I’d like to share this inspirational quote by Basquiat who OD’d aged 27:
“They tell me that the drugs are killing me, then I stop, and then they say my art’s dead.”“If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.” – Alan Watts
It’s worth mentioning that Alan Watts was a chronic alcoholic who drank himself to death in his 50s. Maybe he should have picked that phone back up from time to time.
I stopped taking drugs and let me tell you, this world is still awful
I have found that cycling is the next best thing
God, just put me in the grave already.
Before that, try once to enjoy the ride on a good bicycle, wearing a skimpy aerodynamic suit that barely covers your fat belly and having passer-bys call you a faggot
Salvias the only one I’ve yet to cross off my bucket list
I do not deem it very spiritually valuable. You’re missing a wild ride but not any character development
As others have said, don’t waste your time on it. Ultimately an unfun drug.
Disagree, sort of.
Salvia isn’t unpleasant if that’s what you mean… it’s also not particularly pleasant. It’s very remarkable in its absolute neutrality imo. It is an experience you can choose to have.
But also worth mentioning that everyone here (including me) has probably only smoked it. Indigenous users in Oaxaca kind of press the leaves against their gums which makes for a more chill and gradual experience. The particular shaman (I think that would be her title?) shown in the Hamilton’s Pharmacopia episode on salvia said that salvia does not like being exposed to fire, I think she may have even said that the goddess or spirit considers it disrespectful.
I’m obviously going off memory here so watch the episode if you’re interested in salvia. It’s very good. If you (like most people) don’t have access to fresh salvia leaves, you can find tinctures online which are probably the closest approximation (assuming it’s legal in your area, but it generally is).
It’s still legal in some places I believe. It’s fucking wild too so have someone on standby to keep you grounded. Literally.
I loved mushrooms and acid, salvia was terrible. It’s super short and super intense. You may think “well it’s just 5 minutes” but it will not feel like 5 min. If you’re looking to expand your mind, mushrooms and acid are great. If you want to slice your brain in half and put the two halves in two separate dimensions with no personal introspection to speak of, try salvia.
That just sounds like DMT tbh, If I can handle that I think I can handle salvia lol
I have broken through on DMT but I don’t think I’ve ever broken through on salvia.
I promise you salvia is weirder.
Firstly DMT is a serotonergic psychedelic. It acts on the same receptors as psilocybin and (if I’m not mistaken) LSD. It’s euphoric, your body may freak out because it thinks it’s dying as it separates from your consciousness temporarily, but ultimately you still physically feel good when you are aware of your physical being.
Salvia is an atypical hallucinogen. It’s generally not considered a proper (or at least classic) psychedelic like DMT, shrooms, mescaline, LSD, etc, or even newer substances like 2C-B. It’s also not considered a deliriant like datura or DPH. It is a secret third thing. It’s a hallucinogenic compound which acts on opioid receptors but is entirely non-addictive. It allegedly has a reverse tolerance, meaning the more you use it over time, the more it hits you. I’ve heard it described as “dysphoric”, so opposite of euphoric, but I would strongly disagree with that - it doesn’t feel bad. I’d almost want to call it “aphoric”, which isn’t a real word lol so may not be linguistically correct, but essentially it doesn’t feel, period. You don’t feel like you have a body.
DMT feels like you’re leaving your body but your consciousness remains a distinct vessel that is sort of witnessing the grandeur of reality’s architecture (at least at the dose I experienced); salvia feels like your consciousness is dissolving into the world around you along with your body.
And I haven’t even properly broken through! I’ve felt immobile and had full-on hallucinations but I still don’t feel it was a real breakthrough. And I’m not particularly in a rush to do so either, even though I have plenty of salvia on hand lol
Just consume a sensible dose, and you will likely have a DMT-esque psychedelic experience. Most salvia stories you hear are from people who just bought an insanely concentrated blend, packed their bong full, and then took an enormous rip as if it was just weed, paying no mind to the fact that they are consuming 10x as much of the active ingredient as necessary for a proper dose, leading to them getting unzipped and becoming the letter B for ten minutes that feels like hours.
This, I always extensively research on erowid before I try new things, I ain’t no cub scout folks don’t worry
I love DMT. I have yet to try salvia. I’m still partially grounded with DMT but it’s like a full meditation experience. I have thoughts during and after. I hear salvia is so different.
👀
It’s terrible, truly awful. Don’t don’t don’t try it
Ime, it was a difficult and scary trip to say the least, mostly because while you’re ‘in there’ you lose even a sense of being a human that just got high.
But I’ve had a few really blissful experiences with it too that left me happy and clear headed for 2 weeks after the hit. To give this a chance, I found that going in nature, sitting in meditation at least for half an hour before the hit and going into it in a really calm state of mind helped a lot. It’s quite unforgiving substance and demands proper attitude.
What still interests me is to try chewing fresh leaves as indigenous people in Mexico do it originally.
do more drugs.
If I recall correctly, the guy who created the Twelve Step recovery program was inspired to do it (I think to him it was actually a religious experience) from an LSD trip, which ended up helping him quit drinking.
So, this is technically what happened to him: Drugs told him to stop taking drugs.
He kept taking LSD after he was “sober”. To be fair, Bill W was an alcoholic and was treating his alcoholism through abstinence, community and helping others. I don’t think he had a problem with drugs, at least I don’t think LSD was ever a big problem for him.
Psychedelics are just kind of like that sometimes
Mushrooms can tell you if they want to, very firmly, that it’s time to hang up the phone
I once saw mushrooms described as “the most forensically accurate character assassination known to man”
Which is why I think it’s very important that everyone try them, or at least westerners
Life can be very enjoyable and drugs can be part of that joy but we’re not just hedonistic pigs chasing the next high, right? Balance, erring on the side of caution and self-control, is better but if not it’s better to just cut it all off. And some things you should never try, of course.
My doctor tells me to take drugs.
But they’re boring drugs for hypertension.
I literally had mushrooms make me stop taking drugs. Absolutely destroyed my ego that night and I never touched anything again. Well I tried to smoke weed a couple of times after that but it just gave me severe panic attacks. Even the thought of taking mushrooms again gives me chills. I had taken them hundreds of times and I guess they just finally said, “you’re finished. You’ve completed drugs.” I am still an advocate for psychedelics though, they have so much to offer.
I attribute mushrooms to finally breaking my years long journey as a fairly committed alcoholic.
The decisions or realizations people can have during an intense trip tend to be really sticky for a very long time regardless if it’s a good trip or a bad one. It’s the nature of the beast.
But mushrooms be like you described sometimes. I won’t go near the dosages I was taking when I was kicking booze. 1-2 grams every once in a while is just fine for me.
After my last power trip (+5 grams) I saw what I needed to see and probably will never go in that range again. It was a life changing trip and thankfully not a bad one. However, when the mushrooms speak to you like that, you listen. They told me I was done and I was ready to heal on my own.
That’s awesome. They are very powerful and very wise. The insight they can afford people come with such clarity you can literally feel like a giant idiot when facing your struggles or addictions. It’s a shame we can’t always see through the fog of our problems in such a way but I am eternally grateful that this planet came with its own troubleshooting tools.
I know it’s hard to describe such things but what is ego death like? Is it smashing free will illusion or something?
For me it was more like actual death. I quite literally thought I was dying and begged my wife to call 911. Fortunately she is experienced and did her best to keep me contained.
Started with time becoming very mixed up or out of order. She was answering questions I hadn’t asked yet and I was perceiving reality as a single experience rather than a normal flow of action/reaction like everything was happening all at once.
Like you said, there are not words for this, language is far too simple to convey the idea but it humbled me to the point of non-existence.
I knew for a fact that life was not a series of events, it was all the same event happening in a singular moment totally separated from any idea of time as we normally perceive it. At that point it no longer mattered if I was dying/dead/alive… I was all of those things. Always have been.
Eventually I could no longer speak or even walk. Speaking, walking, thinking, all of that implied a forward flow of time which no longer was the case for me. My wife said I just laid on the ground eyes wide and filled with tears. She said she tried to talk to me and keep me calm but I never responded at all. She even put her Fitbit on me just to be sure my vitals were good, which of course they were.
What started as terrifying simply became so intense I couldn’t even fear anything any longer. I just…was but also wasn’t.
That lasted for about 30 minutes per my wife’s judgement. It was infinite for me at the time. Even after the peak it took several hours before I could speak correctly or form content thoughts.
Next day I knew for certain I was done with all drugs. I didn’t need them anymore. Never did really.
I wish I could tell you what is was like but all I can really do is explain certain simple ideas such as what I said above. We are the universe experiencing itself subjectively and the idea that I or anyone is actually important is exceedingly ridiculous.
the idea that I or anyone is actually important is exceedingly ridiculous.
I have come to the same conclusion. If you don’t take yourself seriously, you’ll live a happy life.
Out of order time is really disorienting
LPT, keep a stopwatch going for psychedelics. I’ll start a timer on my phone when I drop and it helps snap me out of any kind of time related disorientation as I peak. For your average time dilation stuff, it’s awesome. If I can’t see my phone, then time probably is the last thing on my mind.
Thanks. That’s about what I expected you to say. I don’t really do psychedelics too much but if I get really high on weed I experience something similar to shattering illusion of physical mass (everything is just points in space) and time (determinism, etc.) I often times see time as one thing because in determinism the future is knowable and thus everything there has already happened.
Nothing close to what you experienced.
I believe people should try drugs, because IMO, it’s part of a full human experience, and it can really help you to understand how subjective our experiences are, but of course if people don’t want to, that’s totally understandable.
Keep taking drugs
I can’t remember if anyone ever told me to stop taking drugs, probably because I was so high on drugs
We talkin Lady Salvia or machine elves?
(This is a song about not taking drugs, but it’s framed as a drug bragging about being really bad).
