I have received a lot of mail since my post last week. Very different people (I now know there are at least two forklift operators in our community), with different stories and questions, but all finding what we’ve been doing here at PsyPol meaningful. I’m very grateful for these messages and am going to respond to all in due time. I’ll make some of this correspondence public, starting with the excerpt below.
You're so good at describing the indescribable, Nikita! FYI in the trip of mine that you allude to, in which I became an anxious God, what freaked me out was the possibility that I could bring an end to existence, everything, including myself, merely by thinking about it, because I was, you know, God. All-powerful. I get performance anxiety just going to a party with friends, so being God was a little much. Lots of terror to manage.
I was thinking of writing to you but I am very comfortable with often stumbling around lost in distraction,so I never did. This comfort has come with age and decreased responsibility for others. I feel really very lucky to be alive in a time and place where I might expect to live decades after peak functioning. My greatgreat grandparents sent extra girl children,those not needed to farm,to convents to be picked up as wives. I find myself with all this time not spent needing to survive and enjoy even the anxiety attacks-luxury. The search for meaning is fraught with everything
"What If Psychedelics’ Hallucinations Are Just a Side Effect?" Would you take them if there was no "trip?" Which effect do you prefer? A feeling of bliss or a transcendent-mystical state?
These are beautiful pictures. I like the idea of a DMT deficiency. I also sort of think that if you’re in a state of depletion, say serotonin depletion or dopamine depletion and you smoke DMT or drink Aya you can then have a “bad” trip — the eternal panic kind.
I had one once where everything felt really dangerous. Like I was in danger and all these snakes were telling me to never come back. Have not smoked DMT since. But I was in a bad state mentally then, something bad had happened to me in real life, and I was smoking the DMT basically solely to try and feel better. Def did not work.
You're so good at describing the indescribable, Nikita! FYI in the trip of mine that you allude to, in which I became an anxious God, what freaked me out was the possibility that I could bring an end to existence, everything, including myself, merely by thinking about it, because I was, you know, God. All-powerful. I get performance anxiety just going to a party with friends, so being God was a little much. Lots of terror to manage.
I was thinking of writing to you but I am very comfortable with often stumbling around lost in distraction,so I never did. This comfort has come with age and decreased responsibility for others. I feel really very lucky to be alive in a time and place where I might expect to live decades after peak functioning. My greatgreat grandparents sent extra girl children,those not needed to farm,to convents to be picked up as wives. I find myself with all this time not spent needing to survive and enjoy even the anxiety attacks-luxury. The search for meaning is fraught with everything
"What If Psychedelics’ Hallucinations Are Just a Side Effect?" Would you take them if there was no "trip?" Which effect do you prefer? A feeling of bliss or a transcendent-mystical state?
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/11/non-hallucinogenic-psychedelic-clinical-therapy/675942/
These are beautiful pictures. I like the idea of a DMT deficiency. I also sort of think that if you’re in a state of depletion, say serotonin depletion or dopamine depletion and you smoke DMT or drink Aya you can then have a “bad” trip — the eternal panic kind.
I had one once where everything felt really dangerous. Like I was in danger and all these snakes were telling me to never come back. Have not smoked DMT since. But I was in a bad state mentally then, something bad had happened to me in real life, and I was smoking the DMT basically solely to try and feel better. Def did not work.