With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state officially law, I thought I'd bring up this discussion. Moderators feel free to delete this post however if you feel it is inappropriate.

So the dark night can be really tough, one may feel totally drained for months without any reprieve and it may last possibly a decade long; would legally obtained marijuana be relaxing and beneficial to someone going through the dark night or just a needless crutch and nothing more?

The way out of a dark night is good practice. Otherwise they will flounder in dark night for years.

Does marijuana lead to good practice?

Someone needs to see if practice is good while high on pot. I would imagine its rather hard to concentrate while high and I think mindfulness is also rather low, as most people who witness pot smokers will testify.

I think a few people here have said acid had helped them reach PCEs or high meditation states, but acid has a VERY different internal mechanism than pot.

Anyone else?

From a scientific look at the drug, marijuana is a downer. It is going to decrease energy. If you are suffering from anxiety, it would make sense that that would assist you toward finding a balance in your energy levels. Still, as with alcohol, I'm inclined to think that while people on pot can become incredibly focused on one object, their mindfulness would lack. Their awareness of their surroundings lacks. And, if you have someone who is stuck in the helpless feeling that I sometimes feel in the Dark Night, which discourages movement or energy already, pot is just going to make them more stuck. I myself would not choose to experiment with this, or other drugs; if one could reach a state of higher intensity with this sort of assistance, you may find that you are incapable of doing it without later, and I could only see these inadequacies leading to more cravings for a "state", and not an awareness in the moment. And that is not true enlightenment, is it? Food for thought?

Love and Peace,
Jazzi

During my dark night, and lasting to this day, I have become hyper-sensitive towards marijuana, which nowadays causes me to trip very strongly: it would be like acid if it wasn't for the very high level of mental noise and anxiety.

Definitely a no-no for me.

Yeah, the effects vary so much, not just between people but even over the course of a lifetime. For some people, at some times, it's just as likely to magnify rather than pacify painful states.

Years ago I used to find marijuana relaxing, enjoyable, dreamy, surreal, funny... a nice way of enhancing music, sex and food. And if I wanted to concentrate, I could concentrate very very well. But something changed. I'm not sure why. These days, more often than not, there's nothing relaxing about it; it's more like a moral and psychological crucifixion... a really painful exposé of every ugly aspect of my personality, life and character. Not fun. (But, as the analogy kind of implies, it has a sort of purifying effect over time... and that has its place. I seldom use it nowadays, but when I do it's in bursts of two to three weeks, often with years in between).

So yeah, it causes me to "trip very strongly" too, in a way ... but definitely not in an LSD-like way. I like (and handle) the intensely psychotic kind of LSD-trippy effect much better the intensely personal, intensely neurotic and kinda claustrophic marijuana-trippy effect.

Would definitely not recommend it for the OP's purpose. If it works, you've created a dependency. And if it doesn't... well...

After years wondering what was wrong with me, not knowing what the dark night was, I ended up being an heavy pot user. I was basically an addict. It took me a long time to kick the habit. The stage "desire for deliverance" is probably the one that made me smoke the most.

The more sativa kind of cannabis acts more as a stimulant. I did a few psychosis because of that. There is a strong risk of psychosis in re-observation with cannabis.

Beside that, indica works more as a analgesic and can feel like a relief of all the muscles tension. Still, even if I did long sitting under the effect of cannabis, I think I never had any insight (moving one stage up) under those condition.

So, I don't think it's useful for insight but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep functionning. Now I use it maybe twice a month when I end up paralyzed by anxiety and can't do something important (my life is kind of crazy now).

This week, I started experimenting with very low dose of mushroom to avoid falling back in re-observation. Psilocybin works as a muscle relaxant. Again, if used in re-observation, there is a strong risk of psychosis. Instead of getting more relax, you end up finding yourself extremely tense. I use something between 0.1 and 0.5 grams in the evening or even before going to work in the morning. A psychedelic dose is about 3 grams. At suck low dosage, it's no more impairing than an Advil. The trick is to use a dose large enough to have an effect but low enough to avoid spams and muscle discomfort. People with cluster headache use psilocybin for the same reasons. The drawback is that tolerance develop very quickly so I will not be able to keep the experiment going for very long. Better to pop soon!!!

If you're going through DN, my advice is to practice your ass off and get out of DN. I don't see any necessary connection between that and toking. If it's keeping you from practicing your ass off, don't do it; if it's not, then don't worry about it.

I find smoking has this benefit of loosening me up and providing a sense of discontinuity that provides relief. It helps me notice very subtle thoughts that I normally don't notice. I find that if I do it more than once a week it takes away from my practice. A couple months ago though I was so disoriented and stressed I really needed it to calm down. Now my dark night is much more manageable;I am in college now where I couple months ago I could barely leave the house because everything seemed so weird.
Now that my dark night is more manageable it is seriously time for me to get my head out of my ass and cut back to once a week or not at all.