You want a spiritual experience, so you drive out to Joshua Tree and drop LSD-25 to connect with Mother Earth. Or maybe you fly out to Oaxaca, Mexico to do some ‘shrooms during the largest Dia de los Muertos festival on the planet. If you don’t take too much of the stuff, it’s possible you will feel connected to the universe, your dead ancestors and every person, insect and leaf on the planet.
Or you might get such a great burst of enlightenment you have to take it again and again and again.
Egoic Enlightenment
Derek Beres was one such person. On the metaphysical and esoteric site Big Think, he contemplates whether psychedelics can be addictive. On one hand, many experts say drugs like MDMA, LSD and peyote don’t have the same habit-forming effect on the brain that cocaine, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine do. Supposedly, the stuff might even help addicts and alcoholics get sober or help depressives and anxiety-ridden folks get sane.
But on the question of whether there psychedelic addicts exist, Beres writes, “I would argue that an entire American subculture is proving otherwise, tuning out of real social issues while exploiting their own egoistic self-expansion.”
Beres says he’s used psychedelics over 100 times, and that three-quarters of the episodes were during a period of just 15 months in the 90s. Oh, the 90s…the decade that brought back bell bottoms, tie-dye, macramé vests (which are back in style again), weed, LSD, ‘shrooms and other trends that should have perhaps been left in the 70s.
Instead of having a spiritual experience, Beres says he developed a dependency on the drugs, despite all the evidence that claims this isn’t possible.
Novelty High
Apparently, when you try something new, even if it isn’t a substance, your brain releases dopamine, something that happens when you smoke the first cigarette, shoot-up smack for the first time, or test drive an Audi R8. The brain gets a buzz, and the brain wants to chase that buzz, which is one of the main reasons car salespeople love to twist your arm to do a test drive. This is also true for sex and love, hence the idiotic choices people often make in a new state of infatuation. Called the “novelty bias,” the reward center of the brain lights up with new experiences, and this happens with LSD as much as it happens with blow and a new message from some hot chick or dude on OK Cupid.
“Novelty is what drove me to experimentation,” Beres writes. “What you experience on psychedelics is so unlike everyday reality it becomes a refuge sheltering you from the ‘real’ world. Loneliness disappeared during my intense psychedelic stretch. The problem is that when I wasn’t under their influence, it rushed back.”
Beres cut his use off and now takes psychedelics around once a year, claiming they do offer spiritual benefits, but he doesn’t want to become dependent on them as he was back in the 90s. Unfortunately, he’s also watched his friends grow more and more dependent on psychedelics, refusing to experience life without being high.
Sounds like addiction to me.
Back to Reality
I’ve known enough people who have had positive experiences with psychedelics. In fact,one of my best friends, who happens to be a well-balanced Buddhist—and a non-addict and non-alcoholic—says it helps him connect better to the universe and be a better person. But Mark takes very small doses and only does the stuff occasionally, and it’s quite obvious the guy doesn’t have an “addictive personality.”
Still, when Mark gave his buddy a very small dose of LSD in Palm Springs, thinking it would help ease his friend’s depression, the poor guy suffered from a harrowing trip. He called the cops, convinced Mark was plotting to kill him and spent the following 12 hours screaming, sobbing and throwing up.
Fear and loathing in Palm Springs.
So is it worth dropping acid or smoking peyote to have a “spiritual experience” that might lead to an insatiable hunger for more trips or a nightmarish trip that can ruin your life for 12 hours?
I vote for a Buddhist meditation retreat, a journey to an Indian Ashram, a free introductory yoga class or dousing yourself in holy water instead.
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