Psilocybin

I know this is kind of a taboo topic but I’m interested in hearing others’ opinions on it. I’ve never tried any psychedelics but would be interested in trying some at one point. My idea is that maybe it would provide some sort of mind expanding benefit. I also took note of how Richard’s initial PCE was triggered by psilocybin. Has trying any sort of psychedelics had any impact for anyone here as far as actualism is concerned? I’m trying to see if I could maximize the benefit from them by setting up a certain outlook or expectation.

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Some of my most fun times as of late has been on psilocybin. I think if you use it with an actualist intention it can be very enjoyable. I especially like how vivid and detailed everything gets and colors really pop. What kind of intention might you set?

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Cultivated some Golden Teacher a couple years ago. Lovely process. Same intent as yours, was hoping to replicate Richard’s experience. I did have Profound experiences. Still, I did not manage to induce an experience where all was perfect. I was able to induce a Living Hell where I ended up looking at my AR 15 rifle to blow my brains out. Fortunately, I was too intoxicated to bother locating the magazine. Experiences may vary!

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Ha… sounds about right

My own experience with psychedelics in general and psilocybin in specific has been similar.

Experiences of profound clarity mixed with experiences of profound delusion. It took awhile to untangle them after the fact, though actualism is the best possible platform to work from.

Highlights include thinking a good friend was a cop spying on us, as well as being convinced that dragons were real

My personal view of psychedelics is that they may be very useful for times when one might occasionally wish to ‘get up high’ and regain a view that had been lost, as in finding one’s proper bearings.

They become less useful when they’re used more often, because of tolerance issues, brain-fog, and that the experience itself becomes ‘colonized’ by the self.

I’ve been a pretty big pothead at one time and plenty of psychedelics, and I’m off everything now because of comedown/tolerance/brain-fog/memory impact reasons.

Edit: one other thing - the closer I am to the actual, the less effect any of these seem to have

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It’s more to “regain a view that had been lost” as @henryyyyyyyyyy put it. My intention going into it would be to trigger a PCE like the one Richard had, but I also want to see what part of ‘me’ I’m holding back. Even if I didn’t have a PCE I’d want to solidly rediscover that naive part of myself which is most assuredly locked up. Where is that ‘me’ hiding and what’s in the way? I want to spend a good amount of time in that state and intimately connect with it so that it’s indelibly impressed into my memory. Maybe I can also establish that “golden clew” to make it easier when normality resumes.

Currently I find that I feel good only to fall back into feeling bad over and over. I first chalked it up to just not trying enough. There’s some insincerity going on and I can’t figure out exactly what it is. I find that I can certainly claw myself back up to feeling good and great but I can’t stay forever and that the bulk of ‘me’ still doesn’t believe that life can be easy. I’m even doing some ‘real world’ work through therapy and discovered the effect childhood physical abuse has had on me. Maybe there are parts of ‘me’ that haven’t been allowed to come to the fore. At the moment it’s manifesting and being recognized for the first time as a resentment. Perhaps a resentment at being alive at all? Richard does write about how this resentment sabotages sincere investigation. Maybe I’ve been lying to myself. sigh

Yes, I do have this fear as well so I’m trying to read up and set my intentions as clearly as possible. But there’s always that factor of unpredictability. Maybe I’ll try micro-dosing first.

Something unrelated: I wonder if psychedelics would have any effects on an actually free person. Seeing as how they stir up the “subconscious” parts of ‘me’, I’d think nothing would happen. But who knows?

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Richard did mention, either on the site, or in person to me, that weed “narrowed his consciousness” after becoming free.

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I spent weeks searching the local swamps and parklands for suitable mushrooms.

We only have a single forrest in Western Australia that produces magic mushrooms, and it is policed extremely heavily.

In short, i would have to be nore dedicated to getting mushrooms than if i just went ahead and felt good all them time, come what may.

My only psychodelic experience was LSA, from baby Hawaiian woodrose seeds.

Lots of throwing up, then insights into religion, followed by 2 days of being slightly euphoric that my brain was putting itself back together after being “unhinged”.

I remember driving home, 8 hours after the trip started, thinking, “yes, we drive on the left here. I am pretty sure about that”.

:sunglasses:

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It may be worth looking into naïveté on the actual freedom trust site

Additionally in terms of risks of ASC during psychedelic trips this is what it looks like:

RICHARD: …emotional/mental nausea upon a resultant grim foreboding – a desolatory (forsaken, dismal, wretched) or bleak presage– ensuing.

… do watch out for aversion flipping to its opposite, though, especially via any grim foreboding/bleak presage, inherent to meaninglessness/ purposelessness, slipping into being a dire foreboding – a minatory (ominous, baleful, menacing) or sinister presage – and thence to an awful foreboding … a reconciliatory (awing, humbling, reverential) or redemptive presage.”

All the above, and more, are available within ‘me’ - and psychedelics have a habit of bringing such experiences to the fore.

The ‘guardian’ creating the ‘block’ to your investigation is protective ego, defining what you’re willing to wade into and how. That keeps any discovery (safely- for ‘you’) at arm’s reach. So the possibility is there for psychedelics to weaken the ego sufficiently that something else happens.

What that is, and what you gain from it, I cannot say. But it helps to know what some of the territory looks like in advance.

The self contains many very weird experiences, and it is not for the squeamish. There are risks. Only you can determine if that is what you’re wanting to check out

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I suspect , that in the right company, ie actualist, drugs could be useful.

Set and setting. There was a famous book about this. That the experience of most drugs followed the expectations and setting (the company and environment) that they are taken in.

Going back 40000 years, there are theories that it was precisely psychodelics that spawned changes in human consciousness. I have no doubt about it actually. Even from a single experience.

The way it changes everything is unlike any sober experience.

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This is a new tech and new company trying to use VR to mimic only the
positive effects of Psychedelics’ .

https://anuma.com/press-release

https://anuma.com/try

I would be interested to see what Srinath or others thinks about this!

My experience with psychedelics is somewhat vast… In México I’ve access to a lot of diferent “plants”: peyote, marihuana, different kind of mushrooms (the strongest one called “el derrumbe”, with means “the collapse”, you can imagine why) and different ones coming from Colombia (yopo and yage), Venezuela, Perú…

The only PCE I can rememorate was in an spiritual context after consuming peyote. When the PCE happened it was as if there was no effect of anything. I experienced the purest and most extreme sobriety. But when I came out of the PCE I had a horrendous experience, of disgust, shame, fear, etc. A kind of identity reaction to what happened.

I have had some EE with mushrooms: I suggest to use them wisely and basically that implies: adequate context (preferably nature), adequate company (or solitude), moderate dosage (each one should experience the necessary), good humor and a lot of laughter. In short: have fun, don’t go to the dark side.

p.d. They can be very helpful in investigating the reasons for not having a good time, as one is feeling wonderful under the effects of the fungus.

p.d.2. And as someone already said: don’t turn it into something routine, it ruins the magic, the novelty. The ego appropriates the experience.

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To summarize: Glowacki injured himself hiking and had experienced an altered state of consciousness where he was a ball of light and his isness was leaking out of his body. He was convinced by this experience that his awareness could transcend his physical form. He used this experience to inspire his VR video game where the player is represented by clouds of mist.

Nothing about that should represent what a medium dose of a psychedelic would do.

“The resulting sense of deep connectedness and ego attenuation mirrors feelings commonly brought about by a psychedelic experience.”

Had an interesting EE the past saturday after consumption of lophophora (hikuri, peyote).

Some notes of the experiencie:

After 1 hour of the dosis (an strong one), I began to feel phisicaly bad, with nausea. But I waited enought for it to pass. I noticed in the process that it wasn’t only physical. It was affective. An internal struggle of feelings. Later I told a friend that it was like a war of ninjas inside of ‘me’. And there were good ninjas, bad ninjas and felicitous/inocuous ninjas. At some point the felicitous ninjas won because they were cleaver enough to not fight and just let the rest do it. And die.

After that it was an EE. There where very good vibes, and felicitous feelings, I felt totaly happy and harmless. There was a very clear perception of things and people, and a soft happening of events.

At some point someone told me: “you look amazing, in a very good mood, happy, enjoying, with a different look in your eyes”. Yeah, I told her, it’s the mezcalina. It “reminds me how I truly am”. And then a yellow light turned on. I could see how I was in the border of an altered state were I could easily slip into a kind of full Love/Agapé state of being. So I had this instant reflection remembering the idea that I’m my feelings and my feelings are me, so there is no way I can be 100% me without those feelings. And that at the core that feelings are the cause of malice and sorrow. So that helped me to stay in the border and didn’t take the wrong route to enlightenment. I stayed happy and harmless for the rest of the day, enjoying the felitious and inocuos feelings, deeping in them, remembering their tone so I was able to remember that flavour the next day and don’t confuse them with the good feelings (the bad ones are more easy to differentiate).

During the past week I used that memory time to time to get back from bad feelings, that are kind of my more habitual feelings when I’m fully involved in my work with all the stress it happens to me. And yesterday remembering the EE I noticed that I was almost there again, without psychodelics. So I think that this is the way they (psychedelics) can help someone to go deeper in the actualist path, specially when there is difficulty to experience the felicitous and inocuous feelings in the daily experience. But also, there is always the danger of the ASC’s through them…

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This is great, thanks for posting this report

I’ve had some similar experiences to this with psychedelics. The emotions have this largeness to them which makes them both more obvious to observe, but also potentially unwieldy.

Glad you were able to use them to such effect!

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Whenever there is mention of psychdelics something in me awakens, and I feel compelled to write…

As I’m replying to a post from April 1st the following paragraphs might have lost their relevance to the topic starter. It might still be benifical to others, or perhaps to me, depending on the replies.

Has trying any sort of psychedelics had any impact for anyone here as far as actualism is concerned?

It allowed me to experience a ‘continual now’ regularly as I used to describe it back then. However none of the people I spoke to, who used magic mushrooms, experienced what I believe is similar to Richard’s ‘eternal moment’ . I only took half the recommended dose and did not have hallucinations.

Also Peter describes a PCE he had while using XTC, and someone named Jack who used to be active on various af-forums also describes a PCE he had while on psychedelics. I think you can find the descriptions of these experiences in a subsection with PCE descriptions on the af-website.

It’s not just the experience itself that might benefit you, but also the lingering effects afterwards. Recently I came across a podcast that mentioned neuro-plasticity and how taking psilocybin increased neuro-plasticity and giving one, during a limited timeframe (weeks?), the opportunity to make use of this ability to rewire/make new connections.

Two decades ago, I had this experience where I saw that ‘I’ was an illusion and which showed me that everyone has it 180 degrees wrong, as Richard likes to put it. To me the experience seemed the result, although a very unexpected result, of various methods I was employing at the time in order to make my self more intelligent. I got the result I wanted, temporarily, but presented in a very unexpected manner, through apperceptive awareness. However I was never able to reproduce the result and it’s only now, since listening to the podcast, that I see that an ingredient that was there then had been missing all that time, namely a certain level of neuroplasticity that was present due to my occasional use of using magic mushrooms.

The podcast:

Andrew Huberman: Sleep, Dreams, Creativity, Fasting, and Neuroplasticity | Lex Fridman Podcast #164 - YouTube

The interviewee mentioned many things that I felt were insightful and useful on the path I am on. For instance another thing that was mentioned is how when one blinks ones eyes one temporarily finds oneself in the present moment (at least that’s how I remember it). That reminded of Peter’s advice to Vineeto (again as I remember it) to push oneself to outside of the eyeballs in order to stay in the present moment.

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Hi, @BartC. Welcome to the forum.

I removed the preview from your link because it gave an unavailable video message that led just to youtube.com.

Just in case, can you check if it is the video/podcast you wanted to share?

Hmm is that to say, in other words, that you discovered a way to bring about apperceptive awareness, namely:

  • various methods employed to make yourself more intelligent , plus
  • occasional use of magic mushrooms
  • equals apperception ?

If so could you share what the various methods are, as I’m sure many would appreciate it since having that first PCE can be very tricky and it is so essential.

With that being said do you see that neither these methods nor magic mushrooms are actually required to have a PCE?

Cheers,
Claudiu

I would be interested to read about it.

A few months ago I was interested in trying mushrooms, but when I finally found a contact to get spores, I put my foot in it by writing that I wanted to grow them. Apparently, that must remain unspoken.

I decided that it would probably be best tried when I was feeling good.

Perhaps I will find some next year when they are in season.

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I am in 2 minds with regards to psychedelics and Actualism. On one hand these experiences can serve as some sort of glimpse/reminder into a world that is outside of the normal grey and glum world.

On the other hand once that glimpse is had, what do I do with it? As in I could continue taking mushrooms and have these glimpses or I could somehow try to aid actualism with mushrooms but where is that road going exactly :thinking:

Because at the end of the day I gotta do it sober, I have to be able to find my way ‘there’ without the aid of psychedelics if the goal is to live there permanently. There is also that whole thing of ‘getting down to it’ in terms of actually changing myself that I might never undertake if I rely on the use of psychedelics which offer me a temporary escape.

But at the same time I just re-read Peters Journal the other day and he did suggest the use of marijuana for an Actualist as a way to delve deeper into some issues and also to potentially have a glimpse of the actual world (If I remember correctly).

Shame that the main effect marijuana has on me is that I get sleepy and end up emptying the fridge :joy::joy:

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Also it is interesting to compare nowadays a genuine PCE and a psychedelic experience. I had one the other day when I was at my friends house (psychedelic experience) and I noticed that although the world was very much magical, colourful etc there is something significant missing, there is still that film that is ‘me’, essentially it is still an ASC. I find myself still in some bubble that I cannot quite come out of, of course because that bubble is ‘me’ and ‘I’ am still there. This has been my experience with every mind altering substance, that it got me close but never there as in a genuine PCE.

So in the end I do not see these as really beneficial to anything actualism related nowadays, more just a fun little trip with friends, lots of giggles, nice colours etc.