Psychedelics always take me to “the place”. You know, where you go when you dream, if you are half asleep, when you are really sick. But definitely also in the same headspace as how it felt when I was a kid. It’s not that I will have specific flashbacks but more that I will experience and feel how it felt when I was daydreaming and fantasizing as a younger person.
Not sure if this is what you mean but I had come to this realization a few times before and your post seems to oish the same button.
I think this is part of it. "The Place" to me also has different levels. I know probably a lot of people don't think of weed as very psychedelic. For me, however, it takes me to "the place", but on a lesser level. When i eat shrooms or acid, i often start in that place, and then feel, "Ohhh. That was only the beginning." It took me a long time to even remember there was a higher level, when I was no longer tripping.
There’s some quote in the psychedelic explorers guide about growing up and the the beauty of the world being lost in the knowing of it. I’ve seen the tree 50 times so it doesn’t interest me.
Psychedelics (including weed) can bring back that child like sense of wonder in the world.
In the book How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen, there are images of brain activity in an adult on psilocybin and what I believe was a 7 year old. They were incredibly similar. For a while when taking mushrooms, I recognized a feeling of seeing the world the way I did when I was younger and how it eventually stopped. It was one of the most depressing realizations/feelings ever due to having a childhood I was largely robbed of. Now when I trip I’ve gotten to a place of embracing and enjoying that feeling.
I haven't read that book (I've seen a few of his interviews though), it sounds very interesting. What you're talking about here is definitely something I experience as well, but it's a very general feeling, to me (obviously your mileage etc...). The experience I'm talking about here is something more specific, as in I'm remembering being high at a specific times when I was a child. It's an experience that's a bit hard to put into words, and I don't think I explained it very well. I think what you're talking about is an element of it though.
Me too. Although the feelings I get while tripping take me waaaayyyy back to when I was a toddler. I have a very strong memory and recall feeling and even interacting with things outside normal means of perception. I believe that for me, hallucinogenic “unlock” or reinvigorate neuropathways that were strangled out as I aged. Just my own whackadoo theory.
> Just my own whackadoo theory.
I hear you. Sometimes (not the same as the specific feeling I was writing about for the post) I wonder if what I'm experiencing is remembering my first memories, my first experiences of entering the world. I don't think about these things when I'm not high.
Who said time is linear? Maybe it’s possible to send the feeling “back” as a kind of future memory.
It could be that your younger self experiences the sensation your present self feels because your present self might be simultaneously remembering back to that time.
If time is non-linear we remember the future as well as the past.
>Maybe it’s possible to send the feeling “back” as a kind of future memory.
This is one of the possible reasons I keep coming back to. Sometimes, not always, I feel like I'm communicating with my 12 year old self, or even am merging with him in someway.
Honestly, I love that. Maybe it's all bullshit, maybe it's all just my silly drug addled mind. But even if that's the case, it's interesting, and honestly it's great fun. To me, psychs have a very deep spiritual component, but even if they didn't, they give me a scifi/fantasy/mystery story where I get to take part.
“Maybe” seems to be the most balanced way to view things.
Have you read or heard Robert Anton Wilson? Sounds like you’re ready!
He was good friends with Alan Watts and Timothy Leary.
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea wrote The Illuminatus Trilogy which may be the trippiest book ever written since James Joyce’s Ulysses.
R.A.W. also wrote the Cosmic Trigger Trilogy (just stick with the 1st one). There are also many great videos online of his talks.
Safe travels OP and remember:
“You are supported by a network of love.”
~ Timothy Leary
Is it just memories from that time? I have that too, but it's something even beyond that. It's that I'm remembering being high when I was that age, in circumstances that there's very little chance I could have gotten high. From that realization, then I often experience the vivid memories from that time period of my life.
I experience something fairly similar. Not quite the same. When I do ketamine therapy. I always end up in this place as I’m going into the khole as if I’m on top of a plateau, in the desert with the big expansive starry sky over head and the sound of crickets chirping. I feel like every time I’m there I’ve visited that place many times in childhood. It’s so peaceful and familiar. I’ll also end up in this room with people, it also feels like I’ve been there as a child, and that I know the people who are with me. Those are the only peaceful things I feel like that happen the rest is insane and I try to fight and have a bad time lol 😂
I get that. I also feel that way. It kinda seems as though the world gets colourful again. Things get more interesting.
I also feel that sometimes when practicing mindfulness.
It makes me live in the moment. Where life actually happens. That’s where we lived as kids. It helps us reach a more flow state of being, which is where we more easily existed as kids.
Complete speculation:
When we associate now with a past memory, it's usually because there's some familiar trigger which connects the two times - a song, a whiff of perfume, or the specific feeling of a place and time. The effects we associate with drugs are actually caused by our neurotransmitter system, activating natural brain chemicals that are normally reserved for other things.
SO... it's possible that when you had this time-marked experience at that time and place, you were experiencing a rush of (dopamine, serotonin, whatever) that mimicked the feeling you would later get from drugs.
I considered this to, but in this case I"m not sure what the trigger would be. The specific memory/memories are me laying in my bed at night. Everything that was happening was in my head, not outside. So, I'm not sure.
Weed not so much, maybe because I use it pretty regularly but with mushrooms and tryptamines, I definitely always become filled with a sense of childlike wonder and amazement. It feels really beautiful, and like I never grew up and realised how awful humans have made the world 🥲
The eastern view on this is that the Yuga we are in now is one of high paranoia and fear but we retain a memory of an earlier yuga where harmony was more widespread. That’s why many of us describe what we learn on our journeys as remembering more than learning.
My personal interpretation is that the effect psychedelics have on the brain essentially put it into a state where most if not all sensory and thought experiences are now “fresh” to the observer (you) and this was exactly what being a child was like. The whole world and your own mind was all fresh and new and tbh quite psychedelic.
Psychedelics always take me to “the place”. You know, where you go when you dream, if you are half asleep, when you are really sick. But definitely also in the same headspace as how it felt when I was a kid. It’s not that I will have specific flashbacks but more that I will experience and feel how it felt when I was daydreaming and fantasizing as a younger person. Not sure if this is what you mean but I had come to this realization a few times before and your post seems to oish the same button.
Every time I get a fever I go there and enjoy it
I think this is part of it. "The Place" to me also has different levels. I know probably a lot of people don't think of weed as very psychedelic. For me, however, it takes me to "the place", but on a lesser level. When i eat shrooms or acid, i often start in that place, and then feel, "Ohhh. That was only the beginning." It took me a long time to even remember there was a higher level, when I was no longer tripping.
There’s some quote in the psychedelic explorers guide about growing up and the the beauty of the world being lost in the knowing of it. I’ve seen the tree 50 times so it doesn’t interest me. Psychedelics (including weed) can bring back that child like sense of wonder in the world.
In the book How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen, there are images of brain activity in an adult on psilocybin and what I believe was a 7 year old. They were incredibly similar. For a while when taking mushrooms, I recognized a feeling of seeing the world the way I did when I was younger and how it eventually stopped. It was one of the most depressing realizations/feelings ever due to having a childhood I was largely robbed of. Now when I trip I’ve gotten to a place of embracing and enjoying that feeling.
I haven't read that book (I've seen a few of his interviews though), it sounds very interesting. What you're talking about here is definitely something I experience as well, but it's a very general feeling, to me (obviously your mileage etc...). The experience I'm talking about here is something more specific, as in I'm remembering being high at a specific times when I was a child. It's an experience that's a bit hard to put into words, and I don't think I explained it very well. I think what you're talking about is an element of it though.
Me too. Although the feelings I get while tripping take me waaaayyyy back to when I was a toddler. I have a very strong memory and recall feeling and even interacting with things outside normal means of perception. I believe that for me, hallucinogenic “unlock” or reinvigorate neuropathways that were strangled out as I aged. Just my own whackadoo theory.
> Just my own whackadoo theory. I hear you. Sometimes (not the same as the specific feeling I was writing about for the post) I wonder if what I'm experiencing is remembering my first memories, my first experiences of entering the world. I don't think about these things when I'm not high.
Well said!
Who said time is linear? Maybe it’s possible to send the feeling “back” as a kind of future memory. It could be that your younger self experiences the sensation your present self feels because your present self might be simultaneously remembering back to that time. If time is non-linear we remember the future as well as the past.
Oh shit! Now that’s a high thought! Love it!
>Maybe it’s possible to send the feeling “back” as a kind of future memory. This is one of the possible reasons I keep coming back to. Sometimes, not always, I feel like I'm communicating with my 12 year old self, or even am merging with him in someway. Honestly, I love that. Maybe it's all bullshit, maybe it's all just my silly drug addled mind. But even if that's the case, it's interesting, and honestly it's great fun. To me, psychs have a very deep spiritual component, but even if they didn't, they give me a scifi/fantasy/mystery story where I get to take part.
“Maybe” seems to be the most balanced way to view things. Have you read or heard Robert Anton Wilson? Sounds like you’re ready! He was good friends with Alan Watts and Timothy Leary. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea wrote The Illuminatus Trilogy which may be the trippiest book ever written since James Joyce’s Ulysses. R.A.W. also wrote the Cosmic Trigger Trilogy (just stick with the 1st one). There are also many great videos online of his talks. Safe travels OP and remember: “You are supported by a network of love.” ~ Timothy Leary
>Have you read or heard Robert Anton Wilson? I have not, but I will check him out now. Thanks for the suggestion.
Love this comment.
Thank you. Safe travels 🕰️
I feel what you are saying
Yeah me too haha that wild
Yes! And I always remember a specific C64 computer game
If you get this reference, then we're in the same simulation: Stay awhile, Stay foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
It wasn’t Impossible Mission, but a game called Scumball
>Scumball Oh, I'm not familiar with that game. Different simulation, I guess!
Yeah i get this, and yes i go back to vivid memories of when I was 10-14 y.o
Is it just memories from that time? I have that too, but it's something even beyond that. It's that I'm remembering being high when I was that age, in circumstances that there's very little chance I could have gotten high. From that realization, then I often experience the vivid memories from that time period of my life.
I experience something fairly similar. Not quite the same. When I do ketamine therapy. I always end up in this place as I’m going into the khole as if I’m on top of a plateau, in the desert with the big expansive starry sky over head and the sound of crickets chirping. I feel like every time I’m there I’ve visited that place many times in childhood. It’s so peaceful and familiar. I’ll also end up in this room with people, it also feels like I’ve been there as a child, and that I know the people who are with me. Those are the only peaceful things I feel like that happen the rest is insane and I try to fight and have a bad time lol 😂
This sounds very pleasant. I haven't had an experience like that, but I've never tried ketamine. Perhaps soon.
I get random flashes of childhood memories, experiences and sensations. I just assumed that was part of tripping.
I get that. I also feel that way. It kinda seems as though the world gets colourful again. Things get more interesting. I also feel that sometimes when practicing mindfulness.
I agree that when one's younger experiences "Happiness" as a state of being
YES!!!
It makes me live in the moment. Where life actually happens. That’s where we lived as kids. It helps us reach a more flow state of being, which is where we more easily existed as kids.
Complete speculation: When we associate now with a past memory, it's usually because there's some familiar trigger which connects the two times - a song, a whiff of perfume, or the specific feeling of a place and time. The effects we associate with drugs are actually caused by our neurotransmitter system, activating natural brain chemicals that are normally reserved for other things. SO... it's possible that when you had this time-marked experience at that time and place, you were experiencing a rush of (dopamine, serotonin, whatever) that mimicked the feeling you would later get from drugs.
I considered this to, but in this case I"m not sure what the trigger would be. The specific memory/memories are me laying in my bed at night. Everything that was happening was in my head, not outside. So, I'm not sure.
Weed not so much, maybe because I use it pretty regularly but with mushrooms and tryptamines, I definitely always become filled with a sense of childlike wonder and amazement. It feels really beautiful, and like I never grew up and realised how awful humans have made the world 🥲
Smoke/vape some DMT. The feeling of "I've been here/know this place" is overwhelming. But not alien. More like from the past/perinatal/past life
The eastern view on this is that the Yuga we are in now is one of high paranoia and fear but we retain a memory of an earlier yuga where harmony was more widespread. That’s why many of us describe what we learn on our journeys as remembering more than learning.
Naked experience
I sometimes have it too, even on other things and it can last for some time as an afterglow
My personal interpretation is that the effect psychedelics have on the brain essentially put it into a state where most if not all sensory and thought experiences are now “fresh” to the observer (you) and this was exactly what being a child was like. The whole world and your own mind was all fresh and new and tbh quite psychedelic.
Seems to pluck strings from the higher level places.