Let Go? and Difficulty integrating experiences?
They're 2 separate questions. Those phrases are used a lot in the psychedelic community so in general what you think they mean, what do they mean to you?

I use to think I knew what they meant, they sound simple enough but I've never had to "let go" on a trip or had "difficulty integrating experiences" with my daily life or reality, until I used DMT.
When I told others of my truly only bad trip which was with DMT the usual response was to "let go", even when I told them letting go at that point, in my mind would be accepting insanity. I didn't write a report here at that time because I was afraid I would influence other DMT users.
I certainly had "difficulty integrating experiences" with life when I was delusional having crazy thoughts taking over, after the trip. For example the thought of no one really existing was ever-present, and my reaction was fear.
I liken that trip to schizophrenia, not all DMT trips just that one. It matched most if not all the symptoms on the wikipedia article. It was a pharma- trip so it was different to the usual hyperspace ones.

So please answer my 2 questions. Comments on my thoughts if any should be secondary. Thanks.

for me letting go refers to surrendering to what is happening and not resist or impose my will upon directing the experience. i let go until there is nothing no one, just complete inhalation of the experience.

as for integrating, i feel as though there is not much point to sitting around interpreting such experiences into self identified concepts, the experience is so divine and beyond our intellectual/rational thought. the integrating seems to happen throughout the days AFTER the breakthrough, such as deja vu's or little coincidences that will jog my memory and i find myself somehow being taught something; learning a lesson, from something as simple as a paper cup.

to truly let go you have to be accepting that you may not be getting anything beneficial for yourself out of these trips. to be looking straight into the 'truth' of no one existing and reacting with fear is ego 'holding onto itself' but if you were to let go there would be no ego to speak of.
this seems to be a reoccurring theme in breakthroughs as entities often want us not to give into the intensity/awe/thought and to do the actions or look at objects

To MooshhyPeaches - The trip was a Pharmahuasca one, so it wasn't a breakthrough. I eventually had ego death. But before that I purposely held on to it as I thought I was going insane and in the midst of confusion forgot I had taken something. It's hard to explain, but something I just read on erowid made me smile "(Ayahuasca, Effects, NEGATIVE) feeling as though one is losing one's mind (and) fear and/or paranoia (NORMAL) increased likelihood of embracing magical thinking, paranormal ideation". I wish I'd read about Aya before, I read so much about DMT and none of this came up. I've had those reactions for months, but it's clearing up now.
To your idea of letting go, I did that all the time. I would be calm and relaxed and let it work through me becoming a passive viewer.
As to your view on integration, I understand why you hold trips at such a high status.

Edit: Just read on erowid "Also, as with any intense psychedelic, ayahuasca can precipitate short- or long-term changes in personality or catalyze psychotic or neurotic episodes. ". Whether or not it was me and my ego that created the fear, DMT has the possibility to make one crazy by its own merit.

I will answer your questions, but I do want to make some commentary first. It is true that sometimes letting go means accepting insanity, but there's a big "but" to everything. My first ayahuasca trip gave me a taste of what I'd imagine schizophrenia is like. It wasn't very pleasant at all. It was gruelingly long, I resisted, it persisted, and I felt helpless. On a pharma trip later on in my "DMT career", things were going bonkers, and I just accepted it full-heartedly. I was much deeper into a schizophrenic-like state with reality as we know it completely breaking down, jesters yelling gibberish, just utter craziness, but I put up no resistance whatsoever. I just let it do its thing, and even though I was so far gone, I began to love it. "Letting go" means accepting whatever the experience has to throw your way and understanding that it can't hurt you. This sort of knowledge is not the kind that is easily passed down through verbal (including oral or written) communication. It's the kind of knowledge that is best acquired by your body and mind through experience: the experiential knowledge that nothing can harm you and it will all be over soon (on trips with harmalas, obviously soon might take a bit longer to arrive than with smoked DMT, but nonetheless).

The thing about letting go is also in realizing that the DMT has a course that it's going to run for the most part whether you like it or not. The darkest, scariest, twisted, most uncomfortable and perhaps even nauseating of experiences only carry so much steam to keep everything roaring and tightly knit, and if you can understand that there really is light at the end of the tunnel, waiting those experiences out, and letting them take their course very often leads to a complete experiential turn-around. This doesn't involve using positive thoughts or trying to turn things around, it just means allowing things to run their course and the darkness will flower and blossom into rainbows of euphoria once all that energy that was held inside the darkness comes flowing out. Light experiences and dark experiences are just two sides of the same coin. You just gotta have the patience for that coin to finish flipping over to realize that first hand.

One of the main tenets to "letting go" is that "resistance is futile." It would be like going on a roller coaster and trying to use your mental powers to stop the roller coaster as it's going down that big hill. Quite frankly, you're not gonna stop it or slow it down in the least, and you're merely wasting energy in continuing to use your "telekinesis" to do so. Similarly when the ride is finally over, and your blood is pumping, and you feel good, even though you were about to soil yourself two minutes ago. I like this roller coaster analogy because it even can incorporate the pre-flight anxiety as you're slowly trucking up that first hill.

Integrating your experiences isn't as cut-and-dry as letting go. This part varies for everyone. Having said that, there's a number of things you can do in an attempt to integrate. You can write a poem or a song, perhaps expressing some of the more salient or difficult aspects to your trip. Attacking this issue from a poetic point of view can help you gain deeper perspective on your own thoughts. It forces you to delve into your thoughts in regards to the trip and see what they really mean. You can paint a picture or get out in nature more. Perhaps you'd like to study quantum physics or esoteric culture. Buddhists for example have already contemplated many of the same issues that you're wrestling with for centuries, and watching some videos or doing some reading on their beliefs can help to integrate your experience into every day life. Perhaps oriental or Egyptian imagery has filtered its way into your trips. You may be getting a message. You would probably want to start looking into their cultures for some answers. This paragraph here outlines just some of the things I have done to integrate experiences, and I've found all the techniques to be quite effective. I think if you really wanna simplify things, integration is the observation of overlap between hyperspace and life on Earth (even if it's not your life). This recognition of overlap is key to integration.

Now that I think of it, there's overlap between letting go and integration of (difficult) experiences. "Letting go" doesn't merely pertain to behavior in hyperspace; it pertains to every day life as well. Even if you are faced with the notion that no one exists (I can empathize. I think most of us here can in some way or another) in consensual reality, you need to just lower the defenses, lower the resistance and see where you wind up down the road. Thinking everything and everybody is an illusion can be a scary thought, but if you let yourself float down the river of life, I think you'd be quite surprised to find out that it's not an ultimate truth, and even an idea as scary as that can flower into a blissful outlook on life. I hope all of this helps, and I wish you the best of luck with your integration as well as letting go on future journeys.

Global - Thank you for your wonderful reply.
I can't say I agree with you rollercoaster analogy, light and darkness or the blossoming of darkness. That trip, not DMT in general, was hell. Mental torture, which left trauma PTSD. I've don't even believe in darkness evil or bad, they're perceptions but somethings can only be described as such.
I'm glad, and sad, that I'm not the only one who had such an experience. It's hard to find reports containing similar events, which in my case would help to ground me. It's like all the bad or unwanted effects, of all drugs, are ignored by its users as if they don't exist. Awareness and neutrality is key.
Can I ask why you did Aya/Pharma again, after receiving such madness the first time?

Letting go by accepting insanity? If only I knew insanity was on the menu. I wonder if others know of this the way some promote DMT. I guess the prize of winning the lucky draw would be total bliss for 6 hours. Quite a gamble.

Your integration methods sound great. They're wise things to do, learning more about what happened and understanding it a bit better. For me they wouldn't work as the persisting thoughts are everything is fake, or I'm creating it, or I'm being subjected to false reality. Therefor anything found in this place, reality, could be considered false or a trap. That's some crazy paranoia lol.
Also I get glimpses of strange technology, places, and characters in my memory. DMT is totally bizarre.

I'm not trying to imply that your experience wasn't hell or pure mental torture. What I am proposing is that had you been faced with the identical experience and reacted by passively letting it run its course as opposed to resistance, that you may have either had a different resolution to your experience or that it wouldn't have left such a traumatizing effect or both.

You say that these integration methods wouldn't work for you. This is a sort of unfair statement to make considering you haven't tried. Words are only words and concepts are only concepts, but you can't really have a good understanding about anything unless you experience it directly. You haven't even attempted these practices, so you have little basis on which to assume they wouldn't work. When I started off my work with DMT, I understood close to nothing about integration, and when I was given some of the tips that I listed in my previous post, I thought some of them were laughable. When I finally got around to trying some out, it became austerely clear why they were so effective. Furthermore, there's not much to lose by trying. You are already stuck with these beliefs which can have you feeling as close to the bottom as it gets (I've wrestled with these thoughts myself), so it wouldn't really hurt much to give it a try. Hell, even if it does "sting" a bit, it could be well worth it. Perhaps you are creating a false reality for yourself. Why is it so important what is real anyway. Isn't the fact that you can create interesting experiences for yourself all that matters? Play the game, even if it's your own game you're making up. Enjoy whatever you can get out of anything.

Global: I really like your explanation. it really hit home for me.

Geines: the 3rd time I smoked DMT I had a similar experience to you. it took me almost 2 years to get over the experience and to get my body back on track. it was about 6 months of me feeling like I was losing my mind and then over a year of feeling like my body was breaking down for me to get back to where I felt decently normal. my body still feels different than it did before that experience. now that I'm past all that I've come to realize that my issue was, and still to a decent degree, that I have a lot of fear in my life. when my ego feels threatened it fights for me to keep it around and I have to keep letting go of it.
1 of the things that helped me get healed from all this was ayahuasca. I was really nervous about it but the whole time I asked for help to surrender to what it wanted to show me and I got it. I'm still going really slow in my work with psychs, but I keep knowing what the next step is when I'm supposed to take it.
basically what I'm saying is that even though the whole experience you are going through right now really fucking sucks, it does get better.
to end on a good note: because of that worst trip and following 2 yrs of my life, I am now finally actually living life and am more happy than I could have ever expected.

why would i embrace something that culture has taught me to fear and ostracize?
i mean awareness and neutrality is key, but not for crazy people (sometimes they ask me for money on the street, like i am going to GIVE them the hard-earned cash my parents send to me... what bums).
but to be aware of insanity?!?
that is the worst thing that can ever happen to a brain ever.
we should fear it, and desperately try to avoid it, because any schizophrenia experienced on aya is definitely going to be permanent, then i will be crazy, AND ACCEPTING!!
that would be just terrible.
to be accepting of what i am and also to be something.
awful.

I'm truly happy you're feeling better. I feel a lot better after some months, but 2 years? I don't know if I could handle that. (On a side note did you post in longecity talking about nootropics and DMT years ago? Well if you did I recently replied, if not nevermind.) Concerning the ego I don't think it's meant to be killed. I now realize I'm on a site where people advocate this and oppose any objection, they're insane. Or at least not the free thinking open minded people I thought psy users were. In one trip my ego came back with a vengeance. I experienced such amazing primal rage, images of wolves in the snow feasting on helpless animals flashed briefly. I'm more of a pacifist and I care for animals so this was unexpected and out of character. Ayahuasca (pharma) is what messed me up, and others, and I'm well aware it's helped others too. I'm glad it worked for you. I don't know what you was doing before you was actually living life but I'm please to hear it all worked out for the best.
Good news is always good.

lol, don't worry. I had the same feelings at first myself. I was like, wtf if I let go I will go crazy! But, eventually it go to where I realized by not letting go, I wasn't getting anywhere. When someone says the most important part of a trip is to just let go, that is 100% correct. Nothing will get you to a break through unless you can let go. It's the number 1 most important thing, more important than the quality of the dmt, more important than the settings, how much you take or anything else. If you can't let go, then none of those variables will matter, because ultimately the only thing hold you back are the things you are mentally holding onto.

You have to release all of that, and don't forget that no matter how much you try or how much you think you might of let go, you are never truly letting go. You never truly let go of everything until you physically die, at which point you truly release every aspect of the bond you have to your physical self. Until then, you just keep breaking through the layers of your infinitely complex onion you call "ego". When people say they have dissolved their ego, their full of shit, because you CAN NEVER get rid of your ego. If you are here, breathing, your ego persists. Rather you let it control you isn't the point, the point is you never can truly get rid of it, and that ego is essentially what you are breaking through and the only way to breakthrough it is by accepting it, because by accepting it, you are essentially becoming one with it, which is the same thing as letting go of it... Because you no longer are "holding" onto it, instead it has melted back within itself. And again, when you do that, it's only a small part of your ego that gets dissolved.

Case in point, when someone says oh my god I had an ego death and was able to break through, how could you ever top that experience? Well, low and behold, the person will have an even greater experience next time, but it's the same process, just with a different portion of what we presume our ego to be. But, no matter how many times you think you dissolve your ego, it's never gone. If your ego was gone, you would be totally fucked. You wouldn't know how to breathe, how to eat, how to drive your car, you would lose the important traits that define your human existence as an animal on this planet. The sub conscious mind, is ultimately what our ego is. A vast collection of all that we know and understand, and without that part of yourself, you wouldn't be alive. So, understand, it is an infinite process of walking up a flight of stairs. You think your almost to the top, but you never quite get there, until you die, and you no longer need stairs to get where your going.

Anyways, if you can get to that point where you let go, the experiences will be so powerful that they will stick in your mind like glue. It goes from being what appears to be a meaningless bunch of nonsense, to a point where all questions have instant all knowing answers.

The ego from the way I understand it is not the subconscious mind. It's that part of you that defines yourself as an individual. Furthermore you don't need an ego to breathe. Breathing can be completely involuntary requiring no part of your consciousness or subconscious as is with the case of going into deep sleep which is dreamless, with no operation of the ego, yet you still wake up. If you stopped breathing during this regular ego dissolution every night, you would be dead in very little time at all.

I believe that is a misconception... What, is the ego? What is it? It's different to each person, but essentially it is everything that we establish under our uniqueness. How we breathe, eat and all sub conscious activity is in fact tied to your ego. Think of it like this, your ego IS your physical perception of reality and every which way you interact with it. For that reason, one can not truly remove their ego or they would die.

You must understand, there are two archetypes within you at all times. Your ego which is the animal and sub conscious auto pilot self, and your higher self -- the self that is creative, loving, inspirational and intuitive. Basically, your higher self is the opposite of your ego, your ego holds true to all physicality, how you perceive physical reality and how you react to it. Breathing, eating, and even excreting waste are all part of your ego. Those parts however, will never subside.

Your ego is also tied to things like fears, hate and so forth. It's the ying to the yang. Its the duality of your soul. It's what binds you to this earth. Thats why you can't remove it. You can, and I repeat, only partially dissolve parts of it back into the higher self by and only by making amends with that which you are trying to dissolve. But, some parts of your ego can never be dissolved UNLESS you die, which you don't want to do.

Most all of us we live in the ego 100%. That's why these spiritual experiences are so important, because it allows you to perceive a positive truth where you originally placed either a negative truth or no truth at all. If you think of all your life, all the things you believe in, all the ways you bind yourself to reality, you will realize you can never get rid of all of that while your alive, but that isn't even the point. The ego is a GOOD thing, but essentially it is also all your negative stuff.

So, when someone says they dissolve their ego, its a portion of what that ego is... its not really gone... You can't get rid of it, period. You think im wrong, that's fine, it's not going to make any difference to your higher self which is trying to help you break through it anyways. One thing I learned is that nothing I learned really matters, its all perception.

One more thing to help make sense of it...

Hold your breath, did you kill yourself? No... Why? Because your ego wont let you! you will always breathe, until your ego forces you to pass out and it can bypass you and just do it. Don't eat for a week, then watch someone smaller than you tear into a steak and potato dinner... Do you feel any greed, like boy I could easily just take that from him? Do you feel any anguish towards that person? Of course, and that is a natural thing that your ego provides. Don't think you would be like that? Don't eat for a week and watch how strong your ego gets. Some parts of us can not be removed, but some parts do not need removing.

Essentially, the parts of the ego you have to work on are the negative aspects of your ego, not the neutral aspects that bind you to physicality. Things like fear, hate, anxiety, and other negative energies are the parts you seek to dissolve. It's the only parts we are allowed to dissolve. The other parts will never work, because ultimately your ego is in control of the physical body, but can be persuaded by your higher self to let go of certain parts. It's complicated, but not really.

Oh yea, and one more thing lol. I have also learned that people who abuse and destroy their body for religious practice ARE JUST FOOLING THEMSELVES! lol... I don't think they realize when they do that, they do have visions BUT its really just visions of their own ego manifesting what they think they want to see in order for the person straining the body to get what they want out of the experience and move on to a healthier body. It's an illusion of your own manifested ego. Don't think for one second that the physical body when deprived of the building blocks of life will have break through type experiences... Because if anything I have learned is that in order for one to truly break free of their body, they have to physically be healthy and have the proper energy flowing through them that can only be provided by a healthy type of diet and treating the body as a temple not like a trashcan.

Not saying you have to be really healthy, but you have to have RESPECT, and depriving yourself is disrespecting yourself.

Why are you lol'ing? Situations like this are not funny.
I don't think you've experienced the full breadth of DMT. If you have, or think you have, and are still lol'ing, I think that's worthy of laughter, and also quite worrying.
I don't think you understand what ego is. I know you mean well, so it's ok. Study more maybe? And don't downplay the unwanted effects of DMT.

all situations are humorous, you just need the right perspective (lol hitler)
personally, i like alan watts' take on the whole thing.

but people have been fooling themselves into all kinds of activity for as long as we can remember (LOL CRUSADES!!!), and will continue to do so for many many years to come (possibly forever but who knows?)

trying to intellectually understand or identify ego (with contrast provided through language) only ends up reinforcing ego; it seems to be futile. You could write many books on it and only get further away from truly knowing 'it' (hence yourself)

and yes many methods used in the attempt to 'achieve' enlightenment usually provide good first steps on a journey, but end game all methods are traps, only ourselves can set us free, as a method requires progression and you are already here

The crusades were a clever creation in the war of religions. Killing in the name of god isn't so much for the murderer as it is for the public. Killing outrightly would make others hate and fear you, but killing with a divine right, or legal right today, makes people love you like a hero.
Alan Watts is an idiot. So is Hitler. They would both change their perspectives under certain circumstances. Anyone would. We're too complacent with our comfy lifestyles. Lets go back into the wild and watch everyone drop their toys and soil themselves.

Oh come on. What the fuck? If that's your opinion, that's fine. But atleast state it as such. And regardless if you really think this, I highly advise you to take a good look at your life and contemplate what you are doing with it.

For your information I just listened to that audio piece and nearly dropped a tear. It's not the first time i heared it but this time i interpreted it on a subjective level and it touched me deeply.

letting go.... Hmmmmmmmmm........

with regards to DMT and hyperspace........

letting go is, not fighting the natural passage into hyperspace.

Its allowing the process to happen without resistance. the act of being brave in the face of certain obliteration.

Bravery...........letting go....

Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the will to overcome it!

Difficulty integrating experiences....... IME, it is how one describes a slow return to normal mentation due to the persisting artifacts of a hyperspace experience.