Topic: My microdosing progress

[Muschae]

...At the same time I'm wondering if some people are really like this, by nature? It seems like a very sad way to be. Not a fan of coldness and too much rationality, at all.

[ddraig]

Interesting, sounds like iboga was taking you back to a place (unpleasant) that you experienced in childhood, so you could re-experience it and process it and release it.

Something that works incredibly well as well, using breathwork: http://www.amazon.com/The-Presence-Process-Journey-Awareness/dp/1897238460

Similar to holotropic breathing. Michael Brown the author discovered this technique to reproduce the effects of peyote rituals done with american indians.

These techniques, using entheogens/otherwise get the prana and chi (same thing?) moving to release emotional blockages that are locked in the body. I see how iboga created a container for me to re-experience, and understand these blockages, which seem to contribute to thought forms and beliefs that held me back as well. A recent huge breakthrough was finally being conscious of the fact that I was approaching all of life unconsciously as a victim. It was ingrained in me as a child (to cope), so was a 400lb guerrilla that I finally got off my back. Giving my power away for no reason serves no one.

I dont think I will ever understand how it is all related: thought forms and emotional body blockages (my ego wants to), just this stuff works when you respect it and do the work. Which I see you are doing.  If you can afford a good therapist that is open to these concepts (soul/spiritual/energetic/vibrational/whatever you want to call it), that can really be a good addition.

[RhythmSpring]

Day 18: I'm discontinuing microdosing for about a week to see if I'm able to get some feelings back (even if it's negative ones). The numbing is scary and if I didn't know better, I'd take myself for a very cold and logical person that doesn't care about anything. I can listen to music that I found touching a while ago and feel nothing. Same with watching favourite comedy series. Anything that isn't purely logical seems silly to me. Including any loving feelings. Since this is the exact opposite of what I'd like to be - I'd like to get my feelings and passion back - I'm quitting it for a while.

I've read about Iboga curing what they call depersonalization - but this feels a lot like it's actually causing it for me.

In my experience, although Iboga helps you process stuff, it can take you on a wild rollercoaster of mood swings or state changes as you explore yourself. When you're on Iboga, whether it's a microdose or a flood dose, it's all too easy to think, "Agh, I've been like this (current state of mind) for soooo long! I'm gonna be like this forever! What have I done to myself?!?"

It always passes. But you don't have to believe me. Just remember, although it may be cliché: "This, too, shall pass."

Iboga doesn't "cause" anything that you aren't already feeling or holding inside yourself. It brings stuff out. However, if there is something BIG inside you that needs to be processed, and you take just a little bit of Iboga, it can bring it out, but it won't be enough to resolve it. So you've brought up emotional content and your process is *arrested* until you take more Iboga or process it in some other dynamic way. That is the danger with Iboga and other purgative plant medicines.

[Muschae]

Thanks, both.This helps. Your answers make a lot of sense. Actually I've been exaggerating with the TA extract I'm taking and I've been taking more drops than recommended (15-25) a day. So obviously this could just be that Iboga is actually starting to work, the smaller dose before felt like nothing at all was happening. I will continue until the end of this week to see any changes and decide then if I should quit or not.

 Ddraig, this breathing technique reminds me of mindfulness, is it similar? I'll look into it. My current therapist is pretty open but not trained in any of these concepts, so I'm on my own.

[ryu]

Hi Muschae,

Are you practicing Mindfulness at the moment or do you have any experience of mindfulness?

If so, is it helping at all?

:-)

Ryu

[ddraig]

Yes, I agree with RythmnSpring, if you have a lot to process, something BIG, like my 400Lb Gorilla (not guerilla!) it may take some time, perhaps a long time, even months or years to truly process and grow through. You have to work with the medicine, and I have tried to have iboga work for me a couple of times, and in my experience, it never goes as planned (but that is always a positive lesson nonetheless!). Things will happen when they are meant to. Surrender. The intention to grow, whatever that brings.

Yes the breathework is for mindfulness, present, in the moment, and its heavy enough to touch  Stanislov Goff's Holotropic breathwork territory, but more subtle (http://reset.me/story/entering-psychedelic-state-without-psychedelics-inside-holotropic-breathwork/). When you do the breathework regularly for 10 minutes in morning and at night, its very powerful, not unlike some of the positive effects of microdosing.
I recommend checking out his book, he adds a 10 week course with intention added.

[Muschae]

Ryu, to me mindfulness was useful to calm me down and give me more perspective but my problems are too big for it to help substantially. In the end I learned how to not identify with my pain everytime, but since I didn't find a way to resolve it, I just learned how to take more pain than usual. I think that it can be really helpful to some people though.


Thanks for the suggestion, Ddraig. Yesterday I took my dose of Iboga before a nap and ended up having a dream that gave me fast sequences of painful memories one after another. I think that's releasing them? But since I have so many, I went through maybe 0.0000000..(etc)0001% of them. I can't imagine how it would feel like to process everything during the flood. It would probably take several floods just to clear the majority of my traumas.

[RhythmSpring]

"In the end I learned how to not identify with my pain everytime, but since I didn't find a way to resolve it, I just learned how to take more pain than usual."

Brilliant insight.

[Muschae]

Just a quick Q - it's very unlikely that Iboga could make me go "crazy" and leave me permanently unwell, right? I just had some anxiety rising up.

Also RhythmSpring, thanks. You're always so kind about the things I post on here

[RhythmSpring]

Just a quick Q - it's very unlikely that Iboga could make me go "crazy" and leave me permanently unwell, right? I just had some anxiety rising up.

Stick around people you love/who love you, forge relationships with those people, and you'll find yourself questioning your sanity less and less.

[Muschae]

Thanks, but I can't unfortunately. I'm so blocked up that I can't feel love properly and don't know how to love at all. I end up hurting people because of this. I never want to repeat what I did to my ex, so unfortunately I'm all on my own for now.

[RhythmSpring]

Well, by reading your posts, I think you are faaaaar away from insanity. I find there are a few things you can do, however, to keep it that way:

1) Eat a well-rounded diet. That means including sources of as many amino acids as possible. That means: Bone broths, organ meats, cheeses, eggs, fish, other animal proteins, in addition to vegetable proteins. Gluten is a vegetable protein, too!
2) Cold water. Cold showers, or swimming in a lake, the ocean, or a pool if these aren't available.
3) Aerobic exercise often.
4) Work/feel useful/exercise the mind with problem-solving.
5) And of course, like I already suggested, other people.
6) So many things.

But really, you'll be fine.

Have you considered skipping microdosing and just going straight for a flood with a sitter? I'm not necessarily recommending this, but it may be the difference between pulling the band-aid off really slow, and ripping it off in one fell swoop.

Another thing you can try is when you are *not* microdosing Iboga, try oral (not smoked!) cannabis. I find that oral cannabis helps me integrate and process recent master medicine experiences, especially ones that feel unresolved.

[Poonja]

Perhaps the unconditional love of a pet.  Puppy or kitten but preferably a puppy. Not a bad place to start learning about caring of another living creature.

[Muschae]

Yes I want to do the flood asap, I think I'm ready for it, but I'll only have the money to do it in April. I'll be flying to Holland to do it with an experienced guide. I want to do it this way because of my mental state. I'll be more relaxed this way. But if it were possible, I'd do it today already. I have nothing to lose.

Otherwise smoking weed "caused" my huge nervous breakdown last year (or maybe just helped it happen earlier, dunno), and I rarely had good experiences with it, smoked or oral, so I'm not that into it at the time.

And thanks for the health suggestions, though they are hard to follow.

Poonja, I have a cat. It helps to have her around 

[ddraig]

Great insight Muschae, definitely can relate to much of what you write. Identifying with pain was part of my identity as a victim. Its was so subtle and pervaded every part of my life. Part of my shadow.
Definitely be around loved ones, and people that love you, when you do the work, that will sort itself out. Also accepting the people that make us unpleasant, and not running away from them (obv. within reason). People that get under my skin, there are much fewer now, are like reflections of my shadow. So being with the feelings, non-judgmentally (to the feelings and the person) to process them can be huge, journaling them as well. Reclaiming my projections, and less people get under my skin, since its true much of what Freud and Jung wrote. The outside world (or at least how it is perceived) does seem to be a representation of the inner world.

What you write about love, I very much identify with as well. There is a lot I have worked on over the last 2 years with infatuation and love sex addiction. All of these issues seem to mainly go back to attachment issues in my earliest years to a mother who my therapist says is a classic case of borderline personality disorder (just a label of course)m and an alcoholic abusive and rageful father (and I inherited both sides lol). I was suffering from bpd traits unknowingly for many years, and got into a push-pull,  thrilling, yet traumatic dance with another likely bpd traited person. Both reflecting and projecting onto each other with uncanny perfection! So yeah, I'm glad now that this person was in my life, so I could eventually get help and process my regressions back into babyhood around this person. Now, I realize, that this person I have real feelings for, but can step back from the drama and have the chance to not react and show real love and compassion, even though I think they are smoking hot.