The conscious psychedelic experience and the benefits of their intentional usage
From a phenomenological perspective, this is my understanding of the conscious psychedelic experience and the benefits of their intentional usage. This is not advice or professional guidance; be responsible and diligent in your own practice if you so choose.
Psilocybin looses the rigidity of our perceptual structures and pathways of thinking, such that we no longer interpret reality via these structures, but experience the raw data from our senses. But we also loosen the structure of self, the perspective from which we interpret the experience, including ourself experience. Experience is more vivid and chaotic, and it is hard to anchor that experience to any perspective or framework of interpretation or knowledge, and hence it is harder to draw useful lessons from the Experience.
Thc stimulates and enhances the sensitivity to fine perceptual experience and loosens the rigid structures of thought to a lesser degree, so we perceive more of the fine detail, which underlies the relative low resolution of our natural sensory perceptions, and we can get insight via making adjacent cognitive leaps. So, the experience is easier to navigate, with a more grounded perspective from which to interpret experience, and we get intelligible feedback, and hence it becomes easier to relate it to our established framework of interpretation and knowledge, and so easier to learn lessons from it.
It’s like thc is the first step, adjacent to what we already experience, so we can learn what we can, and better understand our own experience and our own being, and in so doing better learn how to navigate the experience.
Once one understand the nature of ones own being, then one is ready to take the next step to understand being as part within reality itself. Psilocybin is for the experienced psycho-navigator when all the anchor points are cast away and once must navigate the nature of being being and reality both at the same time. A process that is made much easier is one has already mastered psycho navigating oneself; it provides a chaotic anchor point from which to then decode the chaos of perceived experience.
Instead of thinking that we order the chaos of experience, imagine instead that we organise it into complex structures of perception; unconsciously from birth, but with increasing consciousness and self-directed experience. These then allow us to perceive more complex forms of experience, which again are organised into more complex structures of perception. Out of this same process we develop a concept of ourself and the world of our experience. Once established, both of these remain reasonably fixed.
Self provides a perspective from which we interpret the world of our experience. If we untether both our perspective from which we interpret, and the structures by which we organise sensory experience into perceptual experience that we understand, then we just experience the raw chaos and it is hard to understand the experience, because we no longer have a fixed perspective or a framework from which to interpret the chaos of experience.
If we only untether one, for example, the perceptual structures by which raw sensory experience is processed, then we can experience the raw unprocessed chaos from the fixed perspective of self. From this perspective we can understand the relationship between raw unprocessed experience and the processed perceptual experience, upon which most our everyday understanding of ourself is based. Once we understand this relationship, then we can better navigate the raw experience of being; the chaotic experience and phenomenon that our perceptual framework organises and encodes as organised perceptions and an ordered self concept.
Once we understand the above, then we can drop all anchors, experience a fluidity of perspective and the chaotic experience of both self and reality perceived via the senses. Understanding the chaotic phenomenon of self, provides a fluid framework, or dynamic perspective, from which to then differentiate and understand the chaos of reality itself.
So we understand ourself as fluid perspective, chaotic phenomenon within a chaotic phenomenon, one pattern within which is self, and all of which is reality, which we naturally experience our self as something separate from, but within we are actually part.
U/redpoint404
Cannabis stimulates the Default Mode Network, specifically the sub-cortical amygdala. It works on the conscious brain. Mushrooms quiet the DMN, like meditation does. It works on the subconscious brain.
From a phenomenological perspective, would cannabis be like turning up the gain, so to see more of the fine structure that is usually lost in the background noise and so overlooked by the default mode awareness? So we remain the consciousness but with experience turned up to 11.
And mushrooms loosen the default framework by which raw experience is interpreted is a sensible conscious perceptual experience. So we have conscious awareness of more of the raw, unprocessed data of our senses, which is less mediated by the framework that structures our perceptions.
An example of practice: Finding motivation
not advice or guidance; be responsible, take at own risk as legal frameworks allow (nb. I’m not your mother)
Whilst, I haven’t worked with either in this capacity, I can share my own experience and perhaps provide some insights.
I met a shaman, an Irish man who really had a deep understanding. He taught a Breathwork class, which involved taking hape and then cannabis, before starting the breathing practice, and then using various chants to clear the energy blocks that one perceives during the experience.
Unlike a trip, this was a powerful transformative experience. It was not merely a cathartic experience, commonly associated with the breathwork experience, nor was it a trippy hallucination, but a practice where one can work with interactively, effect change and get perceptual feedback within the psychedelic perceptual experience. It seemed to me a meeting point of Vipassana and Tantra, but supercharged in the efficacy of its transformative potential.
I’d certainly recommend ten minutes Breathwork, a meditative practice for concentration and centring, setting a clear intention for what one wants to learn from the experience, before any psychedelic session. It should really be treated with reverence, as a ritual and as a sacred experience, because it is not the conscious self that is directing the experience.
As long as you remain grounded in the experience, I’d say the cannabis can give you a powerful sense of there being much more to discover about yourself, and reconnection with spirit, a sense of belonging, and a part of something greater than oneself. For me, it rekindled a sense of connection to spirit and purpose, which indirectly motivated me by reminding me that there was something important to fight for in the world. This can be a motivating factor in itself.
Psilocybin, I believe is very powerful for changing the established patterns, especially the feedback loop of thinking, feeling and behaviour.
In either case, I’d recommend that one meditates beforehand, remains grounded, manages their dose so as to not overwhelm or lose themselves to the experience, sets an intention for their session, remain open to everything during the experience, and practice gratitude afterwards. Often what we experience, we might not understand at the time, but if the previous steps are followed, then we can perhaps have a little faith that it was the experience that we needed, and that understanding might come later. Gratitude, regardless of what comes up, is not only a way of being thankful for the experience, for in reality you are only experiencing what is already there within the unconscious, but it is an acknowledgement that it is ok, and allows the experience to be processed subconsciously after the fact, rather than to generate an aversion and repress it.
If the desire is to find purpose, motivation, or passion, then have that as intention. If one remains grounded and open to insight during the experience, then the intention will put a purpose to the inquiry and help direct the experience; new questions will arise and insights will provide answers. These all come from outside the established patterns of thinking, hence why it is important to calibrate your dose so as to not create an intractable, perceptual chaos but also open up thinking sufficiently for new answers and questions to arise.
I’m pretty sure that if you’re aim is to find motivation, then the questions around what is it you are motivated for, what is it you want to achieve, why is it important to you and to the world, what obstacles you will face, what holds you back, what just I do, etc will arise. Staying open to insight will allow the answers to arise. If you get it right, then you’ll witness the entire conversation play out before you as you just sit back and enjoy watching it unfold in your mind. This can bring clarity about purpose, and make it absolutely coherent, which then gives a clear focus and direction. Often a lack of motivation can be resolved in this way; by addressing and clarifying what one is motivated for.
If it turns out that if lack of motivation is deeper with the individual, eg I’m useless, I can’t do it, it’s easier to quit, Whats the point, etc. Then I’m not sure which one I’d recommend, although I’m pretty sure they could help in some way. this is clearly linked to the self-reinforcing feedback cycle of thought-feeling-behaviour. The Breathwork practice combined with psychedelics can help with this, as it slows one to visualise these patterns, and act intentionally to change /reprogram them.
If one is motivated, but is struggling to conceptualise their creation, and hence struggling to act on the motivation, then a psychedelic experience might help. If the intention is clearly set around the purpose that one is motivated for, and one can keep the attention focused only on that purpose, then the session can allow the idea to crystallise, to visualise the whole concept clearly, in overview and also in the details, and become fully coherent. One can then try to find its essence, so one can then remember and construct the concept when the session is over, and the one had a target to direct their motivation towards creating.
The point, though, is that you can learn to navigate the experience and edit your own established patterns of thinking, feeling, behaviour; you can experience addictive habits for what they are, and observed impassively rather than indulge and reinforce the habit, you can transcend the limitations of your established structures of thinking and beliefs, and learn to see a bigger picture and even see the world anew.
There is so much more we have yet to discover about ourselves. A scientific approach to experience and a conscious psychedelic experience, if conducted stepwise, can bring so much understanding of how better to navigate the process and derive useful learning, and even transformation from the experience.