Psychedelic Self-Deception

[Xonas Pitfall]

Recently, a discussion around a spiritual couple and their take on polyamory sparked a broader topic - the subtle (and not-so-subtle) self-deceptions that psychedelics can create. Whether it's illusions that surface only during a trip or ones that linger and distort your everyday thinking, the line between insight and delusion can blur fast.

As I said in that blog post, at least for me, once I started practicing psychedelics, I was genuinely shocked by how much mixture and distortion my reality was getting from the drugs, and I had to pull myself out of it. I feel like in some communities, psychedelics are marketed as truth-revealers, or that only the wild, obvious delusions are insane, and they don’t follow you into real life. I had to battle through that, and still do to some extent.

Even Leo said, "I have fooled myself in the past that a girl was my divine soulmate when she was not even close. And psychedelics made that illusion five times worse."

That’s why I wanted to open this thread. If you’ve had experiences with psychedelic delusion, insight vs. illusion, or spiritual fantasy spirals, feel free to share them. The more honest we are about this, the better equipped we’ll be to use these tools responsibly! 

[Hojo]

I was doing them quite a bit and when I went outside it felt like the sky was a dome for awhile.

Most of my delusions happened before psychedelics, psychedelics just showed me how delusional I was.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

For myself - recursive thought feedback loops - oh my gosh!

These are an issue when psychedelics are used in a repeated fashion without grounded integration.

It REALLY helps if you have someone you trust 100%, to honestly give you a kick up the arse when you have blasted your brain into orbit !

 

Edited Saturday at 04:00 AM by Natasha Tori Maru

[Jodistrict]

Psychedelics opens up the unconscious mind which contains all kinds of delusional beliefs and assumptions.   They are delusion-revealers, not truth-revealers. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

9 minutes ago, Hojo said:

I was doing them quite a bit and when I went outside it felt like the sky was a dome for awhile.

Most of my delusions happened before psychedelics, psychedelics just showed me how delusional I was.

2 minutes ago, Jodistrict said:

Psychedelics opens up the unconscious mind which contains all kinds of delusional beliefs and assumptions.   They are delusion-revealers, not truth-revealers. 

Very good insights! It’s honestly wild how intensely psychedelics can amplify certain delusions. But I suppose that’s part of the point - to bring buried thoughts or patterns to the surface in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

[aurum]

One time I had a heart awakening come on while talking to another guy at a mushroom ceremony. It freaked me out because I thought I was turning gay. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

I guess I can also share my own experience!

I was going through a lot of identity issues while stuck in a toxic situation, and psychedelics often made things worse by completely dissolving any grip I had on reality or sense of self. I’d end up convincing myself that I was born "empty" (the emptiness was a sign of "purity" or closeness to "God, Enlightened Selfless Self") and better off just surrendering to whatever was happening to me, even when it wasn’t healthy at all.

[Flowerfaeiry]

I literally just posted a video about this on my Instagram today! Weird timing. Basically, I put a lot of weight on psychedelics. I started doing them at a youngish. Had all these mind blowing realizations. My view of reality from 19 on was literally built on dmt and mushrooms. I got really into new age. I grew a lot, for sure. But sometimes I wonder like, was it all worth it? What was that all about? I’m grateful for my path and I respect psychedelics, but I am thoroughly convinced the propensity for deception is extremely, extremely high.

[Xonas Pitfall]

8 minutes ago, aurum said:

One time I had a heart awakening come on while talking to another guy at a mushroom ceremony. It freaked me out because I thought I was turning gay. 

LOL, are... you? 

[Xonas Pitfall]

1 minute ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

I literally just posted a video about this on my Instagram today! Weird timing. Basically, I put a lot of weight on psychedelics. I started doing them at a youngish. Had all these mind blowing realizations. My view of reality from 19 on was literally built on dmt and mushrooms. I got really into new age. I grew a lot, for sure. But sometimes I wonder like, was it all worth it? What was that all about? I’m grateful for my path and I respect psychedelics, but I am thoroughly convinced the propensity for deception is extremely, extremely high.

Do you have specific delusions that, looking back, were so insane it’s scary how strongly you believed them? Or was it more just a general period of time where things felt off?

[aurum]

5 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

LOL, are... you? 

Only on mushrooms 

[Flowerfaeiry]

25 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Do you have specific delusions that, looking back, were so insane it’s scary how strongly you believed them? Or was it more just a general period of time where things felt off?

That’s a really good question! And I could go on and on so I’ll just give you these specific examples.

I was once highly manipulated while on psychedelics by a friend.
 

Also, I once watched a Leo video where he says to watch this video before taking psychedelics and I did, and I saw the exact same images and had the same “realizations” he was talking about. 
 

Like we place all this emphasis on psychedelics as being ultimate truth because that’s literally how the insights are presented to us. 
 

There’s a culture around psychedelics and it’s kind of a hive mind and I think that’s the most deceptive part of it. 

Edited Saturday at 04:44 AM by Flowerfaeiry

[PurpleTree]

6 hours ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

 the line between insight and delusion can blur fast. 

For sure i think also a lot of the god stuff abd solipsism is delusional. Not that there’s no truth in it but the ego turns it to mostly delusions.

5 hours ago, aurum said:

One time I had a heart awakening come on while talking to another guy at a mushroom ceremony. It freaked me out because I thought I was turning gay. 

I once thought i‘m turning ghey on weed.

[RendHeaven]

This is why I have a strong preference for 5meodmt and 5meomalt.

there's no "content" in those trips. you don't see "things" and all ideas about your "life" are wiped away.

on 5meo breakthroughs you hit clean, white-out Infinity/Insanity and everything else gets recycled into the Abyss. no room for bs.

on lower doses, I get a deep relaxation and surrender/hollowing-out while the content of sensations remain mercifully solid and in-tact.

compared this to something like LSD where you "see things" and gain endless twisted ideas about "your life"

...the 5meos just leave you alone (sometimes literally... lol)

the compound matters as much as your neuroses

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

on 5meo breakthroughs you hit clean, white-out Infinity/Insanity and everything else gets recycled into the Abyss. no room for bs.

Self-deception still happens on 5-MeO.

My soulmate thing was on 5-MeO.

5-MeO won't save you from self-deception if you aren't very careful.

Edited Saturday at 05:27 PM by Leo Gura

[Schizophonia]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Self-deception still happens on 5-MeO.

My soulmate thing was on 5-MeO.

5-MeO won't save you from self-deception if you aren't very careful.

How do you know it wasn't true. 

 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

How do you know it wasn't true. 

Cause we were not so compatible. It was a fantasy fueled by what I hoped to be true.

Edited Saturday at 08:59 PM by Leo Gura

[Schizophonia]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Cause we were not so compatible. It was a fantasy fueled by what I hoped to be true.

Maybe you were compatible, but only on 5 MeO DMT, not the sober you.
Or your sober you could be compatible but have too many blockages.
Or the opposite, compatible, but because of limiting beliefs.

I say this because "delusion" implies randomness, but it's an illusion.
There's a reason why your energy system, your neurological patterns, to use a more materialistic paradigm, generates a specific "delusion"; why this rather than something else, regardless of whether it's triggered by psychedelics?

If you see what I mean.

[Xonas Pitfall]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Cause we were not so compatible. It was a fantasy fueled by what I hoped to be true.

Do you know what triggered it so much? Or what was the fantasy? Perhaps it's too private to ask, but thank you for sharing!

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

I say this because "delusion" implies randomness

No it doesn't.

Self-deception exists.