Hello everyone,

Long time lurker here, from maybe 2012. I'm a 28 year old guy, actually doing a neuroscience PhD in sensory perception.

I'm passionate about everything that can impact consciousness. This comprise mostly meditation and drugs. I did like 5-6 vipassana Goeka meditations retreats, and try to meditate 1h/day. I say try because I don't meditate daily 1/2 of the year.

One of my main focus is to succeed to meditate daily for the most part of the year, as I tasted the multiples benefits of this practice. One of the bests memories of my life was this time in retreat when thinking stopped totally for like 30 minutes. I want to expand the depth of my meditation practice, until I can reach the first Jhana.

I'm extremely exited by the writings of Myron Stolaroff and want to reproduce what he did, mixing low doses psychedelics and meditation, for increasing both practice. I would be extremely interested to know someone who had tried this approach.

I recently started to trip with mushrooms, and plan to initiate a relation with them. I was extremely anxious first, but my two first doses, 1.5g and 1.75g, was encouraging. I felt the mushroom spirit, full of humor. I want to confront (slowly if possible) my shadow and don't trip for fun. I want to understand why I'm so afraid of public presentations, heal from previous bad experiences with drugs (was addicted to GHB/codein and generally I'm an anxious person) and I have huge thirst for better understanding mind and the subconscious. The first trip was a little hard on the beginning (huge step in the unknown for me), but the second part of the trip was extremely reliving, calming. The second trip last weekend was like 2 time more powerful, mostly "bad" sensations emerging from my mind, but I succeeded to stay calm and equanimous. It's just been a week, but I feel kind of stronger in my ability to face life. These preliminary results are extremely interesting, and I will certainly seek for more. As I have no people supporting theses kind of psychedelic-fuelled self discovery in my neighbourhood, I decided to join you fellow guys/girls.

Wish you the best !

One of my favourites quotes for the end:
"There is pleasure and there is bliss, forget the first to possess the second".

Hi, welcome!

I'm someone who doesn't consider his psychedelics use 'purely' recreational. Still, I think it is important to see that they can be a lot of fun, and that this is ok, too.

So I'd say that the important thing is not to crave pleasure - but don't resist it, either. If there is pleasure - fine. If it leaves, also ok.

While I do consider myself a serious meditator, I don't mix the practices in the way you describe. For me, I meditate daily (goal is 2x 30min, but often it is less). But when I take psychedelics, I take medium-high doses to achieve a significant break from everyday consciousness. I'm not saying that this is in any way better than what you describe, only that this is what works for me. This means that my consciousness is so far altered that 'serious' Vipassana isn't happening anymore.

I'd be highly interested in what people experience who do what you describe. Have a great time here, I'm looking forward to reading from you.

Imo, being able to pursue meditative/yogic/tantric methods/practices/techniques on Entheogens (regardless of dosage) comes with Entheogenic practice. When i first started off with Aya (using Rue and Mimosa/Acacia) i wasn't able to do much of anything but just lay there and take it lol. But, taking it regularly for a long period of time and approaching Aya as a practice/craft/science eventually led way to me having a lot more control and could do pretty much whatever i wanted to with it. So i think as you gain more practice and familiarity with the Entheogen, after awhile you'd be able to use it for meditation and all that, in fact i think they go hand in hand even though i haven't yet dove into the eastern practices, i've had spontaneous meditative, yogic and tantric things happen on Aya and i truly feel like Entheogenic practice is where those eastern practices originated from, a long, long time ago. Though those practices are i guess more for the everyday, but i feel like they were originally developed to do different things while on the Entheogen, to get different things out of the Entheogen.

Yeah, I didn't mean that it was completely impossible. Rather that I don't really want to - I prefer to take the substance and go wherever it takes me. I only use meditation if I hit rough spots and emotions start to get very intense. Then it is very good to come back to either anchor myself in the breath or watch what's coming up, to get a bit of distance and not be overwhelmed.

I agree with you that it is totally possible to meditate while on psychedelics, if one is experienced and the dose isn't all too high.

The question is, I guess, what does one want to achieve, and why? It is very interesting that you said "use the entheogen for meditation". This is a different perspective than mine - for me, meditation and psychedelics can be combined for much benefit, but in a way, I see them as masters in their own way. I'd say, I like going into the psychedelic state and let whatever you want to call it (plant spirit? higher plane of consciousness? ecstatic state? subconsciousness? entities? etc) do it's thing.

There are theories that Buddhism and even Christianity rose out of entheogenic experiences, even though I'm a bit skeptical about those. But then, I think that quite a few different things can lead to these altered states and mystical experiences, so there are many ways to get there: meditation, entheogens, various shamanic practices, different psychological and physical hardships...

For me, this is more like a universal aspect of consciousness. We have our everyday consciousness, which is a tiny part of the gigantic continuum that is out there. And we can leave that everyday consciousness through various means. But this means, I don't necessarily put psychedelics in the first place - but this to a certain degree a chicken-or-egg question

I too often let the medicine and my body do it's thing, other times i like to be more in control and direct the experience how i like. I also do think both Entheogens and meditation, while they go hand in hand, are two different things, i just think the eastern techniques arose out of Entheogenic experimentation, i think a lot of things did, otherwise, how would we even begin to know about all this stuff had we not first been shown? There's no logical way imo that early humans could just be sitting around doing whatever and all of a sudden they randomly have a full on mystical experience that imparted all this knowledge and understanding upon them, i think the plant teachers taught them, and out of that, came most of what we know and have achieved as a species, imo. If it weren't for anti-drug hysteria and propaganda, i'm quite sure most of our species would embrace Entheogens as a primary way of "getting there", but "drug talk" has been taboo for awhile, whereas waaaaaay back when, it wasn't a big deal at all, i'd imagine no one had an issue with Entheogens before people wanted to restrict what people knew and what people thought about things.

Thanks you for the Welcome guys, I feel that I'm in the right place because I spent much times in other forums speaking about theses explorations but didn't attract much interest.


I can just agree with you. I just stress myself by putting volition first on working on hard psychic material than seeking for the fun that mushrooms can certainly bring. If the experience is fun, all good ! I believe the fun and the euphoric feelings are part of the experience too, and that they can also have therapeutic value. The mushroom spirit didn't speak to me directly yet (dosages were low), but I've already felt the lesson that I have to increase my self-humour.

About the meditation technique, I do mostly samatha (named anapana for Goenka tradition) practice. This is the "standard" meditation where you put awareness in the in-breath/out-breath. As Stolaroff explain (MJ Stolaroff, 1999), you can't and don't need to apply directed focus attention on a huge dose of a psychedelic, it's better to surrender to the process has you practice it. Low doses and the in-beetween strange sensations they induce are far more conductive to that. The psychedelic create two effects on your ability to meditate :
1. As the unconscious psychic material is released at a faster pace during a low dose psychedelic experience that in everyday life, it is far more difficult to maintain sustained attention.
2. But in an other side, the psychedelic increase your awareness too, that can help understanding what mechanisms disrupt your ability to focus.
It seems to me that psychedelic-fuelled meditation act a little like adding weights to the exercise of meditation, like in musculation. Stolaroff describe the result as increase capacity to focus in every-day meditation, increase attention/equanimity in every-day life. You can then slowly build the capacity to maintain your mind totally still while on a low dose psychedelic, and then it percolate on your every day practice and every day life. He describe this as a way to speed up the development of the illumination factors (awareness, equanimity, ...). Be able to keep the mind still is something that I have just achieve for little period of times in retreats, or in some extremely rare occasion on my everyday meditations.

I found myself repetitively falling from my every day meditation habit across the years. I believe that this is the benefits of the practice that keep you doing it, but in times of high stress I stopped the daily practice. I wonder if psychedelics, by increasing the speed of my progress, could permit me to enter in the level where the meditation practice become self sufficient, when the level of inertia could help me during hard times.

Stolaroff go further, by describing the "skilled" level of this mixing practice, when the person is able to maintain his mind still on high doses of psychedelics, for much added benefits.

As I understand, what is healing and transformative is to bring awareness to the previously unconscious psychic material. That can be achieve in multiple ways, by journaling on your dreams, doing yoga/meditation, arts etc... Psychedelic unguided use can certainly do that, but I feel applying direct focus on the experience could maximise the benefits of it.

Below are the writing I found extremely interesting on the subject :

Myron Stolaroff :
Thanatos To Eros (book) : https://maps.org/article...psychedelic-exploration
Are psychedelics useful in the practice of Buddhism? (article) : http://buddhism.lib.ntu....LTEXT/JR-ADM/stolar.htm
Using Psychedelics Wisely (article) : https://erowid.org/psych...s/stolaroff_using.shtml

"Elfstone":
Comments on the Psilocybin Mushroom (article) : https://erowid.org/plant...ushrooms_article3.shtml

Thanks a lot for the great reading sources, I'm looking forward to checking this out! I haven't read anything from Stolaroff yet. Do you know "Zig Zag Zen" from Badiner? It has a very similar focus than the 1996 Tricycle episode, but is much newer and a gorgeous book with great psychedelic art... and also a wide range of essays on Buddhism and Psychedelics.

And yeah, I do mainly Samatha, too. I practice after the TMI system which has gained popularity recently. You described the difference between low and high doses very well. "Adding weights" is an interesting metaphor I totally agree that the two practices can be conducive.

The problem with many psychedelic experiences is that it is difficult to integrate them and really benefit from them in daily life without an established practice - the old habits take over again, all to soon. So, the old problem of translating altered states into altered traits.
And the problem with daily meditation is that it can be difficult to make it intense enough to really go beyond everyday consciousness. Of course, this is exactly the other way round if one talks microdosing vs intense retreats.

But for me, psychedelics mostly serve as a kind of different retreat - a very intense experience to fuel the regular practice. For some reason, microdosing never seemed appealing to me personally, but, of course, many people have great results from it.

Yes, it is typically very difficult to achieve complete samatha (I think this is what you mean by keeping the mind still) and practice daily. My recipe is to do at least a few minutes - if I'm too tired or too stressed for my usual 30minutes, I say, hey, at least 5! This helped me keep in the habit.

Yes, I agree very much "bringing attention to previously unconscious psychic [psychological] material" is extremely important. Some people call it "shadow work". I think that it is the main factor in psychological healing, and agree that there are many ways to approach it.
I'd add that the psychedelic experience also has the capacity to take us to levels of consciousness where we normally never would have been - which can be healing in a different way by enlarging our perspective.

I hope that I can find the time soon to read up on Stolaroff's work - seems extremely interesting!

Its really interesting. I recognised (as Myron Stolaroff do), that there is some learning needed to succeed to be with the psychedelic experience. I project to create a relationship with the mushrooms. I'm really a beginner in the psychedelic state, a little bit afraid of all sudden movements and feel that I will be more and more able to let go by numerous trips (I felt that with dissociative). In the meditation side, I'm still in infancy on my meditative practice, but I felt that during my second rough trip, my meditation reflexes where there to help me. I started to feel anxious and a dark vibe arose in me from the beginning, but was able to stay in the present moment. I had the insight that you are transparent to the "bad" energies if you don't react to them. If you stay in the present moment, not judging a sensation as bad or good, you don't increase anxiety. It was a great insight to have. But I also felt that I resisted automatically in certain moments. I hope I will learn to let go more with experience I like your idea of the meditations practices developing at the start from entheogenous experience. For me I don't know, but for sure many persons become interested in meditation after psychedelic experience. I've personally found dissociatives extremely similar in some way to meditation, with the equanimity they bring.




Yeah my friend I have this book and really loved it, you makes me want to re read it Actually I've got a tattoo from this book. When I saw the metal sculptures of meditation guys, I instantly thought about the way I do vipassana meditation (spreading attention throughout the body from head to feet piece by piece), and wanted this as tatoo



Can you please tell me more about the TMI system ? I don't know what it refers to !



Your perfectly right ! That's why Stolaroff stress about using low doses compared to high doses. It seems to him than resolving the disagreeable sensations from low doses is more conductive to a positive shift of behavior in everyday life as the transferability is easier than for the transpersonal levels of high doses trips.


That's interesting. I tried microdosing also, and recognised a beneficial effect on my interactions with people when I microdose. But it doesn't seems to bring lasting change in my behaviors when I'm not microdosed on my case. So I have more interest for low doses with meditation now, and I'm still a bit afraid of medium/high dose.



Yes I should do this ! I "like" to do a 1 hour sitting or nothing, but maybe I need more flexibility in my approach. Better to do a fews minutes if I'm too tired for the hour, and maintain the practice, than stopping completely.

I thanks you both for your answers guys (or girls)! It's so cool that I can speak with people interested in the same subject. This is really specific and I've yet to found somebody that share my interests about psychedelics and meditation in real life.

Wish you the bests in your life and your trips !

Sure! It's a book by John Yates "Culadasa" called The Mind Illuminated (TMI). It's a very detailed guide to Samatha-Vipassana meditation, with several interluds that integrate modern brain science. There is a TON of details, at first, it is overwhelming until one gets enough orientation to decide which technique to apply at which point.

The advantage is that there is a wealth of guidance and clear feedback mechanisms which allow to decide which is the best technique to apply at any given moment. And there is a moderately active forum (dharma treasure community) very active subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/), as well as several teachers who offer skype-based teaching sessions.

Theoretically, it is still rooted in Buddhism, but the "religious" elements have been stripped down to a large degree - so no talk about reincarnations or Karma - it's all about the meditation technique.




I think that this would be avery good idea to keep the practice going.



Thanks! To you as well.

How yeah I discovered this book last year. It created a major breakthrough in my understanding of meditation. I didn't know there was an active community and subreddit around this book. I'm going to look at that right away, thank you so much

Gladly! I found it tremendously helpful, together with Shinzen Young's teachings. Especially since I'm not so much into traditional religious Buddhist notions (I have nothing against it, but it just isn't for me!). So the fact that the focus is on meditation, leaving other things mostly out of the picture allows for people to decide how far they want to delve into this.

Also, I found the weekly Skype sessions with my teacher very helpful. Culadasa is training a number of people personally to continue the system. These are good guys, and the chance to ask questions directly is very helpful. Plus - experienced Vipassana teachers can help as well, even if they're not familiar with TMI, since TMI is not a new technique, but a very sophisticated guide.

So, if one wants to train with a group personally, I'd advise to visit some Vipassana practitioners - they basically do the same. Even though they won't know about TMI's stages and interludes, they take the same path and stumble upon the same hindrances.

See you around

Yeah I feel exactly the same, and think that a lot of occidental persons feel the same. The idea to have weekly guidance with skype is something I never considered ! I will think about it !!

I just did my third mushroom experience. That was brilliant. Just 1.5g. I meditated continuously from the eating to the end of the comeup, maybe 1 to two hour into the experience. I felt some blockage lessening bit after bit, then something broke in me and I felt some really long burried feeling coming to the surface. I cried for 1 fucking hour haha. And now I feel so alive. It's been a really really long time since I've felt that way. Psychedelics and meditation are a blessing... I'm so happy I finally confronted my fears about the psychedelic experience, it's difficult but it's worth it !

I like just taking a shot of whiskey. It's enough to just temper the excessive cerebral noise but not so much that it alters ones perceptions greatly, makes it easier to focus in on undercurrents of thought that are otherwise obscured by the noise.

I have mixed feelings for ethanol. It destroy my ability to meditate, and agitate my mind afterwards. I drink sometimes, and have difficulties to restraint when I start (old junky-mind here^^). It sound silly for me the idea to mix meditation or/and psychedelics with such a gross substance like ethanol is. You don't think that embracing fully the experience with all the noise would not be better than mixing with ethanol ?

I meant just whiskey on its own from sober, not mixing with psychedelics - I don't think meditation and psychedelics are actually so effective. The preoccupation with 'releasing' subconscious knots or material is just churning of the memory banks in order to grease the wheels of life.. there is not so much use in that beyond a certain point.

Hahaha so you prescribe me some shoots of whiskey to decrease noise life? That's pretty interesting. For this, I used to prefer GHB, every 3 hours. It decrease a great deal of noise life effectively without the carcinogenic aspects of ethanol. You can mix it with NMDA antagonists like memantine, and preventing physical tolerance. The problem in that, and with every intoxicants like opiate and GABAergics drugs, is that you pull the dirt under the carpet. Psychedelics and meditations, in my humble understanding and experience, do the contrary, by cleaning the dirt that was under the carpet. That's why I'm so interested in theses approaches to life, and not so much interested any more about the pleasure seeking drugs. I've taken more of them that I wanted, and i'm pretty lucky to be still alive and not to much neurotic thanks to theses pain dulling drugs.


Myron Stolaroff disagree with you, and think that illumination (if it's possible) arise from releasing every subconscious knots of your personal psyche. I'm not sure who is right, you or Stolaroff, but feel that his approch has some merits and tangible benefits I'm experiencing right now.

I said one shot of whiskey. Like a low dose psychedelic it is under the threshold of any serious effects but just enough to dampen the internal noise a bit. It has the benefit though of not inducing visual or audible distortions like psychedelics do, which are a major hindrance - you say you're not interested in pleasure seeking, what are bright swirling colours to you if not a form of entertainment.



This is nonsense. Why on earth would you believe that, if that's Myron said, when there's numerous individuals who've achieved illumination without psychedelics and have already trodden the territory necessary for illumination? To cut to the chase, I don't believe you've looked hard enough if that's what you're really after.

He's a psychotherapist, not a sage. This is western thinking of trying to get all ones ducks in a row, believing that is a necessary condition for illumination. It isn't.

If you could somehow go over all your past trauma and resolve it, then what? You would still be exactly where you are now except that all you would have done is resolved a self-imposed concept (resolving all traumas = illumination); you would then realize the only place you have left to look is within, which you could do right now without any psychedelics.

From my last two mushrooms trips, I assure you that the fun wasn't the first stuff to come up^^. Bright colours and visuals are manifestation of your mind to distract you from buried feelings, my "pratice" whould be to ignore them as much as possible (anyway at 1.5g I have not to much visual entertainment). Ignore everything that is not sensation of respiration. Stolaroff describe the trained user to not have visual carnival any more.



I strongly believe as you do that illumination can't come from psychedelic use only. That's silly. You totally can discharge all your psychic garbage with only meditation. Actually I experienced strong release during a few intensive meditation retreats. The problem of that is that I don't have too much time for meditation. 1h a day, 1x10 day retreat a year. That's not seems to be sufficient for me to attain a self sustaining practice. I then seek after the psychedelic experience to bring me faster release if it can, to attain faster the self sustaining practice. If that makes sense to you haha



I would be extremely happy for all experiences that increase my everyday well-being. I humbly confess that I'm far from what could be "illumination". I'm not sure I believe in such thing anyway hehe. But I believe in the effect on meditation, the faith in life I've felt when I was meditating intensely. Nowadays, I've fallen again in an anxiety driven life. Everything that can increase again the development of my meditation will be of a great help, and I belive meditation on psychedelics could. I'm a scientific oriented guy, will try this, and see what's happen, if Stolaroff is a lyier or not, I've not much to loose

EDIT :

I didn't notice from the first read, but I'm not sure you understand what meditation and psychedelics have in common. What does I do when I take a dose of mushroom and meditate closed eyes during the whole experience? I look within. With meditation only, I look withing also. The only think that change frome a meditation sober and a meditation with the psychedelics is the intensity and quantity of the unconsious material bring to consiousness. As I already told here, and felt multiple time (did like 6x10 days retreats, if the numbers matter...), you just need to meditate 4 or 5 days at 10h/day to have a flow of repressed material comparable to a low dose mushroom. But I haven't so much spare time to allow for the meditation. The possibility to have this intensity with just a few grams of mushrooms, integrated in a meditative practice, seems to be a real blessing for the busy lay people we are.

Very interesting conversation here!



Could you elaborate on that? Do you mean that the combination isn't so effective, or each method per se? What do you mean by the memory banks / wheels of life metaphor? And if there isn't so much use, what then do you consider useful? Is there anything? And which is that "certain point"? Sorry about the many questions... but I'm a bit puzzled here.

Anyhow, let's not forget that people are very different. Not everything works for everyone. Also, methods are very different. I assume that most people agree that there are different methods, meditation and psychedelics might be the most prominent ones, but they're not all there is!

I'd like to add one more thought to this. A distinction can be made between concentration training (increasing the resolution of the mind) 'purifications' (releasing and integrating previously unconscious material, normally this starts to happen when one progresses on concentration training) and insight practices (sophisticated mindfulness, which goes far beyond just being in the moment, but a complete realization of how the mind really works), which require the first two steps. One can go through a lot of purifications, but still be far from realizing superior insight. Because, after a certain point, purifications will cease for the most part, but conditioning remains. Then, one can work at completely transforming the consciousness without old material getting in the way. For all this, a sufficient amount of concentration power is required.

I also assume that even sophisticated insight attainment dosen't make one enlightened. Some people get enlightened without any of it, some do it all and still don't reach the point. But training the mind, going through purifications and then realizing superior insight will incrementally increase the chance of enlightenment occurring. Still - there are many stages and forms, as well as ways these things can express themselves.

All this isn't the only way, of course. But this is how the Vipassana way basically works - it's a complex thing.

I feel both meditation and partaking in psychedelics, require a skillset and therefor, you get what you put into it. The effectiveness of any tool is directly proportional to the skill of the person wielding the tool. I don't blame my paintbrush for painting poorly. If the craftmanship of the house I built is lacking in any form, I don't blame my hammer and saw.

I have utilized both meditation and psychedelics for many years now. I feel they both compliment eachother very well. Both have benefitted me in countless ways. I very rarely use psychedelics anymore, with exception of DMT, which I use about every other month or so. I committed to daily meditation 13 years ago. Meditation is the most profound tool I have ever discovered and using this tool with psychedelics can be very empowering for personal growth.

There is only one way to Carnegie Hall.

Namaste! Be well!