Thank you for replying, but I would like to understand what "mental baggage" is and why it makes a difference. Why doesn't "mental baggage" affect aspirin?
Also, just to be clear, I don't think you're saying that you have to be in a special frame of mind for psychoactive drugs to make a difference. For example, I've been told that homeopathy doesn't work for me because I "don't believe in it", but I'm pretty sure that a sufficient dose of psilocybin would get me just as high as anyone else (modulo tolerance), belief or no belief.
Your prior mental state, past trauma, physical state and comfort, will have a significant impact on how your experience develops.
Any neuroticism can bubble to the surface and you might find yourself obsessing over a bad habit you have instead of enjoying the mystery and pattern of the universe.
The phrase is “set and setting” meaning that it is strongly advised to only take psychedelics when you have a good mindset and a good setting. The thing about psychedelics is that you will have powerful mental imagery during the trip, that’s just how they work. So what is on your mind that day will affect what you think about, and with the power of psychedelics I’m told it could get scary or bad if you’re in a particularly bad mood.
For example I’ve twice taken mushrooms while I was lonely. About 1 gram. In both cases I ended up just feeling an amplified sense of loneliness that was very difficult to handle. Another time, and this wasn’t particularly bad, but I ended up thinking about my parents dying (they’re still alive) and it was a powerful feeling. That was good though, because after that I began to put more effort in to seeing them and spending time with them.
But my point is that the experience is a powerful mental experience that is affected by what is on your mind. So they strongly recommend only doing a trip if you have a good mindset and a good setting to do so. Otherwise wait.
By the way the parent comment is correct. Psychedelics bring up a powerful feeling of connectedness with the universe. You feel like you’re seeing patterns of the matter around you and you feel one with it all. I’m not a mystical person but that’s how I’ve felt on a strong trip.
Thanks for taking the time to explain, but if I understand correctly in the instances you relate, you were taking mushrooms specifically in order to get high, correct?
Whereas the OP (root of the thread) is talking about microdosing, which is, if I understand it correctly, taking drugs in an attempt to not get high, but get other benefits?
As to the "powerful feeling of connectedness with the universe", well, I've been drunk and I found that I loved everybody around me and I felt a strong emotional connection with total strangers. But, I was drunk. It's relaxing, it's disinhibiting, it's fun, it's making yourself deliberately and temporarily mentally impaired, why not? But there's nothing more to it.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the defining characteristic of intoxication, in my experience, is of being dumber than usual, which can be suprisingly enjoyable. Certainly not something to be desired as a constant state, though.
I just want to say that “getting high” is a very crude way of describing a mushroom trip. I don’t really take them to have fun. It’s more serious than that. I take them because there are long term mental health benefits when taken with the right set and setting. (Research supports this claim.) When I had those thoughts about my parents dying, it was a subconscious fear of mine coming up from my mind, and it caused me to change my behavior to call and visit my parents more.
So I really don’t see it as “getting high”, and that’s why people call it a trip rather than getting high.
My point about the connectedness is that it’s not mysticism, that’s just how people really feel. Don’t misunderstand those descriptions as the person being more mystical than you. That’s how you’d feel on the right dose of mushrooms too.
the importance of "set and setting" is almost universally known and easily verifiable. I've had terrible trips when stressed out and beautiful revelational ones when in the right frame of mind. shrooms are not as benign as alcohol. you're usually even less in control of your mental state, which can be both amazing and scary
I don't dispute the "set and setting" idea. I am asking why that makes a difference in the therapeutic or otherwise beneficial use of psilocybin and why it doesn't make any difference with other drugs like aspirin.
To clarify, as far as I understand, "set and setting" matters when taking psilocybin to get high, but microdosing is taking psilocybin (or other similar drugs) to very deliberatly not get high.
So what does "set and setting" have to do with microdosing, and why doesn't it matter with aspirin, which also doesn't get you high?
In the context of taking psychoactive mushrooms to get a proper trip, there are the concepts of a good trip, a bad trip, and steering your trip towards the former and away from the latter, based on your thought patterns and emotions (so actively pursuing the intent to have a good trip in your mind).
Now I've never microdosed mushrooms, but it's not hard for me to imagine that this same concept applies, of actively pursuing a good experience, which can steer that experience in a good direction. It will just be at a much smaller scale.
For myself I think of this phenomenon as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy (not meant as a judgement about others) which helps me to keep in mind that I'm the one in control (assuming doses are not excessively high, I think others in this thread call those "heroic doses").
Also, just to be clear, I don't think you're saying that you have to be in a special frame of mind for psychoactive drugs to make a difference. For example, I've been told that homeopathy doesn't work for me because I "don't believe in it", but I'm pretty sure that a sufficient dose of psilocybin would get me just as high as anyone else (modulo tolerance), belief or no belief.