Why do I feel so terrified every time I'm on the brink, The Machine loaded, lighter in hand? I cannot say I have EVER had a "bad trip" in my life... And yet, I always hesitate, and it takes me MONTHS to build up the courage to dive off the cliff....

For that matter, what's the cliff...

Let's discuss...

Because a trip can be existentially questioning, it may challenge you to the very core and make you have to rethink everything you believed, thought was sure and took for granted.... That's not something you do heedlessly.

Since discovering this website and isolating DMT, life itself feels existentially questioning. I'm now facing the very thing that I was terrified of, and the very thing that makes me teeter on the edge when considering a dive... For me, it is not the trip that contains the terror, but returning to the world and continuing to participate in the play, knowing full-well where we are going, but being unable to share it with anyone in any meaningful way.

These days, my struggle is how I can, or if it is even possible to, continue to participate in and perpetuate the capitalist system by which I put food on my family's table. I continue to go through the motions, but my heart is no longer in the game, and I'm sure it shows. The larger problem is that the company culture I work in is concurrently changing dramatically. It has changed in the last few years from a family company to a corporation, having gone public and now being run by a professional CEO rather than the founder's family. It has become aggressive, and we are encouraged to treat our people like cogs. If they cannot perform at an "a-game" level, they must be replaced. The chances that I will find a place where I will make the same kind of money I do there and be able to sustain my family without my partner working seem unlikely. Even if I could find another place to work, the kind of culture my company is adopting isn't unique. I think we were behind the curve a bit and its surprising that ol' timey mindset lasted as long as it did.... But I digress...

It is something I too struggle with and the funny thing is the better my experiences are the more afraid I become.....

I believe it is nothing more than self sabotage at work or what I like to refer to as
"the gaurdian"....

I always try to imagine that I am simply falling backwards into the arms of God/The Universe.

Do I trust my creator? Of course I do. So why fear? No good reason really.

It's that roll of the dice. That "not knowing" of whats about to transpire. Throwing yourself into the ocean of self. The nervousness is there every single time. You can lessen it to certain degrees, but it's always there. A built in mechanism of sorts for our ego I would say.

Heck, after certain oral and smoked journeys..there's points where I didn't do anything for 8-12 months. Alot of integration was needed. Alot of time to really evaluate why I'm using these things anymore.

The fear or nervousness is only natural...shows respect for the experience. Some reach that point sooner...some later.

We've talked before, Eli, about the struggle between Truth and culture, between Spirit and Mammon...

I liked what you said about our roles as shaman being likened to "undercover agents" for the light, looking for those who are seeking liberation from the system and helping them find the back door... The struggle now is my own desire to slip out the back and get the fuck out of Dodge, to use a mixed metaphor.

This leads me to another existential conundrum when it comes to the Spiritual use of psychedelics in a world where there is none, or very little, mechanism for the shaman to bring these experiences back and integrate them into the wider culture... While these ARE true "peak experiences," which pale ANY I have EVER experienced in Church or in meditation, the culture's resounding rejection of them places me at odds with it in a way that makes goal-oriented happiness difficult to work with. I have never found this to be the case with meditation experiences or moments of Grace in Church.

I'm not saying I reject the use of these substances... On the contrary, when undulating, shifting, fractal-hyperspacial beings stick their strange appendages down your throat so far you gag, truth becomes pretty clear, pretty quick. I, for one, cannot turn my back on truth. But these things do not jibe with culture... Which is why T always told us that "Culture is NOT your friend."

So, I answer my own question thus: psychedelics are scary because our culture rejects as false those things which we bring back from from these other spaces and our fear is that we might not be able to return in one piece, or at least in a condition where we can functionally operate within the confines of a system so opposed to that which we have to offer...

Scared of looking in the mirror?

"We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together."

It's scary to become awakened in the sea of the dead......

Or, perhaps, "It's scary to become awakened surrounded by the comatose."

The scariest thing, with DMT is that feeling that you're dead and you're not coming back... Scarier still, however, is COMING BACK, and having to integrate having been to the other side and how do you go back to the 9-5 and be somebody's boss and get them to be a better capitalist when you know it's all bullshit (to quote Tyler Durden "We're polishing the brass on the Titanic, it's all going down, man" )... Now THAT is real terror.

This is good stuff and I feel the same way.

Merging the two worlds:
My way of coping is to think of ways to integrate my experiences with my work. This usually doesn't pass the thinking stage, but it gets me by. I think that we, as people who have seen the other side, should try to bring something back. I know you say it is impossible, but my view has always been that psychedelics give us the ability to access levels of abstraction and imagination that normal minds cannot comprehend. As TM said, we have the ability to create next-generation art, and we can use this ability to learn, communicate, and manipulate on levels that are inconceivable to minds that are confined to standardized ways of thinking. To me this equates to letting psychedelic concepts and modes of thought flow through us in our respective arts. Your art is just whatever you do from 9 to 5, be it fast food, science, corporate work, or whatever. The less your art resembles traditional "art", the better, because aspects of life farthest from what is considered art are the most worthy for our attempts at artification and because they will be looking in the traditional places. If we can turn everything into art - into a creative expression - then we will have broken down the machine and introduced one of the main aspects of hyperspace (unpredictability) into this world. I think that this is the direction that society progresses naturally. Where our creativity is most useful is in speeding up this progression. If we can foresee the distant future of humanity before anyone else, then we can push to manifest that future ahead of its time.

Leading a decent life:
Every once in a while, some respected CEO comes out as a past user of psychedelics. Sometimes I think the best we can do is to simply live a decent life, gain at least moderate success and the respect of others. Then, when society acknowledges us as model humans, we can come out of the psychedelic closet and say that all of our success, ingenuity, and love was made possible by psychedelic experiences that we had back in our golden years. I consider myself to have been virtually unconscious before LSD turned my life around, so the least I can do is give credit where it is due. I do write letters to my senators about the benefits of psychedelics when I'm up to it and do put up fliers advocating psychedelic drug use from time to time. The point is that if you're going to maintain this physical life, then you might as well fight for your "spiritual" values. And it is a never-ending fight. If you can make every thought and every action a small, subtle tribute to psychedelics, then your days will seem slightly less bleek. That's my belief, at least.

Anyways, sorry about the crazy ramblings. I just really identify with your situation and I think about our predicament a lot.

Those are great insights, hixdom.



I don't think it's impossible, only that there isn't any method built into our culture for doing so, which makes doing so somewhere on the spectrum between challenging damn near impossible. I like your concept of "turning all into art." That's beautiful! My "art" right now is learning to be a leader rather than a "boss," to be the kind of person that my people want to follow and want to do well for rather than simply the guy they obey because I sign their checks.

My "art" right now is also coming to the understanding that I can be an excellent teacher while failing as a manager. Hopefully, my DMT Angel can scrub out the corners of my mind and help me find the answers I'm looking for.

For me, the frightening aspect is more visceral than philosophical. One gets thrown into the vast swimming pool of the STRANGE and FOREIGN. Everything is confusing and weird, even if often beautiful. Though my memory fails me, I imagine this is how I felt as a human infant.

eH

Its not the taking of psychedelic that's so scary, its the risk of a bad one. So why are bad ones so scary...well that's easy.

The worst possible human suffering for as long as possible would be as bad as it gets in physical reality but that has an end, death. Also in the worst possible suffering for as long as possible its happening to you in some way.

The true horror show potential of bad trips is 2 fold. One its not happening to you, it is you and the very terrifying fact there is no where to run, no place to hide no way of possible escaping your own subjective experience and mind.
Second part of the horror show is the feeling we have all had on these substances. That feeling that says "I'm never coming back, I'm stuck in this forever and I'm already dead". This makes no end to the suffering.
Couple these together and its not a fun time. Been there done that.

I am lucky to have never had one of those. The closest I came was the last time I took DMT. I didn't think I was dead so much as I was stuck between worlds and wouldn't be able to come back and I'd have to go to work and pretend to be sober and rational and normal all the while seeing the wiring under the board and strange happy creatures all around. It was the most pleasant-looking reality to spend one's eternity in, but the scary part was worrying how I'd pretend to be normal in front of my employees and my boss.

It did have that "Oh shit, this is FOREVER" dread to it, just as you described.

Most of the time my experiences are so positive that I wonder what I was worrying about. I try to remember this 'fact' to help me light the Arc and pull on the pipe. Still, however, the fear is always there and facts are of this world, not the next so they are phantoms compared to where the spice takes me. I think it is the fear of surrender. No matter how much I know that the surrender is only temporary it does little to help.

Then again I think I just had what might be called a difficult experience with my self a wave that was crashing against an enormous purple wall of poison. I tried to hold on to the fact that it was only temporary - some part of me remembered that existence doesn't always feel like this and it will end. What I take away from it however is how that wall felt like something so alive that I don't believe it was part of my psyche, and ultimately conquering that fear of drawing the vapour has led me to a place of such peace.

I think you did a pretty good job of summing up the fears i've known a lot of people to have.

It's funny one of my most terrifying LSD trips was almost the the exact opposite thought pattern, but still in the theme of forever. I was convinced the only time I was in reality was when I was on LSD. The rest of the time I was in a cruel joke of a dream. That once I feel asleep the trip would end, and I'd never wake until I could find LSD in my dream. But finding LSD in the early 2000's wasn't as easy at it was back in the day. So I was sure that I was probably never going to be able to wake up after I fell asleep, and would be stuck forever in my dream once I stopped tripping.

If it helps any, I didn't know my most terrifying trip was so until after it was over. By then all I had was acceptance.

Preflight anxiety is just your mind overloading on possibility, AKA...

what it's all about

Finally got up the courage to go back last night. Technique was flawed and got a big lung of smoke, which threw me off and I was only able to take a couple tokes before blastoff... Went down the rabbit hole, but I was too big to get through the little door into the garden when I got to the bottom. Does anyone know how quickly DMT oxidizes? I haven't been down for a couple months, and the stuff in question was made way back in June, and has been stored in a ziploc bag in a cool, dark place since then... It looks more brown than I remember it looking a couple months ago, but I could be wrong on that.

dmt is amazing but it is so powerful it can be overwhelming for me. im going to be sticking with psilocybin for awhile

the experience is out of your moment to moment life and when you return, will you be the same?