Standing on the Edge of a Cliff

so for the last 6 months or so it feels like every time i take a real dose of any kind of entheogen, rather than just dabbling in the lower depths of the psychedelic realms, i am taken to the same place. salvia, mushrooms, and lsd all inevitably bring me back to this same place. it feels almost like i am standing on the edge of a cliff, over which lays the infinite oceans of the collective unconscious -- not literally, but metaphorically. but for some reason i just can't bring myself to make the plunge.

i know that i will come back, but when im standing there on the verge of infinity it feels as if i am just going to be dragged down into eternity and never return to this reality. although i guess that even if i did return i would not return wholly. something like that takes a part of your soul, ya know? or atleast, it changes you. i've grown warm to this life, and i'd hate to leave it behind.

but for something to recur in so many of my trips is not a sign that i take lightly. i believe that it is not only the next step in my karmic path, but also my fate, to make that leap of faith. i've even gone so far as to peer over the edge, even jump off! but not without leaving myself a rope to climb back up on. i just don't know why i can't let myself go. perhaps i am too attached to this life.

now i know the most common response is going to be 'just go for it, you'll be fine' but that just really isn't going to help.

so... comments, thoughts, advice?

 

You are looking into the fire of self-inquiry.
This fire will not burn you, only what you are not.
Take the plunge, I guarantee you will not come back the same way you are today.
Is this a bad thing?

 

It's part of everyone's path to make a leap of faith of sorts.
If you never believe that faith is worth dying for you'll never take the leap.

 

i found that written quite beautifully.

to me faith is synonymous with trusting the beat of my heart over the buzz of my head (moreso dogmatic voices of my society, that have planted themselves in my head).

 

I don't like the word 'faith,' but the comment is right on. Definitely jump off the cliff. What could be more profound?

 

my friend has this same situation. he cannot let go. he doesn't understand that he will return. neither do you. you have tricked yourself into thinking you will not return if you plunge. but you will. you are confusing contexts and levels of meaning. you are forgetting that the void, the jumping into the void, all that, is all based on the very mundane reality of an entheogen interacting with synapses in your brain. entheogens are chemicals, and our bodies are mechanisms for processing chemicals. once the entheogen is fully processed and is discarded into your bladder, your entire void, and jumping into void, and all that, ends. you return. no matter what you did. whether you jumped into the void, or were too afraid to. so just jump. trust your central nervous system. it will restore your ego, it can do no other thing. your mysticism is again clouding your true wish. you really want "knowledge" and "enlightenment", you need to start not thinking in these kinds of terms; "afraid of letting go into the void of collective unconscious". you need empty mind. let go. see what happens. maybe what you have dressed up in the expensive clothing of "collective unconscious void" is just a shallow pond

 

yea, but i guess i don't really see the soul as having much of a connection to the neurons in our brains. i see our souls as being strictly metaphysical. even if our souls do have reflections in the physical world -- which i believe they do -- the physical could not exist without the metaphysical. our souls are a procondition to the physical reflections they create. thus, you can't rely on the crutch of the physical world when operating on the level of the soul.

it is true that the fire can only burn what i am not, but i guess what i fear is what i am. it's nothing to be afraid of really, but for some reason it holds me back. i've done this on smaller scales, but not on the level that i am talking about -- complete and utter surrender and dissolution back to the source. my soul doesn't want to see the spirit in its utmost form, if you understand what i mean in the context of 'soul' and 'spirit.'

 

I agree with Mr. Writer on this one. It is by and large a chemical process. How that manifests psychologically is actually fairly predetermined based on the chemical process'.

You need to lose all your preconcieved notions of what the experience is or how it will be and just experience it. It's as though you are trying to squeeze the psychedelic experience into a box of your own making that you insist on taking into the trip with you.
Desos it really seems as though maybe you are anxious because what you experience if you totally let go may not coincide with the picture of reality that you have adopted. Don't be so invested in one certain world view that you are not open to other possibilities. Guaranteed you have only a very small piece of the puzzle, as do we all.

I say let go of EVERYTHING before the journey and be open to the possibility that YOU may be wrong. That is the only really open way to approach psychedelics, and a fear of one's own paradigm being challenged or shown to be lacking is usually one of the main sources of bad trips.

Remember LSD is a chemical, not magical.

 

good advice, but i guess what puzzles me is that this is just a recurring theme in so many of my trips. i've never even had two trips that had remotely the same themes, until this ocurred. perhaps i should just not expect for it to happen again next time i trip. then maybe even if i do return to the same place i will gain more insight about why. maybe what i need is to be pushed off the cliff.

but at the same time, i disagree with lsd being determend by pharmacology. sure youll come down after so long, but somtimes the effect is a spiritual one, which can last far beyond the mere physical effects of the drug -- it exists on an entirely different level. entheogens dont have effects on users like a narcotic would -- the majority of the effects can't be measured physically.

 

Take about 500-600ugs of clean LSD, that'll push you over the edge.

 

what a coincidence. i just happen to have a few hits of clean lsd sitting in my freezer. i'd imagine they would add up to somewhere around 500-600 ugs. just kidding, lol. but yea in the upcoming weeks when the right opportunity arrises -- right set and setting -- i do plan on dosing about that much.

 

Prior to doing it though you should ask yourself what you stand to gain by embracing the paradigm that you have developed and what would you lose if it were challenged and changed.
Every time you come up with a reason to hold on to it ask yourself "Why?"
Not that your view is wrong or mistaken, just that from things you have said it sounds as if that is part of what is holding you back.
Always viewing events from the perspective of karmic relations can be helpful, but it is also very limiting, in my opinion. It's not all there is that governs reality, just a part of it.

 

Desos you've constructed the most ancient and elaborate strawman known to mankind, and have determined that you are it, and that you must protect it by not jumping off the cliff.

Look at what you are protecting. "Soul". "Spirit". What are these things? Are they you? Are they are "part" of you? Are they some "reflection" of you on a "higher level"?

...

Leave all that behind, you're like a hassidic jew trying to trip on LSD and having a hard time understanding what's happening. Your cultural programming is getting in the way. You are starting to discover the bottleneck for growth in your being, and it is your stubborn paradigm of spirituality which is completely baseless and amounts to just fancy words that do not point to things you can hold or look at, and what you still don't understand is that if there is absolutely no way of interacting with a "soul" then that thing may as well not exist in your head, for it clearly is outside the context of ALL OF REALITY, because all of reality is all of this that you can interact with in some way.

You've written a story in your mind, told yourself this story is literally true, and now this belief in this story is causing you difficulties.

Throw the story out. You already know in your heart that your story will be thrown out when you finally do take the plunge. I think this is part of what you're afraid of. You suspect that this elaborate metaphysical system you've concocted and appropriated from quasi-religious sources may not actually hold 100% truth in the end.

Trust me, lose it dude. The real thing is MUCH BETTER. To go off the cliff and finally see . . . you will laugh that you ever spent so much time trying to understand and perfect and defend this "saga of souls" you're so addicted to.

Fuck your ideas. Fuck your philosophy. Fuck your beliefs.

If you really want to know, and you are really ready, then DO it. Leave everything behind, including your spirit, including your soul, including your karma.

"When you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!"

 

Now you got two of us telling you essentially the same thing. It is the same thing Mr. Writer and I have said often in response to you.
Lose all the magical mumbo-jumbo and open yourself up to the possibility that things aint what you think they are.
I like talking with you Desos, but I really notice that you do struggle to make things conform to the, as Mr. Writer put it, story in your mind. It never will, no matter who you are or what the story is.
If you are accepting of the reality that you are often mistaken, then you will more often be right. That applies to everyone.
Remember reality and mans attempts to define it is like the blind men describing an elephant.

 

Yeah dude, PB is right. I think I told you this before, if you are having trouble making the decision to let go, increase dose and let that chemical flood your shit, making that decision for you.

 

to know or to think about somthing is much different than actually aligning oneself with the reality of being and doing it.
its easy for us all to tell you what we think, or believe we would do in your postion, but we dont really know it. nobodies ever going to know it. we may be able to describe the events of life, but the direct truth of life is different than what is describable.


if you feel like your heading somwhere beneficial in your explorations i suggest you follow what flow your being swept up in.
what is it that we really have to lose? how much more freedom do we stand to gain?
ramble on. keep it mystic

 

One of your best posts bro. makes me excited to take 2gs penis envy later this week

 

I have the same thing lately OP.

Been to the other side, returned after what felt like an eternity.

Now as i start to drift off, and everyone, and everything i've ever known begins to dissolve, i 'leave the rope' (as so put it), keeping a part of me there in the back of my mind.

You put it well, you have grown so fondly of the life you live, and the existance you have that you don't want to risk it dissapearing! That is natural.


Oh and I upped my dose like you guys said... ended up throwing up a few times! It is more about attitude than amount when you get to the higher doses i believe. Of course, i'm not talking thumbprint amounts

 

I feel like I've had a similar sounding experience for the last year or so. The feeling of being on the verge of jumping into an abyss, but hesitating and holding yourself back. 2 years ago i had a really intense trip where my ideas on god and religion were challenged in a way i wasn't ready to accept yet. I didn't want to lose that "Father" figure god, the powerful guy to lean on. So the trip turned really bad because my mind was fighting itself with these opposing beliefs. For the next year or so i think i started to reconstruct my reality so that i could keep that feeling, that belief in a particular kind of god. Kind of like an aquarium, a lot of effort going into creating an environment so that something can still exist where it shouldn't. So in my trips i always would come to this point, this verge of breaking through to something bigger outside, but hesitating and being scared. Feelings of being trapped inside something and wanting to break out into the open came up in lots of areas in my life. It was kinda building up and i was thinking i was getting a little crazy or something, but then i kind of started to get hints on how much i was avoiding this certain area of my mind. during a trip at the phish festival this halloween i was confronted with all this stuff again and i was able to face it and open my mind up to these new possibilities of reality, helped a lot by being with my close friends and seeing one of my favorite bands play a really appropriate exile on main street halloween set after that experience of "diving in" to the void, the unknown, whatever, and bein willing to accept whatever came at me, ive felt much more free. this coincided also with me breaking things off with a girl who i was in a similar situation with, if that makes any sense
so i just wanted to share cause the way you described your hesitation sounded a lot like i felt, and if it turns out to be anything like my situation the thing that helped me the most was being truly honest with myself. good luck in whatever you find over the edge

 

the "edge of the universe" feeling is an unconcious left-over archetype from your flatlander ancestors

Fall off the thing... all you do is go around in a loop