LSD, peyote, psychedelic mushrooms and religious or spiritual experiences

[oldhat]

Anyone want to share? I've never tried it but a lot of the people I've talked to about LSD have said it was the most mind-expanding or even religious experience of their lives. And these are mostly hard headed skeptics and free thinkers.

Doesn't part of you know while under the influence or after the experience has ended that it was "fake" on some level? Not to diminish one's psychological insights or emotions while on acid. I've asked people this question and they were all emphatic that it was not a "fake" experience. "Transcendent" was one of the words that kept coming up.

Try to describe this elephant to a blind man, please.

[steverino]

Good questions. I got into these three drugs at age 19-22. I was impressionable, searching for something spiritual, and had not made up my mind yet about God. I still haven't! Oh well.

When out in nature I definitely felt an elevated sense of connection with my natural surroundings. The rocks, water, streams, trees seemed to come alive and interact in a blatant exaggerated way in front of my eyes like a talent show of species trying to out-do each other. When I was with my clique of friends I felt a stronger bond as well. I do acknowledge that I would stare at my hands and scrutinize my physical body perhaps like a parrot stares at a mirror, only I would ask, "Who am I?" While the parrot asks, "Who is that?"

Like a musical piece or scene in a film that deeply moves you, it is viable in my opinion to transcend into a spiritual, or spirited place in your mind while at the same time being completely aware that you are becoming stimulated by a violin, a Hollywood special effect, or, in this case, a drug.

And while these feelings are truly exaggerated while under the influence, I believe there is a carry-over after the drug wears off, for better or worse.

[NewtonTrino]

I have a friend who basically believes in god because he saw him in the sky while tripping on LSD walking through the forest. I think he's nuts.

[oldhat]

Is God, whatever that may mean, less real to him?

I tend to give people with these experiences some credit, I wouldn't discount them completely.

[Cavemonster]

For me, Salvia was such a drastic change of perspective for me, that it did make me wonder about a lot of things that I'm not sure I can even phrase.

[oldhat]

Try.

[fagin]

Originally Posted by Cavemonster

For me, Salvia was such a drastic change of perspective for me, that it did make me wonder about a lot of things that I'm not sure I can even phrase.

That stuff scared the crap out of me. Tried all the 'normal' ones (ie illegal) with no problems.
Took Salvia once (a high strength one - according to the baggie). I ended up crawling along the floor, imagining I was the entire universe, all of time future and past. That doesn't sound scary, but it felt as if (or I thought - still confused) I had no control over what was happening and I would spend eternity spinning out of control. It seemed to last hours, but was probably only minutes.
I finally regained some control by squashing myself into the floor until everything stabilised.
Because I'm an idiot I tried once more - a smaller dose lying on my bed, holding onto the headboard for 'stabilty'. Everytime I let go (part of my experiment) I could feel the loss of control again and had to grab for the bed.
I honestly felt at the time that it would be possible to get stuck in that ?frame of mind? ?delusion? whatever permanently.
Even now I get the heebies thinking about it.
Reading what I've just written sounds stupid, difficult to describe a feeling, especially one that was like nothing I've experienced before, nor want to again.

[Dymanic]

I'm trying to sort out the difference between "real" hallucinations and "fake" ones.

[godless dave]

I've used LSD and mushrooms several times each, and never had an experience I would call "spiritual" or "mystic".

[Gate2501]

Originally Posted by oldhat

Try.

I have explained my Salvia experience in another thread, so I won't get too far into it here. I will just say that it was a complete disassociation with reality. Totally different than other drugs that change the way you perceive what is already there(like the drugs in your title).

This makes it pretty much not fun in any way. At the height of my "experience", all of reality was the inside of a rigid tube, like a paper towel roll. I was looking into it(I wasn't, I was in a chair, catatonic), and at the end of a tube, where the opening should have been, there was a scary void. It only lasts 5-10 minutes, but there was a 15 minute period afterward, in which I was unsure if I was really back in the "real world", and I was very scared.

Hmmmm... Makes me want to go try it again.

[Dymanic]

And then of course there is the issue of the extent to which the "normal" view of the world is an accurate reflection of "reality". What would it be like to be a bat -- on acid?

[Monketey Ghost]

Hey hey godless dave! An old Deadhead here...

I used to sell blotter from crystal, sometimes dipped it myself. For many years I was a heavy user of very pure LSD, maybe (averaging it out) three times a week, or more. I loved loved loved it, but grew tired of the experience in the end. Reached a point where playing that game with my own mind became stale, too demanding, and could no longer give me insights about myself or my life: just outgrew it.

I had many very strong, story-generating experiences... but it was always of the "I know this is just a chemically induced state and will end in ten hours" type. My base has always been skeptical, and even the most overwhelming acid trips were not mystical in any way. It's too obviously a false experience, at least to me.

ETA: peaking on acid during the first few notes of the return of Dark Star was a wonderful smile that lasted for days... 1989 was a great year for me...

[godless dave]

One of the most fun experiences I had was just last year. I was lying on my back, listening to Mickey Hart's band, and looking up at a wisp of cloud in the sky. I felt raindrops, and realized I was looking at the cloud the raindrops were falling from and feeling its water fall on me from thousands of feet up in the air. It was cool, it was relaxing, it might even have helped me appreciate nature even more than I already do. Nothing mystical about it, though.

[Cavemonster]

Originally Posted by oldhat

Try.

I've never tried other hallucinogens, but my understanding is that they alter or tweak your experience, Salvia picks you up and drops you somewhere completely different, very quickly and very intensely.

My experience? Here's the closest I can get.
Talking about time and when things happened is sort of useless (especially for the beginning of the trip. I was suddenly this sort of, stretched out part of a stretched out world, constantly rotating and filled with subdivision that blended seamlessly into each other at first.

Now, when I say "suddenly", that's sort of misleading. In the aftermath, I remember smoking the stuff, and logically that sensation happened after it, but during that experience, it had always been. It took me half of the trip to remember that I was actually a human who had taken a drug.

As reality seeped back in, it wasn't a process of hallucinations steadily dissolving, it was a continuous narrative that proceeded from the "world" of the drug experience to the everyday "world"

The spinning resolved itself into a series of pie wedge, identical worlds, rotating on an axis, this became a series of pie wedge shaped living rooms rotating on an axis, I climbed from identical couch to identical couch as it spun. Finally the progression stopped, and I was a more or less human, sitting in a more or less living room with my friend, but completely unconvinced that the world might not start revolving again.

But all this is a very clumsy approximation. In general, it takes you to a different experience in every sense of the world, and it doesn't let you off with a reassuring sense that the experience was "fake".

Not a fun drug, not a party drug but a very interesting drug. Do Not Use It Alone!

[Cavemonster]

Again, important note for Salvia. Have a sober person in the room, to remind you that you are human, that you are sitting in a room, to help drag you back.

[Monketey Ghost]

I'm gonna say, because sooner or later a mod will:

many years ago, on this forum, when the rules were more lax, I started a thread like this, and still got chastised for it because... after all, we can't be advocating drug abuse here.

[Bikewer]

I've never taken a psychedelic. Way back in high school, circa 1963 or so, I read the book that had been written by the fellow who discovered LSD; couldn't help thinking "that sounds like fun!"

Still, never did.

I don't think rational discussion of the effects on consciousness should be seen as "promoting drug abuse"; some heavy hitters in history have written intelligently on the subject.

Then there's Carlos Castenada...

I once had a discussion with a GI who had recently arrived in Germany (1966 or so) from California. He was wondering where he could score some pot... Beer was the "drug of choice" in the army at the time.
He was maintaining that LSD and similar drugs were truly "mind expanding". I (with no experience whatever) maintained that such drugs could only produce distortions and alterations of what was already there...
Certainly many folks have had what they perceive to be profound experiences from such substances.

[Lithrael]

I'm baffled by the descriptions of salvia's effects here. I smoked a crap ton of that stuff with some friends a few times and it did nothing at all to any of us (we gave up on the experiment and switched back to pot).

I enjoy the heck out of psychedelic experiences but I can't say I describe them as mind expanding at all, except in the general sense that having new and interesting experiences of any kind is mind expanding. It's cool to more or less directly see the effects of the mind's post-processing of visual information at work, pattern over-recognition, attempts to find edges, that kind of thing. Many of those effects can be observed for a few seconds without chemical assistance, though, with simple things like tiring out one's retinas on well designed flash movies on cool websites.

[stilicho]

Originally Posted by oldhat

Anyone want to share? I've never tried it but a lot of the people I've talked to about LSD have said it was the most mind-expanding or even religious experience of their lives. And these are mostly hard headed skeptics and free thinkers.

In the past, I would use (or abuse) several of these supposed mind-expanding substances, sometimes combining them to see what they could provide. The sensations were peculiar and occasionally convincing. One experience I recall was the sensation of an endless loop of creation creating creation. It was a little like being caught on a Mobius strip. Just as I was sensing the completion of the newest creation there would be another one "creeping up from behind".

I wouldn't call any of the experiences religious. Not even inspirational. I had probably considered some of the ideas that merely appeared to intensify after using the substance(s).

The biggest fault I find in drug (ab)use is that it's such a huge time-waster. You could be reading a good book or preparing a delicious supper or any number of activities that supply greater satisfaction to the mind and the senses.

[godless dave]

Originally Posted by Magnifico2.0

I'm gonna say, because sooner or later a mod will:

many years ago, on this forum, when the rules were more lax, I started a thread like this, and still got chastised for it because... after all, we can't be advocating drug abuse here.

I will say in all seriousness that I don't advocate taking any of these drugs. I feel it is an individual choice.

But I certainly don't advocate that people should follow the drug laws of wherever they live just because they're laws. Make up your own mind. Don't take my word for it, and don't take the government's word for it either.

[Bob Blaylock]

Ever see how a calculator behaves, when the batteries are very low? You can key in a valid problem, and it will return nonsense. Somewhere out there, there may be people who think that there is some mystic truth to be found within the nonsense returned by a malfunctioning calculator, but most of us are smart enough to realize that the calculator is simply malfunctioning, and that what it returns in that state is meaningless.

Yet there are many who think that when they take poisons into their bodies, that cause their brains to malfunction, that there is some meaning to be found in these malfunctions. There isn't. It's just your brain malfunctioning, and producing nonsense in place of meaningful thought.

[Gate2501]

Originally Posted by Lithrael

I'm baffled by the descriptions of salvia's effects here. I smoked a crap ton of that stuff with some friends a few times and it did nothing at all to any of us (we gave up on the experiment and switched back to pot).

You need to basically pack an entire bowl of the extract, and burn it all in one huge hit with a butane lighter. I tried just smoking it like pot once, and nothing happened.

[godless dave]

Originally Posted by Lithrael

I'm baffled by the descriptions of salvia's effects here. I smoked a crap ton of that stuff with some friends a few times and it did nothing at all to any of us (we gave up on the experiment and switched back to pot).

From what I understand, the plant matter has to be heated to a relatively high temperature to give off the psychoactive chemical. A regular Bic lighter won't do it. Did you take that into account?

There is also the possibility that somebody sold you some other plant and told you it was salvia divinorum.

[realpaladin]

Originally Posted by Bob Blaylock

Ever see how a calculator behaves, when the batteries are very low? You can key in a valid problem, and it will return nonsense. Somewhere out there, there may be people who think that there is some mystic truth to be found within the nonsense returned by a malfunctioning calculator, but most of us are smart enough to realize that the calculator is simply malfunctioning, and that what it returns in that state is meaningless.

Yet there are many who think that when they take poisons into their bodies, that cause their brains to malfunction, that there is some meaning to be found in these malfunctions. There isn't. It's just your brain malfunctioning, and producing nonsense in place of meaningful thought.

Completely agreed.

But it is sooo much fun watching Sci-Fi in the Cinema or having sex

[Gate2501]

Originally Posted by Bob Blaylock

Ever see how a calculator behaves, when the batteries are very low? You can key in a valid problem, and it will return nonsense. Somewhere out there, there may be people who think that there is some mystic truth to be found within the nonsense returned by a malfunctioning calculator, but most of us are smart enough to realize that the calculator is simply malfunctioning, and that what it returns in that state is meaningless.

Yet there are many who think that when they take poisons into their bodies, that cause their brains to malfunction, that there is some meaning to be found in these malfunctions. There isn't. It's just your brain malfunctioning, and producing nonsense in place of meaningful thought.

Yeah, well, some drugs, like pot, make things more fun and interesting for me.

Currently I am replaying TES: Oblivion on my PC (heavily modded). When I play a game like that, I really enjoy smoking to enhance the experience, it makes me feel more like I am really there, in the game world. I also enjoy smoking before a good movie.

I wouldn't really consider MJ to be a "poison", any more than I would consider Orange Juice as such.

[realpaladin]

Originally Posted by Gate2501

Yeah, well, some drugs, like pot, make things more fun and interesting for me.

Currently I am replaying TES: Oblivion on my PC (heavily modded). When I play a game like that, I really enjoy smoking to enhance the experience, it makes me feel more like I am really there, in the game world. I also enjoy smoking before a good movie.

I wouldn't really consider MJ to be a "poison", any more than I would consider Orange Juice as such.

Another one who knows what I mean

[Cavemonster]

Originally Posted by Bob Blaylock

Ever see how a calculator behaves, when the batteries are very low? You can key in a valid problem, and it will return nonsense. Somewhere out there, there may be people who think that there is some mystic truth to be found within the nonsense returned by a malfunctioning calculator, but most of us are smart enough to realize that the calculator is simply malfunctioning, and that what it returns in that state is meaningless.

Yet there are many who think that when they take poisons into their bodies, that cause their brains to malfunction, that there is some meaning to be found in these malfunctions. There isn't. It's just your brain malfunctioning, and producing nonsense in place of meaningful thought.

Well respectfully, that's not a great comparison. Our bodies naturally produce all sorts of "drugs" from adrenaline to seratonin. Additionally the food, water and all our conditions change that balance and introduce additional chemicals, caffeine, alchohol, hell even sugars.
Genetically people's brains are wired differently, some people hear colors, some have less of a distinction between memory and the present. Some have photo perfect memory.

Unlike a calculator, there is no design for the way the brain is supposed to work. We'd like our brain to allow us to keep our body alive for a while and to keep us reasonably happy during that time. Everything else is up for grabs.

When I'm groggy and I introduce caffeine, it increases my focus, when I'm drunk it allows me to be less self critical. All these additions of drugs do not cause random effects, many of them are clearly beneficial for certain people in certain situations, and they reveal things about the way our brains work by detatching us from the way they normally work. (The way in which it's difficult for children to think about the difference between weight and mass without the notion of not being on this planet).

[Sunray Breaker]

I must admit that the closest I ever came to feeling or experiencing the presence of God was with the use of psychedelic drugs.

What IS so wonderous about them is that regardless of what your belief structure is, it will still alter your perception. From my experiences, it's always made me feel hyper aware and connected to the world, to a certain degree. Almost like being a nerve cluster attatched to a larger body.

Regardless of what it all means, if it's a really special or significant experience to the collective human experience isn't as important, because it was VERY significant and special to ME. And to think of something like "god" as something one can interpret and articulate seems so outlandish, it would seem that LSD, Mushrooms, etc. are a great way of explaining what the core "idea" of god means and what it might feel like to experience it.

Sort of like a flight simulator for a divine encounter.

For me to describe such an experience I'd say:
To feel connected with everything, to feel a sort of warm embrace, as if huddled up in the safe bossom of Mother Earth. It would seem that's the closest one could possibly get to the feeling of "god" to feel connected with everything that's been "created" for lack of better terms.

I've never tried Salvia, but I've been curious. I also hear that Datura Root is supposed to be weird, dangerous and intense as well...(at least according to Castaneda)

Anyone know much about Datura? I hear it grows all over my hood.

[Sunray Breaker]

Quote:

Somewhere out there, there may be people who think that there is some mystic truth to be found within the nonsense returned by a malfunctioning calculator, but most of us are smart enough to realize that the calculator is simply malfunctioning, and that what it returns in that state is meaningless.

And somewhere out there there are people who would ignore a significant personal experience because it lacks a tangible usable function. But nevertheless, just because it doesn't serve a purpose, doesn't necessarilly render it insignificant, just inapplicable to a tangible use. But it could be highly applicable to an intangible use (ie. consiousness, sense of self, perception, creativity, observation)

After all, mistakes and malfunctions have lead to some pretty interesting and unpredictable breakthroughs in science...

Correct me if I'm wrong

[Gate2501]

Originally Posted by Sunray Breaker

Anyone know much about Datura? I hear it grows all over my hood.

My cousin consumed a seedpod of Datura a few years ago. He nearly died. He became terribly dehydrated, and was tripping balls. He got naked and was hoarding all the fridge magnets as if the were a treasure of some sort. He went from place to place, hiding under desks and in cabinets, trying to turn doorknobs on walls that weren't there.

It was all very disturbing. He also said that his vision was totally screwed up and out of focus for a week after the trip ended.

[wuschel]

Originally Posted by godless dave

From what I understand, the plant matter has to be heated to a relatively high temperature to give off the psychoactive chemical. A regular Bic lighter won't do it.

It's called the James Randi Educational Foundation for a reason, I suppose?

[godless dave]

I'm always happy to educate!

I heard recently that some people report salvia divinorum won't have any effect on you if you smoke weed before you smoke the salvia. I can't confirm that, though.

[Jiddu]

http://books.google.com/books?id=7PJ...source=bl&ots=