Thread: Drugs

One can argue that drugs Do enforce an altered experience that you can dabble with.
Like you said.... a respect for the drug is imperative.

You have to take into consideration what the drug or experience ultimately takes away from your total being in an attempt for an experience.
Most drug use is accompanied with a side effect such as to take away or alter brain chemistry and construction, with the addition of an experience.
Do the pluses out way the minuses?

Obviously different drugs are more dangerous to your health than others and in addition, some are more addictive too.

in my experience...amphetamines (in this case adderall) inhibit lucid dreaming entirely

I think that drug usage (namely psychadelics) are not only useful to dreams, but to your waking reality as well. I wouldn't say I run mindlessly around using drugs at everycorner....Over indulging causes problems...But using them a couple of times a year is really useful for getting a different perspective on things. I mean, after ingesting some things, I have had dreams that were totally different to anything I had ever experienced before, which is really neat. Some of them really help dreams as well as your waking life.

I've been looking for this. It's cool that you've documented the effects of such a wide variety of drugs on dreaming through your experiences....and I'm glad you claim to have an understanding and respect for drugs and their ability to enlighten and destroy.

Drug culture always interests me, because of the kind of people who make it up. Exceptionally powerfull drugs might have long term effects on your confidence, persona, perception and presence, I've noticed through the people I have encountered.

Dreams....now there is something very interesting. Imagine the most powerfull trip that no drug can give, you may not experience pure pleasure or bliss, but you have the power to do anything you want, to discover yourself in ways never before possible, and maybe you can even still give yourself pleasure like a drug. What's dream culture like, I always wondered....the people who dream and talk about it as though it were a drug.....welcome to Dreamviews....

Originally posted by Aquanina
in my experience...amphetamines (in this case adderall) inhibit lucid dreaming entirely

In the event that you stop using amphetamines , does the ability to LD return?
I also wonder, the longer someone use adderall for example, is more unlikely you will ever be the dreamer you once were?

I question this with prescribed drugs. Drugs that I know hamper dream recall.
Will the consistent use eventually ruin your ability to recall dreams?

>>>>>>>>>NOW that should be on the warning label!

[quote]

In the event that you stop using amphetamines , does the ability to LD return?
I also wonder, the longer someone use adderall for example, is more unlikely you will ever be the dreamer you once were?

YES. I stopped taking adderall for a few days about 2 weeks ago and I had 4 nights/day naps in a row of lucids. Started taking adderall again...haven't had one since then. When I stop again...if my lucids come back with a vengeance then I'll know for sure.

It really depends each time for me so I can't fully generalise about each individual drug.

Valium, valerian root, also when I was on benadryl.. all of these sleep provoking drugs seem to make my dreams much more vivid.

Same with weed.

Mushrooms make me black out so I usually have insane dream-like experiences in waking life.. but not in the dream world.

Psychedelics boosted these things for me in the LONG run.. not instantaneously.

Originally posted by Chainsaw Kitten
It really depends each time for me so I can't fully generalise about each individual drug.

Valium, valerian root, also when I was on benadryl.. all of these sleep provoking drugs seem to make my dreams much more vivid.

Same with weed.

Mushrooms make me black out so I usually have insane dream-like experiences in waking life.. but not in the dream world.

Psychedelics boosted these things for me in the LONG run.. not instantaneously.

Yes, Aquanina & I were generalizing on a specific drug. But categorized, I think most amphetamines would have a similar result.
As far as your claim on sedatives such as Valium and such I think that you are not in the majority when enhancing dream recall.
In some cases I can only speculate that in some instances these drugs make the user fall into a deep REM period sooner and as a result have vivid dreams.
Most of these type of drugs hinder general & dream recall.

As far as amphetamines go that is a fair generalisation.

It really depends on the person with drugs, for both the physical and psychological effects. I remember after taking PCP I lost lucid dreaming for two weeks altogether. Although this was because I was ill (I'm never taking the stuff again, had horrible effects) I think.

Originally posted by Chainsaw Kitten
As far as amphetamines go that is a fair generalisation.

It really depends on the person with drugs, for both the physical and psychological effects. I remember after taking PCP I lost lucid dreaming for two weeks altogether. Although this was because I was ill (I'm never taking the stuff again, had horrible effects) I think.

That is for sure. Each person reacts differently to different medications or substances.
What is amazing is how a drug like the fore mentioned adderall or Ritalin can have a calming effect on someone with ADHD yet on someone else, you could be hardwired for hours.

[quote]
yet on someone else, you could be hardwired for hours.

Haha...damn right.

Ok well for me here's how it goes with some substances...

Any type of sedatives/benzodiazapines (xanax/valium) inhibit dream recall

Amphetamines (adderall/speed) inhibit lucid dreaming ability altogether

Stimulants like caffeine/ephedra can be very useful when WILDing (intentionally or not)

Mushrooms I'm not sure about...haven't done it enough...

5-htp (supplement sold at nutrition stores as a precursor for producing serotonin) - causes very vivid and intense dreams, often nightmares

DXM - can induce a lucid like state very similar to WILDing but doesn't have any effect on dream recall/lucidity once the effects wear off

Ecstasy - clean X almost always stimulates some intense LDs over a period of several days whereas dirty X doesn't have much effect on dream recall or lucidity

"Stimulants like caffeine/ephedra can be very useful when WILDing (intentionally or not)"

You're right, I can't believe everyone forgot about caffeine! I've only done weed and mushrooms, and I can firmly say that caffeine helps me become lucid much more than the other two. Take some caffeine when trying a wbtb and it will like kick your mind into overdrive mode by the time you fall asleep and start dreaming. Good stuff...

- Pete

One of the times i smoked weed before i slept, i had 2 lucid dreams!

I differ so much with the effects of drugs on me.

Alcohol: Im either too sick to think or remember my dreams in the morning or have very clear and sometimes lucid dreams.

Marijuana: Dreams seem to melt together a bit more and timelines seem comfusing but definately dreaming plenty. Not helping any for sure but it balances out with all the day dreaming.

MDMA(pure ecstacy) : no dreams but I don't wake up feeling sweaty and awefull. Always woke up still high and and quite out of it...usually more out of it than I relaized til the a few days after.(horrible drug as far as long term effects on the mind....but for me, hands down the greates high. Not worth doing more than once, but I've never met anyone who's just done it once)

Cocaine: sleep doesnt happen too mcuh and no dreams to remember when the sweet release of sleep finally happens (worst drug I've ever done! Stay away! The high is so fucked up and you're garunteed to feel like shit the moment you stop...so addictive...)

ketamine: only did it once...don't remember any dreams

mushrooms: never remembered any dreams

Salvia: heightened my awareness of dreams and seemed to make lucid dreaming more natural(warning..most powerfull drug mentally I've ever taken...be carefull)

melatonin: helped a lot when attempting a wbtb , i think, because it makes falling asleep again much easier. Made sleep feel so natural in general and without numbing my mind like sleeping pills do.

I agree completely about respecting drugs but it seems like a lot of people think they are when they're really not. I know from first hand experience. I started taking drugs with total respect and never without weeks of research and plenty of caution taken. But it's really hard not to get caught up in it all. The first highs of everything are so unbelievable....so epic...and totally life changing, that it's really easy to get caught up in it. I remember exactly how the barriers broke down. First drug I tried was alcohol. Just because it's so mainstream it seemed harmless enough. And like many in highshcool, drinking became a big thing for me, for awhile. Then, with so much exposure to pot-heads, I was always curious to try it. They all seemed like interesting people with a different perspective. So i quickly became obsessed with weed. It opened my eyes to so many things...but I didnt notice the transition from new experiences to just plain habit and addiciton. Mushrooms soon followed and I told myself "only natural drugs!" Til I got drunk and did ketamine. Then heard so much about ecstacy and the "love" that flows through you. So I tried that...then coke.... Now my respect fro drugs is a little more lucid since Im not on them anymore. It's a strange thing making decisions about drugs while on them...and I dont mean just immediate effects. It took me at least 6 months before I started to remember what sanity was like and start to think clearly again. With all the respect I have for drugs now, I stay away. Luckily I never got in deep. Just experiemented and stopped before any serious damage.

I can't say i've tried anything that actually helped me with my dreaming.

I've smoked weed for many years, still had dreams and experienced lucidity. However, when I stopped, my dream recall improved tremendously but the amount of lucid dreams still reamains the same.

Ecstasy: Did nothing but give me a horrible episode of insomnia and I felt as if I had ants running in my skin, never mind the restlessness

Mushrooms: I don't remember dreaming the night I tried them. I only remember the experience of them.

Alcohol: I lose dream recall completely.

Some of these that I've read just really make no sense to me. I don't mean to flame here, but I don't believe many of you talking about inebriation have experienced the effects you speak of. As far as opium goes, I don't know how anyone could have a dream and remember it, one of the effects of opium that I especially liked was the LACK of everything. The lack of thought, the lack of being, the lack of the burden of existence or non-existence, the lack of intellectual insight and the lack of want to do anything. Sweet inebriation, the feeling of total lack of responsibility to anyone including myself. Bliss, pure bliss. Who would want to ruin such an experience with dreaming?

Marijuana, if anything, inhibits the ability to dream because of it's memory-dumbing effects, I know people that smoke marijuana every day several times a day and can never remember their dreams, but if they stop smoking for one day they dream and remember it. This has been tested in experiments that I"ve conducted with at least ten people, eight of those people remembered their dreams! I just don't see how marijuana could possibly alter your perception enough to where it'd help you dream more, it can cause dillusion, but that's about it. The thought that something's behind you, but I'd leave this more up to your own paranoia and uncomfort in the setting.

Mushrooms, I believe, could definitely induce dream states. Psylocybin mushrooms cause a waking dream-state in my opinion, as I've believed pictures of flowers were singing to me, I've believed that the world was made of clay and that my reflection was a multi-faceted Hindu God telling me my life was just a train wreck of past experiences, but only when I looked in to my eyes sternly. (With the exceptions of some very potent blue meanies, which just slapped me across the face with cosmic wonder.)

Amanita Muscaria mushrooms are what have caused the most divine dreams to happen. After smoking them, I had several lucid dreams. None of them were of any importance, after eating I blacked out and fell asleep; I can not even describe the heavenly and hellish visions that took place, with the transcendence of ego occurring just as it did with opium, but with a profound experience of need of reality.

It's next to impossible to fall asleep on LSD, especially if taking enough to have a psychedelic experience (easily 5 hits of modern, good LSD) However, meditation can bring on dream like states and has brought memories from early life (I experienced birth again, with isolation headphones and a blindfold on.)

Peyote (Mescaline) was amazing, but I didn't dream, I tripped and went through a phoenix ritual. I talked to God, and what God had to say is impossible to communicate in words, however, the experience is a lot like Near Death Experiences reported by a lot of people.

Salvia Divinorum - The sage's herb, This will smack you in the face and grab you by the neck and drag you in to the hole of knowledge and fear. With all experience comes consequence, and this will no doubt let you get the gammit of emotions and wisdom that one so desires from using a drug. If anything, I'd say that this and Amanita Muscaria mushrooms are what can provide true insights in to your being, rather than just small views of thoughts that you think you might've had. They seem so concrete. Salvia Divinorum is what most people might describe as an alien abduction experience, hearing beings talk as if you had awakened to something you weren't supposed to know, but found out any way, a lot of people compare it to the awakening scene in the Matrix. I fell in to the void of the universe, dark matter the only existence. My brain expanded and my body became smaller, until I encompassed the entire universe, then suddenly i got sucked back in to a hole where I was grabbed by beings, who exclaimed that I was too heavy to know the truth, I suppose this was my consciousness trying to cling to my physical body. My brain expanded again to encompass the universe, my third eye not opening, but being violently ripped out by undeniable truth. And then, like a bolt of lightning, it was over. There was no coming back to reality, it was instant.

DMT, with less of a mind messing and more of a visual experience, was similar to Salvia Divinorum in that it was a short experience and intense, with no ramp-up and no come-down, just in and out. I might've been in a living mandala, the pulse of life that flows through everything at the same time was the only thing present as I was on a wave of kaleidescopes and perfectly symmetrical patterns.

That's all, I don't think any one could fake those sort of experiences or just describe them in a few words without feeling as if they're stunting the experience, or aren't taking it seriously enough, saying "I respect the drug" is not enough. What's the point in getting inebriated if it's just getting inebriated?

I'd also like to point out that even thought all these experiences are dear to me, I don't think enlightenment should come with the inability to operate a vehicle. Drugs aren't true enlightenment, they give you insights, true enlightenment is only obtained through hard, hard work.

Originally posted by udkilljoy
Some of these that I've read just really make no sense to me. I don't mean to flame here, but I don't believe many of you talking about inebriation have experienced the effects you speak of.

you think we're lying?

For me, LSD has given me an experience more amazing than dreaming in many ways. Of course I have never been very good at lucid dreaming so I guess I haven't gotten to feel how a lucid dream can be. But I can say with certainty that 2 particular experiences I have had with LSD have been 2 of the most powerful experiences to occur within my mind. It was as if I was being taken on a ride that incorporated every aspect of me including all emotions and aspects of my mind itself. Its damn near impossible to try to explain the specifics of it. At certain times in the experience it was as if I was in a dream.

Well, finally a thread that can at least set a few things straight about all these different drugs I've seen mentioned here.

I never so much as smoked pot growing up. Yep, pretty much let all them scare tactics they put you through in school get to me. This is something that I can easily say I regret now, but then again there's no way of knowing where I'd be today if I had got "hooked" on something. Still, for the most part I feel like I've been kept out of some loop, some secret. The same way as I did once I discovered lucid dreaming.

Anyway, while at first I thought of lucid dreaming as a recreational "escape" from reality - I've come to realize it can become so much more. I've always felt that there's just so much more out there that what we see everyday, and experiencing lucid dreams has in some ways confirmed that. But I simply don't experience them enough, nor have I been able to have this "life changing" dream or insight. If I were in my teens, I'd be a bit more patient - but I'm not. So I am considering now taking whatever other options are available to help me at least experience something that may open up some doors to discovery.

Salvia Divinorum - The sage's herb, This will smack you in the face and grab you by the neck and drag you in to the hole of knowledge and fear. With all experience comes consequence, and this will no doubt let you get the gammit of emotions and wisdom that one so desires from using a drug[/b]

That's what I'm talkin about.
Anyone can get high and have a good time, but it sounds like when taking something like Salvia, each person experiences something way more intense that is unique to themselves. We're exposed to something that's personal and deep down within.

What difference is there regarding the "truth" of what you experience between lucid dreaming or mind altering drugs? We reach this "high" through a sleeping or 'unconscious' state in lucid dreams - where by taking a drug, we achieve the high while awake, or conscious. Would one be better than the other or is the experience still coming from the same place?

Originally posted by gameover


you think we're lying?

Some of you.

Everyone experiences drugs differently. You can't put it down to lying. You can't categorize the exact effects for each drug.

Just because you haven't experienced something in the same way does not make it impossible.

What difference is there regarding the "truth" of what you experience between lucid dreaming or mind altering drugs? We reach this "high" through a sleeping or 'unconscious' state in lucid dreams - where by taking a drug, we achieve the high while awake, or conscious. Would one be better than the other or is the experience still coming from the same place?[/b]

Neither are truth, both can just provide insights that can give you small glimpses of the truth. The important thing is to remember that getting f***** up and knowing truth is that getting f***** up is just getting f***** up. There's no real truth in it, just small bits of insight.

Originally posted by Chainsaw Kitten
Everyone experiences drugs differently. You can't put it down to lying. You can't categorize the exact effects for each drug.

Just because you haven't experienced something in the same way does not make it impossible.

I didn't say it made it impossible, but one can assume certain effects that are common to every one else on the planet would be common to everyone. You can't argue fact, besides I didn't say that every one was lying, I know that people experience drugs in different ways, but you shouldn't contend fact that there are common effects for everyone.

Originally posted by udkilljoy


I didn't say it made it impossible, but one can assume certain effects that are common to every one else on the planet would be common to everyone. You can't argue fact, besides I didn't say that every one was lying, I know that people experience drugs in different ways, but you shouldn't contend fact that there are common effects for everyone.

And YOU shouldn't take the experiences that people have so openly presented here and denigrate them. Everyone is just expressing how THEIR OWN experiences are with the different drugs. No one is saying that they speak for everyone, and no one is claiming that their experiences are how the drug really affects all people.

We're all just putting things out there to try to come to an understanding of it all. There is no need for negativism...k?