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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 53 Last seen: 4 months, 17 days |
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Background
No prior experience with psychedelics whatsoever. February 2022, after some adverse life events half a year earlier that caused a lot of stress, I became severly depressed. Suicidal. Horribel anxiety. Tried different medicines and therapy. Eventually got somewhat better, but still not back to my ”normal” self. During this depression I researched psychedelic therapy. I eventually made the decision to book psilocybin therapy abroad and taper out my meds. Took the last dose one month before the day of the trip. I felt great expectations and hopes awaiting the date of the trip. Quitting the meds went fairly well, overall I felt like the worst part was behind me and that better ´days were ahead. The trip I enter the location for a group therapy session. I was actually in a good mood and had great expectations. We did intentions meditation and then at 5.15 pm I was given what I later found out was 3 grams of dried cubensis mushrooms. I can mention briefly that my intentions were aimed towards a strong mystical experiene to lift me out of my depression. But within that I was also looking towards appreciating my life and relationships more, to be more grateful and happy with what I have and not so focused on what I have lost in life and how things turned out in a way I didn’t want. I wanted to feel more connected to others and maybe be better at empathizing with others. I walked around the room feeling nothing, wondering if I had been given any mushrooms at all. Around 45 minutes in I went to the toilet for one last time and had a subtle sensation around my head. I felt like it was about to start so I laid down on a mattress with an eyemask and tried to just breathe. Suddenly I felt like I was being rocked gently in a crib. The sounds of the birds outside became augmented. I can best describe it as an intensified 3D sound. Like I was immersed in this tropic atmosphere of birds and sounds. I started losing sense of time when a hired pianist started playing. The music was nice but at the same time felt a bit cheap and simple. Behind my closed eyes I started seeing floating colors but without any meaningful shape or form. It wasn’t geometric figures or structures, it was just… color that was being created and shifted by the music. I tried to just surrender to the experience but already something felt wrong. I tended to notice imperfections in the music and was dissapointed by it. I started feeling massively negative emotions and deep anxiety. I remember drifting in and out of consciousness like I had a mix of these color visuals, micro sleep and weird sensations of suddenly ascending for a flight. But there was no direction or feeling of meaning to these sensations. ”Maybe this is the come-up” I thought. One of the guys who worked at the place came and asked how I was doing and I said not good. He said just ride through it. Now I started noticing audible distortions. Like a note would be deformed and stuck in time. I kept seeing the colors behind my eyes and drifted in and out of something I can’t describe. But I was feeling horrible wrong emotionally all the time so I couldn’t enjoy the visuals. Also, the intermittent sound of birds, cars passing by outside and other noises constantly brought me back whenever I felt I was about to go somewhere deep inside myself. The piano was replaced by singing bowls and the audible distortions became more and more prevalent. After drifting in and out of this state for over 1 hour with intense closed eye color hallucinations and weird feelings, I started wondering what the world would look like outside the mask – expecting everything to be deformed. I removed the mask and to my surprise… everything looked completely normal. Just some very, very slight "breathing" of things. but it was minimal. I looked at the clock and saw that over an hour had passed. At this point I felt I had to be honest. I looked around me and the three other participants in the group were lying down, looking like they were far off in some nice place. I told one of the facilitators that I was NOT having a good time. I explained that everything just felt chaotic, in a way that didn’t have any meaning. I told her I just felt overwhelmingly bad but that there was no story to it, no scenario, nothing to learn. Just a chaos of bad emotions. Eventually the leader took me outside. We talked in the rain. I explained how dissapointed I was. That nothing of what I expected happened. I expected to go some place, experience some kind of scenario that would teach me something. Instead everything just felt so depressive. During this talk I felt like he was completely nonchalant of me. I tried to explain my thoughts and feelings but we got nowhere. I had an overwhelming dissapointment and sadness and felt like this entire experience would throw me back into the darkest depths of my depression. I eventually went inside again, drank some water and went to the bathroom. In the bathroom I closed my eyes and suddenly for the first time I was something that made sense. It was some kind of clockwork in a blue tone and i was filled with a melancholic sadness that felt both good and bad at the same time. I went to lie down on the mattress again and put on the mask. I kept struggling with everything feeling like shit but wanted to give it another chance, just surrendering to whatever was happening. A female facilitator came and held my hand, told me to stop trying to analyze everything and just let go. I once again drifted in and out of consciousness in a way that is difficuly to explain. I heard the leader playing more guitar and it just began to sound more and more awful. Like out of tune, playing the wrong notes. ”It this a joke?” I thought. ”It can’t be this bad, this must be a hallucination”. Eventually I had the WEIRDEST feeling of being catapulted into another world, but it was identical to the real world. I was catapulted into this room where the whole ceremony/therapy took place, and it was like my own personal hell. The leader played guitar on a chair in a manner that reminds me of a drunk dude at an afterparty. There was something incredibly surreal about the experience. I experienced, in waves, a feeling that this was not the real world anymore. This was some kind of hellish world of dissapointment to torment me. And the leader and the facilitators were actually mushroom beings. I started asking ”is this real?”. I also asked why I was transported to a sad and depressing world that is an exact copy of the real world, what was the point of that. I asked out aloud why I wasn't transported to some more exotic and mystic place. In waves I shifted between 1) thinking no, this is just the real world and a disatrously organizerd trip with really shitty people, and 2) that I was truly in some parallell universe and that this was my own personal hell with something I needed to work through. The entire thing felt so bad. Like a really bad parody of what I thought an organized trip should be. I had paid so much money to come here and everything just out to be such a dissapointment, with people passed out on mattresses while a seemingly drunk guy in a beard fiddled with his out of tune guitar. Eventually the leader began singing mean songs on the guitar, like singing how he hoped I would die, he would dance or piss on my grave or something like that. That’s when I became convinced that I had left the real world and that this was some supernatural beings testing me. Because that would simply make no sense in the real world, an organizer of a psilocybin therapy session trying to make a person feel bad intentionally. So I tried to talk to them like I had figured out what was going on. Protested why he was so mean to me. Saying how can you sing so mean things. I was convinced they were all some kind of supernatural beings testing me. I asked the others why they didn’t react to how mean lyrics he sang and how shitty everything was. Everybody just looked at me and smiled. Some laughed. Two of the other participants were still completely out. Suddenly I had this weird feeling that these people were all me. That they were different parts of me that I hated but had to learn to accept. I hated the sadness of the entire dissapointing experience. I had so much hope and hoped for a transformative mystical experience, but here I was on some fucking mattress with weird people in a psilocybin ceremony that just felt like absolute shit and like nobody cared about me while some others had the time of their lives. And then something very liberating happened. I thought ”this is life, it’s not going to get any better than this. We are here, we are all broken, with all our imperfections. We are all the same. But it’s ok.” I realised that it didn’t matter anymore if this was the real world, some nightmare hallucination or something completely else. Nothing mattered. I just felt a deep acceptance of the situation and everybody around me. Suddenly I felt ashamed that I was so focused on myself. I asked my neighbour how he was feeling. We started talking and I went over and hugged him and we cried intensely and held hands. I had this strong feeling that everybody has their problems and that I am just so focused on me all the time and that I need to stop that. I eventually went back to my mattress and cried with such intensity I haven’t experienced in years. The leader wrapped a blanket around me and hugged me. In that moment everything felt liberating. My perception of him shifted to something of a positive masculine figure. All the time two of the participants were still completely out. I looked at them and thought about how unfair it is that some people feel so good while others are suffering. And I started thinking about injustice in the world, and how indifferent I am to people in other parts of the world suffering and how I do not care about them. I realised how wrong I was and that every person is important. But I didn’t say anything, I was just sitting there quiet and contemplating. And then the most surreal thing happened. In the exact moment I had that revelation, one of the male facilitators grabbed me, looked me into the eye and said ”NOW YOU UNDERSTAND. THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT”. And they all looked at me and smiled. That’s when I was convinced that OK, this is my personal hallucination and they are beings wanting to teach me something and I finally got it. I’m probably out cold on the mattress and this is all inside my head. So at that point I kind of expected them to reveal how it was all a test, but it didn’t happen. From that point on, I noticed the effects of the mushrooms started weakening. I still felt connection with the others, like I had described before – that I accepted them and that they were all manifestations of parts of myself. But that feeling began fading. We sat and talked for a couple of more hours. I shifted between feelings of confusion, clarity and anxiety. And dissapointment. Around 1 am I went to my hotel to sleep but I could barely get two hours in. So many weird thoughts and feelings that I didn’t now what to do with. That feeling of connectedness was gone. Everything just felt so extremely weird. Reflections The trip didn’t resemble anything I expected, but maybe it gave me something I needed. Yet, I am dissapointed to be honest. Mostly it was just a horribly chaotic experience. And to be honest I’m still not sure about if everything that happened was real or if some things were just in my head. But maybe it doesn’t matter. What was so disturbing to me was that there was no order or intention to the experience. There was no story, no scenario. Before the trip I had feared a bad trip in the form of nightmare scenarios manifesting – spider creatures, drowning in the sea or being tormented. But that didn’t happen. In fact, it was mostly just a mix of anxiety, chaos and dissapointed. In a way I was in my own hell – I had come to expect a deep mystical experience but instead I experienced a depressing real world in the form of a badly organized trip. Yes. The facilitators were kind and tried to help, but so much of it just felt clumsy. Additionally, the leader felt nonchalant. Leisurely jamming on his guitar with his eyes half closed like he was also tripping. Overall, I experienced just a chaos of emotions and a completely sense of weirdness that I had no fucking idea about that was going on. Sure, there were short moments of insight but they faded and ultimately didn’t feel meaningful in retrospect. My question for the future I have two thoughts now. I don’t really feel like I want to experience psychedelics again, HOWEVER, I feel like maybe the outcome would have been different with 1) a higher dose (say 5 grams instead of 3), and 2) a more secluded setting, free from disturbing noises and impressions that ruin the experience, together with a playlist of music I like and have selected myself AND done in a more intimate setting with completely sober facilitator that is only focused on me and doesn’t do a lof of stuff that’s just annoying. Do you think it would be a good idea for me to try a trip in a setting that is more suited for me and in which I feel more comfortable? So my trip was yesterday and now I’m sitting here just feeling like crap. Maybe it will feel different after I get some decent sleep but currently I only feel dissapointment, anger, bitterness and hate. This psychedelic trip was in a way my last lifeline. Something that would bring me out of my depression. But it feels like it only made things worse and now I don’t know what the hell I have left to try. Feels like a real setback. In a way my life feels even more meaningless now. nothing is solved. Sorry for the rant I just don’t know what to make of any of this.
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Albert Hoffmans Apprentice Registered: 08/30/07 Posts: 2,104 Loc: Your Imagination Last seen: 3 months, 22 days |
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That was a really wild first experience and thank you for sharing the trip report. Hopefully writing it down helped with your integration process.
Quote: Did you ever find out if this was real? This seemed really out of place for me in a scenario like that but who knows I've never actually been to something like that before.
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irregular verb Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 37,528 |
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I don't think a higher dose has anything you want in it particularly so I would shelve that direction of thinking.
two things are exposed here. 1. you have expectations that have to be tossed completely. 2. you have a habit of general assessment behavior which is undermining your moods. what I mean by 1. "expectations" is that when you read of an opportunity, it becomes too crystalized as a goal or an intent, while it is more of a direction towards some possibilities. In this way you researched the psychedelic therapy domain, selected a package, and became a consumer of a product which you feel entitled to criticize. I DO NOT BLAME YOU. however, you have to get past that. now you are exposed to the "domain" of p-therapy. but also you are now exposed to psychedelics. you can explore your own music, and your own environment, and please do use lower doses for that. 2. making judgements, or assessments and feeling crummy when the assessment is low. This particular habit (also very understandable) closes you off from experiencing, i.e. you reach a calm moment, free of distractions, and instead of finding the music in that natural experience, you take measurements of your satisfaction index. Some vague metric of internal pleasure/pain accounting. this has to stop. avoid emotional accounting at every opportunity, it is crap. emotions are fine, but putting values to feelings is crap. feelings are not comparable one person to another, they are part of your personal path, and none of that path is crap except when you judge yourself or your feelings as less than perfect for the situation and yourself. congrats for getting off big pharma's crap antidepressant regime and money making racket. a few shrooms every month is way better and cheaper. end of my rant.
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Stranger Registered: 05/05/20 Posts: 642 Last seen: 2 days, 4 hours |
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I think you had a powerful trip. I don't know how long ago it was, but the trip often has effects that don't manifest in the foirst week post trip. I like to look at parts of trips the way I might look at a dream. In yours, the parallel hell world seemed to reflect what your depression has done. It highlighted the negative attitudes and thoughts you have had typically, and that tend to overlay and iaccurately interpret the world you experience. It wasn't just people thinking poorly of you as you might think in day to day life. He was singing bad stuff about you! It was only after exposure to the hell world you created that you had insight into the fact that we are all connected, that we are all manifestations with a common source - and felt that they were aspects of yourself. They were! Not of your individual self, but of the higher self/universe/god. Whatever you call it.
Now this happened on a drug, so you don't come out of the experience like a holy man who has been enlightened. But it planted a seed and you will, over time, keep remembering that you understood - that we are all the same, that you do better when you think about others and empathize with them, not just focusing on yourself. This awareness takes some time for most people. But you know, if you have been somewhere before, it is easier to recognize it when you see it again. You know what it looks like. Avoiding the negative thinking in real life that you became aware of during this trip keeps them from developing deeper ingrained neural pathways. The more you think something, the more those pathways become the default thoughts that automatically interpret neutral or positive events to negative ones. The more you remind yourself of the positive insights - like we are all in the same boat - the more you develop those neural pathways. I like to think of our thought patterns like what happens to melting snowcaps on a mountain. As the snow melts, the water finds its way to the path of least resistance, the grooves it has been slowly carving out for years. It doesn't mean that is where they belong - its like a habit. In Cognitive Behavior Therapy, the process of changing these thought patterns involves thought identification, thought stopping and replacement techniques. You dam up the negative pathways and develop more realistic ones. Psychedelics allow your brain to heal itself, and that healing occurs best when they are not told what to do - that is, when you do not have specific expectations. Utilizing the insights obtained during a trip is what you do after you sober up. So welcome back! You can't expect to know what tripping is about before you try it. And you don't fully get it after one trip. My trips are highly varied - some are blissful beyond what I could imagine, some are bumpy and frustrating like your first one. But all of them have been valuable. This reminds me: When I was a kid, all my friends were ice skating every Sunday. I couldn't get the hang of it, so my Mom got me a half hour lesson. The instructor kept having me fall on purpose. She saw that it was fear of falling holding me back. So for most of the half hour she had me do various things, fall on purpose and get myself back up. By the end of the lesson I was skating around the rink. Why did I think of this now? Because I was thinking that some of the best lessons in life that lead to growth are not pleasant. And "bad trips" are often important. Kind of like therapy - if you don't go to the dark places, you can't lighten them up. Everyone is different. If this were me, I would consider another one to three trips 3-4 weeks apart, but without expectations. When I trip I simply say to the shrooms - "Show me" and try to take in whatever happens without judging, without having an opinion. Opinions involve words and words drag us back to our puny selves, while pure awareness opens up the universe in a way that cannot be explained in words. I also think that learning how to meditate and doing this daily has much beneficial effect. I have found that meditation practice expands greatly after a trip and you get better at it, seeing some spaces that you have had access to when tripping. Best wishes for your voyage, whether psychedelic or not. Namaste. Edited by Neurotech (06/08/23 11:43 AM)
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 21 Last seen: 4 months, 26 days |
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It is really sad to me that your trip was so bad and disappointing. But I would not give up yet.
A few thoughts: FIRST - you talk of lots of issues like depression, suicidal, stressed, etc. And being on meds but getting off of them. Having a bad trip is NOT fun. & I'm no expert, but I wonder -- maybe you just have a LOT OF SH!T inside of you that needs to come out and getting so depressed and crying and what not may have been more therapeutic than you realize. SECOND - I know nothing of organized trips, but it does sound like it wasn't the best run "trip" - for example, if they're playing the piano and guitar -- what ABOUT people like you who aren't digging that? It sounds like there was no escape for you. Like another room (other than bathroom, though some escape time to a bathrooms or closet CAN be AWESOME when shrooming. LOL) where you could escape that noise, lighting, whatever. Or even head phones to listen to your own, preferred music. Sometimes once something like that starts bothering you, it's VERY HARD to shake it off. So, yeah the probably could have been better prepared. But now you know what to look for. You also know that if you're going to do something "organized" again, what to ask about how they handle certain situations in advance. THIRD - MOST IMPORTANT -- I notice many who answered brought up your EXPECTATIONS. I know it's hard -- but expectations KILL the joy to be found in spontaneous events. Kill it DEAD. I remember when I was in 5th grade I went away to a summer camp. I had SO MANY ideas and expectations set up in my head for how it would be. It was NOTHING like my expectations and I was disappointed, and I realized just then that picturing something in advance so vividly could ONLY lead to disappointment. Flash forward 50 years. I did shrooms when a teenager and had the time of my live everytime except once when I had gotten really bad news right before taking them. Now years later hubby wants to do them and I'm SO EXCITED. I'm envisioning deep conversations, laughing hysterically at things, making out like teenagers, long walks through nature, etc. But he only wants to do a small dose and it's so DISAPPOINTING. That's okay, next time... We did them a few times and it was never what I wanted. I'm getting to wordy but we had one more trip that was REALLY IMPORTANT to me, this time I was prepared. Everything was going to be PERFECT. Waited over a year for the "right time" But then he wants to go out drinking with friends before hand. We drank too much, came home, ate them too late, I had HIGH EXPECTATIONS and he didn't feel good and WENT TO BED. WTF?! I was so mad at him that HE LET ME DOWN and he was just blind sided by my anger and the LAST thing he wanted to do again was mushrooms with ME. Getting to a conclusion here -- I realized that I was trying to FORCE an experience. But you can't. You just have to show up and recognize the magic in life when it happens. I backed off of him and decided my trip was my trip and I would enjoy him however he showed up but not put the responsibility for ME to have a good time on HIM acting in a specific way. We did a couple lack luster trips (he NEVER wants to take enough, LOL) but I asked nothing of him and he started to trust me again. Then one night we spontaneously did some and it was NOTHING like my expectations, but it was SO WONDERFUL. We both had a great time. Half the time he was watching something that bugged me the way that piano and guitar bugged you -- and I just put headphones on or went in another room and soaked in my own stuff. But the other half of the time, we were totally connected. Totally enjoying each other. Now we're both looking forward to doing it again and I am coaching myself with "No expectations!" Find the magic in the moment, and if it doesn't come, trust that it can come again. But wanting something specific too much drives it away. Think of a jealous lover -- they want the other person to love them so much they end up acting needy and insecure and become UNattractive to the very thing they want. LASTLY - search the phrase "Shadow Work" -- and watch or read a few things about it before you decide it's not for you. I'm just learning about it, but it seems VERY powerful. It has to do with recognizing and dealing with the things in life that have traumatized you, so you heal from them, and can start enjoying life and taking care of yourself and not feeling like a victim of circumstances. FINAL FINAL -- I hope you do not give up on mushrooms, they still could be helpful, but if you are in a bad frame of mind, or can't curb your expectations, you might want to work on yourself some more before trying them again. GOOD LUCK!!!
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 53 Last seen: 4 months, 17 days |
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Wow, great replies. I feel you have all brought up helpful points. The reason I quote only parts of your replies is to avoid creating a massive wall of text. But everything you brought up was valuable.
Quote: I asked about it towards the very end of the trip and he said "I was trying to provoke you". But it still doesn't make sense to me, for so many reasons. However, I have decided to just let that go. I remember at the height of the trip really wondering if he was the devil, god, or both. Quote: Yes, that is correct. Nr 1 I can see myself having success with. Nr 2... that is just such a deep ingrained part of my personality. I realize I need to stop it but to be honest some part of me doesn't even want to. That's just such a big part of who I am all the time. It for sure is something I need to work on, I just don't know how. Quote: The trip was two days ago. Yes, I realize growth is painful. There was definately something in this that I needed to go through. As I said I cried so hard in a way I can't remember if I ever have. It was very liberating in that moment. The difficulty with letting go of negative thought patterns is that a lot of times I can't tell if I want to stop believing those thoughts or not. I view certain events in my life in a certain way, and while I for sure would be happier if I could reframe them one part of me just doesn't want to let go because I feel like I would let myself down if I stopped believing certain things. So it's an ongoing struggling where I jump back and forth between trying to see my life in a different way and just ruminating on my dissapointments. That's where I hoped shrooms would help kick me in the right direction (being more grateful and looking at things differently). If there was some hint of large truth in this trip I think it was that life is chaotic and imperfect, but that there is a sort of perfection in itself that state of mess and that life can be beautiful even when it's ugly and difficult. And also that feeling that we are all connected somehow. One of my biggest personality traits is constantly wanting to evolve, improve, organize. And that makes me happy as long as it works, but now I am in a situation in my life where I have kind of lost control over how things are so that is what made me plunge into such despair. So I realize that in some way I need to let go of this need to constantly shape life according to my expectations. I think I definately at some point, don't know when I will be able to, would like to try at least one more trip. And trying to be more free of expectations that time. Quote: Thanks for sharing your story. Yes, there was something inside me that needed to come out that came out, so it definately wasn't all for nothing. It was just... not what I had expected. I realise afterwards I should have stayed on the toilet in that moment. Because something started happening there. It was darker, it was more quiet and I felt more alone there (in a good way). As I mentioned earlier, feeling connected to others were valuable to me. HOWEVER, I really get the feeling that being alone in solitude for a longer time would have allowed me to drift away further into something. That's why I'm curious about trying one more time in a more secluded and minimalist setting. Maybe having someone (only one person) and who stays in another room and is only available when/if needed. As for shadow work. I haven't read that much about it but I know it exists and I have thought about it previously. I feel like my identity is this construct where I deny the existance of certain parts of me that I don't consider me because I don't like them. As I mentioned earlier, during the trip I felt like they were all me, but not only the people, also the entire building and sad scenario was somehow a reflection of my own inner life. So yeah, I probably should do another trip but I realise I have to kill my expectations beforehand. And I should probably do the next trip in more solitude and in a more minimalistic enviroment. --- Thank you all once again for all your reflections and suggestions. I greatly appreciate it. Edited by newaccounts (06/09/23 01:26 AM)
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 53 Last seen: 4 months, 17 days |
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I keep thinking
"Stop trying to control everything all the time." That is something I need to meditate on. Edited by newaccounts (06/09/23 02:11 AM)
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irregular verb Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 37,528 |
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well, if you just observe your mental contents shifting and don't even try to adjust them, you will find you less reflex self-judgement because of more self-awareness.
the judgement part is 100% perception, while mental contents include sensation and overall feeling as well. a trick to get more into the moment is to sniff the air while breathing. this blocks perception somewhat as the brain attempts to ascertain scent.
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Registered: 11/15/09 Posts: 3,664 |
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it is good to be more aware
so many things are possible with self improvement and optimizing it is almost unlimited -------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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Amanita #1 Fangirl Registered: 07/31/22 Posts: 435 Last seen: 1 month, 2 days |
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Hi OP
You say that negative thoughts are part o of your personality and ingrained. I used to believe the same thing and sort of just used it to blame myself for all my bad feelings. Truth is, you CAN do something about it. It sounds like you've tried with the medication and the trip. I say keep looking for a way to curtail these negative thoughts. Might be therapy ? Did you say you tried that? That's been the most useful for me. (I can still be incredibly negative but I am better at identifying that these are choices I am making in thinking these thoughts and so I feel more in control) I can't weigh in on taking the mushrooms again as it's all personal preference. It sounds like you had a trip that was sidelined with a lot of your current thoughts and emotions. It can be terrifying and make you not want to do them again All I will say is confronting your feelings lol you did during the trip is one way of very effectively dealing with depression anxiety. Namely CBT and therapy. So don't be so dismayed by how it made you feel in the trip. You will eventually find a way to process your thoughts through trying different things and honestly the initial confrontation will be hard but it will be worth it. If you feel suicidal and are thinking of acting on it please accept help, call a hotline, tell a friend or call ambulance if you have to. I can assure you, having only spoken to you once here, that you are worth your place in the world. Everyone is worth their Space, you included
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 21 Last seen: 4 months, 26 days |
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NewAccounts --
I hope things are leveling out and going well. I couldn't comment the other day but it REALLY struck me when I read that "Trip leader" actually WAS singing mean things about you. I don't know if that person was competent and knew that ultimately that will turn out to be a helpful experience for your or not, but I'm sending empathetic vibes your way because that DEFINITELY strikes me as WEIRD AS HELL and just plain MEAN. I almost fell out of my chair when I read you talked to him and he acknowledged he did do that. Maybe he really is an expert and knew that was just what you needed, but it's not like he was some therapist you've been seeing who knows you well. And what about the other people in the room trying to enjoy their own trips? Just seems like a really mean, reckless thing to do to me. I wanted you to know that someone else saw that part of your experience and also thought ...WTH?!?!?!? Quote: I think this is extremely powerful. I've been doing my own self/life assessment lately and have learned a LOT about this and being able to let go of feeling like I should or even CAN control others/things around me has been so liberating. The fact that you see this in yourself is AWESOME because most people are too defensive to see it in themselves. My understanding that the compulsion to try to control is just a survival instinct that many of us develop in child hood. And it ties in with the whole "expectations = disappointment/frustration" theme. I won't digress as I'm getting off topic for this forum but I do encourage you to do some internet searching on "shadow work" as I know a lot of people who find it helpful and it's tied in with all of this.
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Stranger Registered: 05/28/23 Posts: 12 Last seen: 4 months, 21 days |
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This sounds like such a nightmare lol. Just the fact that you made it through the experience without completely losing it is a testament to your mental fortitude!
IDK how I would react to some shroom guru "provoking" me by singing insults while strumming an out of tune guitar, but it sure wouldn't be pretty. First experience, in an unfamiliar place, inside of a room full of strangers, expecting/hoping that the whole thing will shed light on or even alleviate mental anguish... Sounds like a terrible recipe to me. Then again it seems like you've come out of it with some insights, so what do I know? -------------------- the more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why aren't we like that wise old bird? -Edward Hersey Richards
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Stranger Registered: 05/05/20 Posts: 642 Last seen: 2 days, 4 hours |
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You said:
"The difficulty with letting go of negative thought patterns is that a lot of times I can't tell if I want to stop believing those thoughts or not. I view certain events in my life in a certain way, and while I for sure would be happier if I could reframe them one part of me just doesn't want to let go because I feel like I would let myself down if I stopped believing certain things. So it's an ongoing struggling where I jump back and forth between trying to see my life in a different way and just ruminating on my dissapointments. That's where I hoped shrooms would help kick me in the right direction (being more grateful and looking at things differently)." CBT works! A specific CBT technique called Thought Stopping. It involves identifying negative thoughts, stopping them in their tracks and then replacing them. I totally get what you mean by not being sure you want to get rid of some thoughts. Looking at the thought that way is the first step. The test for whether or not a thought should be stopped (after all, many thoughts are useful. Just because you worry about paying a bill doesn't mean to stop the thought. That is a useful, true thought.)is to consider whether that thought is 1. True or 2. Useful. While it may be true that someone cheated on you ten years ago, it isn't a useful thought, for example. Once you are satisfied that a thought is not true or useful, you develop a more logical thought to use as a replacement for it. Then, when the thought occurs, you utilize a STOP procedure and engage the replacement thought. It is hard at first, but I found it to really work. Here is my take on automatic thoughts. Imagine a snow-capped peak. As Spring approaches and the weather warms, the snow begins to melt and flow away from the peak in no particular manner. An amorphous blob. But as the water trickles down, it finds the grooves that have been made by water and wind for years, and the water flows through these well worn paths, the paths of least resistance. Automatically. The water is not intentional in its motion, it just goes with the flow of where it has been before. This is analogous to our thoughts. Our brains are constantly generating words. Without a lot of practice, we cannot think without words. This constant chatter is automatic and we tend to believe that what we think is real. But a lot is useless chatter. And when we have had many difficult experiences, or when we suffer from depression that creates negative self-deprecatory thoughts, we create neural pathways that become the path of least resistance - the automatic thought. So we need to dam up the untrue and unuseful neural pathways and dig new ones. It takes some time, but it works. I believe that tripping is a great adjunct from time to time.
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 53 Last seen: 4 months, 17 days |
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Quote: That sounds like a great attitude and I will try to implement that from now on. Quote: One thing I can immediately tell is that where medication put the lid on emotion and suppressed everything, the mushrooms brought everything OUT. I cried so hard. And that felt so good. I will never go back on medications again. Have tried some therapy but this session gave me more than those hours of therapy ever have (altough I do find that the CBT techniques I have learned are helpful, so I don't wanna shit all over therapy. I just feel like mushrooms could be way more effective, like therapy on steroids, if taken in a responsible way) Quote: It is weird as hell. Especially as this is a "serious" establishment with a good reputation. Altough they are branded more on the spiritual rather than clinical side (not necessarily a bad thing but you get my point hopefully). If I would have been the only participant, it could be rationalized as some kind of chock therapy needed to break through my emotional walls or something like that... idk. But not with THREE other people there it just seems so weird. That's why I was convinced I was no longer in the real world. Still not entirely sure what was real and not... It probably was all real since there never was a distinct feeling of "going back to the real world". Quote: Yep.Abroad, paid lots to get there. Super vulnerable emotionally and mentally. In hindsight, it wasn't an optimal setting for me. Ideally I should have been in a one on one setting in a more "clean" enviroment with a guide who was only there for support when needed (not imposing a lot of stuff on me with jamming, singing and lots of other stuff). What I will say with some amount of gratitude though is that they provided me a legal and safe introduction to psychedelics in a secure (albeit annoying) setting. --- I'm going to use this thread to further reflect on what happened and how it has affected me and my thoughts going forwards. Further reflections on the trip Now as I remember it more clearly, the absolute beginning of the trip was actually great. It is sad that it was disturbed. I remember feeling really good exactly around 40 minutes after ingestion. As I laid down with the mask on I felt like I was a baby rocked so gently in a crib, back and forth. Like somebody was taking care of me while the singing of the birds engulfed me in a threedimensional way like I was in a tropical jungle (in a good way). I keep thinking that maybe the best thing for me would have been to be able to drift off into wherever that was leading me, without any human created stimuli. Then came the piano music. And then the singing bowls. I think that at this point, the event was still organized in a good way. Even though the presence of music killed something that was happening inside me I can't really blame the organizers for this part. The piano music and singing bowls was beautiful. It was when they turned to spontaneous guitar jamming with different songs that things became annoying. To be honest, I don't know what they were thinking with that part and it sure as hell turned the experience negative for me. It doesn't seem to be in line with the studies on psilocybin in a theurapetic setting either. I think such a chaotic enviroment is probably not the best idea for a lot of people. So I would say the introductory part was well thought through and good but after that it just fell apart into a chaotic mess... even though some magic DID happen to me there also, as I described. Overall I think I would have had a better trip in a different setting. I also don't know if this is a coincidence, but when I started getting really annoyed at the guitar jamming coincided with when I felt like like all hallucinatory effects just stopped. It was a bit like hitting a wall somehow. But as I said, this was also when I started feeling that I had been catapulted to this sad nightmare world that was created in the image of the real world... What I have felt in the days after the trip Now, I have noticed a couple of things in the days after the trip (today is the fifth day). It is nothing extreme, but more like subtle differences that I have to try to cultivate. And here they are: * I find an increased urge to be honest with people in my life. Less lies. Less withholding. I want to be true. There is a sense of liberation in that. Be yourself and let things happen. Don't be so afraid. * I find it easier to have difficult conversations with people close to me and have already had a couple of meaningful talks that I avoided before. * I find it somewhat easier to talk to people in general. Like I am a bit less inhibited and slightly more interested in people in general. * I find it easier to focus on what needs to be done in each moment instead of constantly pausing to ask what the bigger meaning is. As I said, the above is nothing extreme. Just subtle differences that I definately notice and that I want to keep cultivating. Reflecting further on lessons from the trip, two things I really got to experience was a deep sense of acceptance and compassion. I don't feel like that anymore, but I can still remember what it felt like. And that is a useful lesson. Acceptance is one of the most liberating feelings in the world. When you just let go. Stop resisting. Embrace. I wish I could stay in that feeling. So I am thankful that the mushrooms showed me that. The way forward, next trip etc With some days behind me now, I can definately say I will try again. Next time I will jump right in to 5 grams. I keep thinking about that beginning of the trip when there was no music and how I felt like I was really going some place DEEP at that point. This makes me think that maybe the best setting for the next trip is one free from stimuli in the form of music and other people. Like being completely alone, no music, just a trip sitter someplace nearby (ideally in another room) to come to aid if things get ugly. A part of me senses that that setting is where I have the highest chance of going to where I want to go. But I also am curious about how it would go if I just lay down, with an eye mask, and listen to a playlist of music I have selected myself. That seems like it could be interesting but one part of me really believes that the real magic would be in being alone in quiet darkness. I'm really longing for that adventure of going FAR and DEEP without being disturbed by things in the real world. In all likelihood I will try both those scenarios. Right now I can't tell which one I will do first. Looking forward to the outcome nevertheless.
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Stranger Registered: 06/08/23 Posts: 53 Last seen: 4 months, 17 days |
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Quote: Seems like a great analogy but also frightening. The realization that every negative though increases the risk of continuing to think in this way. Thought stopping seems like a good tool.
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irregular verb Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 37,528 |
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