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It was a little surreal to read your post. The "putting on a show to entertain myself" is essentially word for word how I would describe it.

I generally have a hard time explaining it to others without starting to feel it's a ridiculous, convoluted or even egotistical (especially the whole "we're all god in a way"). In a way, whereas I used to be terrified of death, I now accept that immortality would be the more dreadful alternative. I remember treading on these ideas before having tried any type of drug. I've only ever gotten actually high on weed since then, but those experiences were generally not all that pleasant, e.g. had me becoming anxious/paranoid or generally overly introspective. That's also the reason that I've only ever microdosed LSD before as I fear getting actually high and falling into a more extreme version of that weed-induced paranoia/anxiety.

Out of curiosity, do you still hold onto that experience of oneness or do you just leave it as a "drug-induced" hallucination?

i hold on to it, albeit the intensity varies. if i meditate, it comes back in varying degrees.

if i watch tv, binge or get stressed at work, i become what i call "ego focused", and can't feel that connection.

it takes contemplation sometimes - writing about it put me back there.

the visuals and the actual slowing down of time .. yeah that requires the drugs, although on one meditation retreat i did experience something similar, but much less intense.

if anything, i gained more trust of my internal reality. i downright choose to see what i experience as truth. why must a hallucination not be true? it's been part of human experience since we can remember.

as long as it doesn't turn into some odd horror show.. i find that these "hallucinations" are actually some form of deep communication with something significant inside us, and it's a crime to shun it away as less real than our day to day lives, which are mostly ego projections replaying childhood traumas, not really authentic either, yet we call those real life.

edit; also man, try a goenka vipassana - a single hardcore meditation retreat will help you gain more trust in yourself and more trust in the process of life.

I've had that exact feeling of the 'dreadful alternative' of immortality under the influence of (in retrospect) way too much THC. Also, much of the perceived 'peace' and 'tranquility' some people describe feeling from a perception of being 'connected to everything' manifested the exact opposite feelings in me. All of a sudden I felt completely alone. I do not want to be 'one' with everything because that means there is nothing beyond me.

Perhaps a more positive experience might be one in which you still feel distinct but nevertheless intimately connected with everything. I've done some psilocybin, but never reached anything close to 'ego-death.' I am curious to hear other people's thoughts on how these ego-less experiences make one at peace, and not in complete existential horror (I suppose if there is no ego, there is nothing to 'feel' the horror?).

It took a while for my horror feelings to subside - my “trip started out as a horror trip actually, i simply at somepoint accepted the possibility of maybe not coming back from this - i went to meditation retreats before taking LSD, and i confronted terrible feelings in what people call “dark night of the soul” - so i was primed for letting go and openning up.

You only really need to contemplate it longer, because truthful death awareness, i found, made me appreciate my time better, and the time of those who spend theirs with me.

The initial reaction is fear and a terrible thrashing, like a scared child would experience, which is what is at the center of what we think is the adult self. The child never actually “grows”.

So it’s ok man, you’ll feel ok about it eventually. PM me if youd like to talk about it

Watching a movie like The Joker on psychedelics seems a bad idea to me. The movie is already emotionally disturbing and I wouldn't want that disturbed world to get amplified and burned into my brain. Unless you are super experienced and know what you are getting into I would use psychedelics only for positive and supportive experiences.

you know, i should say that i honestly thought it was a great movie, and the LSD made the gate scene very emotional, and the ending very, very intense and meaningful, i don't regret doing it.

Having been there, do you feel that your attitude towards death has changed?

For me, the experience was interesting but ultimately of limited practical applicability. I can totally relate to the "holy thoughts" you describe, but when back in baseline reality, I'm still the same neurotic, doubtful, agnostic rationalist.

You may have tried this already, and it may not work for you, but - a daily meditation practice, and general interest in Zen Buddhism, has helped me personally bring to my baseline reality some of the enlightenment I have felt during past psychedelic experiences.

Same. But despite years of practice, it took reading The Mind Illuminated and sitting 45-60min every single day for 4-6 months before some walls started really breaking down. I lost my social anxiety and a lot of fear in general. But just a word of a caution: serious meditation practice is NOT all sunshine and rainbows. Most people eventually encounter a "washing of sins" or "dark night of the soul" phase that can be pretty gnarly if you're not expecting it. I didn't think to would happen to me but it really knocked me on my ass when it happened.

Its a glorious eye openning moment.

I practice vipassana, and my third retreat pit me against a very insane part of me, accompanied by severe muscular convulsions.

It all made me realize how little we understand about who and what we really are, and what ails us.

I wish more would find out

Same! I had just started getting the phosphenes where I started seeing flashes of light that settled into this wonderful glow that seemed to come from inside my own head coinciding with this wonderful sense of true calm and peace. But then I started to get a bunch of weird head pressure/headaches which started between my eyes and then worked its way all around my head and stuff and eventually worked its way out in some weird emotional outbursts where it felt like I was vomiting up every stale, nuanced variant of sadness and anger I'd ever felt. It would come in waves, feel like I actually had to throw up, and then instead of vomit coming out, my face would contort into an expression of anguish or anger and the emotions would come out.

I'm a skeptics skeptic, but man did that shake my belief against all the various spiritual disciplines involving chi, and chakras and all that stuff I had considered total nonsense. Now I consider it at least to be some sort of poorly understood psychosomatic relationship deeply connecting the somatosensory and emotional parts of your brain.

Strange and powerful stuff. I did not anticipate that much depth to a meditation practice.

I still get a lot of weird muscle cramps in my shoulders when I start to turn on the continuous introspective awareness of my attention. It's nowhere near as bad as it was though. But I also don't sit for more than 30 min. anymore. The whole process was very cathartic but utterly bizarre.

It opens a glorious door into emotional life.

Those faces you talked about helped me understand paychological projection, and how what i think someone did, is probably me blaming them for something they didnt do the way i understand it.

We are bizzar, and its actually really cool.

In vipassana, they tell you to ignore those faces, and scary things (also even the good) - or to Examine them in relaxed acceptance - eventually always going back to the breath, and it helpes the intensity “dissolve” and mellow out.

I found out that the twitches and pains i have are produced by a similar mechanism, and sitting long enough with my “fighting emotions” releases them and also releases the pain.

Its easier to drink a beer or smoke a joint, so i understand society’s choice.

It changed me, in very mild and i would claim beautiful ways. I let go of intellect and just accept the emotion as something that i naturally generate, like the way a tree grows.

Edit; it occured to me that i didn't answer your main question.

I actually dont see a disconnect between normal thought and holy thought.

I imagine i will feel this loneliness and terror and grief and deep sadness at the time of death, and i felt how it might resolve, and it brings a certain joy and a “oh, really? This is actually what it’s about?” And the fear and terror slowly subside into magical relaxation.

So im ok with death, i was ok with death before that, but the “this is all for you” moment sort of cemented it.

Have you ever watched "Mr. Nobody" (2009)? There's something about the scene where the main protagonist dies (the senior citizen living in the future) that resonates to the "haha, oh that's what it was all about!". Long movie but I enjoyed it.

I did, and i loved it aswell. I should watch it again today to remember it, its been years since i did. Thank you for reminding me

it just occurred to me that maybe a vipassana could help you better examine your deeper convictions.

you believe something, but it seems that your mind isn't silent enough for you to hear it.

Thanks for your thoughts, that's an interesting way of looking at it!

Just want to add that I had a somewhat similar experience under the influence of THC (I had several edibles). I took away much the same 'revelation' of the true existential terror of 'oneness'. I felt like I was stuck in a 'perception loop' where I (and all of the world) was in an infinite self-referential loop and I was identical to that loop. The true terror came from me trying to 'break out' of the loop, and being unable to. I remember continually asking the question 'who perceives the perceiver?' and then reaching for an answer, only to be kicked 'up a level' in this recursive loop and starting the process all over again. Eventually I was overwhelmed by a Sisyphean resignation; I was condemned to exist in this loop for all time, continually confused, with nothing to ground 'myself' and in a constant battle against 'myself'.

Looking back, the feeling of being 'trapped' was somewhat reminiscent of my experience of 'sleep paralysis' (and also occurred as I was falling asleep) though on an ineffably more terrifying scale. I'm not sure if other people who've experienced bad trips on weed (that are hallucinogenic in nature) have felt something similar.

When I awoke the next day, I suddenly had the distinct realization that the existence of other living beings and their eventual death (as my own) was an immense gift. Eternal existence as some monistic 'God' suddenly appeared to be the ultimate hell.

Sounds like a very well put summary of lamrim. The book also tells how to break the loop: learn to focus thoughts, understand the concept of emptiness, analyze this concept with laser focused attention. So I've been wondering what happens when someone on lsd enters this highly-focused mode and directs attention at the concept of emptiness.

Ah, interesting. I have not read much about Tibetan Buddhism. Is the loop you are referring to specifically one of 'subjectivity' (i.e., the self perceiving the self) or the broader loop of reincarnation? Any recommended introductory books on the topic for a philosophically-inclined spiritually-inexperienced Westerner?

The latter. The 4th volume of lamrim (by tsong-kha-pa) is a good summary with references to other books. That volume has been translated into English and us called "discerning the real" or something like that.

Tsongkhapa gives a reference to a more detailed "manual" called "the 10 levels of sravakas", but that book hasn't been translated, although Max Muller made some initial sketches.

That’s what training Samādhi is, thats why Buddhists develop single pointed focus and use the breath as an object.

Very cool actually. There is one difference to the loops of our trips and the loops thats broken by conscious single pointed effort.

Our drug induced loops are, i find, broken by an emotional acceptance, while the loop broken by intense focus is that of the suffering of existing.

I tried to meditate on LSD and honestly i dont think we are capable of the feat of trying to focus while on it. Meditation sort if opens a door veeerrryyy slowly, and even that goes wrong sometimes, while i find that the experience of LSD is like a flood. Well beyond containing.

Maybe if a zen master tried it, but i suspect that a truely awake person wont be effected by LSD like we do, he would just shrug “ofcourse”

Why can't you do it under lsd? Is it the skill to think is somehow disabled or it's just a flood of distracting events that make it hard to stay focused?

Its funny you know,

I dont see the loop as hell, i accepted the loop as nature, so when i succumbed and accepted, i felt gratitude for having others around.

Maybe its the intensity of the dose, or our underlying temperaments. I tend to think its a matter of how much time you spend in the loop.

Ironically, i still feel very sorry for “god”. If we feel human feelings and human loneliness, a perfect all knowing thing can feel loneliness on a godly scale, and that’s beyond any horror we can imagine.

When I try and communicate to others this idea that death is actually truly a blessing, I generally begin by asking someone whether - if they really thought about it - they would choose to be immortal if given the option.

The classic idea of "heaven", from that point of view, takes on a different spin.

I don't know the dose and will ask, but your experience matches my only experience and I hadn't looked into it before. Everything resolved to one entity, which was almost nothingness at the same time. As a solipsist, the experience and events leading up to it, including the peers that appeared to be guides, remain with me today. This was something I read leading up to it, http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

This video, during the experience, now defined as my most manic episode, was ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYWOdtReCVw It's hard to define.

Yes! This is how my time loop began! Everything collapsed into one thing.

Oh the egg is a lovely read. Ill give it a slower read tonight before bed.

The video made me feel a bit argh tho. Heh

> if god would to exist, he would have been the loneliest thing, and in his grief and loneliness, he gave birth to otherness, and here we are.

You might enjoy this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hidden_Treasure

I speak arabic so that was intense.

After that moment i had, i actually believe that humanity misunderstood religion. It’s us. It’s me. And look how glorious it all is!

Reading that was delightful, thank you.

That's peculiar, I suffered basically the same exact delusion from a strong psychoactive experience I had in my teens.

I actually think that’s very, very natural. The experience is also consistent with initiatory budhist awakenings, especially during death meditations.

I believe it’s how we approach our fear of death, and how we are able to let go of the wrongs done to us by fellow humans. Grief is a powerful feeling and im still so thankful.

Interesting that you consider the ego-less state the delusion especially considering how humans start life off.

not sure why you got downvoted, maybe because you didn't expand on his use of the word delusion. i actually think you're right in pointing that out -

i just wanted to comment on it too, that i wouldn't call it a delusion, and rather an exposition. even carl jung calls our intermediate awareness of the specific I experience as the ego conscienceness.

in that same breadth, the initial state isn't itself complete either, which is why jung talks about unification of self and ego into the transcendent self, which is niether driven by instinct (initial self) - or sensation (ego), but rather grace (holy direction of what's "right", or zen nature), which to my understanding is instinct applied to the larger self as the collective).

that kind of literature is pretty heavy, and interesting to read. tricky too, from a moral perspective.

it's a shame that we think that stuff we experience on drugs isn't real, just because we stop thinking about it once the "drugs" wear off.

The narrative that God is an eternal void that has become self aware and out of suffering decided to create/imagine a world of humans is not entirely implausible, but in the end it's just a story with no supporting evidence.

Consider for example Max Tegmarks idea that the universe is a mathematical structure in an infinite set of platonically real mathematical structures. I don't believe this view to be true either, but it certainly has a few arguments in its favor. And it's completely incompatible with the former narrative.

My point is that it's possible to conjure up different kinds of narratives to explain our existence. Believing in something just because you thought it up is the delusional part.

It seems relevant to add that I've become a Christian later in life. But that's largely because of things that have happened to me first hand, that have led me to believe in a divine savior at work.

> I once took a “hero dose” of 1500 units, (15 ministamps) as my first dose - i used LSD 3 times after that.

Out of interest, why go for a dose that large? No judgement, I'm just genuinely curious.

I can’t comment on the “first dose” part. But I personally find small doses of LSD far more speedy than larger doses. With larger doses it’s much easier to just lean back and enjoy the experience.

i honestly just wanted to. i figured with a drug like LSD, i would get only one true first time.

by temperament, im a risk taker and generally intense, so it makes sense that i would think and do it like that.

maybe it helped that i looked up LSD toxicity, and didn't think 1500micrograms would kill me or make me go insane, though the latter was a very generous wager.

> I once took a “hero dose” of 1500 units, (15 ministamps) as my first dose - i used LSD 3 times after that.

You have that in SI units or something? I mean even imperial will help.

Micrograms, most likely. A 100 microgram blotter sounds pretty common, * 15.

> Micrograms, most likely

Why most likely? Is it some common drug slang to refer to call µg a unit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgram

I know what a microgram is, thanks.

It's basically the only unit used for LSD dosing and purchases

Then why not call it µg if that is the unit that is used to dose it?

That's just the unit that would make sense for LSD. The same way 6 units for one's height would make you guess feet not meters.

Micrograms (ug), the legend goes that every little stamp is dotted with 100ug,

its actually also really hard to say how much someone really takes as LSD also varies in strength quality.

> Micrograms (ug)

Why would you think that?

> little stamp is dotted with 100ug

So if a stamp is dotted with 100µg - how much is on a ministamps? and he said 15 ministamps - so ... I mean ... is it that hard to just use SI units instead of "units" and "ministamps" - it seems this is a path to getting ripped off.

> legend goes

When I buy something I don't buy it based on legend...

"legend goes there used to be 10 foodles of potato in a bag of potatoes" ... tell me how many kilograms of potato I'm buying - don't start with some legend nonsens.

It’s very hard to have any verification that

1. What you’re buying is LSD.

2. What you’re buying if of high purity.

3. What you’re buying is dosed as advertised.

It’s a square of paper that may or may not have an illegal substance on it. How are you ever going to measure or test it. It’s a legend because it’s virtually unverifiable.

On the street? Probably. Online? Peer reviewed drugs!

>3. What you’re buying is dosed as advertised.

This is 100% true.

Hackernews when discussing amazon reviews: “Don’t trust them, they are easy to fake.”

Hackernews when discussing dark net markets: “Reviews keep honest drug dealers in the market.”

I’m not saying the reviews are worthless, I’m saying I don’t fully trust everything I read.

But using made up legendary units with no clear translation to SI units is better?

It seems fair to assume that the poster meant 1500ug, no other common unit would make any sense. (except maybe if they meant 150ug, but that’d be rather strange too)

So the solution is go straight to "units" which we will just assume is µg because of some legend?

is a "ministamp" the same slang as "tab"? 15 tabs of LSD at once is beyond anything I've ever heard of. One tab of what i would take in college would yield about a 12-15 hour high. Granted, LSD has decreased significantly in potency over the years where marijuana has increased.

it's just my own lingo. it does mean tab. they do look like little stamps to me. im not really a native english speaker or drug lingo expert so please allow my little idiosyncrasities to pass heh

Wow is that 1500ug? That's too much, even for an experienced user.

You could do serious psychological damage to yourself at those levels.

To be honest, 1500ug could mean anything. The way street drugs are produced and sold, there's insane variance between what's "advertised" and what you actually get. Psychological damage wise, I actually wouldn't worry too much - at high doses your consciousness simply stops functioning.

> there's insane variance between what's "advertised" and what you actually get

And a good reason for not trusting street drugs.

If you must do a hallucinogen, mushrooms are an option and you can pick them right out of the ground in certain places.

I don’t know about that, I’ve found that I’m far more likely to have an uncomfortable experience with a small dose than a huge dose.

This has definitely been my experience as well

Yes, I do realize that i was very lucky, and very foolish. I felt extreme grief also for what i have done, and felt i was being irresponsible towards my body as if it was a creature on its own.

That’s the dosage necessary for a breakthrough trip, like you’d get on DMT.