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Lsd, mushrooms, san pedro, ayahuasca, dmt

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seabadger

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Entheogens are not for everyone, taking them while carrying deep trauma, it can be a horrifying experience. In my experience these dark experiences are the ones that help us the most. Going into entheogens with the intent of healing trauma, in my experience this is a deeply powerful healing tool if used properly. The way I do it is to start with a very low dose and see how it effects me, then gradually work my way up to bigger doses. On lower doses I can feel the trauma without it overwhelming me.

It can be scary because the moment I go into the trauma, the visions, feelings and everything turn very dark and unpleasant and I go through this catharsis process. This catharsis thing, its not a property of LSD, its a property of trauma. In my experience, it doesn't matter if its LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, mushrooms, all these sacred medicines seem to let me breathe and feel into the trauma I've carried with me since I was a little kid, and just feeling into it seems to be enough to trigger a catharsis.

In the catharsis, it seems to come out in different ways. Shaking, screaming and vomiting are usually how it hits me. I feel like I really need to cry but that one doesn't come easy to me. The second time this catharsis thing happened, after the shaking and the screaming finished, I burst into tears and cried for 4 hours straight. I cried more in those 4 hours than I previously had most of my life.

Sometimes these catharsis sessions can leave me a bit devastated, like I feel shattered emotionally for days and it seems like the healing process happens for months afterwards. This isn't a trauma coping tool, it actually brings me to a place where I lose all hope and feel completely helpless and paradoxically, it feels so good and right to let myself be helpless like that.
 
It's not really a gentle way to do it and for some, would be really dangerous. I don't think any of this can replace therapy that has at its core the intent to build secure attachment.

In fact, all that you propose can put people at huge risk. Especially as consuming these plants tend to be highly illegal in most places and the risk of persecution in the name of the law would be just another overwhelming stress for most people to to deal with.

They can also exacerbate underlying distortions, hormone imbalances and add extra mental illnesses on top of the ones your trying to address, adding risk of needing anti-psychotic medications on top of everything.

That being said, as someone familiar with ethnobotanicals, I would certainly put my hand up to be involved with scientific trials to explore the validity and efficacy pertaining to your claims.
 
It's not really a gentle way to do it and for some, would be really dangerous. I don't think any of...
Yeah I was thinking about this as I wrote the thread. For some people it would be really dangerous. Its a bit like EMDR in the sense that anything can surface and it can be a struggle to get through it. This is whats working for me though so I have to share my experience. I feel like I have nothing to lose.

I don't know what therapy with secure attachment means. I know from experience that being with a wise, compassionate (these two qualities are equally important) and calm person can really have a massive impact in making one feel safe. My friend who was with me last time, hes compassionate but not so wise yet unfortunately so he actually made things more difficult in a lot of ways for me.

The governments basically made it impossible for scientists to research entheogens, this only started changing in recent years. Mainstream western dogmatism (I mean science) is a limited tool with limited application. When my chemistry degree arrived in the post, I burned it because a couple months earlier iboga revealed to me that the material world is a projection of the mind. Science is just a box and I feel bad for people who are incapable of thinking outside that tiny box. Other cultures like Tibetans or Amazonians have a completely different model through which they perceive reality, and in the same way that our model can give us an edge in certain areas (like scientific predictions and understanding), their model enables them to perceive and do things westerners don't even believe is possible. Amazonian shamans literally heal people by blowing tobacco smoke on them (well, to the average western mind thats all thats happening, if you ask the shaman he/she will tell you that the tobacco smoke is charged with his/her intent).

It made my heart glow a bit when I read that you're into ethnobotanicals :)
 
I agree, dangerous ground. The aftermath of years doing what you're proposing is to deal with the harsh reality without the nuggets, in a very hard cold way.

I did just that and although it brought me good things, much like what you experience, it also numbed me for a decade. When it was over I almost ended up dead.

So.. I wouldn't put myself through that again.

Not nuggets.. Buffers
 
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I agree, dangerous ground. The aftermath of years doing what you're proposing is to deal with the harsh r...

Can you elaborate a bit on your experience? I went completely numb two years ago. I should mention that entheogens are only one aspect of this healing path. Meditation and breathwork are absolutely essential, I'd most likely be dead if I didn't start meditating. Which entheogens were you using for years? What was your intent going into it? Is it part of your spiritual path? Did you use entheogens in conjunction with other treatments like talk therapy, EMDR etc.? I read numerous peoples testimonies about EMDR and it seems that it can unearth so much that it can leave people in turmoil for some time afterwards. In my experience the emotional numbness happens when we are incapable of dealing with the intense emotions.

Do you still have the emotional numbness? Its intricately connected to the breathe, if you observe your breathe when you're numb, I bet you'll see that you're breathing very shallow. When I was at a Buddhist retreat last year, this guy showed me a breathing technique, you stand up straight, put a smile on your face (and hold it), then as you're breathing in lift your arms up in front of you, then let the arms down as you're breathing out. The first time I tried this I burst into tears.
 
Yeah I was thinking about this as I wrote the thread. For some people it would be really dangerous. I...

No, like Sietz, I've been there, and like Sietz it (they) created a lot more problems for me and I wouldn't do it again, unless under strictly supervised and/or rigorously sound circumstances.

Again, that being said, I have had some revealing experiences but they were also brutal.
 
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I've been in all sorts of paths during that decade. What a found in what I consumed was an escape masquerading as spiritual enlightenment, not spiritual enlightenment through the escape.

That breathing technique is interesting. It had probably more to do with your frame of mind regarding these subjects than the breathing itself. I'm not judging, just my opinion.
After I let go of spiritual needs these things simply stopped working on me.

As per the drugs I used, everything you stated minus ayahuasca, which I have no doubt would probably help in the moment but make me return to baseline later down the road.

I also meditated, still do.
Was in therapy the first few years, psychoanalysis.
 
While I think these drugs may give some relief temporarily at times, they can also be long lasting but only if they are used moderately. I escaped a lot with using MDMA, amongst other party drugs and I never found myself in a particularly good spot. Although, MDMA did make me feel as if I could open up more about my experiences and feel some peace with myself. However, not all the MDMA out there is exactly pure and in my younger days we always went overboard. And you know what they say- the higher you go up, the harder you go down. I see my drug use in my younger days as simply an escape from having to think about shit and on a number of occasions lead me off the beaten path.

As for mushrooms, I have done them on much fewer occasions and I did feel far more long lasting relief and peacefulness with myself. And they were never a drug I over used. I have never tried DMT or Ayahuasca, but from what I heard they can be helpful, but a friend of mine who actually did travel to South America to do Ayahuasca told me that although he felt cleansed and a bit of relief, however it wasn't a total cure all.

For myself, I have had extensive therapy and have received quite a lot of EMDR treatment and I felt like it has helped me process things a lot better. I am able to calm myself down a lot better when I am triggered and I have become a lot more grounded. It is a lot of work and can be difficult, but I highly recommend it as a more long term solution in coping with PTSD.
 
Yeah I was thinking about this as I wrote the thread. For some people it would be really dangerous. I...

One of the primary goals sought after by a good therapist is often that of supporting a person to be able to form a trusting, supportive reciprocal relationship. It's not uncommon for people struggling with cptsd (I can't really speak for simple PTSD) to have had only "disordered attachments".

This term comes from attachment theory, which looks at ways we form primary relationships and how it affects us in the long term. People either form "secure attachment", trusting that others will meet their needs, "ambivalent attachments", having learnt that sometimes their needs will be met and other times they may get hurt or rejected or "avoidant attachment", which, of course, means they haven't learnt to trust other people at all and avoid them and push them away.

Therapists address this by slowly building trust with their client to teach them that beneficial relating is not only possible but necessary and achievable.

Drugs don't fix this and true healing doesn't occur without learning how to form, at least, one, secure attachment.
That's my two cents, anyway.
 
While my view is likely not popular, I have experienced significant healing from lsd and mushrooms. They have given me catharsis and perspective in ways completely different than therapy and psychotropics. While the experience can been super intense, I do well submerged. But, I in no way suggest it for others, as it can be very frightening.
 
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