LSD helped me significantly; it alleviated my ADHD symptoms, and helped me get over my substance dependency issues over few low dose trips.
Psilocybin helped bring clarity, motivation in my life, love for nature, and helped purge out some negative emotions by crying.
Ayahuasca has been the most therapeutic; it allowed me to revisit very early childhood memories I've completely forgotten about, which later helped my interactions with my family and friends. It also showed me why I was born, which helped give me a sense of direction, purpose in life.
Forever grateful for psychedelics and the guides that help facilitate a safe space.
Oxytocin. We were all born to touch and keep the oxy mojo flowing. (Just don't get creepy about it.)
I've been on this crazy beautiful floating space rock for 43 years. My dad is 73 and ailing mother 68 this year. I have a wife who's tolerated me for 20 years. I have 3 rock springers 17, 12 and 8 years with her. I've met hundreds of other beautiful rock dwellers asking the same question you ask. I haven't lived a necessarily exceptional life and I don't claim to know much, but I do know that Oscar Wilde was on to something when he said: "With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone" ... and that kinda scares me sometimes when I enjoy my occasional misanthropy.
Let's keep the compassion flowing, everything else is part-time occupation.
Unfortunately, I'd like to keep that to myself because it's super personal to me, but one of the biggest things I learned is that by healing myself, and leading by example, I can also help my family because they've also experienced some traumas growing up.
Yup! I meditate each day, 20 minutes, to help me get back into the present moment that LSD opened up for me. Honestly, for me, 20 minutes is where my mind and breath starts to slow down, and other than a calming effect, it's not very noticeable. I only do 20 minutes most of the time because of time restraints.
If I continue, I start seeing colors swirl around the 30min mark, reminding myself not to get attached to it. After 40 min, the cognitive changes are VERY noticeable when I stop. Food tastes great, colors are vivid, and I can even feel the individual water drops in the shower.. I liken it to cannabis effects without the racing thoughts.
I don't have any answers, but can say I've just started trying meditation after reading about it for years. I was directed towards the headspace app (headspace.com) and have been doing the introductory "take 10" program for a week and love it so far. Would highly recommend checking it out.
It's not 'pleasant' enough for that, plus I'm not sure this 'ASMR' thing works with voices.
Rather, it's a combination of his accent and the 'meditation voice' thingy that just makes it sound nice to me. His voice is meditative enough to not feel like it interrupts, but "blokeish" (a certain British accent, I guess) and distinct enough that it doesn't feel too high-falutin and triggers my still rather primed anti-everything-new-agey senses.
I know you didn't ask me, but I'd like to share my experience with meditation because it's been so helpful to me and my particular challenges. I've been meditating semi-regularly for about a year now, usually every day for a long while and then generally short periods of no meditation at all.
To give some context: I'm currently dealing with the effects of what in hindsight was a slowly ramping up 'social burnout' that has left me with quite a bit of social anxiety, general anxiety, and somewhat unstructured lifestyle where I can easily spend days doing 'whatever I want' (freelancer with savings). I also at some point developed dependence on alcohol and weed, although that's been relatively easy to deal with when I keep my life simple and calm.
On top of that I've just been diagnosed with (mild) autism - the asperger's variety - although I suspect that I might not have been diagnosed as such without the anxious, stressful and unstructured life that I've been leading these past years. Too early to tell though.
I can have immense trouble concentrating on something, especially when there's some 'problem' in my life, and I have to all but give up on being productive if this problem is of the social kind. My mind just cannot keep from going back to it, analyze it, take it apart, and so on.
It can be ridiculously difficult for me to leave the house, eat food, get enough sleep, or do simple things like laundry or take a shower. Without external prompts, I just sort of sit around reading, play games, follow some obsession, worry, 'monologue' to myself, stop eating, and avoid social contact. This eventually turns my thoughts and behavior darker, if I let it continue.
On the other hand, it can also be ridiculously difficult for me to stop and take a rest when I'm in 'meet my one deadline' mode, or actively busy with things. I decide to do all the things at once and don't realize I'm in over my head until it's too late.
Balance is clearly not my talent, and, as is perhaps typical of those on the 'spectrum', I have trouble switching gears. It's like my mind controls like a big-ass tanker ship, while others are more like cars or trucks.
I still struggle with these things. And getting, if anything, has made it more difficult. Things are a bit quiet overall, but it takes me even more effort to snap out of things, to stop overanalyzing, to switch gears. I suppose that's what happens when you do a thing for so long.
Some things have helped a bit, like prioritizing 'simple' things like getting healthy food in me, going for walks/general exercise, taking in more sunlight, and setting small goals for myself. I've become more 'tactical' in the challenges I take on, as being only 'strategic' is not practical enough.
But the one thing that has, across the board, been most effective, is meditation. I meditate for about 20 minutes, and it's like rebooting my system. The effects are smaller when I keep getting distracted, which is frequently, but they're still huge in comparison to anything else I can do (nap, walk, read, etc.).
Sometimes I have a headache, and brief session makes it disappear. Sometimes I can't snap out of a social conflict I'm analyzing while I should really do some work that I've been putting off for days already, but after a brief session (which I'd also been putting off) I just sit down and start, which is more than half the battle.
Meditation has helped me eat better, because after a session I am suddenly aware of the hunger, and I have the peace to let myself make some food. It's helped me sleep better by quieting down a reeling mind that would usually keep me up for hours. It's helped me deal slightly better with conflicts, introspective 'insights', depressive days, and moods by reminding me to not take it all to seriously, and giving me some perspective (through absence of obsessive thought drowning everything else out).
Hell, if it's late afternoon and I have no energy to spare (quite common), a quick session gives me an energy boost and allows me to use the rest of my day (whether it's actual relaxation or work).
The form of meditation I do is mostly the zen variety, which is the form that is probably the most popular (mindfulness). It's really just sitting and the only 'effort' is to not go after every thought that tries to pull you with it, but rather observe that thought itself and try to let it go (but not try too hard!).
I use the Headspace app, which is awesome, but there are plenty of free resources too. I light a candle as a ritual, which means nothing to me in itself but helps me get in the mindset, so to speak. I have a little bench thingy that I can sit on, and simply seeing it in my room can 'trigger' me to use it.
As a 'thinking' type of guy, I also currently devour books on the topics of (zen) buddhism and meditation/mindfulness in general, because, well, my cognitive side needs some tickling too to keep at it. But the actual practice of sitting has been the most important part.
I can recommend the following stuff, in no particular order:
- books by Alan Watts, in particular 'The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' as well as 'The Wisdom of Insecurity'
- The Suzuki's: Shunryu Suzuki for practice and 'contemplation', and D.T. Suzuki one for the academic stuff)
- Trying Not To Try, somewhat practical, mostly insightful, and just fun to read
And there's other stuff I can't think of right now.
Bumping into objects, living in my head all day, failure to follow up on appointments, messy room, always lost things, moved around constantly, and more.
LSD, at least for me, was forced meditation.. you're in a mental state where the present moment is all there is. That was a complete opposite of the ADHD mental state, where I resisted being in the present, but lived in the future to look forward to, the past to avoid things I didn't like or could potentially hurt me, and just uncontrollable urge to understand how everything works.
The truth is, we only have so much time left on this earth, that it's impossible to understand everything that exists.. we can only try our best with the situations we're in and given.
Anyway, once I realized the importance of the present moment, it made it easier for me to do things I've always wanted to do, and neglected to do. I felt like my mind did a disk-defrag, completely nuked my old self, and started with a clean new slate to relearn things.
If ADHD is a mental problem that has roots in secret fears about yourself, I'm sure a psychedelic experience could uproot those fears and present them to the host to be resolved.
You might be of the opinion that mental problems are fixed however. If you are, there is nothing anyone can say to convince you. Many mental problems could be thought of as spiritual problems insofar as you're not understanding yourself and why you're here. This leads to secret fears, which drives the cogs of many people's gears, but their blindness moves them only in circles.
Again, you'll be without convincing if you are of the victim mentality. If you're not, psychedelics are widely known for inducing huge character changes because something deep happens. You can think of it as a rotted root made anew. The plant "out of nowhere" thrives. It's the same thing for your mind. Clean the mirror and the message shines forth. This is hard to understand for many humans who have many self-created messages dirtying their mind. Psychedelics literally turns all that stuff off and you get to have a real experience as a result.
I had a few of his issues, and didn't use LSD or any mind-changing substance, but a few events realigned my "desires" and now I aim for cleaner, organized. Half based on altruism too (family living with me are happier when this way). The brain is a complex spinning wheel.
I think it's important not to understate the importance of placebo in the effects, but psychedelics can lead you to confront the problems in your life in a way that you simply can't otherwise. These confrontations can be so profound and emotional that they leave a permanent impact on you. If you wrestle with the problems in your life, identify them as caused by ADHD symptoms, and commit to solve them while on LSD, you'll end up being very motivated to solve them.
This experience can be as impactful as when people "find god" while struggling through something and then finally find the willpower to overcome it. Actually it can be more impactful; consider that a psychedelic user perceives that they are meeting with God and God is directly telling them what they need to change and how they need to do it, while the born-again Christian has only thoroughly convinced himself that his own will is actually God's will instilled within him, via faith. The psychedelic experience is much more powerful and much less fragile than the religious experiences that we are used to hearing about helping people through hardships.
And ADHD is a condition whose effects can be entirely overcome through willpower.
Psilocybin helped bring clarity, motivation in my life, love for nature, and helped purge out some negative emotions by crying.
Ayahuasca has been the most therapeutic; it allowed me to revisit very early childhood memories I've completely forgotten about, which later helped my interactions with my family and friends. It also showed me why I was born, which helped give me a sense of direction, purpose in life.
Forever grateful for psychedelics and the guides that help facilitate a safe space.