Lately I've been having some really difficult psychedelic journeys. The same experience has been recurring and I don't know how I can push through it or even if I should push through it. It has happened four times now.

Yesterday I took 3.6 grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms (GT) and made tea out of it. The trip had the same outline as the last three: at the beginning it is beautiful, fun and exhilarating. I love everything. I am thankful for everything. Everything is what it is and I accept everything as it is. Everything is perfect. I dance. I move around and feel an immensely loving energy taking over. It is all good.

But after a while I always come to realize that this enjoyment is but a hallucination. It is a trap. A trap made by the mushroom itself. Everything, the whole universe, me and everything else, is just trapped in this illusion that everything is wonderful. But it is not. I always realize that the mushroom has been fooling me all along. It has always been lying to me. I feel as the ant being infested by the zombie fungus and that the sense of calmness, love and enjoyment is but an illusion created to fool the host so that it can't fight back. It is the final checkmate. This "truth" becomes unbearable and I always end up trembling in anxiety and agony, realizing that this truth will ultimately make me want to kill myself.

I wonder if these journeys are triggering a psychosis, but I am not sure. A part of me still wants to go at it again, thinking that this recurring fearful experience may be a manifestation of the fear that I am not being honest with myself. These last journeys include a sense of falsehood: something is false, there is an illusion, it is not what it seems. Maybe I am just realizing that I have been lying to myself. I blame it on the mushroom and externalize it because I don't want to deal with it. But I have to deal with it. I have to be honest with myself. In every situation where I notice the fear of "exposing" myself, I have to let that fear go. I have to ask myself where that fear comes from and how it prevents me from loving myself and from ultimately being free. I have to choose between fear and love. It is my choice. In every moment.

Writing this down is helping me a lot right now.

The great part about illusions is that when it comes to happiness, happiness is not an illusion (unless you or others are trying to trick people into thinking you're happy, which does happen, but is not the point here). In other words, yes, the universe isn't always honky dory. Everything may not be wonderful, but that's ok because if everything is wonderful for you, albeit for 4-6 hours of mushroom-induced euphoria, then that's fantastic: enjoy it. Part of the mushroom's trap here is not only that everything in the world is not wonderful, but also letting it drag you down. The way I see it, you have two basic options. You can take the moral low road, and indulgently enjoy your rapture, or you can try to do something about making the universe a better place. I think that you can't change the universe, so just concentrate on making yourself happy, and the happiness of others will follow.

I'm dealing with the same thing even when i'm sober i never tried shrooms but i don't think they are the problem... this way of thinking can be applied on all things that u don't understand or believe(you can believe things but there's nothing you can be certain of), it's called doubts and it's terrible how all good things everything you enjoyed and made you happy and peaceful can all be turned to bad things just by one silly doubt, it's silly and stupid because it's unreasonable , believe me i suffer from it greatly for example in my relationship with this amazing girl just because i don't understand her and i can't clearly see what she sees(and it's all good things) i start to doubt and i hurt her feelings because i'm honest with her...
I doubt who i am, i doubt my intentions if i'm a good person or not When it's clear that i am...
On LSA i learned how to deal with these doubts, i have the choise to believe them and let them ruin the good things in my life or to realise that they are just doubts and they are not real and i don't mind thinking about them but i'm not obliged to accept them, i choose to be better with myself to value myself and to give that girl the love that she deserves and i act accordingly...
I know it's a very sensetive thing i was very close to losing myself because of it, so please choose the good and believe the good and u know urself better than anyone else u will find ur way to deal with it...
I wany to add that cannabis makes me the most doubtful so if what u are dealing with is becoming very serious try to avoid it at least don't take it alone.
You always have the choise, choose to Love yourself and to trust yourself

Ahoi, pantaleon.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

To me, there is no spiritual suppression/liberation unless one invents it. There is nothing to do, nothing to achieve, all "god" itself, don't get tricked.

But one can, if one wants to.

Truth/untruth, right/wrong, happieness/sadness, it is all part of the same game. The illusion is oneself, which gets affected by what is happening and re-acting to it. Mind is non-stop creating ideas, which can lead to something abstract like a goal and mentalizing possible ways to achieve it. This reflects the properties of mind, which is a great tool to solve any kind of problems, except the spiritual one.

There is nothing to fear or to escape, one can learn to stay, experience and let go (of attachement).

When I stop fighting and start welcoming divine realities the "or" inbetween transforms to an "and".

Love and fear at the same time, now. Dissolving and recomposing of the unbelieveable freaking mysterium of perfected wiredness. Limitless as we are.





welcome to the nexus, tseuq

Yes, that's it. It's the only thing I can do. Thank you..


Yes. Doubts are extremely powerful, if one lets them.

I remember yesterday, when I was enjoying that powerful and ecstatic sense of love, I suddenly began to hear a little voice in my mind. This voice was beginning to question the whole experience. It sounded like a grumpy little boy, telling me that he was doubting these extremely wonderful and loving sensations. At first I had the stillness to just observe this voice and let it be. It disappeared, but after a while it came back. When it came back, it was much stronger and darker. This happened several times, getting stronger and stronger. Finally I could not deal with it. It took over and it all turned into a nightmare.

This is doubt, fear, ego. It wanted attention. It didn't want to disappear. It was fighting. And I gave in. I gave into doubt. Yes, Sakkadelic. Doubt is extremely silly and unreasonable. And you are absolutely right; we always have the choice to love and trust ourselves, which includes all the good and all the bad..

Thank you all for your kind and loving words... I appreciate them to the fullest

Nice. Perfect use of the forum, glad you can see the solution, pantaleon.

The greatest enemy of liberation is oneself. You recognized the inner voice at its core, behind the visions of universal emptiness, as the hurt earth bound child it is. Trapped in want and disappointment and painting the whole world ugly in its tantrum.

Nothing can satisfy this child, it will always clamor for more, as long as you have feeling. You can quiet it though, paradoxically, through service to others and self love. Be good to you, so you can be of service to others.

It's a matter of focusing attention.

null24, thank you for those enlightening words..

I will focus on being good to myself, of loving every part of whoever I am. This is the only way.

Thank you all. You do not know how much this is helping me right now. I am truly grateful for your loving and caring responses!

Much love to you all!

friend!

i have something to lift your spirits, to help you free your own spirit.
i agree much with what tseuq has said. nothing to do. it's your trick. come off it shiva.
anyway, isten to the following video with a good bit of bud if that helps you,
but sit down and meditate, if you do. then allow this video to rerun itself for awhile,
and in each repetition you will find it growing immensely enjoyable, as you see that
its message is actually your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O237jkoxbXg

all the responses having been made here in reaction to your presence is itself all the evidence you need to indicate we are all manifestations of the help you seek, all coming at you with all of our different advice and solutions. the mushroom is a very powerful friend of mine with whom i am intimate. therefore, i take it directly to heart the experiences of others with the mushroom, because i'm always wondering how it affects me versus how it affects others. i have had the same concerns as you, and still currently have. see, there you are - in your little broken raft in the middle of the sea of mind, and here i am, another scarely distinguishable human being floating by on a piece of driftwood - and here we both are totally lost out here in the middle of nowhere trying to find out how to tread the line that exists so finely, thinly between the dimension of insanity and the dimension of complete, unexcelled awakening.
you might wonder if you are using the mushroom or if the mushroom is using you. i would say what difference does it make. for if all is One, and we are One, and this you know - then you also know there isn't a difference between you as a human being and the biosphere that surrounds you. in other words, yes, the mushroom is using you. but you are also using the mushroom. this is exactly the way the universe works in every dimension - of this i cannot be more confident. call it the organism-environment field if you'd like. yes, this is what the yin-yang symbol means, and your question is exactly the effect of both of us lost at sea trying to find the finest line between the dimension of insanity and the dimension of complete unexcelled awakening. these are simply poles of the same magnet of existence. and as alan explains in the video i showed you, existence is a rhythm, of cycles, and all cycles have lows and highs, like waves, always having crests and troughs. now carry the same recognition of this truth to the perception of a so-called distinction between life and death. i shall simply leave you with that.
do not think of the mushroom as an intelligence on its own. i encourage you to think of the mushroom as your very self. be rid of any notion that the mushroom intoxication is somehow "just" an intoxication. the mushroom is to your intelligence and far range of sight as is a telescope to the unaided astronomers eye or a microscope to an unaided biologists eye. what i think you've got going on is very simple, and also a bit dangerous only because the mushroom can be wielded in a lot of different equally impactive ways, some good, some not so good perhaps. Basically, I think you may be confusing the enormity of the psilocybin-headspace when you are combined with it with your own subconscious projection, or what would better be called your own organic intelligence that you keep ignoring. in other words, you are projecting in a very large way your intuition that "something is false, there is an illusion, it is not what it seems" and don't realize that that is the truth something inside you wants you to know. no need for alarm though. i'm simply suggesting to you that this is your own mind, and to maybe regard it henceforth in a manner more appropriate to its true size.
the truth you find unbearable, because it seems the mushroom has locked you into a checkmate - is this not exactly simply a different version of believing that black in the end must win? when we come to that place where we think we've simply "lost it", "gone", "done it this time", all we have to do if we want to come back is Remember, reconstitute ourselves by recognizing that you wouldn't know what black is unless you knew what white was! in other words, you might find that the moment you arrive at the extreme of one end along some dimension of the spectrum-web of existence you will immediately revert to the opposite implication, the opposite pole. i say to you there is no trap, and if there is a conception that there is a trap, then i would say that you are inventing of necessity to learn a certain thing that you apparently couldn't learn any other way.
we might say that our prisons, mostly mental, are very powerful teachers.
but we invent them.
and as you said at every moment it is a choice between fear and love. bill hicks said the same thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvz9uSK3zXo

and here is something else for you on the subject of decision. on making a choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CH9cRN8Rg


and also, listen to your self, your gut, your instinct, the first thought that comes to mind, the first feeling, the first intuition. it's perfectly alright if you wish to "take a break" from the mushroom, because actually there isn't anything your taking a break "from". your soul, is what's important, and included in that is every intuition about what you should do from here onward. forgive yourself. be not afraid of being afraid - simply, when it comes, watch it as if you were a bystander on an island watching a black cloud pass over. hell never freezes over forever. and neither does heaven. always remember that you need fear, because without it you wouldn't know who you were. this is also the secret to why wise men have said we are better to befriend our enemies than kill them. your enemies are more important to you than friends.
anyway, i've said enough.

be at peace friend!

Instead of interpreting your experience I would like to share my experience which might inspire some ideas for you....

Last year I had a mushroom trip in the woods. I wont go into the details, but it started off feeling great but the mushrooms offered me a challenge and made a promise to heal something if I accepted the challenge. I completed the challenge and learned about myself in the process but missed out on something I had been looking forward to for years. I also was not healed in the way the mushrooms promised.

I am normally very happy and care-free, but this trip brought up tons of self-doubt and put me into a 2 week depression/funk (not serious depression, but feeling lost and confused mostly). For some reason my trusted plants stopped talking to me completely for these 2 weeks - I had a number of ceremonies (probably 5-6) but all I would get was the altered state type feeling with no insights or communication (very rare for me). I was feeling very lost and confused indeed!

Finally I decided to try something a little different.... I decided to make an offering and ask all my allies for help and just hope and trust that they would answer. I went and made the offering and it all went great - afterwards I sat and meditated and suddenly my allies were back and suddenly my joy and inner peace were back - I was even better then before actually!

I realized at this time that the entire 2 weeks were part of that one mushroom ceremony.... The mushrooms are tricksters but with the intent to teach you a lesson. But you have to rise to the occasion and figure it out (sometimes the lesson isnt learned well when it is given freely). The mushrooms had found self doubt buried deep inside of me and the way they helped me heal that was to bring it to the surface and magnify it so that I was forced to deal with it and heal it. I couldnt ignore it any more when the mushrooms magnified it so much.

I had a huge level up after that experience - my practice got a lot deeper around that time.

Part of me wonders if there is something similar about your experience....

Anamnesia, your words are truly inspiring. I feel it in my heart that they are wise. Thank you so much...



I feel that you are spot on here. I think that, during my last journeys, I have interpreted my subconscious projections (such as everything being a lie) as "revelations", not from me but from the "externalized" mushroom. I have mistakenly perceived them as "truths" from the "outside" that I must accept by fearing them, instead of realizing their true nature: they are my deeply ingrained subconscious intuitions that are trying to tell me something about myself. As you said, I am ignoring my own organic intelligence. I externalize these unpleasant intuitions, separating them from myself because I am afraid of dealing with them. This has to stop, or else I won't be free. The conception of a trap might be, as you said, a way of telling myself that there is something I need to learn.

I can't keep ignoring myself. By accepting myself as I am, by forgiving myself and accepting the wholeness of my being, which includes all there is, both heaven and hell, I'll be free and finally be able to love myself. I have to focus on being completely honest with myself, in every situation. How silly it is to separate oneself from oneself. How silly it is to divide the world. This is where all suffering emanates from.

Thank you, Anamnesia, my friend. I've watched and listened carefully to the videos you sent me, and will continue to do so. They touch upon my heart. Thank you for your message. Your words are helping me tremendously!



travsha, this sounds very similar to what I'm going through.. for the past year I've been very happy and calm, but these last trips have been extremely rough and bringing up a lot of self-doubt. Doubting has been at the epicenter of all my recent journeys. The mushroom has been revealing these doubts for a while now, and I haven't dealt with them. I have chosen not to, which has made it even worse. As you said, it's about rising to the occasion and dealing with the problem at hand. If I choose to trust and love myself, I'll find the way. I feel it in my heart right now that it's about being honest with myself.

Thank you so much, travsha, for sharing your experience and helping me by doing so..

Many years ago I had some similar experiences....One night the thought came to me...'What am I doing? Simply sitting around, listening to music, looking at pretty things...tripping...what the hell?' and etc...

This feeling continued for several trips...and I must say, ruined the experience for awhile...sober life included. I felt as if I had 'topped out' of the entire thing. It was a period of angst. I wanted the wonder back

At some point I realized-It is OK to just BE-to just enjoy be-ing. That is all there was to it. This is what Life is about. That is what we are here for, as well as to help others with this experience.