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Traildad
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My first hard trip 2
#28414044 - 07/30/23 01:39 PM (5 months, 26 days ago) |
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I’ve been holding onto this report for a while. I wanted to give myself some time to integrate it. My main reason for trying psychedelics is self exploration, self improvement and reaching a greater depth of spirituality. I’ve read about research on psilocybin and addiction and want to learn if it can be helpful in my situation. Being 65, overweight with two heart stents and still eating poorly I want to do better. So in preparation for my trips I have been seeking help with my food addiction. As I reported before my first trips were mild and didn’t produce any changes. I got a new batch of mushrooms so I could try again and I did 5 grams soaked in some orange juice, as an orange tek and made tea. As I have each time before I laid down with an eye mask and headphones with the John Hopkins playlist on. It wasn’t long before the effects started to come on. This time had a different feel to it. As I lay on the bed I felt I didn’t want the eye mask on and I didn’t want to listen to the music. It was just a different vibe for some reason. As the body high came on stronger it was centered in my chest area. I think it was pretty much a normal body high feeling but because I’ve lived 6 years with stents, any feelings in my chest can cause me concern. From there it became more intense. It’s hard to describe. I didn’t feel like I was dying. It was more of a sense of impending death. A sense of facing death. However best to describe it, I strongly didn’t like it. I started pulling back. I didn’t want to close my eyes and let the trip take me. It felt like what I imagine it would feel like to be on the edge of a cliff starting to slide off and trying to back up as my hands and feet are pushing loose dirt down more than moving me up to safety. I didn’t see a cliff or anything, that’s just a good analogy to the fear I felt. I was trying to scramble back up and away from the abyss awaiting me. I know that the thing to do is go towards the fear when you encounter scary things in a trip. I just wasn’t sure if it was something in the trip I was afraid of or something real in my body. I couldn’t bring myself to say “oh well, if I die I die”. Opening my eyes allowed me to hold on and kept me from falling into the abyss. My wife told me I was not showing any signs of real medical distress. Maybe if I’d been able to take my blood pressure it would have reassured me enough to let go. So I spent the next 3 or 4 hours facing the prospect of death. Getting up and walking around, talking to my wife and giving in a little for a few seconds every so often. I knew it wouldn’t last forever so I just held on and waited it out. After the trip as I began the integration I thought “I’ve got a pretty good life I enjoy”, “why am I doing this to myself “ thinking the mushrooms were the problem. Pretty quickly I realized it was my eating habits that were the problem. Rather than a reasoned logical thoughtful understanding of what eating poorly was doing to me, I now had a visceral feeling of the early death I was headed for. It might be too late to prevent an early death, but it’s not too late to try. I hope I can hold on to the feeling I experienced for four hours so I can turn to it in times of weakness that will no doubt come in my future. As much as I try to rid myself of all expectations it seems it is just part of the human condition to try to anticipate what is coming next. Even knowing we can’t ever know what will happen during a trip I still want to say it wasn’t what I expected. As the song says, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need”. So maybe I got what I needed. It’s been about six weeks or so and I’ve quit most all added sugar and reduced my food quantity. I’m down 14lbs without feeling hungry all the time. The hard times, like with so many addictions, is during activities where I would usually eat poorly. So I could have called this a bad trip but I believe it wasn’t bad. It was a good trip doing hard work towards a better life.
Edited by Traildad (07/30/23 01:59 PM)
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Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Traildad]
#28414231 - 07/30/23 04:52 PM (5 months, 26 days ago) |
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Nice write up
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Traildad]
#28414917 - 07/31/23 10:02 AM (5 months, 26 days ago) |
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So you are at the beginning at 65. I am just a few years older at 71, and even though I was at the beginning of this psychedelic journey at 17, and hardly ever was not on this path, I am still at the beginning of the journey, slowly learning and integrating what's what, and letting things be as they are so that I can take the next step which is still just the beginning of this journey.
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Buster_Brown
L'une


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Does the thousand or so hours you have logged in ameliorating retardation in our community count for something?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said: Does the thousand or so hours you have logged in ameliorating retardation in our community count for something?
not as far as my mindset going forward is concerned. water under the bridge so to speak
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Traildad
Stranger
Registered: 12/03/22
Posts: 33
Last seen: 1 month, 22 days
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said: Nice write up 
Thanks.
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Traildad
Stranger
Registered: 12/03/22
Posts: 33
Last seen: 1 month, 22 days
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: So you are at the beginning at 65. I am just a few years older at 71, and even though I was at the beginning of this psychedelic journey at 17, and hardly ever was not on this path, I am still at the beginning of the journey, slowly learning and integrating what's what, and letting things be as they are so that I can take the next step which is still just the beginning of this journey.
Sounds like an everlasting gobstopper. I guess if you have an eternity there isn’t really a difference between beginning, middle and end.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Traildad]
#28420035 - 08/04/23 05:16 AM (5 months, 22 days ago) |
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ach, eternity, bahh, if I have a moment, if I am present in the moment, that is the best it gets.
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Traildad
Stranger
Registered: 12/03/22
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: ach, eternity, bahh, if I have a moment, if I am present in the moment, that is the best it gets.
Maybe so, but not of much use to anyone.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Traildad]
#28421662 - 08/05/23 10:08 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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what like cash in the bank, sex on the beach, world peace? maybe not, but at least it begins to make sense.
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MindMeower
lawnmower for the brain



Registered: 05/10/19
Posts: 341
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The prospect of dying has been part of several of my trips and I have not fully figured out how to deal with it, at least not when it comes to the bodily sensations that at the time feel most concerning. I have found that trying to stay calm is definitely a good thing, it is easy to start thinking that something goes to shit and it loops and loops and sooner or later you have a full blown panic attack. Realizing this is going on helps to subdue it and in the end these are just mushrooms and not some poison, although it can feel that way sometimes lol.
Seems this trip has done some good, I hope it will keep on going ~
-------------------- M(e)owing minds
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: MindMeower] 2
#28428521 - 08/10/23 02:25 PM (5 months, 15 days ago) |
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as a child I remember not wanting to fall asleep ever. naturally after a moment or two upon waking I was or at least seem to be the same person, no harm done, nothing to fear.
eventually falling asleep became a refuge and no longer bothered me, a natural process.
eventually dying will also occur, and like falling asleep I will have to let go.
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Mercury17

Registered: 05/14/22
Posts: 109
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i figure these morbid psychedelic trips are a preparation for death, which is a valuable lesson, but not fun in the least. it's very shocking when it hits because you never expect it to be that strong, and it keeps getting stronger.
looking at my own related experiences retroactively, the only thing that could have improved the situation was welcoming that anxiety itself. forgetting about death, the circumstances, everything, and just accepting the strong sensations in my body. easier said than done, of course.
-------------------- “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?!” Jeremiah 17:9
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Mercury17] 1
#28433169 - 08/14/23 04:39 AM (5 months, 12 days ago) |
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how does one welcome anxiety? is that a way of saying relax into the sensations, thoughts and overall feelings that happen?
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Mercury17

Registered: 05/14/22
Posts: 109
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: how does one welcome anxiety? is that a way of saying relax into the sensations, thoughts and overall feelings that happen?
in a way it is. by "welcoming" i especially mean cultivating an openness to discomfort, instead of trying to negate it somehow.
a problem i faced during a very tough trip few months ago was some degree of struggle and resistance in "trying" to relax, which i think began with my approach in the first place. i didn't want to experience what i was experiencing. i somehow wanted to "relax it away", instead of relaxing into it as you put. a nuance that can make all the difference!
tuning into the sensations is a good, specific description of how i ideally want to cope with waves of anxiety. it's like listening to contrapuntal music (an example). if one doesn't concentrate on the overall dynamic between the elements, observing how they interconnect, it slowly devolves into a jumbled cacophony, but pieces slowly fall in place and have coherence as you take the time to pay attention.
cacophony is the most accurate word i can think of when it comes to overwhelmingly confusing or scary psychedelic experiences—an incomprehensible darkness. if there's layers of harmony lying beneath, it takes attention, presence, heedfulness, not attempting to ignore or negate it; hopefully an open, relaxed state is what follows.
sorry for the unnecessarily long reply and i hope any of it is helpful or resonates. i'm still learning, especially when it comes to unusually challenging trips. i also know when the time comes, most attempts at reasoning on the spot are useless.
-------------------- “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?!” Jeremiah 17:9
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MegatronX
Autobots, Unite!


Registered: 08/10/23
Posts: 120
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Traildad]
#28435319 - 08/15/23 07:13 PM (5 months, 10 days ago) |
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Quote:
Traildad said:
Quote:
Buster_Brown said: Nice write up 
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing I agree!
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Mercury17]
#28435348 - 08/15/23 07:33 PM (5 months, 10 days ago) |
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I appreciate it and will listen to the cacaphony example before asking more about it. RN my wife is asleep and I am being quiet
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Re: My first hard trip [Re: Mercury17] 1
#28435698 - 08/16/23 05:41 AM (5 months, 10 days ago) |
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Quote:
Mercury17 said:
Quote:
redgreenvines said: how does one welcome anxiety? is that a way of saying relax into the sensations, thoughts and overall feelings that happen?
... tuning into the sensations is a good, specific description of how i ideally want to cope with waves of anxiety. it's like listening to contrapuntal music (an example). if one doesn't concentrate on the overall dynamic between the elements, observing how they interconnect, it slowly devolves into a jumbled cacophony, but pieces slowly fall in place and have coherence as you take the time to pay attention. ....
a fine music indeed. coherence -> pleasure
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Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
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Did you make any sense out of the 'welcoming anxiety' bit?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,528
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said: Did you make any sense out of the 'welcoming anxiety' bit?
yeah, instead of cringing he lets the music in which looked like noise but isn't. opening is like welcoming, I would have used the word opening, or being open, or relaxing and being open.
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