can one trip for life?

the who in the amazon? what's a 'ayahuasceros'..a tribe or spiritual practitioner? what do they trip on? sounds interesting

 

a name for an ayahuasca shaman.
ayahuasca is a brew made from caapi vine (DMT) and a MAOI (like psychotria leaves)
didn't know about it?
never tried it,
although I am terribly fascinated!

 

i've heard of DMT but not the leaves or the shaman --i mean i knew there were tribes in the amazon and every tribe has some sort of spiritual practice and some in the community charged with it...but i didn't know of these specific tribe shaman or their tripping. VERY cool!

 

yeah look up ayahuasca.
it's changing peoples' lives.

 

my sister worked as a boat guide down the amazon and said that people would come on the boat and stay for like 2 weeks just trippin on some weird ass melon or something...ever hear about anything like that?

 

never heard anything about a psychoactive melon that lasted 2 weeks.....

I know people who drink ayahuasca go on a dieta for 2 weeks sometimes sometimes just a week or a day and then they drink ayahuasca which only lasts a few hours in the night.

 

i didnt mean to say it lasted 2 weeks. I meant they would just be constantly tripping for like 2 weeks. Im just wondering about this melon.

 

Well, if there is a mysterious tastey melon out there that causes psychedelic trips, I sure would love to eat one! Or twenty :tongue:
Melons and oranges and juice and love, sounds like my kind of fun!

 

Ok, I'm probably one of the older guys here, been lurking for a while but this is my first post.
I first tripped in about 1970, when I was 20. Ok that was 37 years ago so now you know how old I am. I did lots lots then, once or twice a week, when I could get it. I've taken less over the years but only because I lost contact with people who could get me some.
I smoked dope heavily until about 3 years ago when I gave it up after a cancer scare. I still take mushrooms, but the taste makes me wanna puke, so I only take em when I'm desperate.
Acid has always been my favourite, such a clean, pure experience.
I can't say I've never had a bad trip, but I've never regretted any of them. Sometimes a bad trip can make you deal with stuff that you'd been supressing, and you benefit in the long run.
As far as tripping for life goes. My first trip changed the way I look at the world permanently - you can't close the door and go back to how you were before, even if you wanted to, and I never wanted to.
I had a successful career in psychiatry (no, not as a patient). And I know acid helped me to understand the psychoses and neuroses i encountered in my job.
I last had some a couple of years ago, but I don't know how to get it now????

 

Thats very interesting. Could you elaborate on how acid has helped you in your profession?

 

In a word "empathy". Acid used to be known pharmacologically as a psychotomimetic -a drug that mimics the symptoms of psychosis. People suffering from psychosis can experience hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, ideas of reference and high levels of anxiety, and a feeling that people and the world around them have changed in strange ways. Just the sort of stuff you can get with a bad trip.
If you can get alongside people and talk with them about, about their experiences and pay attention to the often vivid symbolism they use, they can begin to feel less isolated and desperate.
Much better than pumping them full of largactal and sh*t like that.

 

i love terence mckenna. and i agree completely. i remember the thing that got me into this whole "scene" was reading go ask alice and deciding if that's what lsd is like then drugs can't be that bad and i'd have to try them, at least acid. now, the more i learn, the more all these aspects of the most sacred and important things in my life seem to connect... and the more i smile at the thought of what my dad could really have been doing in the amazon, and how he got so cool . it's not really all about the psychedelics themselves, i think, it's about becoming receptive and plugging in to the universe. opening all the channels and taking off the "parental block" .

it makes me sad to see people who tripped a lot when they were younger and now seem to think of it all as only memories, but i like to think that they are still a lot better off than they would've been if they hadn't at all. like woodlouse said, you can't close the door once it's been opened. i guess the people i know who are older and still tripping slip my mind because they still seem too young to be old, no matter how gray their hair gets. they're still kids.

 

welcome to our little family woodhouse! you come with great experience over a long time and the perspective of psychiatry will really add a new dimention to this forum. i hope you post more often!


did you ever feel lsd would have benefitted your patients? did you ever think....if only i coulod smoke them a joint, or drop a blotter on their tongue!

 

It was tempting, but I never did it. Acid was trialed extensively with psychiatric patients during the 1950's and 60's and showed some good results, but was withdrawn as a treatment once it became popular on the street. Familiar story??
I didn't get started in psychiatry until the early 70's, so I never saw the little bottles labeled "Delysid" and made by Sandoz in the medicine trolley.
But talking to staff who worked on the wards at the time, I know many of them tried it themselves.
The real stuff - lucky buggers.

 

so do you prescribe to the idea that mental illnesses are simply chemical imbalances in the brain, or are they a result of some experience? or does it differ, patient to patient? I am aware that certain experiences or lifestyle choices/habits etc..can actually dramatically change your brain chemistry, so I guess that is a pretty complicated question. Do you think that medication is something like a band aid or short term solution to an issue with underlying problems needing to be dealt with? Or can medication be a real solution in itself? Or perhaps its more of an aid to treating the patient, along with some form of cognitive/behavioral therapy?

Ive just heard so many different opinions on this subject from so many sources. It would be nice to know what a professional would say.

 

You're right Brad it's a pretty complicated question. The way any persons brain functions at a particular time is a cumulative result of hereditary, congenital, environment, relationships, traumas, experiences, diet, drugs etc. etc.
So called mental illness is really nothing special - just the extremes of normal brain functioning that produce difficulties in functioning for individuals or society.
As for medication. Well a lot of it is in the band-aid category, like tranquillisers to keep people calm and controllable, without doing anything to cure the underlying problem. The classic "chemical cosh".
When acid was used therapeutically, it was usually used alongside psychotherapy to reduce the persons defences and enable them to recall past repressed experiences.
They would see the conflict as a vivid symbolic visual image which the therapist helped them to make sense of - all very Freudian but that was flavour of things then.
You can read more about it here.
http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/lsd02.htm

 

Hey Welcome Woodlouse!

Good to see an experienced tripper posting.

 

great read!

 

awesome!

 

Though I am not (hopefully) at the end of my journey of life yet, I can safely say that I am a tripper for life, not barring outrageous circumstances. To me, it's a place to go where my mind gets deprogrammed and reprogrammed. Priceless!

I wish that the world was not suffocating from the effects of the "dominator" culture and it's biggest reinforcement drug: alcohol. But alas, this is the world as it is.

I say Cognitive Liberty! One brain at a time!