Drugs, Dreaming, And Consciousness...

hi all. i posed here a while back when i started having WILDS which until i came here i thought were hallucinations, soon after though i discovered weed and soon lost interest in dreaming. anyway since now and then i have tried somewhat of a variety of drugs, x, coke, alcohol, viconin, and most recently shrooms. i was not at all prepared for the shrooms or how much i consumed for my first trip also i was alone. basicaly i experience what my friend calls an egodeath, such an intense trip that i completely lost myself, my concept of identity and such. so to make a long story short, after i started smoking wilds didn't just randomly hit me every once in a while like they used to, they really only happened like 5 or so times. smoking also killed my normal dreams. anyway due to parents i gotta take it easy on the drug stuff so i want to get into dreaming. anyway not that you needed all the background or anything but i wanted to know if something like the following is possible, the psilocybin in shrooms effects the human brain and makes people exerpeince the altered state of consciousness, if the brain is capable of that is it then possible to achieve the same or similar state w/o the use of an outside substance? i guess my few wilds i have had made me think, or maybe its wishfully thinking, that there is more to reality that what i consciously persieve in my everyday life, i want to experience this or learn about this and realy dont know were to start. life for me is very lonely and empty so i'm hoping maybe exploring this kind of thing could help me feel better, doubt it though. i'm guessing most people will say check out the tutorials for lucid dreaming on this site and the like, just thought i would throw this out there if anyone had any other recomened learning materials or something....thanks and sorry if the post is unclear.

hi,..
First, Mushrooms is something to take very serious; if your are not ready mentally for them.. dont take them, from your experience you could say that your where not ready and that your mind is not "stable".

When you use them correctly they could be a very good view towards exapanssion of consciouness..

But they are only a View/ (you learn a lot, but is no enough).

Things that are external to you could never take you to a stable, higher state consciouness,, the can only do this temporary..

so what can???

Meditation,[u] you explore your mind with no help of substances or dogmas, you use your true nature, train your mind, you will achive higher states of consciouness, higer states of bliss and happynes, and the most important of all a true understanding of reality...doing this in a way that is stable and healthy.
Why waste your time in cheap drugs?, that are making your mind more confused and your body ill?
if you decided to train your mind is going to take a lot of work, time and dicipline..

But it will change your life..

Sooner or later your are going to die... what is the only thing that your are going to take with you???

(your mind)


I'm talking from my exprience.. man Ive been where you are.. no good.

I recommend you to read something about Tibetan Buddhism.... check out this lama (teacher): Ole Nydahl.


Any particular questions message me.

Good luck

Yes. i also have had extremely bad experiences with drugs. not shrooms though, i cant even imagine what that would do to you when you have a bad trip, i totally freaked jsut from weed after i smoked it for like a year straight, which is a lighter drug, with shrooms, it must've been indecribable how bad u felt. Anyway........I have been there and i am chosing to do the same as you, taking the path that uses no outside substances. Just as an observation, i think that the reason for these methods being safer is because 1) you are already making a firm commitment to do this to your body 2) you know what you are doing 3) you slowly do it over a period of time, so you get used to it and 4) u can control the outcomes = NO EGODEATHS! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
That was the winner for me, you can achieve, basically, a happy high whever you want to, wether its through meditation as goingmerry or lucid dreaming, or hypnosis.
My advice is start with either mediation or hypnosis, they are basically the same just go into shareza/limewire, whatever p2p program you prefer and type in mediation or hypnosis you will come up with lots of great results. My reason for telling you to do this is........ because of your bad trip on shrooms, you probably are stressed out/tense alot, i know i always was after my bad trips. Meditation and hypnosis are great ways to help yourself calm down, with not as much effort as some other techniques, because with these there are thousands of audio tracks for you to listen to.
If you give me your email address, i can send you the best one that i've found for relaxing.

And WELL DONE! for chosing the safer path, it will bring you much better outcomes and make you feel good for accomplishing something which not many people even know about!

There are definately ways to access this altered state of consciousness other than using drugs. Drugs are just an easy way of seeing our reality in a different way. A different perception.

I maintain that the best highs i've ever had and also the weirdest, other worldly sort of experiences i've had have all happened when i haven't been on drugs, and i'm glad i discovered that before i started taking drugs. So yeah, you don't need them to change your perception.

I can only speak from my experience, but if you strive toward becoming more aware of yourself in your life, your perception changes all the time. There are other things you can do to explore your consciousness like meditation (as mentioned), Lucid dreaming is a good start :P, but also CHANGE.

Personally i find change fascinating, do something you wouldn't normally do, just to kinda watch yourself and see what happens. See a different side of yourself.

Start a diary and write it as a stream of consciousness - just write everything as it comes out, don't form sentences or even logical phrases, just write and write. It has helped me imensely to clear my mind, gain focus and awareness and understanding.

I know this is a big post but i thought i would also add - depression is shit. I suffer from it, but rarely mention it. But recently i've been thinking that in a way it can be a good thing. It keeps me on my toes, keeps me looking for other answers and more adventures because its like a constant mild desparation. It keeps bringing me back to the point, what else is life but the opportunity to explore consciousness?

Wow i can rant.

yep, you definitely don't need drugs...and as you found out, it totally kills your dreaming!!!

definitely practise the meditation and focus more on the world around you.

Hmmm. I'm not so anti-drugs as some on this forum, but, I'm not a big drug user myself. I think in order to use a drug, you have to know about it very thoroughly and have a neutral, objective understanding of what it is and what it does. You've got to be safe using it too, ideally with a sober close friend not taking it and watching over you to make sure you don't do anything stupid. I don't believe that injecting a superficial smattering of Eastern mysticism or spirituality along with drug use makes it anymore safe. I'm not anti-buddhist either - quite the opposite.

I tend to agree with most of what someweirdsin said, especially about non-drug highs and surreal experiences, and abnout depression - though I don't suffer from depression, I know how debilitating it can be.

But...

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yep, you definitely don't need drugs...and as you found out, it totally kills your dreaming!!![/b]

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I disagree with Irish on the last part of this. The blanket statement that "drugs kill your dreaming" is way too oversimplified. Psychoactive supstances and drugs in general affect the brain in a huge variety of ways depending on the drug being used and the individual using them, amoung other things.

SOME drugs, depending on how much and when you take them, can improve dreaming. Even ALCOHOL, which in general kills dreaming, can help increase dream vividity and length depending on how much you take and when you take it. Other drugs and psychoactives can definitely have a pronounced effect on dreaming.

I think the message that needs to be delivered is not a general blanket statement like "drugs kill dreaming", which is not comprehensively true. Instead, I think what needs to be said, is that IF you want to experiment with drugs, make sure you know everything you can about the substance you are taking, the dosage, and make sure that this information is NOT gained through word of mouth and what you hear from other people. Word of mouth and pop culture are bad and inaccurate ways of getting information about potentially dangerous substances. Do your own independant research, from objective sources. And for the love, if it's a dangerous drug, make DAMN SURE you have somebody watching you who isn't taking drugs, and who is physically stronger than you.

Don't think you need to take drugs to improve your dreaming though. Because you don't. I'm not encouraging drug use, I'm just saying, if you are adamant about using, use sensibly.

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Originally Posted by irishcream

yep, you definitely don't need drugs...and as you found out, it totally kills your dreaming!!!
[/b]

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I have to disagree with this as well. It just alters your dreaming state. Some of the most vivid lucid dreams i've had have been coming down from ex, probably because i sleep soooo much and so must get longer REM periods, also my emotions are much stronger.

Its off topic but thought i'd add that in.

What I have found with my experiences of shrooms is that it takes you to the stage that Meditation or a WILD can with very little effort and like 10 times faster. I did shrooms just the other week for the 4th or 5th time and I found that I could easily sleep whilst remaining conscious, wake up and then lie down and enter the state immediately, it would normally take me ages to get to where I was without the shrooms, It was a very strange experience. I can reach the same stage without any external influence but it is much much harder. I love shrooms for what they can show you and what they can make you feel but they do make you feel pretty fuc#ed up and negative at the same time.

On the topic of drugs, I used to take ex(xtc) and k(ketamine) on my raving era back in 02-04. I use to take these drugs often. once every week. I know my limits, I wouldnt take it to end up puking and getting fucked for the night. just enough to chill for the night. MOST of the time I would get these lucid like trips.

well, we all know what a club looks like inside. so there I was, having a fun time with my friends. then as the drugs kicked in during the night, people started to morph into trees(basically I saw dancing trees, im not talking about half human half trees, I mean literally 6 foot treets with glowsticks hanging). obviously I was thinking wtf?. At first I didn't know what it was. then as I gain more experience to control the high. I can morph things with my mind willingly and if I concentrate(surprisingly I can do it without an effort)

some experiences I got;
during the high, in the middle of the dance floor. (basically once it kicks in, your vision goes blurry, you would have to focus a little to see things clearly). I would imagine things that cant be possible.

people would be sitting in chairs playin on computers(wtf in a club?)

the place would turn into an acrade, I can literally see them playing on the machines and jumping around (music is still playing and what not)

like I stated above, I thought nothing of these images, so I didnt really care much about it. After awhile, my curiosity would get the better of me. I would imagine a wall in the middle of the room. and boom. it appeares. Like a lucid dream my hand would go through it, it would be liek a fog of smoke, the part I put my hand through will reconstruc itself until I imagined something else.

I tried to experiment more with the high, so I smoked pot(for people who don't know, smoking pot while on ex, enchants the high in way to hallucinate more). at home alone. I would face the wall and imagine words would appear on the wall. and it does. I would imagine tiles like you would see on your bathroom floor, then the outline of the tiles appeared. There were times when on my floor, the design is in a way so it doesnt look plain it has like small circle, square-like-designs on it. If I concentrate hard enough, it would morph into a picture. not once, but as many as I could think of, a dog, a cat, a small village, transfomers

I've had other interesting trips, like seeing people that shoulnd't be there, it would be more assmuing and interesting, rather then being scared. ("wtf, am i tripping or do you see that shit?) in some situations he actually said "yea man, i fucken see it"(and he explained exactly what I saw, werid... ) and some friend's experiences. but it's getting long already

So one day bored at home I studied the drugs. shows that both drugs can cause hallucinations. one fact got me interested "With large or repeat doses hallucinations occur eg loss of sense of time, feeling disconnected from the body, near-death experiences"
there were times when I took a bit to much and went into this trance, I can't explain it. but everything the quote said was so real. I felt like I was trapped in a different world. with colored shapes everywhere and I felt like I was moving away. anyways back to topic

now, im not telling people to take these drugs to get a lucid like trip while awake. im just posting my experiences. if anyone experienced something similiar, would be interesting to share thoughts.

thanks so much for all the replies everybody, i was in kind of a depressed funk and didt care or respond to this thread, its late now but i'm defiently going to make a worthwhile response when i have some time. please tommo if you can send me that hypnosis video to [email protected]. but i gotta ask now before i hit the sack, how the fuck did you trip on xtc? thats so crazy. x has never made me hallucinate just feel a very emotional high. i've read some and have allot more questions i will post this weekend when i have time. i've ordered some books on lucid dreaming and will continue my research but i'm probably going to start using drugs only a little, its hard to stop completely thanks.

I personally am against illegal drugs. Not saying that I don't do things to make me feel good. I enjoy fine beers, and fine liquors, but rarely drink to get drunk (which i did a lot of prior to age 21) Anyway I'm not here to say bad things about it, cause I believe if you wanna do drugs or whatever, its your decision.

Anyways thats being said I can say my experience with dreaming and prescription pain pills ( I have rheumatoid arthritis, as well as other problems with my joints that cause extreme pain ) I don't take them regularly but only when I am having a real bad pain day. I take them before bed so I can sleep, it doesn't effect my dreaming in anyway I can tell, though I relax much easier and fine its much easier to fall asleep.

Whatever you decide, just be safe.

-RStudley

I am going to chime in here ..... I am NOT against drug use........ I don;t believe they are they are the ANSWER .....but they can definatley be used as a tool...... to open you up...... once you know they way to open up and tune in , you can greatly benefit.....

I would always recommend you know what you are doing when messing with these substances..... use them as a tool...... not just to get " messed up"

The Use of Tools is what sets us apart from lower life forms...... Use them wisely, and they can benefit you ..... it would be foolish to overlook these gifts..... closed minded even.....