'Its just a drug'

A lot of people use the line 'its just a drug' to help discount difficult psychedelic experiences.
But the same line seems to not be used in reference to beautiful or divine psychedelic experiences.

People dont say 'oh its just a drug' when they experience God. They take it, usually, as being MORE real than their everyday experience.

However, when people get uncomfortable in a trip, the standard way of dealing with the visions and messages is to discount the trip as being just that - a psychedelic state - and that we should not get involved too heavily in such things.

What are you oppinions on this?

 

they're just thoughts, they get in the way sometimes

 

In the way of what?

 

crystalline precision

 

Maybe when people say they have found god- they are just delusional, just like when they have a bad trip- they are delusional too.

Or maybe When people say they have found god- then they have really come to grips with themselves and learned about their place in the cosmos, just like when they have a bad trip and they will learn from that too and discover things that need to be changed.

Both are correct

 

it is really easy to not question anything, just accept what you see at first glance as the truth. The thing about psychedelics is that you are going to see more then that, maybe something you didn't want to see. I like how hunter thompson describes it in fear and loathing, that so many kids thought lsd was mind expansion but they never accounted for the "grim meat hooks of reality" on the other side. Some people are just too afraid to know, and some people just can't help but wonder, and they are the ones who take psychedelics.

Reality is just your perception, I mean you have DMT in your body right now and everytime you dream that is what causes it. Tribes in ancient mexico ate magic mushrooms because they belived them to be gifts from the gods. I can tell you from personal experience that mushrooms made me more aware of a "god" or a force in the universe then any ammount of church or bible reading ever did. I have no doubt that a trip is more then just pretty colors and fun for a few hours, you can treat it like that, but you are wasting it. You can call a bad trip just a drug, or you can ask yourself what can I learn, can I change, and why did that happen.

 

hahahaha oh dear, your sig, the crack child is black, weed is not, oh dear, so rascist..

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head in your first paragraph.

I believe that anything psychedelics show us are shown to us for our learning or understanding, about reality in general. If you cling fervently to false perceptions, some of these revelations can be startling and frightening. Insteand of inviting the fear inside them and evaluating it for what it is (fight), a lot of people would rather make excuses as to why it isn't real and run from it (flight).

It's just a matter of how you feel you need to handle the situation. To me, one is beneficial, while one is not.

 

If it's a difficult experience, what better action is there to take besides drop it and move on? Not everybody looks at their trip in some metaphorical aspect after it's over. True, something in their personality may be poking out that's causing the bad trip, something that shouldn't be ignored and something that could be potentially looked at, but not everybody is going to fall in that 'awareness circle' once the trip is over.

Obviously the bottom line would be "it's just a drug", but I think you need to break it down and see what people mean when they say them kind of things anyway. Just a drug as in nothing important? Well ofcourse we all know LSD can hold quite the impact used with the right people, and on the medical scale can make some very amazing breaking throughs in the world of psychotherapy, but technically it's still just a drug. Even the word 'drug' is a label, as even within that label, and in LSD's case it's pointing to a substance extracted from a fungis on a natural plant thats in the wild and on this earth.. which just so happens to be used recreationally.

So, do we point to the label to negate anything positive from the substance? Or do we look at it for what it is? Are we using the label simply to simplify the ease of communicating about it? Lots of factors in all of this.

The topic is iffy and probably always going to be based on personal opinion and perception of the experience. Some people almost change completely after a psychedelic experience and develop new concepts for life (usually positive) while the next may just account it as an experience you get when you take this particular drug and that it doesn't hold much more meaning to it than that. And if the experience on the particular drug was negative, then they drop it and may just try again, or be frightened and never come near it again. But, who's to say even this is just a play on the people who treat the substance like that? They are shutting themselves off to a realm of deep possibilities, in my opinion. But even.. that's not to ignore the people who hold the latter perception won't eventually change or experience something they consider 'extra-ordinary'.

If you wanna go on about experiencing God, some people simply refer to God as the light which illuminates the world, and how the solidarity of matter is an illusion and thus light itself (so therefore God aswell), or how some people believe he's a 'person' who controls the world sitting on his chair chilling in heaven.. so what would the experience consist of in the trip that makes you aware of God? besides just becoming aware once again of the natural beauty that's locked within existence anyway? They say God's everywhere and always watching but there's a 100 ways to interpret what that phrase really means, and LSD may just be helping us there. In the end and in my opinion, Gods a mystery we just won't be sure about until the day our end is here, but it can quite the stabilizing belief that helps people pull through this life like a cake-walk. Coincidence?

Is any experience we have sober or high more real than the last? Afterall, everything we experience is capable of being experienced, and apart of this earth and our realm of existence.. the only thing dividing these experiences in the area of good/bad and extraordinary or ordinary is our own opinions that we came to know so well.

 

well people try to do this a lot anyway- "oh, don't get mad about that, it will pass and you'll move on" or "don't be sad, it's only temporary" etc.

but when something good happens no one ever says "hey, don't be so happy, this too shall pass".

it's just human to want to hold on to the good stuff as long as you can, and shut out the bad. not to say that's right, but it's pretty common in a lot of areas of life, not just with drugs.

hmm, but i don't think it's valid. personally, i'd rather take the spectrum as a whole and whatever comes with it than to lie to myself. Sort of like "full experience".

but keep in mind, that when you call a divine psychedelic experience "reality", you have the chance to better yourself and find meaning. that's certainly desirable by most. when you call a hellish trip "reality", there's a LOT that can be destroyed and lost. a lot of people just aren't willing to accept that.

 

Good responses. What Im trying to get at most directly is a comparison between these two cases:

"Oh my god I am dying. I am dead. Its all over. OMGOMGOMG"
"nah man its just a drug"

or
"Oh man the universe is one.. I can feel it.. It is all connected as one being.. omg omg omg.."
"nah man its just a drug"

 

^

I think a lot of the time fear based reactions are irrational by their very nature.

now, I'm not saying that anything else is automatically rational or intelligent.
But the whole "I'm dying" thing is a pretty common negative reaction to drugs caused by several things I think. Pre-trip anxiety, fear of the unknown, and stories of other people dying all contribute to this. I think this all doesn't give you the true perception that you are actually dying, but rather just an enormous fear of it.

I can only speak from experience though, and that's my personal take on it.

 

Yar well the other night I was with a very experienced tripper and he demanded to be taken to the hospital because he thought he was dying, and when people didnt take him seriously he thought he was already dead. No newbie in my books. This guy was fronted with what seemed from his Point Of View at the time, to be the culmination of his life, a 'final movement'.
But it was so real to him, it was everything.
So I think that people should always be careful with what they take from their trips.. it shouldnt have much to do with the way the world is
but how the world relates to You.

and perhaps if you are an honest solopsist then maybe that IS the world.

But i think that most of us are not genuine solopsists, so we need to recognise the difference between our perceptions and what we believe is behind them.

 

(to elaborate on my previous post)
I think it relates very closley, to the age old argument of- science vs religion.

For example- Tribes in the Amazon, who have had little or no contact with the concepts of modern science- still retain ancient beliefs about spirits and gods etc.
Infact all cultures from every where in the world believed in gods and spirits before science contradicted those beliefs. These people genuinely belive that when you take psychedelics you can touch god.

However, because all of us in our so called 'western society' rely and believe so heavily in science. it is very difficult for us to have a genuine spiritual experience.

I know that the main reason why a lot of people take psychedelics is to explore the unknown/ depths of our mind and to possibly get psychedelic spiritual experiences.
So when someone has a bad trip -for whatever reason, then the trip sitter saying 'it is just a drug' is a way of bringing the tripper back to concepts they can relate to- ie science.

Also I would like to ask a question:
Does a spiritual experience have to feel good? Is there any reason why a peson having a 'bad' trip cannot still be enlightened by it?

 

everything is real and everything is god

 

You're not God! I'm God!

 

its just a drug

 

YOU'RE just a drug!

 

I Am The Drug

 

Ya, I hear that "it’s just the drug" or "it's all in your mind" stuff from people too, often from myself. I think that applies to some aspects of trips, and that they shouldn’t be taken all too seriously, but I also think there’s reason to treat much of the cosmic, ego death, God trips as genuine. The fact that so many people from different times and cultures have had such similar experiences, and come to such similar conclusions, using all different kinds of drugs, some even without drugs, is good evidence that mystical and religious experiences aren’t completely arbitrary.

Human perception is primarily subjective, but the dualistic nature of reality implies the necessity of an objective counterpart to this relativity. I think using psychedelics often tips the balance in our minds towards absolute objectivity. After using psychedelics many people say they met, experienced, or became God. Well, the perception of the absolute is that of complete unity and unchanging perfection, attributes commonly associated with god. Many people also experience ego death, or the loss of separate identity. What people generally refer to as their identity is a relative definition of the self.

To me, psychedelics seem to facilitate objective perception by harmonizing and integrating our various individual thoughts and feelings. Since our perceptions may not align with the universal pattern of reality, a drug trip might be a complete fantasy. That would be an experience of less reality than the everyday norm. However, with responsible use and the intention to serve yourself and others, I think the opposite usually happens; although that may not be the way psychedelics are usually used. So I do think someone can experience more of reality during a trip.

Now this isn’t all to say that subjectivity is illusory or that reality is purely objective. I see reality as the balance of the way things objectively are with the way we subjectively relate. But hey, that’s just me right?:sifone: