Well, I don't even know who I'm writing this post for or whether it will get any attention. But I just have to get it off my chest. It's my responsibility to tell other people.
I took quite a large dose of LSD two days ago and at the peak I took a walk in a park. Great decision. I was experiencing what i would call daoist existence. I was just strolling along, doing my legs what they want to do, looking at things and contemplating them. For example I discovered the fractal nature of trees (it was winter) and wondered who did that. I realized the tree probably didn't do it, because I didn't order my body to grow the way it did either (even though I would like to do that, haha). Well, I was totally at peace with myself and the world, as there were essentially no more boundaries between myself and other beings of any kind. And it was just so dignified and somehow grown up. I felt like an adult for the first time in my life. I could think straight for the first time. Culture literally poisoned my thinking, made me childish and afraid.
So, you know, I was just thinking about this and walking along and then I was at the river. It's like a little island in the city, an island of nature. And them I'm looking back at the city and it turns out, I'm able to judge it completely unprejudiced. I had been catapulted completely outside of the culture. And I realize through that that the metaphor "jungle" for "city" is perfect. Houses are literally like trees. And in the morning all the monkeys awaken in their places in the trees and they put on some funny clothes to look serious and they put on a straight face and do, you know, serious business. Like tipping on a keyboard. Or delivering parcels to other monkeys who couldn't get them themselves because they're to busy doing business. And when all the monkeys are done doing the chores and duties of the tribe they hurry back into their trees. You know, like hush hush the night is coming. Bad people are out there. And you gotta catch some sleep so you can be serious tomorrow and squeeze some movie or something in between there.
And then everyone just goes back into their cell, like in a prison, you know. Until in the morning the doors are opened and there's a meal and work and then you can do stuff with the other inmates. But, the problem with our prison, our society is, there are no guards! Goddammit. We are doing this to ourselves. Get it? I was walking down the streets then, thinking about this and that problem the world has right now. And then i finally got it. I finally knew what should be done. Just STOP. Stop what you're doing, right now. Like, literally stop driving your car, stop getting the groceries, stop watching television, stop consuming like the addict children that we are. If everybody would just do that for a moment and forget who they are in their society, their job, their name, their role. Like the whole world stopped turning. We would have time and the good sense to talk about WHAT is going on and what should be done about it. And i promise you, 90% of the worlds problems would be solved in an afternoon.
People who weren't in the state i was in, so basically everyone around me, would have said, well if I don't go to work a thousand people are waiting to take my position. I will be trampled by people desperate for doing what I'm doing. But the great secret is, that it's worthless. It won't make you happy or sane. All it can do is secure you a relatively comfortable position in society. And I mean that's the best you can hope for and apparently this is what most people are shooting for. And you gotta be thankful for it and say "thank you master" to the culture because a whole lot of people got it worse around here and you might become one of them. And to forget it all you drink your vodka and go to parties where you can literally not talk to people over the senseless drum beats and dance with the other monkeys and then you chug it down with a little television and "funny" internet memes. And that's your damn life? (Excuse the swear words, I am just done being polite about this). Just how anti social is this society?
I mean, I wanted to ask people on the streets, what the hell is this how you want to live your life? Really? I mean, superficially, all of them must say yes, we do want to live like that. Because we get up everyday and keep this machine running. We won't stop it. This steaming pile we call our culture. People are dying! Starving, being shot. Right now, on this earth, dammit. The planet is being destroyed. Why is this not enough to just stop??
You know, all of these "great" cultural revolutions, saying like "we've got the answer". It's ridiculous to assume that all it would have taken is to do just one simple thing. Stop. It doesn't require a life spent in the library, it doesn't require a messiah who travels the world and "enlightens" people. I would even assert that these attempts are doomed to fail, because they are inside the system. The system that is broken and toxic. Just look at communism or national socialism.
All we need to do is stop the engines. And then walk up to each other and ask "um, guys, what the hell are we doing? Did you put that here? Yeah, me neither. Well let's get it out of the way!". And we could learn to talk to each other like real, authentic human beings. This isn't some message like, let's all love each other and it will be alright. No, we need to get our act together and talk to each other. Right now, not on some conference. Not in a talkshow. Right here, on the street. With whoever is with you.
You think a charity will solve it for you? The friendly politician next door? Laughable. Absolutely laughable. Just, look at representative democracy. It's ridiculous. You vote for some person who will vote for another person and this guy is then supposed to represent you in questions like the financial destiny of the country? Who came up with this? I agree it's the best system we have. But that's just because we don't have the creativity and imagination right now to come up with something better.
The tragedy of this is, it could happen tonight. It could have happened every single day in human history. But it just won't. After you're done reading this, if you made it through, you'll think something along the lines of: well ok, I'm going to think about this later and you'll forget it and go right back to work tomorrow just like me. And we'll keep playing the game. I mean I myself did not have the courage to right there and then start it and ask people: "Is this really how you want to live?". I couldn't say it, because it's impolite and insulting and transgressing. But in my eyes it's the only thing that could save us. A complete annihilation of culture. The ultimate lesson from history is that if people tried to make it better, they made it worse. A whole lot.
As Terence McKenna said: "this is too nightmarish to contemplate".

I was wondering for along time why I was so drawn towards psychedelics. And now I know. I was unconsciously desperately looking for an escape hatch from culture. The culture which literally made me insane. Guys, I don't even care about hallucinations or meeting god or anything like that. I mean, that sounds like a fun pastime. It's something you can do on a nice afternoon walk. But we really have other problems on our hands right now.
Well, I'm sober now. I can feel the culture creeping back up on me. It's inescapable even if i cut myself off completely from influence. I have no hope of this idea ever gaining a foothold. It requires too much bravery. We are too childish for it. All I can do is get back in the game like the rest of us. You'll probably wave this off as just a funny idea. That's alright. Thank you for giving this some time.
I'm living in a nightmare right now. Because I know the way, but it just won't be taken. And it's just so simple. It's ridiculously simple.

Welcome back to consensus reality post entheogen catalyzed "mystic" experiencing. Your insights, while profound, are rather ubiquitous, psychedelically speaking. Nomen, your mission is to incorporate your insights into a life "well lived". What ever that means for YOU! Remembering that the meaning of life, IS, life. The value added is yours to add.

While you spend the preponderance of your conscious existence in the mundane mind frame, remember that the mystic glimpse at reality as a unity, is actually accurate. Our capacity to navigate the reality matrix is predicated on our perceptive apparatus, lumping and splitting. To function as meat puppets in the material realm, granularity must be introduced into a system(reality) that is fundamentally seamless.

Culture, while surely not your friend(hat tip T McKenna), is a functional tool. Similarly your experience of "objective" reality as manifold is a functional operation of your apperception and consciousness receiving apparatus, body/mind complex. The tree you appreciate is indeed a fractal construct. What it ISN'T, is a solitary object, separate from its "environment", microscopically and macroscopically. Neither are you. In essence, your experience of AND the actual nature of "reality", is an unlanguagable GIFTING, delivered, moment to moment, by/from???? The Source.

Embrace that Source, live it, love it, be it. You already are, it can't be any other way. Find your own unique Tao and flow with it.

Peace

beautiful, thanks noman

what holds us back is just a cloud of mist around our heads. but as long as it feels solid, it is impenetrable. and this cloud is fear.

the fear, that we lose this fuzzy, warm cloud of addictions that we built around us to avoid the need to face the reality that we were born into and that we help to sustain.

addictions of all kinds - to substances, behaviours, power, safety, approval...

and it is *the most* repelling thought of all - if you are not ready - that you are an addict (as i have no influence on who is reading this, things may go south rapidly, and being around self reflected individuals as i see most people here on the nexus, this does not make a difference).

we also have the tools ready to beat any addiction, easily, without the need "to give up something", without "painful" withdrawals. it is not a wonder pill or a wonder drug, it is a concept based on logic and a change of mind. because when you lose the desire, the need to indulge in addiction just falls off, and one is free again.

check out any book by allen carr, those are the sharpest tools we have.

for your own wellbeing noman, compassion is the key to sanity.
and meditation to a clear, happy state of mind.

good luck!

P.S.: Do not try to "evangelize" anybody. it will just waste your energy and make you enemies. it is pretty hard if loved ones are suffering, but it is their choice. one can't be mad at them, trying to walk free with the wrong method is like torture and one is doomed to fail in the long run. they may have tried but now they might be too afraid to try again.

I agree, it is almost by the book.

Nomen you find yourself unable to co-ax in your existence as it comes now, or unable to feel in-tune with it. Then you find the source of that mis-tuning in society, culture, modernity, humanity, and the blame game starts. In one go humanity gets responsible for most that goes awkward.

Why are elephants not responsible for stepping on snails and bugs, if not dead then crippling them little lives, while humanity is considered responsible for every single mishap due its being limited on many fronts? Humans are heavily limited and they show. We are limited animals and should be considered so, we are scared, we are afraid, we are driven by impulses and responses much bigger that our brains. You, we, I , fail. We suffer and cause suffer and this is our frame, one deeply embedded in our DNA. Nomen you are at war with what we/you are.

Psychedelics has brought me to understand why we are how we are, that there is a healthy stop to the self-human-blame. It's only logic nature that we want to be rich, to be dominant, to have power, that all this causes trouble. Only deep understanding and embrace (this does not equal ratification!) of this square one departing point, granted it being not an ethically ideal starting point, can become humus for change from within --> so outside.

Anger, discontent, blame, etc, can all be motivators though, but not on par with changes that came out of understanding/compassion with your own limited kind. The difference is for example to calm down a person while you yourself are not calmed down, or you are calmed down. What works best?

If you want to heal the world, you should calm down. Let the rage settle, it is all natural and understandable, good to have OP out of your chest. I bet your best intentions and creativity get born out of a more encompassing understanding than out of duality stance. All that you blame to human kind is YOU yourself. Be gentle to yourself, understand (y)our limitations, work from there.

Yes I am. I am at war with what I am right now. Because I have experienced what I can be. What we all could be. It's not a fairy tale that can only be imagined. It is possible. I have been there, done that.
You know, two days ago I learned the incredible potential human beings have. Every single one of us. Just literally waterfalls of beauty and compassion and intelligence and above all unselfishness. So real that you can grip it. And it's being wasted every second. This is just an outrage for me.

Well, thank you all for calming me down and showing me where I might go from here. I hope I can walk forwards now without drugs. The psychedelic experience isn't really for me. It is too invasive.


I really hope that I will be able to do that.

Pejuta can be very much like a surgical laser at times and at other times a sledge hammer. As such, they are not for everyone. Some people are drawn to a particular pejuta/medicine more than others. Some would say they have acquired a medicine when that medicine becomes a part of them... always able to be utilized whether one has the the physical manifestation of the medicine in ones possession or not. With that being said, LSD is not one of the medicines I am drawn to either. I find other more natural medicines to be much more powerful a tool in my personal tool chest. We use the tools best when we have the experience to use them. Experience which may be gained by shared experiences/culture etc. with others or that experience which is hard gained via ones own life. For me, I prefer nature and natures medicines as unrefined as they may be.... they sit with my more unrefined nature perhaps.... Find your own truth and what works for you so long as it harms none.

Just my own 2 cents as I tend to ramble.

At any rate, it is nice to meet you.

Apparently what I'm saying isn't as sensational and earth shattering to you as it is to me


It is nice to meet you too.
What are those natural medicines you are talking about?

I think quite a lot of people do stop and take objective steps back and have moments of freedom from our prisons, I don't think that is really the problem. If you wander around on weekends and after work hours, people are doing all sorts of things for leisure, play and fun. I think the problem is that work:life balance is waaaaay out of kilter. And after stopping for a while, we feel compelled to go back to being a productive consumer because of social pressures and environmental factors. You still gotta eat at the end of the day, and that means participating in society, i.e. buying food, with money, that was sent to your digital bank account from the Man in exchange for your 38 hours of labour each week.

I agree, we all need a collective, simultaneous wake up, or at least for some form of conventional leader to drop a tab then tell everyone to chill the fk out on the 5 o'clock news.

I think it was David Graeber in his article "Bullshit Jobs" who quoted John Meynard Keynes in saying that by the turn of the 21st century technology will be sufficient enough for us to effectively work 2 or 3 days a week, freeing our time, energy, and headspace to contemplate more meaningful and fulfilling tasks than menial labour. Instead, we've somehow exploited technology to make us more productive and efficient at those same menial tasks and gotten lost in a loop of work to consume to work to consume etc.

I like where your head it at Nomen! Really nice to hear you put it out there. I like your frustration in our species! It is very valid what you are feeling. I hope you can sustain this thought process throughout your life. It will be an invaluable tool for as long as you exist.

Take the ball and run with it I say. If you feel something strongly enough let it guide you in life. Let that be the way you lead your life. Run with LOVE and COMPASSION always! If we all did this all the time the world's problems would be solved in an afternoon as you stated. It would be nice if the world saw things as we can see things when in a psychedelic altered state of consciousness. The sunshine makers of the sixties sought to do exactly that. I applaud such a stance and such a passionate point of view.

You can only change yourself. You will never be able to make someone see things as you see things. So be yourself completely and totally and please try and keep this post in your mind as you grow old. Do not allow these concepts escape you. Keep them close. Hold on to them and remember them. I very much enjoyed reading this post I must say. It brought me back to my youth and a passionate yearning to change the world. It all seems like the world is all so insane sometimes. Please know there is beauty all around us. Beautiful people are everywhere. You are here. We are here. If we feel this way about things, then others surely do as well. Will beauty win out in the end?

Allow the children of the world to fix the problems of the world I say. Give them the reigns and let them guide us. We would all be in a much better place I am sure. One sure thing about psychedelics is that they can bring us instantly into a child like state of wonderment and joy. It can all seem so simple. And I think maybe it could be. It could all be fixed in a single afternoon.

Please keep this in your mind Nomen. As I said, I like where you head is at!! In fact I love where your head is at!!

Ahoi nomen,

it seems that your words resonate through the nexus, echoed by wise words and best intentions from our fellows, and I guess, many people, maybe since the "beginning of human mankind", have been where you found yourself at right now. To me, ultimately, there are just 2 options:

i) Stuck in resignation and despair of what ever "seems wrong" to you. Get lost in "your own interpretation of how the world is/others/you are" and how it/they/you should be, to be "right". Keep struggling and suffering and let the curtain of separation blurry your crystal clear vision.

ii) Breath, go on and see your experience as a metaphor, it is not what it seems to be, it never is.




[edit: compassion vs. empathy "Mitleid" vs. "Mitgefühl" )



Let go of the idea of "trying", you are it, now.

Welcome to the nexus, tseuq

You,my friend,just got the great cozmic joke.

Is it everything is funny and nothing is real,

Or is it nothing is funny and everything is real?

Very fortunate, not to live in a war zone, nor picking for subsistence through garbage heaps.

A privilege of Karma then.

Then truly is up to you. Laugh and be or be laughed at.

Well noman, you've received some of the best advice anyone who has been through an experience like you have can receive. Thank the beautiful people of the Nexus for that. And thank yourself for finding your way here and being able to express yourself so well!

I have had many experiences just like you have expressed in your OP, but that was more than 30 years ago and there was no internet, thus no Nexus.

Like you, I was very eager to change the world, which in my case eventually landed me in the mental ward twice (no worries; I can actually express myself with words very eloquently so the psychiatrists were duly impressed with my sense of sanity and let me out rather quickly both times).

LSD chose me for some reason, to this day I still do not know why. It always finds me no matter where I am and it always has since I was 19 years old. I have never had to ask for it, the universe has always offered it to me for only the price of some life-changing hours.

I would like to add to the wonderful compilation of advice given to you on this thread already and I am going to use a snippet of some already given to preface it:



I would add, clean your room and keep your house in impeccable order. This, believe it or not, literally creates sanity, as does making a daily routine and sticking to it. I kid you not.

Also:



I have tried this and what I stated above happened. This is no lie.

The only real way to change the world is to change yourself into the best, brightness and most kind person that you can be.

May you find Peace

And I appreciate it. I'm a bit overwhelmed by it, to be honest, to the point of sentimentality. You all can write so beautifully and gently. It seems to arise from deep within your hearts. I have never before seen such eloquent people, I mean it.
Thank you.

Hi Nomen,

thank you for this great post. I myself believe the universe gives us signs on a daily basis to try and tell us what we are doing wrong at that moment in our lives. Signs like getting sick, meeting a person, reading something, ... . But we are to busy or to ignorant to notice them. The universe try's to make us understand basicly what you descibed in your post.

And when we don't listen it tries harder like make us really sick or give allot of misery in our lifes, just to learn that lesson.

And hardly nobody listens.

This is why you are drawn for such a long time to psychedelics, because when you take them, the universe can tell you (almost directly) what's the deal, instead of giving small and life changing events (signs) through out your life that people just ignore.

But now comes the problem, when you realise (are being told by the universe) this in one instand you create conflict. You start saying this and that and what people do or do not do is wrong because now I know and they do not. You even wanna go around and confronting people with you new insights, so basicly saying what they believe or do is wrong. And you create allot of conflict.

And the message you got is essentialy about having less conflict in your everyday life (or no conflict at all). How can you stop being enslaved: stop worrying about the future, money, career, materialistic stuff (worrying about this is essentialy conflict).

But you take the psychedelic and you get this extreme life changing message and it instantly creaties a conflict of its own. Of course it does. Its all to much to fast. And apparently on psychedelics it doesnt care if your ready for it or not, there is always a chance if somebody takes them they could get this message.

And sadly some people, like you said, are living a nightmare from then on.

You must do one thing: stop conflict with yourself and with other people,a.s.a.p.

How to do this: conflict is wanting something to happen(or have happend in the past) different. Wanting the world and people to be different or having a hope things will change. So basicly you desire control.
Simply let go of trying to control things.

Its as easy as that :-)

Of course you still will have thoughts and emotions and desires, but thats ok. Dont fight them, even if you think they are negative, because everything you think or feel is how it's supossed to be. Let them manifest and let go of the desire to stop, change or enforce them on somebody (trying to control).
But don't always act according to them.

For example some people say: i wish I never took the psychedelic so I wouldnt know what I know now. They try to controll their past and how they think. Everytime that thought comes up they believe its best to avoid thinking about it because it makes them feel bad.
What would happen if they let go of the desire to change having took the psychedelic and receiving the message. In the beginning they could still feel bad about it and still have bad thoughts about it, but if they decide it is ok to feel this feelings and thoughts?
When they let those feelings/thoughts manifest without judgment (without trying to change or suppress them)

Then they will have total acceptance about it and very rapidly they will embrace it and have taken their first steps in a life lived according tho the message they received.

Just remember it is ok to have feelings, good or bad, and it is your job to let hem manifest in the world, so you can give a little bit energy back to the universe.

You are beautifull and perfect in everyway, everything you do or think or feel and every decision u make or have made is how its meant to be. Nothing more, nothing less.