Integrating the experience

[significationof?!?]

Okay, first I'm fairly new to psychonautics (9 months maybe). I've realised lately that everytime I use an entheogen, it feels like I'm in a headspace totally hermetic to my normal consciousness. It seems like all the insight I feel I'm having is very hard to relate to once I'm back to baseline, or as if I was suddenly able to see, and then go back to being blind without being able to remember fully how seeing feels like... In fact, I'm almost feeling like it's "only the drug, dude", even though I know it can't be; it makes me reconsider drug use for a while.

So how do you guys relate to your spiritual journeys once back to baseline?

 

[user_1919]

Give it time. I thought just like you when I began use. As I got more comfortable in that place, I was able to 'work', and get more, spiritually, out of the experience. I do not look for spiritual insight in words, rather the experience I have, which cannot be expressed in words. My first spiritual experience was with Psilocybin Mushrooms and it wasn't until the 5th or 6th time that I actually had what I call a 'full blown mystical experience'. It was from there on in that I knew what I was looking for.

I also enjoy taking doses in which ego death occurs. This can teach one a lot about the conditioning that has taken place by living in the culture you live in. When it is all ripped away, you realize, through direct experience, that our core is one, and nothing else, and that an illusion has been created through this cultural conditioning. This has been my experiences at least.

peace & love

 

[st.bot.32]

wow, complicated question to answer. i can give you my take on the issue.. for me it's not about the drug, it is about the effects the drug have. if the effects are beneficial then the drug was worth the taking. it is hard for people raised in "war on drugs" propaganda to understand this. they will gladly take caffeine as a pick-me-up in the morning or an acetaminophen pill to quell a headache, or alcohol, forgetting that they are taking a drug--they are deliberately putting a chemical into their bodies seeking its effect on the receptors in their central nervous system.

i never took psychedelics for spiritual (religious) purposes, but as an artist interested in using their effects to explore my perceptions and memory. psychedelics have a history of being used as psychoanalytical tools for a reason, in bending the senses, bringing out distant memories in people, they provide useful insights into how our senses and the human mind works. since then i've had mystical experiences but i haven't been seeking them. it really matters what entheogens you are using. lsd, mescaline, mushrooms all have well-deserved reputations as useful tools for entheogenic work. cannabis works wonders too, but it can be a bit more challenging to figure out as most people just use it recreationally and rarely push into its higher plateaus

i think of an entheogen trip as a way to let go of my ego, amplify my senses and alter my perspective on myself and the world. sometimes i get great insights and creative ideas on a trip that i can use later. sometimes not so great. every trip is completely different, some are more useful than others, some are just plain old fun, some are challenging. and i don't think there is anything wrong with saying "this is just the effect of the drug." in fact i think there are good times to say just that, and follow it up with a bit of humor. (humor is absolutely vital i think). it all comes with experience.

and as user1919 says, an ego death experience cannot be overrated!

 

[Forkbender]

So how do you guys relate to your spiritual journeys once back to baseline?

There is no baseline. Everyone changes constantly.

 

[significationof?!?]

There is no baseline. Everyone changes constantly.

This is something very true, but I meant "not under the direct influence of a chemical". And then again, that can be debated (every experience influences your whole life forever, etc.), but you know what I mean.

Your answers made me realise that part of my interrogations come from the "guilt" that I have about using entheogens to open up horizons, even though I consciously KNOW that there should be no guilt in that. I guess social conditioning is harder to get rid off than I thought.

It's as if I feel that a constructive trip shouldn't be recreative. Obviously, realising what I thought makes it seem very stupid, and I thank you guys for making me confront that thought. Again, social conditioning probably led me to believe that learning should not be fun.

Finally, I have to admit that my cannabis use has been a kind of escape lately, from all the end of term stress and family tensions and whatnot... I guess a bit of stress relief can't do harm, but there's still the big hairy freaking guilt hanging on my shoulder. I'll have to deal with it the hard way, if you catch my drift.

 

[tryptonaut]

I have had a lot of trips where I was suddenly seeing myself and my memories of events from a totally different standpoint. It was like I was another person remembering the events - and suddenly I saw what a jackass I had been, how ignorant I had been and so on. This is not easy at first, but once you learn how to deal with it, it's just like a good psychotherapy session where someone tells you stuff like that - only that with the entheogen, it is yourself who is telling you, which is so much more convincing.
I've become more aware of what I do and say, being more careful not to be a total jackass in situations where I might have been just that.

Shroom trips with their overwhelming power have also taught me how to stay calm in seemingly hopeless situations, how not to freak out about little things that are just not worth it in the big picture.

Then there have been a lot of experiences that I never "integrated" but that I have joyful memories about. For example on my last San Pedro experience I had this extremely vivid cev of a glowing salamander that seemed to be saying hello to me. I don't make a religion out of it, I just remember it with a smile because it was so beautiful.

 

[mysticwarrior]

Shroom trips with their overwhelming power have also taught me how to stay calm in seemingly hopeless situations, how not to freak out about little things that are just not worth it in the big picture.

This is something that i also have noticed. Since i done mushrooms a view times, i can handle much more then i ever could.

 

[Nomada]

Integrating the experience is half the experience I think. If something was deconstructed constructed during a flight it will manifest after landing.

The spaces between the spaces are little bubbles of the meta-space in where the spaces occur. Realizing both, in resonance, would be beautiful I believe.

 

[user_1919]

Shroom trips with their overwhelming power have also taught me how to stay calm in seemingly hopeless situations, how not to freak out about little things that are just not worth it in the big picture.

This is very true! Through being forced to 'let go' with higher doses of mushrooms, I have learned to use that 'letting go' technique into my normal life. When school becomes overwhelming, I just let go, and everything is alright. This is one of the most profound concepts I have learnt from mushrooms. At the peak of a 5 gram experience, you have no choice but to let go; whether you want to or not, you are going to...

peace & love

 

[st.bot.32]

exactly. you can change set and setting, you can try different activities, but you can't force a trip

I don't make a religion out of it, I just remember it with a smile because it was so beautiful.

+1

and really in the end that is a large reason of why i take entheogens, the experience is just beautiful to me. sometimes it is profound, sometimes just fun, pretty much always there are at least some moments of insight or creative ideas at some point in the trip, usually when i'm not looking for them

 

[user_1919]

^^Amen!

 

[Brugmansia]

Everything you have witnessed throughout your life, has been stored in your memory. In a sober state, we only can look back on it as a memory. And merely add more observations to our memory. Now what to with all that stored data... just pumping our memory full by going through time and change and then dying in the end would be a bit... daft, no?

If you're letting it all go during the peak of a 5 or 6 gram trip and just accept that you have no duties (not even having to breath) you'll be no one and nowhere for a short while. Completely losing the orientation which usually navigates itself through seen objects. Which is untill then, the only life you've known before ego death.

The process of having to let it go (which may truly feel as dying your first time, you'll contract and fail the first time, with possible feelings of itense fear and trying to get back to the normal object navigated world) may occur repeately. Remember that every moment of having to let it go and 'dying' is an opportunity to crawl a bit further through the tube which leads to the other side.

The other side is when you went through all the forced moments by letting it go. That, and when the peak reaches it's max. What follows is stable plateau in when you're relatively sane. Don't get up, don't move too much.

Now you have the power to use all your memories and witnessed observations with unbounded freedom in the way your Self wants. Instead of an I that goes through time and change and merely extends his memory data.

Do want you want, create your dreams, and live these dreams, there are no sins, no other parties, no one suffers from what you're doing, no obligations or authorities, all the room is yours, nothing is good or bad, it just is, a universe for your own to live the the life of your true Self. Your will. The availability of data in your memory to create your living dreams from is endless.

When I'm coming back to this world in where we're sharing 1 room all with each other, which is the reason why I believe our Self will never flourish a 100 procent in this place. I'll keep the thought that this world is there to keep my physique alive and healthy, I'll do what I have to do, I live by the law, fit in, help people with their demands and keep the thought that I can go back in later sometime.

It certainly doesn't happen everytime, and definitely doesn't go smooth during some experiences. But so now and then you have such heavenly crown experiences amoung them.

Carrying that with me, makes it possible to accomplish the things in life with rest, diligence and unstressed concentration. I know where I'm doing it for.

 

[user_1919]

^^ very well put!