I think i might have had the wrong approach in using psychedelics to better myself. Until recently, i always thought the most important part of the psychedelic experience was the trip. Now i'm beginning to think the part where you learn from psychedelics is many weeks after the trip.

My original thoughts were that i'd take a psychedelic, and whatever issue or question i had, whether it was about death, reality, or the universe, i'd be able to solve it during the trip, or make progress in solving it. Now i'm considering that, the trip has a very important role. But the learning is done after the trip. It's concerning because i had these expectations of psychedelics and it might be very different than what i had thought.

To put it more clearly. The trip itself has an important role. But the trip can't be used to solve problems or figure things out. After the trip, the way you think and the way you approach your problems is changed. It's like psychedelics are helping you solve your problems by opening up your mind, but you have to do the real work in a sober state.

Its something i'm not quite sure of, i'd like to hear others thoughts on this.

I have found, in my own experience, that psychedelics, when used for specific purposes, such as healing, self-discovery, etc, merely setup a framework for healing after the experience, like the psychedeli experience is just the entree, and the main course, the lessons, and the dessert, the end result of learning the lessons, come afterwards.

I've learned far more outside of the experiences than during them. Beautiful stuff.

This is a perfect description of what i'm saying

Well said and i agree.

I like to put it this way.
The trip itself unlocks the mind to function as a whole for a short period of time that i have noticed especially on DMT that there is some sort of deeper understanding and countless downloads of knowledge and communication going on during the experience but as the physical brain probably isn't able to handle all of it at once, instead it comes to us with time as it is still under processing all of that which was learnt.

This is why i believe you come to more and more realizations as time goes by and not by the actual experience itself then and there. If you unlocked and knew everything all at once then what would be the point of life?

6 months in and I'm still trying to make sense of the way i see the world after what i saw

Stay doughy.



tseuq

This is pretty much in line with what I was thinking. Within the experience, there are definitely times where it seems like information is literally being downloaded, but it's not like immediately becoming consciously aware of what the new information is other than it was downloaded. You said it best.

You can simply make the intention to learn. It's really that easy. That's what I did, and I learned so much more than simply about the plants, they taught me about myself. This stuff gets deep.

The shamans I know always say that the work really begins when you return home from the retreat, that the real work begins after the medicine is finished in the ceremonies. It continues as the weeks and months go on, and what you have to do is watch how life is teaching you. Life is really the teacher, the examiner and the challenger. Life says, "Oh? You learned something? Let's see if you really did." and then a challenge comes to help you find out how well you learned it. I have found that long after the medicines have left my system, the teaching goes on.

I agree. And that the point I think, to learn to see the magic in everything, to see that everyone and everything you encounter is your teacher.

Most important reason to use DMT is the vast beauty of the experience. And if the experience gives more than that, that’s fine.

So my intention is fun and having a good time, everything else is a bonus.

This is a great thread and my main focus these years, how to fully integrate. I am getting the same message as you, RUAware. The true learning seems to come later. I like the idea mentioned about seeing everything and everyone as a teacher and test of what might have been learned in a trip. It seems like there is so much going on during the journey that is of such great importance. I would love to hear more about how people are actually integrating "lessons" learned.

I suppose I am doing this to a certain extent but I would like to be more conscious of how, what, when, how much, etc. Methods. I get all these great ideas on a journey. All this inspiration. Then a week or two later it seems like most of it was a little half baked. It is near impossible to reason on a trip. I get feelings of what I should do, but often these feelings are based on previous sober and frequently inaccurate perceptions. Ideas like, I really should go to that yoga ashram in India, when really my homework says it is at the top of a too short list and I haven't been able to find out enough about it except that it is a bit... odd to my thinking and how I do yoga asana. I get other ideas like, I really should visit my brother more. These are easier to remember and realize how much they haunt me and the BS excuses I give not to. I will do this idea. Still other ideas like the dying motif I've been getting a lot of is much harder to realize. I deal with this in a trip by relaxing, and praying it will go away, and trust that I can't actually die on my combination.

Is this true too for MHRB too? my reading says I may have to worry a little about 5-meo DMT?
Mostly I use psilocybin and caapi. And my standard diet, slightly lightened is good, I think.

But I suppose I am learning to relax, and this is of top priority to me. I find that yoga and meditation, reading, and grueling self-study also help. But staring at that void is just so hard to do for long. I don't know how much is coming from a trip but I whish I knew because there seems to be so much potential with these chemicals and I am struggling to comprehend even just one of the methods that grab my attention. Seems my personal understanding and method are coming, however slowly.

Concerning the title of this thread, I just have to ask: Is there one right way to do anything as multi-facetted as dmt? It seems to me that it's a common cultural trait that we always search for the one right way, when actually there are many ways that work and many that don't.

There are moments when perhaps the psychedelic experience itself is the answer, the solution, the cathartic experience you needed, or it provides you with the final piece of a puzzle you were working on.

And other times it's like food, a process of various steps: from the actual experience - like tasting the food - the conscious processing of the food - like chewing it - and then several steps of partly conscious to completely unconscious digestion of the experience with the elimination of the not so useful stuff and the incorporation of the useful. Like with food sometimes this digestive process is hard and sometimes it's easy. Like with food we can assist this digestive process with activities or make it more difficult, thereby increasing or reducing the likelihood of extracting all we can from it. Like with food, sometimes the only beneficial thing you get is the taste and everything else is eliminated, and sometimes the taste is horrible but there are lots of benefits afterwards. Sometimes the experience needs to be regurgitated and chewed over again and again consciously, and sometimes the subconscious will handle it for you.

The digestive process of experiences (not just psychedelic ones) in my opinion is something that is greatly overlooked now a days. It's a beautiful thing actually, and becoming aware of it we can assist and enjoy it as every experience helps us unfold just a little more. Sometimes processing can take years.