How to be a true psychonaut.

i DO need a vehicle to travel (drugs). i will ALWAYS need them.

Chapter 13, are you really so young and flexible in your thinking at age 37? Have you ever seen the movie, "The Matrix." Would you be easy to "unplug" at age 37? Morpheus wisely states that they normally don't "unplug" people as old as Neo (in his 20's) because there is too much shock to the system, too much resistance, too much sub/pre/fully conscious attempt to get back to the "real" foundation of the Matrix.

Does this make any sense to you?

Does it make any sense to you, given your life experience to date, when i write that i am full baseline from low doses of acid after 5-8 hours (Yes, it's real d-lysergic acid diethylamide-25), that i can easily fall asleep while tripping/hallucinating? My four decades of foundation constantly try to drag my ego back to baseline. i do not get much in the way of "psychedelic" or "dissociative" hangovers, other than physical tiredness. It is REALLY hard to get the doors to open fully, which helps to explain my fascination with and love of DMT.

Are you really so high and enlightened naturally? Does any of this make sense to you? There is only 5 years of difference in our stated ages.

i honestly believe the only people who have a shred of a chance of traveling without drugs, pain, fasting, extreme withdrawl from society, change in gas mixtures, chanting, extreme forms of sex, extreme forms of meditation, drumming, etc (these are ALL vehicles, there's no denying it) are those who are truly "insane" whatever that means and those who have been doing it (not much different from "insane" in consensual reality society's eyes) naturally since childhood.

Perhaps, though i am skeptical, those who have practiced certain meditations from about age 2 1/2 onwards, steadily and religiously, but i suspect that even this modifies hormone and neurtransmitter levels in the brain and body and thus qualifies in my mind as a "vehicle." i am not one of those people. If i am LUCKY, my life is half over. i do not have the luxery of time. i've got to get some work done NOW, before it is too late. Drugs offer me a direct pathway to doing this work . . . .

 

age is irrelevant... what you are talking about can take a lifetime or a fraction of a second to achieve (although it usually takes something incredibly dramatic to achieve it quickly)

what you've got to ask yourself is if you are using drugs to try to achieve it because they offer an easy opening? .... and the easy opening is never the best one

good luck anyhoo

 

Finally, people who get it =D

Back to the topic at hand though; I believe age is a VERY big part of a lot of things we encounter through life. I believe theres certain ages at which you should do certain things, thats when theyre suppose to happen. Psychonaughts like us are included in that without a doubt. There is a certain age range at which you should experience full on psychedelics because otherwise you wouldnt be ready for it. Once the age has passed you can either jump on the late train or just leave that part of your life out.

Example: personally, I believe that drugs such as LSD, DMT, mushrooms, MDMA, all of those heavy trippers are to be experienced between 18 and 25 for the first time. After that youll be playing catch up or sitting it all out. The reason though theyre to be experienced at that age is because its when we're most vulnerable to the world's influences in our adult life. Never will you be more open minded than when you were a young adult, unless you stick with mental spelunking.

Its an experience I believe everyone should go through during that part of their life, it makes EVERYTHING so much easier. You walk away humbled and with a feeling of understanding

 

The psychedelic experience has been part of my vocabulary for 38 years. When I was introduced to psychedelics it was as a familial sacrament, a communal understanding that this space belongs to us but it is not a space apart from life as a whole. I took acid for the first time with my father and my sister, and a long time family friend. This is a different presentation then we normally see as psychedelics being underground sub culture, anti establishment, and something we do that we prefer that our parents not know at the present time. To me, psychedelia and exploration of my own consciousness is the baseline normal, a thing we do at coming of age.
I agree of course with PB, psychedelics show you a door, but you have to walk through it into life.

 

Finally got around to reading this. Good Post PB, but I still have to disagree saying they're not a drug of 'recreation'

I see them as a psychological/spiritual tool. To an extent, in a vague way, everything in life is. Recreation is very importiant to the human psyche. And I think psychedelics are ideal for that too.

Everyone gets stressed, everyone's vision at some point becomes dimmed by coulds of darkness passing over our lives. We need an ecsape from those things... but often times the excape just exacerbates our problems because we are running from them and trying in our recreation to compleatly divert our minds from things that matter.

I am yet to have a psychedelic trip that does not involve some level of introspection. And if I can take massive doses of 2c-e in a decadent and depraved hotel/casino, watch a flogging molly show, connect with friends, and rock the fuck out... and still have time for psychedelic introspection, I'd say that beats the hell out of other means of recreation or distraction from life. ie. drinking... which often causes people to succum to their emotions in irrationial and embarassing ways. Causes people to push it back. this is why booze is a controlled sociotys favorite drug.

 

Do you always need breast milk? I am familiar with the landscape of my own consciousness and there are places there that lend to far greater understanding than the drugs can provide, places that are not possible to describe but to spend time there administers great effect in our lives. You will be forever grasping at it unless you transcend the drugs to tap into your own inner spaces at will.

I think this statement is simply a reinforcement of you idea that your mind is inaccessible to you without the drugs and I think as you decide it is the case for you, as we cannot exceed our own boundaries, we always must transcend them. To transcend is to go beyond the perception of .

You might be too slow still. The drugs have a limit, just as our bodies only emerge within a certain bandwidth of frequency. The eyes can see only a fraction of the full spectrum of light, if you want to see more you must apprehend with vision not sight.

 

:rofl:

 

Well, thanks again to all of you. It would appear there is a slight difference of opinion regarding the need and value of psychedelic experiences. here is a further expression of my personal philosophy concerning them.
All nature strives for equilibrium. Balance and harmony is what nature will always tend towards. I feel strongly that balance is very much an important thing to keep in mind and life when talking of altered states of consciousness.
Sobriety and normal waking consciousness are just as valuable as psychedelic experience and altered states of consciousness. They need each other for them both to work to the end goal of a more harmonious human existence, which is what we all are striving for when you peel away all the layers and get right down to the nitty-gritty of our journey through life.
I have experienced some of the most fantastic and eye-opening eureka! moments of clarity and vision in my life through the vehicle of psychedelics. I have had the most profound and soul rattling, jubilant spiritual experiences of my life without the aid of anything other then nature or the sight of my daughters just seconds out of the birth canal.
Both sober and under the influence experiences have been incalculably beneficial in my life. So maintaining balance between the two ends of the spectrum as I travel through it is vital to my learning and being able to share these writings, which frankly your praise of leaves me feeling a little awkward. I'm not all that great, in fact in a lot of ways I'm a complete fuck-up. But then again, aren't we all in some manner or another.

@Spicey, no mountain dew, actually haven't had any altering substances more than coffee for almost 5-6 weeks now, and I'm completely enjoying the sobriety.
Yes, I have started to save a copy of this stuff I blabber on about here don't know if it is book worthy, but I do save it.
I have grown to love your insights and input and consider you a good friend.,

@ chapter13 & DrKlunk, Age is completely relevant and irrelevant when talking about topics such as life and awareness of a deeper, transcendent exploration of possibilities.
It's relevant in that by virtue of years comes experience and the ability to look backward as well as forward.
It is irrelevant because the older I get the less I'm certain of, something that youth often just does not consider as a viable option. I get older and revell more and more in all I experience in life, with all the glee and magic as if seen through a three year olds eyes. It's wonderous to see again as a little child. Look through these posts and see the certitude that so many youthful posters will make their proclamations with. It's a certitude often based on a lack of knowledge and experience rather than an abundance of it.
Concerning the "age limit" you have set for psychedelic use, DrKlunk.
You know Leary and Alpert were both well into their late 30's early 40's and Harvard PHD's before ever sampling any type of psychedelic don't you? As were many, many other greats in the world of psychedelia and philosophy. Aldous Huxley was in his 40's or 50's when he first tried mescaline. Alan Watts is another who had acquired years and gray hair before ever getting a taste of psychedelic. I had an almost 15 year break between psychedelic "sessions". Let me tell you from my experience, I get 10,0000 times more from the experience now than I did as a young man of twenty something. So much more memory, knowledge, life experience and HUMILITY now than when I was young. Such better understanding of myself and the universe I exist in. I could never have written any of this crap when I was using psychedelics 30 years ago. I simply did not possess the maturity and insight that I do now.
Frankly I think psychedelics are much more suited to an older person than younger. We are better able to comprehend the message and integrate it simply by virtue of life experience. I know these are generalizations and there are always exceptions, but from where I sit, that is the opinion I have arrived at.

@thedope,
What can I say, once again we are in agreement. I love that you were introduced into psychedelics in that setting. So much more grounding and significant then the majority of us present here. I first took LSD completely to get high, but at close to 600ugs, Lucy had other motives in mind.

To everyone else thanks and keep the input coming
:cheers2:

 

...what then, with visual & auditary stimuli being so focal to the psychedelic experience would one have to say of a trip taken by someone who's deaf &/or blind?

Totally on the money about the importance of vocab. Methinks it's entirely essential...just don't follow my embarrassing lead & try as you might to write a TR while tripping really hard; it's very counterproductive & a waste of that golden time.

 

Its just the time period in someone's life I think psychedelics should be used, its when your mind is most ready. Anyone is free to do it at any age its between 18 and 25 though that I believe we're ready to take the trip as a learning experience and it is also during this time that youll experience your most powerful trip and learn the most.

You can always continue learning, and you may have a stronger trip following that phase. However, for most people, I think thats how it is. I guess this is more so the developmental psychology behind psychedelic use than anything

 

^^^ You obviously did not read the rest of what pb smith said. I will agree with you that perhaps there is a certain sort of burgeoning sense of freedom and independence with this age range that goes along really well with psychedelics but many of the most notable and most well respected psychedelic users did their best work well past their 20's. So to say the optimal time to use psychedelics is during this age range shows some naïveté on your part and is just flat out wrong. It really depends more on the individual and when they are truly ready to utilize and embrace the lessons brought to the forefront by these amazing plants and chemicals.

 

The "lesson" I learned is that it's in us to keep it up, so long as we decide to do it together. How else can we help eachother out? I'm with everyone that's over age. That makes, everyone.

What if, (mirrorcuelessly), it turned out that everyone is the best age they can be?!

No-one has to go anywhere if they don't want to!

How else to wake up to ourselves? We can't conceive a 'saviour' anymore, only eachother! lol

(dejavu has gone crazy, check him into the bin, he wants the whole world to have a party!)

 

Now I really don't want to be condescending to you or insult.
But you're 19, how could you possibly know what your talking about concerning "the best age to use psychedelics"? That thought really is silly.
As someone who has utilized psychedelics throughout the different stages of my life, I can emphatically say your are very mistaken in your assumption.

In my experience and opinion, ANY age is the right age to use psychedelics if you're goal is self exploration and growth. Psychedelics derive content for a trip from within you. Your memories, thoughts, life experiences all come together to provide the content and lessons.
Actually the more lifetime you have under your belt, the more content available, the more maturity and understanding with which to interpret these experiences. You also have more life wisdom to help integrate the experience.

I think the majority of "bad" trips are experienced by people around your age mainly because at your age you simply don't posses the repertoire of emotional and psychological tools to cope with and rectify the experience.
It may sound as if I am trying to put down youth. but it is simply a matter of fact. The longer a person is on the planet, the more you learn.
Why do so many young people have such an obstinately hard time accepting that simple reality of life as a human?

The age you mention, 18-25, is the age range when humans are really developing your cognitive and emotional responses. They are still new to you and you are also for the first time keenly aware of deeper social and personal issues. So from your perspective you see all these things in the world and are still in the process of sorting it all out and finding your self and place in it all. Because older adults don't appear to share your enthusiasm and fervor over the revelations that are assailing you daily, you assume they are not as open minded as youth.
Did you ever stop to consider that it isn't a lack of being open minded, but rather that people my age have already gone through that stage of growth and development that ALL people go through to some degree or another, and have settled a lot of the issues and questions that are brand new to you?

It is not a matter of youth being more open minded, it's a matter of people my age have already been there, done that.


Your attitude really shows you have a degree of age prejudice and are making assumptions that have no basis in real life.

But I really don't expect you to "get it", but in 30 years you will understand the truth of what I'm saying. Until that time their is no way for you to "know" it. Some things only come with increased time on the planet, plain and simple.

 

This is something I have learned recently. You can't rush things, you can't force things. Wine will ferment as it does.

It's not that the psychedelics focus on visual or auditory, they are synaptic. A deaf and blind person has synapses, and in fact their lack of senses means greater attention is given to the inner world, where the psychedelic is working.

 

I agree, PB. From a very early age, you could say I was a psychonaut in training . I've always had little or no difficulty in empathizing with other peoples problems and emotions, and I have been trying to understand my mind and my emotions for a long time. Because of this, I typically had a very honest understanding of who I was and the changes I wanted to make. Psychedelics were never the solution, only a path I felt compelled to walk down due to my interest in the human mind, or more specifically, my mind. As a result, psychedelics helped actualize the solutions I had determined for myself; I felt the change in myself emotionally, rather than simply acknowledging the solution in a matter-of-fact manner. This touches on your point that psychedelics transcend language and thought, and occur predominantly at an emotional and sensual level.

However, I am not sure how much of a psychonaut I am now, unless I am trying a new substance. Whether I am sober or on a drug, I do find I now have an increased ability to take delight in things for themselves without reference to myself. I enjoy watching, observing, and to some extent knowing. Psychedelics have provided me with a true realization of the solutions to my enduring problems: abandoning both fear and the desire for possession or domination, are vital to becoming master of the small fraction of space and time that I occupy. Now that I am master, I can stand back and enjoy the complexity of existence and my place in it. I am, I let things be, and I embrace what I feel compelled to embrace, so I feel more like Tom Bombadil than a psychonaut I guess, but maybe I'm a bit of both? "Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?" I'm real high and at work and rambling, sorry haha.

 

My dad is the same age as you so I read this as if it was coming from him; and youre right.

I never thought it was a matter of being open minded though, even though that is part of it. I consider being ready for something like LSD or DMT a matter of maturity and the ability to accept what youre about to experience. As much as I do enjoy melting walls, I try to take as much from it as I can. The lessons psychedelics provide arent for the weak minded, which is why not everyone will do them; because of some reason reflecting their mind's lack of readiness.

Anyway though, what you said was something I needed to hear/read. For that man, I thank you

 

Good posting PB.

I was thinking a psychonaut is someone who eats large parts of the alphabet, explores dosing limits, and otherwise operates at the limits. That might have been me in my younger years. But I'm more conservative now and I don't have the stamina to match speeds with GB, Writer, and others.

BUT, I just heard the term a couple of years ago, so what do I know.

And on a completely unrelated note, I've discovered that 2C-E is much more to my liking than 4-AcO-DMT or cubensis.

 

that's interesting, i found that one completely devoid of any insight

 

How so?
It is written more from a practicality viewpoint, I admit.

 

2ce perhaps