Post-Avatar-Depression-Syndrome (PADS)

I enjoyed this post alot! So often this site pushes for the use of psychedelics without covering the equally important question of "Now what?". I believe that psychedelics are important, but there is life after you come down. It is not the high or the experience of alternate existences we should be seeking necessarily, but the knowledge gained from these "drugs" and then applied to the rest of our life.

Well...one solution I have for myself for "being high" is a good novel. The operative word being "good". When such goodness is difficult to find (and sometimes it is), I go back to the tried and true. Nothing wrong with revisiting a word-world I've already been to before. In fact, it often feels like a home-coming. Sometimes I'll even go back to the books from my youth. Like Lloyd Alexander. That's not only a home-coming. It's a reunion with the characters. www.sniffcode.com

I too enjoyed this article and have often found myself in the same situation while coming down and reentering this mode of awareness. And while I sometimes found it depressing, more often that not I found it to be exhilarating that I was actually there in the state for however long I was there. An important quote that I always have in my head when I read things like this comes from Terence McKenna. He said, paraphrasing of course, that yes, one can spend 30 years sweeping around the ashram, doing work, earning valuable lessons and experiences, but that there are certain chemicals and plants that don't have any of that stuff. There is no worshipping, no 30 years of work, no dues to be paid. Psychedelics work and they work ALL THE TIME. And like everything about life, in this reality or in another, moderation is the key. "Hang up"? No thanks.

 

So many "trippers" I knew came to realize, even in our late teens, after a few intense sessions, that one only needs to associate intimately with an Entheogenic substance on such rare occasions that such a need truly arises.

No one I knew ever thought they were for constant use ... yet possibly throughout the life ... here and there ... like in the beginning of manhood, as initiation ritual .. in middle of life ... and again, towards the end {many variations on the theme} ... as there was always more deeper internal lessons revealed than just visual phantasmagoria

This limited visual sense is usually only associated with chemical synthetics like LSD & DMT in synthetic high extraction manipulations.

When organic indigenous Entheogens are kept in their wholistic form, the more synergized cosmic sense of connectedness {wisdom} usually pervades and over rides any "eye candy"

Many of us never came down, but simply stabilized high, more or less, never seeing our world ever quite the same .. so lets not sell ourselves short.

These substances merely tune us into the "trip that never ends / always was" ... yet the mind in certain individuals can surely get unnecessarily attached to anything ... like the anxiety of coming down from a refined sugar high.  

So this type of pathology is found all through out life .. hence Shamanic guidance or even just basic brotherhood / community to stabilize

... which is all any of us awoken indigenous "hippies" ever wanted, or needed

... sometimes the simplest things were the hardest to find relative to industrial / post industrial momentums of the times 

When achieving such elevated cosmic perspectives, an organic, green sustainable community to touch down within, is likely all that is required to stabilize and integrate ... such a simple version of reality is no where to be found ... so we descend into everything else but ... 

In the Casteneda series Juan Matus cautions Carlos several times for his visionary indulgences ... "look deeper, see the mystery behind all that is unfathomable" .. always balancing out such psychedelic luxury with the "chopping wood, carrying water" of day to day to day chores ... as "controlled folly" ... and like in the practice of Zen ... there is no longer an "ordinary" moment .. or an ordinary place .. for any such awoken soul ... anywhere, at any time. 

So the fear of loss only being relative to the "mess below" ... and not the "synergy above".

So this so-called psycho-socio dilemma can easily be taken care of with a little philosophical sensibility. 

 

 

Hmmm I kinda read the article above as a kind of put-down regarding entheogens hence my title because I dont. Also, be fore I begin. I had jusr read an article before coming here which I had assumed was from there--about the trauma post 'Avatar' check it out: No Garden to Get Back to: Understanding Post-Avatar Ecological Depressive Disorder By Ryan Croken January 28, 2010 http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/2226/no_garden_to...

I had LSD experience when 15, and it very much did reveal to me the magic of nature which I had lost due to the dulling of school, mass media etc. Then of course in that time, 1971, many of the hippies were chasing after the eastern gurus and philosophies post psychedelics, and I got sucked in a bit--I even joined the Hare Krisha Temple for a short while when 17! And it WAS Alan Watts's book, Cloudhidden Whereabous Unknown, which I found after a long search for some loving integration.

Now I LOVE Alan Watts, but like anything I also keep a critical approach too. He was an alcoholic, and this great paradox between that and what he said in books and talks cannot but intrigue me. I haven't come to any conclusions as such, but I suspect that it may have been because of an inner contradiction even ALAN with such insight into polarity may have denied. Which was?

I am thinking it may have been his very attraction to the Eastern religious and philosophical belief systems! The same Ram Dass and others ran too as a means to integrate their psychedelic experience. However Alan was very much into them BEFORE he had chose to have psychedelic experience--which are beautifully shared in the jewel of a book The Joyous Cosmology. Remember, in his first experience(s?) he denied they were in any way 'mystical' as he believed Eastern 'realization' was! But then he changed his mind after psychedelic experiences he thought were so.

So what was this inner contradiction I am implying? The expectation by adherents to Eastern belief systems in all-the-time awakening! It is actually a world-denying desire. Alan for example would wax lyrical about wine drinking Zen bufdhists from way back when, and the 'satori' experience of being light as a leafe blowing this and that way in the wind. Maybe drinking was his desperate means to achieve what he spoke a lot about? Whatever, he was as hooked as the next person however much he might have galmourized it if he had been challenged about it.

So I am seeing with those belief systems world-denial. They all shy away from real life--in all its messiness.l They distrust thinking even, and do meditation to negate it, etc. For my a deeper way to understand psychedelics is to see through all that and EMBRACE the continuum of 'ordinary' and the 'nonordinary'. What do I mean by the former?

It is hard to find a term, because I feel it is inherent in patriarchal culture and language East and Weat to assume that the 'ordinary' is 'mundane'. It is 'Maya/illusion/trap' or it is bad because it is 'changing (Plato), but that is IT. that is the continuum--it is ever changing and that IS the magic, and sacred food and their ecstatic experience is continuum with everchangingness. That is what I mean ;)

"News reports have appeared recently speaking of people who see Avatar and subsequently fall into a deep depression at their inability to access a world in reality as beautiful, entrancing and spiritual as Pandora, the mythical planet depicted in the film."

Sorry to derail the entheogen-related theme of this article and conversation, but does anyone else who has seen *Avatar* have problems with this explanation of post-viewing depression? I saw the film after hearing and reading lots of hype, and was still blown away by the mythical scope of the film, its critique of colonialism and imperialism, and the fully realized virtual ecology. When I left the theater, I found myself depressed too, and thought about the reasons for this depression as described in the media.

Then it hit me. I was depressed not because I couldn't go to Pandora and hang out with felinoid hotties, but because I was stuck on the planet where "we killed our mother" (as they noted in the film). The notion that people are depressed because they can't live in a make-believe world misses the point. Maybe we're depressed after seeing *Avatar* because it reminds us of what we're destroying here on Earth.

Returning control of the conversation to the psychedelicists...

...of the causes of this phenomenon. The media is spinning the causes of Post-Avatar Depression Syndrome to claim that it's a result of people not being able to "escape" to Pandora (i.e. escape into fantasy). In fact, the depression is caused by the powerful way Avatar is able to blast through our received cultural mythology and recast the entire colonial era as one massive genocide, which is now percolating out of the mass unconscious into mass consciousness, and a s a result, is causing widespread despair. It's not that we all want to be Na'vi, it's that we are waking up and realizing that we have exterminated the Na'vi of our own world, for little more than greed.

Charles Shaw

Author - Exile Nation

 

I read this article in Huffington Post and it is very good. There was one thing I didn't think was made clear though. The states that one can reach in psychedelics feel really, really good. Like having some hedonistic mad scientist lay into you with a gatling gun that shoots orgasms instead of lead good.

 I have never, ever, ever heard of any level of spiritual attainment that feels THAT good for any longer than say a day tops and the technique I'm thinking of takes a minimum of around 5 years(referring to Jhana meditation, ). And even then you come down after about a day or so.

 Nothing will allow someone to reach those high levels of joy indefinitely and I think that it is somewhat disingenuous to not be explict with that or to lead the reader to assume that those rarified states one reaches with meditation are the same as the insane levels of joy one experiences in psychedelics, i.e., "The spiritual path is not about 'getting high,' it's about 'being high,'"

Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
 I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer

open the conduit. let the light from your star, your higher self, your angel shine through in every action. the time of the ascension is near. everything is sacred. soon we will realize, all in a flash, our true nature. and it is far more than the bodies to which we have been assigned. don't believe me? breathe deeply, and see.

 

 

we are celestial beings. earth is our temporary home.

Here's my theory: There's something in the brain that happens when we're watching this new dazzling 3D that's causing a ton of serotonin to be released. The post-movie depression is almost like coming down from MDMA.

I'm the first to admit that this theory is entirely from assland. But Avatar seems the biggest breakthrough in moviemaking technology since the Wizard of Oz, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we learn that there's some physical cause of all this depression.(and Yes, I got depressed after seeing it.)

I can see that our planet is just as magically drenched in life as the planet Pandora in the movie. It seemed he took much inspiration from our own coral reefs in creating all the flora and fauna. I don't need LSD to be fascinated by our own ecology. What lacks in our culture is the communal reverence for nature shown in the movie. It felt really good to almost be a part of it for the time I spent in the theater. That is what I felt a yearning for as I walked back to my car after seeing the movie.

that we recycle? What I mean is, let me get it straight that I really dont geel with the Eastern notions of reincarnation and karma, because I see aschema involved there that has puked up the horrible caste system in India where it's believed to be your 'karma' to shovel the shit of the rich --LITERALLY--and its theirs that they should have you doing that. That sucks! I am meaning more that IF we knew that what ever 'we' are --this IS our home, wouldn't that have a deeper effect to make us care for our home, Earth. The Goddess understanding of this is what I mean. That we are ALREADy immortal, but what this means is the dynamic Mystery of life death and regeneration.

My sense is that to be human is to need to love and be loved.

King (Dr. Martin Luther) said, "Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on."  

 How can the potential for love be enacted?

 

thanks!

 

Its funny people who have experienced a trauma generally end up with depleted endorphines and end up looking for somthing to raise that level of endorphins, drugs and alchohol end up doing the trick and addiction is a common problem with those diagnosed with PTSD. I am starting to see people who are addicted to watching Avatar. Its the world they want to live in. They want to leave their reaility and live in that world for a moment and are doing so going back to see the movie over and over again, especially when life is bumming them out. I only wish in the movie avatar they would have motivated people to see that this world we live in IS pandora instead of making this a sort of "other" world, that is alien and impossible to attain. I dont think though that its Post Avatar Depression syndrome that we are seeing, I think that really what we are seeing, are people who are allready VERY traumatized by living in such a dualistic world of toxic seperation who are seeing a world where that does not exist. It is just reminding them of their trauma... which in some ways might be a very good thing... most people go through their lives never having known that they are tramutized... I know... I lead a PTSD group.

Avatar presents a very idealized, Disneyfied and surreal understanding of being in nature. What is missing from the movie ( I don't fault it for this) is any depiction or reference to insects and the many defenses of plants. It does show the "high on the food chain" carnivores and exotic herbivores, it does show the climax growth forest and its incredible beauty. It doesn't show black flies, mosquitoes, spiders, beetles, wasps, africanized bees, chiggers, ticks or leeches. Anyone who has spent any "real time" in the forest knows that "it's a jungle out there". Everything is competing for sunlight and food. You quickly discover that you are a food source, not just as a source of protein to big cat or wolf, but to flying thingies, crawling thingies, hanging thingies etc. Not only that, but there are some things you don't want to touch or you'll get a bad rash, or a puncture wound or something will stick to you and smell. Spend some time in the woods and you appreciate all the little perks of civilization. In the city you can go days without getting bitten, without getting wet through, not having cold feet and hands, you have clean teeth, clean body without a lot of effort. You can store food without having mice, rats, raccoons, skunks, squirrels and chipmunks try to help themselves. Actually being in the woods is a full time job. Gathering food is hard work and takes a lot of energy and skill. There is an excellent childrens book called Hatchet by Gary something that tells a good story of how relentless mother nature can be. So, I don't have post Avatar syndrome because I've been there. It is always wonderful to be outside for long stretches of time and it is always wonderful to come back to a warm dry home too.

zezt, Not sure how you went from my comment to the need to cut down the rain forest. I remember an episode of "Survivorman" where Les Stroud was dropped off on a Costa Rican beach for seven days. Les has tremendous outdoor skills and at one point in the show spends the night in the jungle; by the next morning it was pretty clear that he was completely spooked by all the creepy crawlies that showed up after dark. After that he was back on the beach. Here in New England the Abenaki would migrate out of the woods and down to the coast when the bugs got fierce in June. My point about Avatar was simply that it presented an idealized and fanciful idea of what indigenous life is like. It was science fiction with an emphasis on fiction. It was a wonderful film experience because it played to our fantasies and imagination. Who wouldn't want a 9' tall body on a light gravity planet, and those amazing tails with their tendrils of sentient communication. Yum.

  I haven't been homeless in a major city. That has nothing to do with my post. Have you been lost in the jungle? Not fun and potentially fatal. Read what Daniel P wrote about it in his book 2012; you get off the path and you are in deep doo doo.

  Great movie, Avatar, fantastic not realistic. And in my first post I didn't mention the microbial kingdom with all the intestinal parasites, ferocious bacteria and opportunistic viruses. It is a jungle out there.

Very interesting read! I actually wrote about the "Avatar blues" recently myself. Please check it out: http://www.ambrosiawaterfilters.com/blog/?p=239

Hi Elieser,

 You are very rigth on your main point, nevertheless BEAUTY is in the eye of the beholder. Most people bounded by the mundane and blinded by it. Curiousity as it could does not exist. The inside is aware that life is a miracle, that it contains the extraordinary all around but the outside does not let it become conscious, just won't let it through. Some of us are taken the surroundings as an endless adventure, every moment as an oppportunity to find new amazing features but it really does come down to what life you allow yourself to experience. The deafening reality is caused by the force upon us to susupend your life and to accept the world as it looks on day-time TV. Strange is, that a movie like FightClub doesn't catapulate people into depression, it just inspires a few receptive ones because it escapes from reality back into reality adding some changes and advices on the way. Perhabs that is the only fault with Avatar, that it doesn't circle back into this world but leaves you stranded with the finale which makes you think that if not an entire other world than nothing at all.

I liked your post and Blake is Rigth isn't he

Yea, I kinda laughed when I saw the thread “how to deal with the depression when you realize Pandora isn’t actually real” because I thought I was the only one. Turns out that thread has some 14 thousand views now. upgrade games

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Very interesting read! I actually wrote about the "Avatar blues" recently myself. Please check it out: SEO

I believe that psychedelics are important, but there is life after you come down. It is not the high or the experience of alternate existences we should be seeking necessarily, but the knowledge gained from these "drugs" and then applied to the rest of our life. personalized gifts from Stitchgift.com