Ayahuasca, LSD, meditation etc - to ask if you or anyone you know tried and what’s it like

[Hulabalu]

I am never going to try drugs as I’d fear for my life / mind! BUT , from a spirituality standpoint I am curious about people’s experiences. Apparently meditation can create similar state, similar spiritual revelations ?? but I’m not good at that either 😂

Very interesting thx! I haven’t really had any but I’m interested in spirituality

Yes I have listened to those podcasts

i will try Kriya yoga too , thx!

where / how do you do walking meditation. I think it’s too busy where I live

that is scary
i Hope he’s made full recovery
that is the reason I wouldn’t try that or other drugs

Meditation can't create the same effects as psychedelic drugs 😆
I've tried magic mushrooms and have been given some 2cb to try which is like synthetic mescaline. I can't say I have ever had a spiritual experience but I'm not a believer in that stuff to start with so whatever I saw and experienced was not perceived within that lens.

Yes, I understand the commonality, and I'm vaguely aware of Be Here Now as a counter-cultural bible, and RD's Timothy Leary connections and research into psychedelics -- you asked why people thought you sounded like a child. The fact that you equated them made people think that.

I don’t do any of them.
I’m disabled and on too many legal drugs to risk nasty interactions with illegal ones.

my DS however is a Buddhist monk. He does meditation and has done so daily for going on five years now.

however there is a very definite path to the teaching of meditation and while it can lead to some very positive spiritual experiences it can also be very disconcerting. Some of the deeper practices are only introduced on week long retreats with a supportive community around you.

your local Buddhist group will run meditations and will be able to guide you to the most suitable level for you.

Motte: "commonality"
Bailey: "equated"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Ironically, the person who petulantly told OP to go back to her maths homework came across as incredibly puerile.

Ah it's never too busy, I used to do walking meditation just walking around the streets of london! But if you can find a park near you that can help. Having music playing in your headphones can help you focus too.

Basically you go for a walk, and focus your attention on the feeling of each foot, as the ball of the foot strikes the floor, your foot weight rolls over the floor, and your big toe lifts off the floor. Focus on what it feels like on the sole of your foot against the ground. Start by walking very slowly until you get the hang of it, then after a while you'll be able to do it at full speed walking.

Each time you notice your mind has drifted to thinking of other things, don't be frustrated with yourself because it usually does and that's the practice, just shift your attention back to your feet again :)

Wow. That is a good warning against it.

The type of meditation that is best for you also depends a bit on your personality. If you feel emotions quite strongly like I do, then loving kindness guided meditations can be the best - there are lots of great ones on YouTube!

I'll give it a go!

Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic, often painted by the press as a "horse tranquilliser" but in fact used in small children and on battlefields because it's much safer than many other anaesthetics to get the dosage wrong. But the side effects are pretty mind-blowing for a human adult.

A recreational "line dose", also known as "the K-hole", basically knocks you unconscious and then "lets you watch" as your consciousness returns. I scare-quote "lets you watch" because each word in that phrase is also a concept that you need to work out from first principles as you rediscover:

• Something exists (pure being / presence)
• There is a point of view (a "me" or a witness)
• Space appears (here / there)
• Time appears (before / after, continuity)
• Agency appears (I can do / something can do)
• Other minds appear (not alone; others exist)
• Objects appear (room, body, people, language)
• Narrative identity returns ("Oh right, I'm me, I took ketamine, I'm safe")

...which is why it's crucial to be in a good "set and setting" when you take it.

The experience is an extremely spiritual one because the concepts arrive in an order to which they are literally foundational to your normal experience. As your emerging consciousness tries to reintegrate its sensory input (or as subsystems come back online into the maximally integrated causal structure or "dominant complex" of Integrated Information Theory) you are still trying to make sense of space (which appears geometric because your cognitive systems are trying to collapse it into a comprehensible structure despite being partially offline) and time (which loops because your brain's normal mechanisms for sequential prediction and memory are disrupted) while you rediscover other minds which are foundational to meaning, morality, love and the human condition.

It can be quite addictive and harmful to your bladder if over-used, so I've only ever taken it a few times. I intend to take it again, but only very sparingly as I've encountered people who have definitely overdone it.

I intend also to try DMT, which is the most psychoactive ingredient in Ayahuasca (but without all the emetic stuff) and related to shrooms (psilocybin is 4-PO-DMT, psilocin is 4-HO-DMT). It's apparently now possible to get it in freebased form for vapourising, but I haven't sourced this yet.

I've done shamanic journeys. They are really easy and pleasant. You just relax very deeply and then follow guided meditation until you 'meet' your spirit guide. To me, it's not dissimilar to daydreaming/ fantasy world-building, except that it is targetted - you ask for help or you listen to their advice or you just watch what is going on. These have all been very pleasant experiences, but not life changing.

That is really well explained, thank you.

But...how come there are ketamine deaths, if it is given to children due to its relative safety if overdosing?

Anaesthesia is intrinsically unsafe; ketamine is only safer in the relative sense. There will always be people in the long tail of psychonauts who try to push things too far.

Because it's relatively safe in overdose compared to alternative anaesthetics if you're already in hospital being monitored by an anaesthetist- it doesn't drastically plummet your blood pressure like the alternative IV anaesthetic drugs so doctors find it safer (ie easier to reverse) compared to opioid drugs, which make your blood pressure much more unstable so if the patient starts to crash on the operating table with opioids it can be harder for the anaesthetist to bring their blood pressure back up.

But that's a completely different situation.

Using ketamine outside of the hospital nobody is monitoring your vital observations, so that's when it gets risky. And remember ketamine is only relatively safer than the alternative anaesthetic drugs like really strong opiates (which are also incredibly dangerous if used recreationally- that's how Michael Jackson died for example, and many other people have died in the opioid crisis).

Also k-holes are a real psychological risk, and long term use of K can cause a very horrible untreatable condition called ketamine bladder, which causes severe pain of your bladder that's so bad that the bladder needs to be surgically removed, and still the pain doesn't go away. So I really wouldn't mess around with ketamine!

DMT was a fascinating and very weird experience! Mushrooms was horrific, never again.

Have taken mushrooms are few times and the effects have always been interesting and usually positive. I have never taken them in high doses and never would do so.

I experienced strong feelings of euphoria and colour always becomes much more vivid as though your are seeing things as they would appear in an early techni-colour film. It also enhances your appreciation of music. A good base hook will take you into an incredible musical groove. I can also play better (or at least I think I can) The mild visual hallucinations I have experinced have been pretty fantastic and sometimes hillarious. I can remember looking at a herd of cows grazing near to my house on a summers evening. I put on some music and when I looked up againthe cows were line dancing.

I would never take hallucinogens that had been given to me by a third party (I collect them or grow them) and always measure the dose.

I think what he was saying was he had spiritual and enlightening experiences through LSD but he was able to obtain the same from meditation and better . That’s what I’m really interested in.

Would love to know more !

Thank you , that is fascinating and well explained 😊

Ive known several people who have tried ayahausca there just seems a lot of puking and shitting involved, I think anything experienced is just a result of being severely dehydrated. Tbh I think it’s best left to the relevant SA tribes.Mushrooms seem to have a much higher rate of some spiritual experience.

But nothing can really replace the careful training of the mind, learning to expand the imagination and shutting down the prefrontal cortex through self hypnosis - I would recommend looking into western esotericism (assuming you’re in the West). Self initiatory texts are good at training the mind.

Psychadelics may cleanse the doors of perception but proper training can through them wide open, and soon you’ll realise those doors never existed

Exactly! 👍

thx I will look into this !
agree ayuasca best left to the SA tribes !

I’ve tried all three and, as a Buddhist, I’m a regular meditator. Had some weird and interesting experiences, I suppose many of which could be considered spiritual.

Drugs are a shortcut but you can have frightening experiences as well as life-affirming ones.

With mediation you have to practice consistently and intensely to get anything more than a basic “head-clearing” experience.

But that’s just my experience and everyone is different.

I've also been very put off ayahusca by the stories of people spending days shitting themselves! Surely it ruins their south American holiday? Are there any books or sites you recommend to start looking into self hypnosis?

I posted earlier about microdosing, but I also once got 'high' from eating an ayurvedic meal after a few weeks of regular yoga, so I really do believe we can alter our own mental states without drugs.