Not quite. On 14 out of 15 people, on average, it kncks them upside down the first time. I have smoked weed a couple times. And I remember the doubt: do I feel something, or am I just a little nauseaus and dizzy but telling myself its more then that?
With my first time ayahuasca, I remember feeling something like: “ oh my god, there’s a wave coming oh my god I cant stop or suppress this ow shit can I still get off this thing wheres the exit ow shit I can’t…” So no, not a light effect, at all. Its just that about one in 15 users may see no effect the first time, but get a big experience the next time, and then nothing again.
A guy told me that the first aya trip took him to hell, but in a usefull way, so he came back a second time and this time experienced something like heaven and divine love. He went in a third time and basically got Mother Ayahasca telling him firmly: “ what are you doing here? You know everything you need to go, now go do it, dearie. “ Funny thing, this guy was raised really religious, had rebelled against his faith, but after ayahuasca he could talk to his Church elders for the first time with enthusiasm about the base, the core of the religious experience, and although he never went back to that faith, relationships much improved.
Has anyone ever tried the God Helmet? I’d like to do that with none of the side effects of this ayuahasca.
In my experience, all hallucinogenic drugs should be consumed on a completely empty stomach, both for maximum potency and to prevent stomach cramping and nausea.
(for what it is worth, I didn’t find the effects of ayuahasca to be markedly different from LSD, psilocybin or peyote, but I didn’t take it under the guise of a psuedo-religious “ceremony”)
If you find one, let me know, I’d be curious to try it.
This seems like it goes beyond, ‘because science’. What’s the fascination with these aggressive/repeated efforts of fucking with your brain chemistry and neural signals?
“Once in a while you can get Shown The Light in the strangest of places if you can just look at it right…”
But the trick is knowing whether "The Light’ comes from without or from within.
Moderator Note
Don’t threadshit.
If the topic doesn’t interest you, don’t post in the thread.
Gastrointerologist motto: “Some are born to shine The Light from without, others have the light thrust within them.”
More like trying to poke holes in the truth value of the claims of people who did this drug.
I’ve tried to point out the holes in the “realizations” people have had while on or after it, but it’s almost like a religious level of certainty.
I’m curious.
The great experiences of life, like dreams, love, God, visions, art, seeing from anothers viewpoint, richer ways of seeing…if there is a chance to experience them, to see how they are different or similar to my normal experience, to see if they can teach me new ways of seeing, of relating…And being free to take or leave what we learn this way…And, above all knowing from reliable sources that the risks are no greater then boarding a plane and going on an actual journey…
Let me put the question differently, Quicksilver. Why are you NOT curious?
Maastricht, thank you for your illuminating and thought-provoking posts on this thread. I’ve often wondered if one difference between those who are spiritual and those who are not has a biochemical basis, much like depression does. What are your thoughts on this?
Machinaforce, the threads you’ve started have been vague and made you seem anguished and confused to the point that a lot of us recommended psychotherapy. You seem so different, so confident and dismissive in this thread that I’m seeing you in a new light now. While I didn’t find your posts in this thread helpful, they do give me hope that you won’t feel the need to post the old vague-and-confused threads any longer.
For myself, the reason I’m not curious is because I’m sort of accustomed to how my brain functions, and I don’t particularly see the need to see how it operates while on fire. It’s the same reason I don’t drink alcohol.
The human brain is capable of a wide variety of emotions and experiences, including spiritual feelings and the like. These are all states that the brain can end up in. That a drug can shove the brain into such emotional and cognitive states doesn’t tell me anything more about the universe than I already know; it’s patently clear that people can feel these feelings and I don’t think that their ability to experience such brainstates makes their spiritual beliefs true. That’s my conclusion after giving some thought to the fact that people out there really do genuinely have such experiences, and I’d like to think that I would retain that opinion after some drug kicked me in the head and made me experience those brainstates too.
If I was not able to hold on to my rational conclusions after the experience, I would reasonably conclude that the experience damaged my cognition. I’d rather that not happen.
If experiencing God is all in the brain, then maybe NOT experiencing God is also all in the brain, due to sub-optimal brain functioning?
Some people are tone-deaf, some are colour-blind, some can’t recognise faces. Are most people God-blind?
Sure…to the same extent that most people are elf-blind.
Of course, when we are talking about God here, we don’t mean a person - an old man with a white beard sitting on cloud and interfering in people’s lives, or something like that - in which case you would be right.
We are talking about the kind of experience Maastricht described in this thread, which is something entirely different.
It seems to be experienced by a few people in all cultures, religions, and times, mostly spontaneously without drugs.
As a great poet described it:
— And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
* — William Wordsworth*
And yet another put it thusly,
“'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky”
I thank all who asked questions, both critical and otherwise, and will be back to answer as soon as I can.
Well, you say the risks are ‘low’ but you also say you ‘chickened out’ a few times in the past. What’s to be afraid of if the experience you describe is so rich and rewarding while the risks are low?
As to why I’m incurious about taking strong psychotropic substances that would alter my grasp of reality; well, because, as disappointing as reality is (more often than not), I prefer it to non-reality. Interesting that you would frame it as being “NOT curious”. I suppose I rely on a more internal locus of control for my framework of understanding and experiences in life. I like to have some confidence (to the extent possible) that, “… great experiences of life, like dreams, love, God, visions, art, seeing from anothers viewpoint, richer ways of seeing…”, don’t require hallucinogenic aids that yield unpredictable (even false?) results. I suppose what I’m saying, is that there is value in appreciating these things through the work of thoughtful reflection of an un-altered brain. Color me boring, but not incurious.
And I suppose that someone clearly needs to tell you that droning on & on about something you have no experience in and have no interest in experiencing in the future, smack dab in the middle of a room full of people who ARE interested in said subject makes you a bore of the highest order.