Where do we put drugs posts? Is there a board for them? I looked around but couldn't find one.

Is this something enough people are interested in to warrant a Drugs board?

I've been able to achieve some rather wondrous (and seemingly long-lasting) results through use of specific drugs, namely dissociatives and entheogens (both of which could be classed as "psychedelics"). Dissociatives in particular I believe offer us a chance to shortcut to higher jhanas and do insight practice into the Three Characteristics.

It's a nascent field in my view and if I could get together with like-minded and experienced people I think we could potentially put together a map of which drugs do what and when to use them to get X result. This isn't just messing around; I actually think this is a possible and completely valid path that could bring some outstanding results.

The board could be plastered with disclaimers if you were worried about anything going wrong.

As a side note which is possibly relevant, the results I claim were achieved with drugs which are legal in most countries.

The main thing I'm interested in is networking with other drugs psychonauts in a forum set up specifically for that field. I want to make a focus group with actual dharma practitioners, and potentially neuropharmacology experts, not people just looking to get wrecked (I could go to somewhere like Blue Light for that).

I know a lot of people have had drug trips before getting into meditation but having a section just for drug use might make the website look like it's encouraging it. Just keep that in mind but there's nothing wrong with typing your experiences in your own threads.

A couple of years ago I was somewhere fairly unstable between 3rd and 4th path.  I was having some trouble making progress so I bought a bottle of cough syrup (with dextromethorphan as the only main ingredient) and swallowed the entire 4 oz bottle.  I hit all manner of formless realms and lost a significant chunk of agency and within a couple days afterwards I went through several new paths.  It was probably instrumental in getting me to a very stable place in very late 3rd path.  Dextromethorphan is a dissociative in higher doses and sometimes cough syrup/capsule manufacturers put in acetaminophen (tylenol) or other ingredients in.  These versions should NOT be taken in high doses as high doses of acetaminophen will destroy the liver.

I'm not recommending that people do this, I'm just recounting my experience.

I tried DXM a few times while I was working towards 1st. It also put me through (what seemed like) formless realms, and I got a lot of insight out of it, meditative and otherwise.

Also not necessarily recommending it

My drug experiences:

Salvia: No spiritual effect, was trippy, but not very pleasant.
Datura: Many hallucinations, black-outs, again no spiritual effect.

Both the salvia and datura were taken in the context of a dark night, when I was off my psychiatric meds (prozac and abilify), I severely lacked stable judgment and so there were social repercussions (I was suspended) for taking them.

Nicotine (cigarettes): Formless realms on these, many no-self experiences, experiences of emptiness, very nice.

Meds (Prozac, Abilify): I am very certain that these are responsible for a lot of my progress, at first my outward behavior changed, I became more outgoing, then my mood changed and certain existential angsts I experienced were removed, then finally existential angst was removed forever. Continuing on I had many experiences of visions (of being the Buddha or Tathagata), continuing experiences of emptiness, finally it settled down, being on these medications allow me constant access to emptiness. I cycled endlessly on these, dark night bleed-throughs occurred a lot, several times I became an evangelical Christan (A&P) and wrote prophetic tracts. (I cannot recommend medication enough if you are depressed, but of course consult your doctor.)

Marijuana: Nothing too special here, similar to nicotine for me but more intense and longer lasting.

Alcohol: Just don't like. =p

Peace.

Not really drugs, but I take a large amount of vitamins every day.  Several grams of niacin, ten or more grams of vitamin c, 5-20mg folic acid, b-complex, vitamin d-3, zinc, selenium.

There is now a new category for things like supplements, medications and substances, as these topics do come up often and are relevant, pragmatic things to discuss, as they are causal.

I posted many times about my experiences with drugs. I do it in the miscellaneous section and I like it that way as I wouldn't want to be the guy with half the posts in the drugs sections.... People can search the site for a specific drug if they want to read about others experience. The drawback is that some drugs are not very well-known and people might not think of searching for them (ex: iboga). Considering that knowledge related to a specific drug is highly important before trying it, it could be useful to have those threads available in a Drugs section. A word of advice: read as many reports as you can on erowid before trying something and do it safely.

Daniel,

I've had my own fair share of adventures in my own youth, believe me, but as the parent of a 19-year-old already fully immersed in campus drug culture and interested in meditation, I'm really leery of having this site, which I've pointed him to, have a stucture-change/heading that prima facia promotes drug use as path. I would hope that he would try meditation instead of drugs.

A teenager who lived not far from us took some LSD and jumped from a bridge here, dying a slow, gruesome death. He was not depressed, and his parents are, naturally, devastated.

My next-door neighbor's only son died from a drug overdose (opioids).

Two teenagers have stolen prescription drugs from my medicine cabinet, and whether they were to use them recreationally or for spiritual development is irrelevant to me. I had to report the theft to prevent my neurologist from getting in trouble with the medical board.

Do we want to be encouraging this kind of action amoung young people who come to this site? Don't we need to be above even the possible appearance of such encouragement? 

I would consider fully the ethical implications of having a "substances" category, as well as any possible legal implications.

Jenny

Some people "loose it" while practicing hard core vipassana noting practice to the point they 
need hospitalizing. Were you aware of this? It would be only ethical to shut down DhO right? 
After, all this site is dedicated to hard core vipassana practice. Censorship will not stop 
people from being irresponsible.

Wonderful! Thank you.

I'll be posting a recent experience there shortly. Low-dose MXP (a dissociative) and low-dose LSA (an entheogen) gave me formless realms matching descriptions from the high jhanas, and "taught" me how to actually do insight meditation properly (everything flickering -- sense of agency spreading out and appearing just as another wave on the infinite sea).

The ability to do this carried over the next day when not on any drug. It has literally taught me how to do insight practice!

P.S. I was able to do sensation "zapping" at a rate of dozens per second in this state. It has not made me manic or "A&P"-y the next day either like such experiences have done in the past.

Dear Jenny,

Your concerns are totally valid. That said, since the beginning people have posted about their experiments here with all sorts of things, from SSRIs to ayahuasca and the like, as they are a part of a significant part of many people's path or how they came to that path, and so, pragmatically, it is worth having a place to discuss them safely and sanely and openly, and sites like Erowid, while providing a great service, lack the map and state/stage technology and theory that is present here. I will create a stickied thread on that category and create a policy to reflect the spirit in which this is meant. Said another way, people are doing these things anyway, often having heavy spiritual experiences on them, some of which can cause significant downsides, and being able to talk about what happened and how to deal skillfully with that is of value. Vipassana can also produce lots of serious side effects, some worse than plenty of the drugs people do, as noted above, and so, just as you would want support for those, similarly it makes sense to have a community to support the others. I know of horror stories both from things like LSD and also from vipassana, as has been reported here many, many times.

In societies where drugs are integral to spiritual experiences, youths are initiated by the elders in safe environnement and with guidance. The western culture surrounding drugs doesn't allow the emergence of such safe environnement and make the transmission of knowledge by experienced users difficult. Rites of passage supported by the community have been a key elements in almost every ancient cultures around the world but are terribly lacking in modern society. As a results, the youths are creating their own rites of passage, often involving large quantities or alcohol and drugs. Instead of receiving guidance from the adults around them, they are being judge and ostracized, encouraging even more brutal rites of passage to affirm their adulthood in the face of an overprotective entourage.

So true.

Simon T.,

I agree with you.

Jenny

I am one of those people who have ended up in the hospital from doing long-duration vipassana on three separate occasions (technically 4 different hospitalizations since one occasion was back to back).  The last hospitalization I had was in November 2011.

I will say that the long-duration retreat-level vipassana was far more dangerous, for me, than any drug I've ever done.  On each occasion it took a week or more in the hospital for me to come down from all the hallucinations and alterations.  No drug I've ever taken has lasted more than 24 hours (at most) or triggered such a crazy assortment of hallucinations and altered states.

For comparison purposes here is the list of recreational drugs I've done that vipassana was far more dangerous than:


psilocybin mushrooms (one time)
NN-DMT (~ 10 times)
Dextromethorphan (one time)
Nitrous Oxide (~20 times)
Salvia Divinorum (~ 15 or more times)
Marijuana (lost count but I'm not a habitual smoker, probably ~200-300?)
MDMA (two times)
Nutmeg - yes it's psychoactive (one time)
smoked opium (one time)
cocaine (one time)
Alcohol (lost count, but ended up in the emergency room after blacking out on one occasion)
insufflated oxycontin (one time)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but whatever it is, vipassana was more dangerous than it.

Yeah, same. Datura (scopolomine?) is definitely a hallucinogen, but not a psychedelic / entheogen. Not even in the same league.

The only half-way interesting thing I ever saw on datura was a bunch of mechanical spiders/ insects drifting down from the roof and dissolving an inch or two above my upturned face. It was obvious they were visual hallucinations; no fear, no revulsion, no emotional content at all. And no meaning. No insight into the perceiving mind. Boring.

The contrast with LSD and psilocybin is immense. (Best not get me started on them...)