StoneColdTrue wrote on Mar 11^th, 2010 at 1:17am:


Hi Stone: What you say is true drugs done with some caution and skilled oversight can show you the non-physical nature of the universe thus opening you to the vastness of the otherside... the downside is dependency... if you can use drugs as Tim O'Leary did to open awareness and enable exploration and unlocking the subconscious and unconscious enough to eventually do if by natural meditative techniques that is certainly a path... albeit a dangerous one.

Because of the dependency issue.

Even TMI and Bruce Moen attempt to ween people off hemi-sync and structured forms in their exercises... drugs are not the only kind of dependency that can develope.

S.

I read alot of Castenada as a kid and was impressed with the idea that other realms could be accessed through some ritual use of peyote.  At that time I probably would have done it, but never had any opportunity and simply reading the books kind of took me away from the drug-induced/assisted change of dimension.

For myself, I tend to drink wine and the occasional cocktail but find that those "chemicals" have a residuary effect in clouding my meditation as much as two days later...which is a bummer because I do like a good martini and my cousin is a first-rate vintner.  Ah well.  I have to pick my times and places, but that seems to be the only ill effect on my spiritual practice. 

Good thing I never found any peyote!

I'm going to try and detail my "trips" just for the sake of getting insight on them.

So last summer, I took shrooms for the first time with my brother in our house. For the first couple of hours it just made us feel silly and good. Then it escalated to a point where I felt I could not concentrate on a particular thing. I started freaking out a little and began sobbing for probably the first time since I was a child. It's like I could feel the worst depression I had ever felt. Then I started to smile and laugh as my brother talked to me, and I told him it felt like the extent of happiness. That I felt so happy I felt stupid    It calmed down and I went down to the kitchen with him. The next thing I know, I left reality and escaped inside my mind.

I began circling my house multiple times, talking to my brother but feeling like I was no longer part of the world. I kept considering the idea that I was dead. That this didn't feel like the world anymore, and it scared me. I regained myself enough to want to go upstairs to my bed and see if it would sleep off. As I lay in my bed, I saw myself as part of the entire universe and I was trying to create earth but it wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. I had to create and destroy in the way that an artist does with initial concepts. I then felt like I could visit the universe and found myself looking upon Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Tolkien's world) and then I felt like I was in Hell. That I entered a part of the universe I would never escape. I could see my entire life from outside of it, and it was being unfolded like a mirror to infinite. Like I would have to walk through this tunnel forever but it would stop where I died and it just replays over and over in incredible speed.

Then I more or less came out of that feeling and felt like I had great power. I started trying to turn into the Incredible Hulk because it was always one of my favorite fictional characters. I considered the idea that I could do whatever I wanted. My brother told me later that he actually heard me scream "I'M THE INCREDIBLE HULK" and was roaring. We laughed a good bit at that. But back to it...I could find love with any woman of my choice. I was a god. The last thing I remember is that I was in the bathroom with my brother and telling him that I was the first being born into the universe, and he was the second. He had ruled the realm of Hell, while I ruled the Universe and created Earth. I recalled that all of the Gods of every religion were created by me as a means to rule at separate points of time, but they had left the Earth and now resided in a separate realm. I recalled how Zeus had given Benjamin Franklin the lightning bolt which he made his discovery. Then I discussed with my brother different aspects of humanity and when I would bring about the judgment day, and if I would. But that to better understand humanity he and I had become humans and were now living a human existence, and then at our human death we would ascend back to our place as supreme powers. I believed all of this, and he went along with it for fun...which only made it more real to me.

So after that talk I went to sleep, and woke up back to reality as if it were all a vivid dream. It pretty much changed the way I saw life and opened me to wanting to explore this power of the mind without having to use drugs.

I've always had pretty mellow experiences with 'shrooms, but I think they vary a lot.  And people's reactions to them vary even more.  I would never advise anyone to take them, but some people do and have great experiences...I just don't want to be responsible for advising they try and have it not work out.

The day after that second trip I had a lot of trouble in my thinking. I wondered a lot about the solipsism theory and had to counter it with my own arguments. Later in the day I was driving and still thinking really hard about it and I hit upon something that made me feel like I was about to fall right back into that trip state. I could feel it in my brain and mind. That intense tingling feeling. I had to quickly focus on the music I had playing, anything I could do to not lose myself. From that point I just had chills flying up and down my body, and a very strong one in the back of my head. It was really weird. I didn't do or take anything but it could have been all my lack of sleep from the night before.

I definitely understand that reality does exist and each of us are individuals. I'm not god so to say, but in those states I felt like I was. I felt like I could feel at least a fraction of that power and I'll be honest...it's too much. Only god can be god for it is its nature. But for us to feel that power is so completely overwhelming it becomes uncomfortable. I hope that dying and being in the other realm does not feel like that. I want to be able to feel as relaxed as I do on my most relaxed days on Earth. I want to be able to rest.

I think so too. I can also admit that I never considered myself as much of a thinker until I was doing drugs. I used to spend many a day just me and marijuana and many realizations occurred for me and I've been doing a lot of thinking ever since. The bigger psychedelics of course just had much more powerful effects. They kind of did make me think that my world and my life was all that existed. Even as I type this the idea sends chills through my body and mind. I don't like the idea of it because it makes me feel more alone. I want to know people are all individual people and we will be together in this life and the next.

I was discussing with someone just last night that I think there are blocks in our minds that keep it constrained and organized, and that some of those drugs can break those gaps and not only show you the true power of the mind but also give you epiphanies and realizations to the meaning of life and the "true knowledge" which once the drug effects ware off we seem to always forget as the blocks return. The person I was talking to completely agreed with me as he felt the same thing, and was a large reason why he used psychedelics so much because he wanted that knowledge while I disagreed as said we aren't supposed to have it yet. I don't remember feeling very comfortable with whatever I realized. I remember feeling scared and wanting to be back to normal. But I just can't place what it was I really understood, or if it was only a false realization brought on by the drug.

I also believe the entire concept of it and the realization can be reached without drugs...but I'm not sure if I want to do that. Not if the truth is something I'm not ok with. But if I had not done the drugs at all and seen what they showed me, I do not believe I would be here or searching for any answers.

I should also say that the experience with solipsism gave me a larger understanding afterwards that reality and all of this is certainly real and not created by me, but that everything I do experience in reality is pulled into my mind and stored there. "Memory" as we call it is actually just the experiences of life trapped into the soul and carried with you. Everything trapped there is what makes you YOU and what makes your life after this one have purpose and direction.