mental health
Does Mental Health (MH) affect AP? Sure, it can. If you’re not feeling stable or calm, it
will be difficult to AP, but not impossible. And I can see arguments for why some MH problems
may not be compatible with practicing AP. If you’re struggling with physical reality, adding
esoteric and spiritual components can complicate things. This does not mean you can’t or
shouldn’t. Some people find tremendous relief pursuing this. And you know, just because you
come to my office and say you see dead people does not mean that you’re crazy or will get
locked up. You would be surprised how many people report having played with a sibling all their life, and are still talking to them, and then the mom hears the story for the first time in my office and realize they’re talking about the child that was miscarried. What makes a hallucination a
problem is when the person experiencing it is disturbed by it, or it decreases their ability to function with everyday life. Telling you the truth, you don’t get locked up for hallucinating or living in a dream world. The only reason a hospital can detain you is if you say you are going to kill yourself or someone else. You can see stuff all day long, and talk to people that aren’t there all you want. So, iteration: AP is not escape from life, it adds to it.
I knew a person who wanted to AP, but was frustrated by ADHD and Tourette's. His
complaint was he couldn’t meditate because of ADHD, and even if he calmed his mind down
enough, his TIC would interrupt his session or irritate him so much that he frequently gave up on trying to meditate his way to an AP session. Meditation and mindfulness has been shown to help
reduce symptoms in both ADHD and Tourette's, he just wasn’t there yet. So, our solution was to
approach it from LD. Though he had experienced dreams with his tics, he also had experienced
dreams without, and so he made it a goal to get to AP through LD, and he eventually got results.
57
Page
Accessing AP through dream work, though, isn’t always possible. Some of the
psychotropic drugs affect the sleep cycle, and affect the dreams. Many people, even when not on meds, don’t remember their dreams, so it’s to be expected sleep meds can mess with your
memory of dreams. If this is the case for you, be kind to yourself. You are still dreaming. Your brain has to pass through REM states to function. If your schedule permits, you can interrupt
your sleep cycle using an alarm, or inviting a sitter who you trust that knows how to recognize the signs that you’re in REM. You could also employ tech, like a Lucid Dreaming mask that has
tech built into the device that will flash lights in your eyes when the sensor detect eye movement.
While we are talking about sleeping, though, a really good sleep schedule helps
tremendously. If your schedule is random, your body rhythms will be off, and if they’re off, you are likely attending to that, even if it’s subconsciously. If you take melatonin to help sleep, in the beginning you may have interesting or weird dreams, but the longer you take this supplement,
the greater the risk you will stop remembering your dreams, because your body stops making it
naturally. And then when you stop, you can’t sleep because your brain isn’t making it and takes it a moment to turn that back on. Not saying don’t use, just that it has an effect. Know what
you’re taking. Take alcohol for example. No, don’t take it. I’d rather you smoke cannabis than
drink ETOH. If you drink alcohol because you think it’s helping you sleep, you’re mistaken.
Being knocked out is not the same as sleeping. When you have surgery and you get wake up
groggy, well, it’s because you didn’t sleep, you got knocked out! Putting alcohol in your body is the equivalent of running your car on jet fuel. If you run your car at 6000rpms, you will trash your car. Cars operate best between 1200 and 2400 rmps, and they idle best anywhere from 600
to 800 rpms. Drinking alcohol is the equivalent of putting jet fuel in your car. You are now idling 8
at 2400 rpms! Your brain needs to idle at 700rpms for the best dreams. You body will burn
5
Page
alcohol before it burns anything else. So, even though you at food with your alcohol, food gets ignored while the body burns off the kerosene, jet fuel. Now, again, I am not telling you what to do. You’re an adult. Have fun. But if you’re reading this and having trouble, well, consider a
change in habits. Unlike my favorite song, “Red Red Wine” suggests, I have never had “Birds
eye view leaves my head” after consuming.
Some people, some books, will make LD sound easy. It’s not always easy. Some people
have an aptitude for it. I, personally, have to work for it. I know I can do it, I have done it, but the first time I did it with intention was after I practiced a protocol for two weeks straight, literally every thirty minutes responding to an alarm, doing dream check, and just being
obnoxiously fanatical about it. Quite frankly, that is hard work. But it is well worth whatever amount of time you spend chasing your first LD, because once you have that, it does get easier.
And if you have had difficulty getting to AP, LD seems to be the easiest way to arrive. Maybe
not the first few times. The first time you realize you’re in an LD, if you don’t wake yourself from pure joy and excitement, the next thing you’re going to want to do is play. If you actually achieve a written goal on your first go round, well, I tip my hat to you!
Some meds make dreams more powerful and the can be too disturbing to stay in LD.
Most the time, if a person reports they are having an increase in nightmares it results in a
medicine change. Always discuss your concerns about medicine with your psychiatrist or your
doctor. But meds in and of themselves should not interfere with AP. That said, I want to add a
caveat. Taking illicit drugs can interfere with AP process. So for example, hypothetically
speaking, let’s say you don’t have ADHD, but you’ve scored some Ritalin from a friend and you
take it. You’ve added something your brain didn’t need to function. You’re going to short circuit your ability to AP.
59
Page
I hate ADHD meds, and I hate the ADHD diagnosis. It’s a real thing. I believe that. I do
not believe doping up our children is a solution set. My biggest pet peeve about this though, is that the kids that can’t sit still in class get labeled ADHD. These kids usually come from poor families, so the state pays for them to have the diagnosis and the prescriptions. So, poor kids get forced fed narcotics to make them ‘sit’ in a classroom for eight hours, which is not something
humans were supposed to be doing much less young boys. But here’s the real pisser of the whole
affair. Their entire young academic career the kids are told they are broken and that they can’t function without narcotics. At age 18, whether they have finished high school or not, the state cold turkeys that shit. Seriously! Unless you have a private pay psychiatrist supplying you
narcotics, you’re not getting it, and more and more, the private pay psychiatrist don’t want
anything to do with ADHD because of the DEA and government policies regulating it because of
the perceived of abuse. So, now what we have is a class of people who have a legitimate need for narcotics, based on societies demand to make boys sit still in class who can’t get their drug, they think they’re broken, so they turn to street drugs, which usually ends up breaking them, because worse case they go to jail, or they just can’t stable enough to hold a job. The state will tell you that you grow out of ADHD. No one is telling people that you can you actually learn to and be a better student than the kids who can sit down by getting them out of the classroom and learning the way their brains are wired! ADHD doesn’t mean cognitively impaired, they just learn
different.
Oh, sorry, did I just go off? That got me here, though. If you learn different, you have a
find an AP technique that works for your learning style.
60
Page
But wait, you said I am not my brain so it shouldn’t matter if I am on drugs or not.
You’re absolutely right, you are not your body. But your energy body actually cares about the
wellbeing of your physical body. Taking something like ADHD meds when you don’t have a
legitimate need, messes with your brain, which could be any number of things, including tripping the fight or flight or freeze response, which calls your energy right back. You will literally put your energy body in hover mode, trying to figure out the nature of the threat the body keeps
signaling.
Psychedelics on the other hand, they will likely give you a trip. You may actually be able
to call it an AP experience. But it won’t be the controlled experience an expert AP person does nightly, but will be a random event with someone else, or something else, pulling your strings, and you go where it goes and the session ends when it wants to end. I don’t recommend this
protocol. (Micro dosing psychedelics might change this equation, but I need to know more
people micro dosing before I can weigh in.) Even if you’re licensed pharmacist and you’ve done
the math, not just some high school kid that’s throwing some shit together in his kitchen and
calling it science, I don’t recommend the use of psychedelics for the purpose of AP. With one
caveat. If you have access to a legitimate shaman, not just some trickster who says he is and
gives you stuff so he can rob you, but a shaman with credentials, and you engage in not only a
protocol but a long, tested ritual that gives the entire experience a meaning and purpose, I will not recommend illicit drug use. And again, I am not opposed in principle or theory, but since
there isn’t a regulatory process to guarantee what you’re taking is what you think it is, or
guarantee the quality, or you can’t guarantee the people in your environment are going to look
out for your wellbeing if things go bad… just say no to drugs. (“My friends wouldn’t hurt me.”
Oh, I only wish I had a dollar for every person who thought they were with friends who came
61
Page
and told me their friend raped them the moment they started their trip.) If you “can’t’ AP without it, maybe there is a spiritual reason for being blocked you need to explore. Cause one thing I can guarantee you, if you fuck up on the drugs and it kills you, you will have an extended, permanent AP.
There are some legitimate concerns that if you have a mental health issue where
distinguishing between reality and fiction, or reality and delusions/paranoia/hallucinations, then maybe AP is in your best interest. (And the reasons you shouldn’t even do cannabis, unless it’s from a legal vendor, because they sort by strains. Seriously, the reason Cheech and Chong were
funny was that they weren’t moving but they were going to fast. Just saying. And I am not
knocking cannabis.) If you struggle with this, why give yourself more to struggle with? That
said, there are agents and organizations that would encourage you to explore. There is evidence Carl Jung used the hallucinations of his clients to explore the unconscious, and his clients
improved! You heard that correctly. Why aren’t we doing more of that?! (No money in cures.)
There is also quite a lot of evidence that mental health, in many instances, may be a spiritual crisis, an opportunity to explore your connection with life. (“Stormy Search for Self” by
Christina Grof and Doctor Stanislav Grof, is one book advocating for a different approach to
mental health. They aren’t the only voices.) If you really struggle with this, I would recommend finding a counselor and exploring what it means to you to be able to AP, and if you decide to
pursue it, do it while being followed by a therapist so that you have someone you can discuss
your experiences with. Your experiences could lead to profound insight. The thing is, as a
society, we’re more distant and alone than any other previous time in history, and I dare say,
many more of us suffer from depression than are willing to admit, and so we do engage things
like AP and LD to improve how we feel and to see the world differently. And that’s okay. But
62
Page
we were meant to share, and discuss things, and unfortunately, the kinds of things we want to
explore in AP is still kind of fringe. Science doesn’t see the benefit. Carl Jung would advocate the work. (Read the Red Book and tell me he wouldn’t.) I guess what I am advocating for here is community, and if you struggle, and you know you do, a well informed counselor may be more
equipped to guide you than say just the average person who read a book somewhere on AP and
gives you advice. Not saying that’s wrong. I encourage you to join AP groups online and post
questions. And then watch the responses. In less than an hour you’ll have forty, contradictory
opinions, and then the next job is sorting through the noise looking for responses that seem
thoughtful, and then following those voices to determine if they’re consistent. People are human and they will bring their biases and beliefs and wants. Sorting through that also reveals education level, communication styles, and it can reveal other people who are struggling with identity and mental health problems. Usually they’re pretty easy to spot. If you post a question and someone says, send me a private message… I would be weary. What are you going to tell me that you
can’t say in a public forum? What are you selling? If I have to join someone’s club, or their web page which is the same as the one I already join, I start looking for agendas real quick. Is that paranoia? Maybe. But, then again, that’s the one nice thing about a good group when you find it: the moderators look for that kind of crap, and too many people honestly searching are led off the grid only to be taken advantage. If you find a good group, stick with it. You’ll hear a lot of bad advice, but every now and then, you get a gem and get traction and move forwards on your
quest.
Notice, I am not saying don’t pursue it. I have struggled with depression since childhood.
I am doing much better now, but it’s been a long road. I think practicing AP has helped. If
nothing else, it has kept a sense of adventure and curiosity alive in me. But it has never been a 63
Page
ticket out. It’s always brought me back to my life, sometimes with insight to meet my challenges, sometimes with a little more energy, and sometimes just knowing I have options and I will get
through this, too.
64
Page