Good day fellow psychonauts!
Everyone has their own psychedelic rituals, routines and tricks that help them achieve their goals or just have a great time if that's the main goal. So do I. As a quite anxious person with a high frequency of bad trips, I had to develop a sort of a reliable system over time.
Sharing a couple of things that seem to work well for me, maybe someone else will find them handy. I'd be very glad to find out that something from this list is already known and practiced and exchange experience.
1) How to know what to expect?
- Close your eyes and observe if it's comfortable to keep them closed. I often can't tell if I'm too agitated to trip right now, but being unable to keep my eyes closed is a reliable sign.
- "If I don't trip and just spend a few hours in solitude, will it be a positive experience?" - this question reveals a lot. If the answer is anything but a firm yes, it's probably a good idea to postpone.
- "Am I already tripping?" - if I'm really ready for a trip, it feels like it has already started by the time I take the actual substance.
2) Taking a microdose a few hours before a macro-dose. This allows to explore the state and see if it's comfortable to dive deeper in right now. At the same time, this allows to safely "tune in" and avoid turbulence during the onset.
3) A good long general massage session before the trip (can be beautifully combined with the previous point). I came to realize a good massage can be even more efficient as a preparation than days of meditation.
4) This will probably be relevant for penis owners, dunno about vulva owners, sorry. Edging for about two hours right before the trip can produce powerful erotic and/or religious experiences later on. Edging means having sex or masturbating on the edge of orgasm without actually cumming. I tried this only a few times so far, and every trip had at least a noticeable "safety net" of sexual excitement in the background that kind of absorbed any anxiety or heavy thoughts.
To be clear: I'm talking about getting extremely excited, but not cumming in the end, even after two hours, just stopping and then taking the substance.
I don't think I'm the first who invented this "tantraflip", but I haven't met such practice anywhere, and it's clearly less popular that it deserves to be. Recommend it very much.
Cheers!