Hello everybody its Thomas here with another episode of the Mind Guy Podcast.  It’s been awhile since my last episode which is the last thing you want to do when it comes to podcasting, but there will be a day when I become consistent with this podcast and I think it’s coming soon.  My passion is working with people one-on-one in order to help them produce big results, so that’s where most of my focus goes to.  I am starting to realize that I can help many people all at once with this podcast so I’m bringing more attention to creating content. 

      With that being said, today’s topic is going to be all about psychedelics.  Now I am no expert on the topic but I do have some interesting things to share that I think will be helpful for people who are curious about the topic.  Let me start by how I see reality.  To me we are all in a game and the main purpose of the game is to level-up.  When I say level up I mean to raise our levels of consciousness which is to both self-realize and self-actualize.  Self-actualization is the process of knowing ourselves and becoming conscious of our unconscious thoughts and behaviors.  Self-realization on the other hand is more about silencing the ego and discovering our true nature which can only be found internally often with deep meditation. 

       Psychedelics are a magic potion in the game.  In any video game there are potions with a variety of different uses, some of them give more health or energy or some special talent.  Psychedelics have the ability to help people level up significantly in a short period of time.  The challenge with psychedelics is there is often a risk to them.  They typically distort reality which can be quite frightening for many, you can go down a dark path which is known as a bad trip and you can also process through a lot of pain.  I’m going to share some basics on what I’ve learned about psychedelics. 

       The main psychedelic I’ve experienced is ayahuasca and I’ve done 26 nights of it. Some of my friends thought I was crazy for jumping into this psychedelic before trying some more subtle forms like LSD or psilocybin.  For those of you who don’t know about psilocybin, it is informally known as “shrooms” or “magic mushrooms.”  In fact I actually have no desire to ever do LSD because it’s synthetic and more importantly I think it’s the least impactful out of all the other psychedelics.  From what I’ve heard it only has one aspect of leveling up when it comes to consciousness which is shifting perspective. 

       Ayahuasca on the other hand contains DMT also known as Dimethyltryptamine.  In 2001 a clinical psychiatrist, Rick Strassman, was the first to research intravenous DMT on people at the University of New Mexico and it was also government funded.  Rick called DMT the “spirit molecule” because of the accounts of religious experiences described by his volunteer subjects.  DMT is a schedule-1 drug here in the United States and highly illegal, except for two churches who have gotten federal exemption for its connection in spiritual practices that dates back centuries from the Amazon.  Even though it isn’t well known here in the states it’s gaining a lot of traction.  There are a lot of groups who perform ceremony here and the numbers are growing fast. 

     Ayahuasca in my opinion has five ways of leveling up in the game.  In many ceremonies I’ve heard that there is a healing spirit that travels with the medicine.  I consider ayahuasca a plant medicine as well as a drug and prefer to call it a medicine because of its healing properties.  Here are the five things ayahuasca has done for me.  First it has provided me with emotional healing, which is a common experience in ceremony where people feel strong emotions and then they purge them out physically, most commonly by vomiting.  Although there are a variety of different ways to purge like yawning, crying, muscle twitching, peeing and pooping.  Don’t worry, I haven’t met anyone who has crapped their pants in ceremony, you get enough warning to be able to make it to the bathroom.   

     The second thing it does is provide psychological healing.  A good way to describe how this works is by understanding how dreams work.  When we sleep our subconscious mind doesn’t sleep, but rather it goes into a dream state where it creates a movie.  The movie is different aspects of ourselves, often using symbols where there are lessons to be learned.  They are difficult to decipher and most of the time we forget them as soon as we wake up so they are often lost.   If you started practicing recalling your dreams and interpreting your dreams you could use them to level up. 

     Ayahuasca brings the dreams you would experience in a sleep state, into your awakened state so that they become real as the hand in front of your face.  This is where the psychological healing comes in by getting the lessons first hand.  Keep in mind the lessons are not always literal and you sometimes have to figure out what the symbols mean.  Many people get a better understanding of their ayahuasca journey’s weeks, months and even years later.  It’s because your subconscious mind prefers working with symbols and metaphors.

      The third thing it does is it allows for physical healing.  Now this is an aspect of ayahuasca not everyone knows about and I experienced physical healing in my very first ceremony.  Now this is where the healing spirit known as Aya comes in.  In that first ceremony I felt a feminine energy come into my body, scan my body and then start healing my body.  The biggest healing being a neck injury I endured many years back from weight lifting.  While in ceremony my neck started turning all the way to the left and to the right and I could feel the back of my neck feeling better and better.  The pain was completely gone the next morning and the injury was completely healed.  I’ve met other people who have had similar experiences while in ceremony, but it doesn’t happen for everyone.  I’m not sure why some people get physical healing and others do not.  

     The fourth thing it does is it allow for a connection to the spiritual realm.  There have been countless experiences of people talking about seeing these other beings, other entities and geometric shapes that are not of this world.  I even met someone in a ceremony who says she dances with the spirit Aya.  I’d love to do that sometime.  I still have a fear of the unknown so I often shut down my visual acuity when I get intense visuals, solely based that it freaks me out.  I don’t know if other people go to the same place I go to, but I do have many memories of this alien place where I do a lot of my healing.  I can’t explain it in words and that’s another common thing that happens for people is their experiences are difficult to describe, because it’s so unfamiliar to this reality we live in. 

     I think one of the greatest bits of knowledge and wisdom you can learn in the game is that you are not just a mental and physical being.  You are also a spiritual being which is eternal and can transcend death.  Being raised Catholic psychedelic experiences have alleviated this pressure to have to get it all right in this life.  I’m going to learn as much as I can in this lifetime and my soul is going to take those learnings with me to the next life, until I transcend the human experience. 

     The fifth thing ayahuasca does is similar to what most other psychedelics do, which is shift perspective on reality.  Sometimes people are so fixed on their beliefs and how they see the world, almost in a stubborn way, but in psychedelic experiences you end up seeing different perspectives and get a better understanding of reality based on the collective whole versus an individualistic view point.   

     Ayahuasca closely works with the subconscious mind and that’s why I feel it important to talk about it, not to forget to mention its metaphysical connection.  I think this plant medicine has its own intelligence but it works directly with the deeper parts of the mind.  When I talk about dreams I often describe them as a higher intelligence, as if your subconscious is putting a movie scene together in order to teach you something.  Dreams are wise and so is ayahuasca.  Together they flip your reality into the dream and it’s like doing years of therapy in one night.  It even opened me up to a repressed trauma at the age of 4, which was a critical component to my growth and the smoking gun to my social anxieties. 

     You can also do the smoked version of DMT which has both a synthetic and natural version.  The natural version comes from the Bufo toad which is called the 5-MeO-DMT and I don’t know how different the experiences are between the synthetic and natural.  I have tried the synthetic before but unfortunately it was only a body high because I was too scared to let go fully.  When you smoke DMT if you take in three big inhalations, you will likely have an experience of your consciousness being shot through a cannon at hyper speed through the universe until you arrive in other dimension of reality.  

     I’ve also heard of people getting physical healing from smoking DMT which only last 10-20 minutes verses ayahuasca which can last for hours.  The strangest thing when it comes to smoking DMT is the higher likelihood of seeing other beings.  Sometimes referred to as aliens or as Terrance McKenna initially coined them as machine elves.  DMT also allows you to shift your perspective into a bigger universal realm rather than the tiny one we typically see through our own eyes and our other senses.

     I think two of the most beneficial occurrences that are common through the use of psychedelics are the merging into Oneness or the experience of unconditional love.  The more that we believe we are separate from everything around us the more we suffer and having an experience of being connected to everything brings this comfort, ease and relief to one’s existence.  In addition when people feel unconditional love it’s typically the love of the creator or god that they experience and it really softens people’s hearts when able to experience this kind of beautiful love.  For some it brings them closer to god and other’s it brings them back to god.   

     I want to talk about some of the other things I’ve learned about different psychedelics because I want people to know how powerful some of them are and for a variety of reasons.  This is probably a good time to give a warning.  Although it’s difficult to get addicted to these substances based on their chemical nature but some of these psychedelics bring positive feeling states and life altering experiences of love and connection.  The problem is that once the psychedelic wears off you lose those experiences and they become memories. 

     It’s difficult to tap fully back into those feelings through memory and now people are chasing those positive feelings again.  People who abuse psychedelics I find are trying to escape this reality even though this is the game they signed up for.  You came here for the human experience and you need to learn the lessons meant for you here.  Use psychedelics with caution, realize they are like a magic potion in a video game where you can heal trauma, change your perspective and raise your levels of consciousness. 

     There will be a day when psychedelics become main stream and it’s starting to happen.  The research was set back by about 30 years because of the LSD and the hippie movement in the 70’s.  Hippies terrified the conservative power structure in this country which caused laws to be passed on the prohibition of psychedelics.  Even though the laws are still in place, there is a lot of medical research starting to happen.  One of them happening at John Hopkins around alleviating the symptoms of major depression with two doses of “magic mushrooms”.  This last for a month but for 50% of people the major depression does not come back.

     I was on Prozac for a couple years and it’s evident that it doesn’t help solve the problem and is more like a mild mood increaser.  Anti-depressants also come with negative side-effects.  Imagine being able to ingest a naturally grown substance that helps you cure your depression over a short period of time?  As I said before, psychedelics allow you to level up in the game quickly like a magic potion.  It’s exciting to hear big named organizations taking on this type of research. 

     I should also add if you are interested in doing ayahuasca you need to be off your SSRI anti-depressants for at least 60 days prior to ceremony and bring even more caution if you have been taking SSRI’s for decades.  Also it’s not recommended for people who have bipolar and a family history of schizophrenia.  I think the biggest concern about psychedelics is the rare occasion where people become schizophrenic.  It’s so extremely rare and most common for people who take high doses on their own.  I hear this often with people who take too much acid. You can minimize this risk by doing it in a controlled ceremonial setting so they can provide the proper dosage and monitor you during the experience.  This is the best thing about ceremonial psychedelic experiences is there are typically a lot of helpers if you get distressed.

      Now let’s talk about MDMA and ketamine which are both used effectively for the treatment of depression.  Currently there is a process of intravenous ketamine that is legalized in some states and is approved for medical practice.  The ketamine is typically six two hour sessions and apparently it brings back vivid past memories and allows you to process them in a way that helps you move passed them.  I even know someone who got back repressed memories through this process. 

     Even though MDMA is not officially legalized for medical use I’ve heard of underground places that do these long counseling sessions while clients are on MDMA.  I’ve also heard people having cured their depression in one 6 to 8 hour session.  I recommend doing either of these things with a trained counselor because they can help you process these past memories as opposed to trying to figure them out by yourself.  It’s much easier to process with the help of a trained professional.

     Now I want to talk about how powerful psychedelics are for addiction.  I’m going to tell you I think this is one of the best things about psychedelics.  John Hopkins has done a study with cigarette smokers and found the use of “magic mushrooms” has an 80% success rate in smoker cessation that last for at least 6 months.  I’ve met a few people who were able to give up their alcohol addictions in ayahuasca ceremonies, but the big thing I want to talk about is opiate, heroin and meth addiction.  Heroin is an opiate but I like to make the two distinct because not all opiate pill addicts end up heroin users and vice versa.  

     There is a psychedelic from Africa called ibogaine which is probably the most effective tool that exists for helping people overcome highly addictive substances.  There are retreat centers in Mexico where you go down for a week and you come back a new person.  The most impressive aspect of ibogaine is the ability to kill cravings which is the hardest thing for heroin, meth, and just plain opioid users to overcome. The high relapse rate are due to these awful cravings that haunt ex-users for the rest of their lives, but it appears that doesn’t have to be the case with ibogaine treatment.  There are some retreat centers who have medical professionals on staff while others don’t.  It’s a big price difference between the two but having a medical professional is the safer way to go.

     Here is what I advise if you are looking into doing psychedelics here in the states or out of the country.  I would recommend a few things, firstly make sure you vet the place out.  You ideally want to talk to someone who has done ceremony with a group you are inquiring about.  You also want to talk to the people who are running the ceremony to get a vibe of the type of people they are.  Are they in the business of helping others heal or are they in the business of making money?  Not to say you can’t have both but I think you can gauge that by how they treat you in a consultation.  The more reputable and well known places are quite expensive and not everyone has the ability to afford these types of places.  You can certainly find other more affordable places if you do your research.

     It takes great courage to take psychedelics, at least it did for myself.  I often find the people who have suffered the most are the ones most called to do these harder psychedelics like ayahuasca.  I’ve met a lot of people in ceremony who have experienced intense past traumas.  All of them looking lighter the next day, knowing there is more hope and a brighter future to look into.  You want to trust your intuition and your gut when it comes to taking these substances.  You must understand fear is not the same thing as intuition. 

     There is always going to be a fear of the unknown when taking psychedelics.  You must move the fear aside and go within for the answer.  Your unconscious mind will give you a congruent yes or no when it comes to doing these substances.  For some of you who are being called to do it, I hope this helps you towards the freedom you are looking for.  There are also a lot more people out there with a wealth more of knowledge and there are many more psychedelics out there that I haven’t even touched upon in this episode.   

     Lastly I want to share a bit about what I do and how I help others by working with the mind.  I’m a Hypnotherapist and Master NLP Practitioner. If you are not quite ready for psychedelics or are a hell no to them or use psychedelics and want to discover other powerful tools, then I encourage you to reach out for a consultation with me.  I offer an awesome 2 or 3 month program that helps people overcome their limitations in a specific area of life.  It’s rapid transformation in a short period of time.  Here are the four biggest areas I help people in.

     The first is overcoming imposter syndrome, the next is overcoming nice guy syndrome, third is overcoming any money blocks so you can bring more abundance into your life and lastly I help people heal past relationship wounds so they can love themselves and .  You can send me an email at [email protected] and request a consultation.  You can also follow me on Instagram @thomas_themindguy and you are also welcome to join tattract the partner of their dreamshe “Expand Your Mindset” Facebook group where you can share some great free content.  Thank you for listening and I promise the next episode will be coming soon.