly that the rotation isn't completed until just before one lands, panting and heart racing, on one's hands and knees. If one won't let their view of the ground go at all, it is possible to not flip, and simply jump backwards and land on one's back. In rare instance, one CAN land on one's head. Though, in truth, these misfires are more like falling backwards, than flipping per se... and are more likely to occur when not attempting the Mental Backflip intentionally, but simply from instability, or being uprooted.

The flip can be done fairly quickly by a regular, experienced meditator, and is ideally done early on in an entheogenic journey. The benefits will last for the rest of the trip, and often mean the difference between rewarding and enlightening journeying, and head tripping. It should be noted that CEV's being stronger than OEV's, mental backflipping can intensify the trip considerably at first, and can be experienced as a "burning through" or a "trial by fire." Like getting to the "second wind" while jogging, it can involve some discomfort before coming out on the other side. Practitioners of the backflip method, though, feel that it is the supreme preventative (and curative) method against bad trips. Naturally, this method is less called for when using substances that are inherantly less head trippy or instill their own clarity. Also, the short duration of the smoalked spice experience makes mental backflipping irrelevant.

It generally takes between 15 min and 2 hours to accomplish a genuine flip. Though, it can be done anywhere from nearly instantaneously, to nearly taking up the entire trip, based on the force of the leap and the focus of the flipper.



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As always, comments are appreciated.

Link to the HL entry:

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m..._lexicon#Mental_Backflip

Hm, so in a nutshell, When you first feel any effects of the drug you start meditating ? Does the ability of making a backflip strongly correlate with sober experiences with meditation ? Can the feeling of a finished backflip be described with words or is it moar "you'll know. Believe me" ?

I would love to try this on my next LSDventure so the maor instructions the better

The meditation can be started even before the first effects show themselves, and the backflip can be attempted at any point in a journey. It is just easiest and most effective to get it out of the way early on.

Yes, experienced meditators will find it easier to do than people without any skills in this arena. (generally) The tools one can use are basically identical, only when applied with psychedelics and the intention of subjugating a rising trip, the actual experience of utilizing the tools is altered rather strongly. A poor analogy might be playing music alone in your room vs. playing music on stage at a huge open air. The feedback loop and sense of importance is much higher and can either make the process more intimidating, or much more inspired if you stick with it and rise to the challenge.

Interestingly enough, there are people who can not meditate for shit while sober, who find that mental backflipping on psychedelics is relatively easy for them. The more one pointed one's intention, the faster and easier it goes. In this way, it can be more like laser focused contemplation than purely passive quiet sitting.

The meditation leading up to the mental backflip builds and generally leaves the passive "mind stilling" of normal meditating and begins to crescendo in an intensified psychedelic flood. There is a distinct sensation of a flip at the peak, and all the tension and intensity subside into a post backflip bliss. This is often occumpanied by some of the more impressive side effects of serious meditation... wildly enhanced perception, inner peace, startling clarity, and can even include 360 vision or mild OOBE stuff as well. The main factor in knowing that you have completed the backflip is that you are thoroughly controlling your trip, and any sense of being ill at ease, any trepidations, egoic motor-mouth, emotional upwellings, or malaise not only vanish, but are not likely to come back again for the duration of the journey.

After your first mental backflip, you will wonder how you ever tripped without it. Some people find that repeating a mantra is easier than simply letting the flow pass by. A combo technique where your thoughts appear as bubbles rising before you that you then zap with a mantra gun before the thought can take any root works well. A thought bubble rises, point your OM and fire.

Good luck on your next journey.

Yes, I have had this kind of experience, many times. Well, at least I think I have. It started in my nightly dreams, as a very young boy. Until I was 11 or 12 years of age, I regularly had lucid dreams of flying. Often times, I would begin this floating/flying by instinctively doing a backwards somersault, and for some inexplicable reason, in extremely slow motion. Just like doing a back dive into a swimming pool, except I also simultaneously lifted off into the air.

Other times, I held both arms at my sides and manipulated my fingers in specific rhythmic patterns and encoded ways I was always certain, I would definitely remember when I woke up as a terrestrial earthling. Just as with Salvia Divinorum, I begin to loose the secret code, even as my ego solidifies. The powerful Lady always helps me to facilitate such interdenominational shifts in consciousness.

As well as rip my ego off and dissolve it into trillions of blinking, pulsing spots of buzzing, crackling points of scintillating light eyes (cosmic thought bubbles)! This is frequently coupled with a remembrance of something that existed before my mind began to categorize and decipher cognizable, humanoid conceptions and the very bread n' butter of incarnate mortality.

Seems simple enough from the other side, thus becoming able to fly in this material dimension, as well. Needless to say, I've only pulled it off on the astral planes. But I did have this exact sensation about a month ago, totally sober and sitting in formal meditation. It has happened before, so I was not surprised by the urge to step outside (inside) of my material frame and flip backwards into an alternate dimension. I don't usually explore the astral realms, since I am so obsessed with the immersion within the insubstantial core of the Clear White Light of the Void.

HF, do you find you interior-self gaining control of mobility in mid-ascension... and do you move forward horizontally through the shift in your perception of an alternate dimensionality? I've spent so much direct intent, arising vertically, I often forget to check out the parameters within these stacked levels of awareness. There is so much to perceive!!!

Yeah, RS, I notice that twists, spins and spiral motions often facilitate easy access to states that might be more difficult to reach in a more linear fashion.

With OOBEs, for instance, when trying to detach from the physical body, it is easier twist out or rotate on the horizontal plane than to simply rise out or sit up... sometimes anyway.

With Lucid Dreaming, often spinning in circle or doing flips can ground you in the current dream especially if done before the dream really begins to fully dissolve. It is kind of counter-intuitive, because you would think that spinning in a circle might loosen your hold on the dream world or enable you to let it go and that the world you return to would be different than the one you started spinning in...

Anyway, brother. The basic mental backflip as it applies to tripping, is more of a complete monkey mind reset. It is a lot like the second wind that you get if you run or exercise beyond the apparent wall of your limit and come through empowered and (often) stronger than before. With kung fu practice this is noticeable mostly when holding qi gong postures for any length of time. If you can burn through the jitters and the burn, you come out the other side solid and can stand comfortably in positions that were tearing you a new one before.

All the best RS
HF

Wow that sounds like a great skill to have, my much less sophisticated method when things seem to get too hectic is to attempt to concentrate for a split second on everything that is happening and in a psycedelic sense sink or dive.
It cant be maintained so it tunes out a great deal leaving me in a tranquil state either through the hyperspace door or in candlyland. Like diving to the bottom of a deep pool and floating back up.

I must thank you hyperspacefool and global for your amazing recollections they have jolted lost memories of mine I truly believe you and many others have a gift from hyperspace. Something somewhere has chosen you to pass the message on so to speak.
The last memory jogged was of a meeting with what can only be described as a 4 dimensional jolly weeble man. My brain is grasping at a comparison with the fat controller from The Railway
He was spinning and contorting but in bursts and in a playful fun manner, you know the way He was also communicating with me telepathicaly in a non verbal language.
He had 3 others with him one a being made of shapes who was also tesselating as were the other 2.
They were stood in a simple line in a rectangular room.

hyperspacefoolIts incredible that I also saw the harlequin jester that you mentioned yet I hadnt been on the nexus for years so suggestabality is ruled out!
Of course I am sure there are infinite sub types of the harlequin jester however that doesnt make it any less amazing!
Have you mentioned it on erowid before? Or on the nexus before this year?

Cheers people keep up the good work! Pioneers!

Welcome back DreaMTripper!

Thanks for reviving this long dormant thread. The Mental Backflip is something that his been calling me of late. Long periods of using dissociatives with my tryptamines and other psychs has limited my need for the technique, but there is nothing quite like a good mind flip to give you that ol' riding the lightning feeling.

(much better than having the lightning riding you IMHO)

Glad to here that you are also familiar with our lovely Hyperspace Harlequins. The Jester motif seems to be nearly as common as the folding tesselating rooms. While some might suggest that we are hardwired to see Jesters for some reason, this doesn't seem altogether likely to me. I believe that we really need to ask ourselves why some of these archetypes are so omnipresent in cultures and time periods that have no logical connection to each other... how it is that dragons, elves, gnomes and floppy hatted jesters are found the world over and are generally associated with entheogens.

If there is even a remote chance that entheogens take us to a real and consensual place and that these beings are independent and hyper-intelligent (as seems to be the case) than it deserves serious analysis and exploration.

Just as NASA is about to head back to the moon in a few hours... which makes me giddy... I am convinced that we psychonauts are still the vanguard of human exploration, and quite possibly human-alien contact.

(I suppose my last few paragraphs belong in another thread that deals directly with those topics... but whatever. DMT is not always tidy business and can not be put in nicely labeled cubbyholes. heheheh)

Great to see that you have come back to the Nexus amigo...
HF