Building up tolerance

[Ted696]

hi
This is my first post so I'll give a little background.
I had my first experience with synthetic 5 about five months ago. I began doing a session every two days for a few weeks. I took a few months off as my provider was out of town. A few months ago at an aya retreat I did four doses of toad. Finally about three weeks ago I ordered a gram of 5meo hcl and embarked on daily use. My typical session is three or four rounds with the goal of full release doses. I don't have a scale so my reference is eyeball on a knife tip. so in two weeks I've almost gone through the gram and the portions seem around double from when I started.
I'm very conscious of the addiction issue. My goals are to heal some trauma and address negative patterns in my life. I'm not trying to escape reality, rather come to terms with it.
My question is has anybody experienced a build up of tolerance? I was under the impression this was not possible.
Any comments are welcome.
Cheers

[Handshake]

Hey there,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

There are several cautionary notes I would like to make, but first I'd share a bit of what I've observed over the years about 5meo use. I have noticed that oftentimes when individuals first experience or discover 5-MeO, they are rather fascinated by the experience and can easily get pulled into a cycle where they are using it repeatedly. They spend more and more time smoking it and doing full release doses while not really getting much done in "this version of reality". My recommendation is that if you're going to use 5-MeO with some regularity, I would suggest once a month at most, if at all. One good full release dose is enough to support an integration process for several months if it is done intentionally and with adequate preparation.

Typically, most people do not do several rounds with this medicine, especially not several rounds every day. I would also warn you about the dangers of using without a scale. This is an extremely potent molecule and it would be very easy to give youself 20mg instead of 10mg, which would be a significant difference in experience. Using almost an entire gram in 2 weeks sounds like a lot.

I would ask you to pause and consider:

• What have I gained from my sessions up until this point?
  
• What work do I feel called to do in my daily life to integrate what I have learned?
  
• Is my current practice sustainable?
• What other things am I doing to help my trauma and negative patterns?

Tolerance is generally not observed with 5-MeO, but if you are using large doses multiple times per day every day, then there is a chance that your receptors are beginning to downregulate. I have also heard that negative side effects begin to present themselves with daily or even weekly use. Your use pattern sounds like an escapist pattern (from the outside listener), though it sounds like you have some awareness around that. From a place of deep respect and genuine care, I would recommend taking longer breaks between uses and adding some other tools into your lifestyle to help you work through the trauma and negative patterns.

Wishing you all the best and thank you for sharing with us here.

[Ted696]

I appreciate the feedback
I also agree with your comments.
This certainly was an experiment and I've asked all the same questions.
I've also learned to navigate the non dual state with confidence[size=78%]. I do seem to have progressive and shifting experiences and learn new aspects of reality from each trip. The early trips were personal and mainly body oriented with a lot of subtle themes relating to my storey and ego. The middle trips were more galactic in nature with the big god picture of creation and evolution. The cosmic joke. Do we all get this? I seamed to get stuck here for a few days and started to feel I was stagnating in an escapist manner. But the last few sessions I focused on feeling the energy in my body and began to track down some stuck trauma. I worked with it and a few early life experiences arose that I realize I've been hiding from all my life. [/size]
This is where I've stopped my use due to getting the message that true liberation is mastery of the ego. Not because I'm afraid to go deeper but rather because the addiction aspect or excapism. I could not achieve full release despite relatively large doses. I'm going to shift my attention to meditation and mushrooms to work with the hidden trauma for now. Ayahuasca would also be a good venue if I get an opportunity. I'm scheduled for an eboga ceremony in march and hope this may help me to uncover and deal with the things I don't fully see clearly yet. Obviously I'm a fan of entheogens. I've never had addiction issues but am motivated to get my shit together.
So without judging the entire experience as good or bad, I'm extremely grateful for the medicines opening my eyes to a new world and being useful tools in self discovery.
Any comments others have in the healing properties of 5 would be great.
Cheers
M

[Flux]

Hi Ted696,

I would agree that this is a lot to use. In my experience unless the revelations from the experience are being integrated properly and embodied fully. then the medicines will cease to provide guidance (which may manifest as tolerance). There is also some recent suggestion that increased risk of valvular heart disease from activating the 5HT2-B receptors -though "5-MeO-DMT has the weakest interaction with both the three 5-HT2 receptors and the two paradigmatic 5-HT2 receptors (5-HT2A/C)" and seems to be most active on the 5-HT7.

Ray, T 2010, Psychedelics and the human Receptorome http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0009019

In any case, I have found regular use of 5-MeO (fortnightly or weekly at most) to be most conducive to healing at sub-breakthrough doses: i.e. 5-10mg. What I gain from this is a clearing of the energetic patterns of 'blockage' stored in the body, freeing the nervous system of conditioned response and allowing the electrical signals to flow more freely - this is best utilised as a compliment to with other embodiment practices like Qi-Gong, Yoga, Tai-Chi or even just something like swimming or hiking.

hope this helps,

cheers,

Flux