Pelinster

I have to recommend Renoise: http://www.renoise.com/ It is based upon the old school 'fasttracker II' style - which can have a steep learning curve, but once you learn how to use it, I think you will find it's about as powerful as you will get. The level of control is amazing. It takes the old format and ramps it up into overdrive, with everything from VST 2 to Rewire support.. The free version has 2 major limitations - No ASIO support - No render to Wave. The render to wave function would be easy to get around, I am sure.. ASIO? Well, I guess it depends on whether you need low latency, for instance, if you will be recording live instruments..

Chances are though that your copy would be of much better quality than that mp3.. Did you manage to get the show in Stereo? Our local ABC national broadcast is only mono, so I couldn't tell if it was broadcast in stereo..

You will find the likes of myself at such an event.. only there is no way in hell I will be able to get ANY time off work around this part of the year - and I work Saturdays, so it will be arrive Sat afternoon.. So don't bloody over do it before then, OK? ..

That was pretty awesome man.. my mate is going to tape it at 1am also..

Just an experience.. man you sent shivers down my spine with this post.. you have hit the nail on the head in some way.. not sure what that means though haha.. Perhaps at some stage we were deluded enough to think we were anything more than just an experience? Although as shallow as that seems - to be just an experience, what more can we be? It definitely feels even more shallow out there without my body, and a connection to this world.. I hope you don't have to wait too long in there, when you die - before you are connected to another 'reality'.. actually I imagine you wouldn't have to wait any amount of 'time' - unless time itself, from our reference point, is more than something from this world.. perhaps we ARE time - actually, now that I think about it - there is a good basis for this.. Whenever I think about these things, I definitely start to go somewhere.. I feel a connection to that moment and shivers through my very soul.. Like through this realisation I also have the power to wipe my own existence.. The window looking in thing is definitely something I can relate to at times.. I think about how our body is like a computer - it processes all of this data, but who sits at the computer - where does this data go? The eyes collect light, this information is then processed by the brain, but what receives this information? I imagine my body being plugged in.. like into the matrix.. only it's the other way around, I am on the other side - of what I have no idea - and I am plugged in to to the body. With my body and all of the data it sends me - I have 'it'.. the ultimate.. an experience in a dimension full of others like me.. that I can interact with.. I even have self awareness! but, without my body, I am just the empty experience.. A window looking into NOTHING! (and therefore everything?)..

It's so weird man.. because part of me isn't sure I do even exist!!?? How strange is that.. it's a feeling.. in some way or another - I don't actually exist and I can feel it.. existence itself all of a sudden feels fragile - like none of this is real - and I am in some kind of dream - and if I fuck around too much - I'll wake up and realise I am actually dead!! haha.. oh dear.. the mind bends and boggles and.. yeah.. all that.. If one thing is certain - the world doesn't seem anywhere near as 'static' as it used to.. I feel like there are millions of different possibilities linked to millions of different universes and anything is possible.. anything.. maybe in another dimension - I also exist and am dead.. maybe I have died every time I thought I had a near miss, only the universe course corrected my consciousness into a dimension where it didn't actually happen? because what else could it do? I can't very well not exist - if we are from the infinite - which I believe very much so we are even if it is just in opposite to all that is finite - then if I have existed once - I will always exist.. in what form I have no idea - and never will other than the present form if lucky enough to be self aware.. but of course, in one sense, in this world - I must die eventually.. it is certain.. unless the story unfolds in some twisted way where I become a test subject for some new anti-aging medicine and become immortal.. then I would be convinced of my multiple-dimensional course correcting theory.. So if in your universe I turn out to be dead.. just remember, in my universe I am still alive, posting on SAB, and will live forever!! :S

Thanks Inbetween.. That was a pretty cool post and I am assuming you may be a lot more experienced than myself in these things and your advice is very much appreciated.. As far as being greedy? Ok, I find that a strange comment.. Considering I get nearly nothing one would desire on a greedy level out of these experiences. Is the awakening of self and the subsequent development of awareness that follows something we desire through greed? Due to the nature of a long dark past - I have a lot of shit going on, but I do feel over the last 8 months that I have reduced the essence of my problems down to one last little box - and I am not even sure I want to crack this one - because I exploit its tension and conduct the energy into positive things.. Mind you - every now and then I slip and conduct that energy into something destructive - and usually that is in a period of time when I have stopped meditating and my friend has stopped working with the entheogens. Rarely do I get any desirable feelings out of these experiences whilst they are occurring.. and I often fear them more than anything else in the world - only I know it has to be done - that even if it is terrifying - it's all me in there, and I have to be able to live with myself.. the benefit comes afterward, when I am driving to work and I can see everything.. the trees on the sides of the road - the strange sensation of objects appearing to move faster as they buzz out of the corners of my peripheral vision - and then when I get to work this perspective enables me to achieve amazing things. Anyway, thanks again for all of your comments.. I am definitely a lot more comfortable with, my friend's experience now, especially since Inbetween's comments. This description of that place definitely fits with my understanding of such - as I had wondered that if one is still consciously aware - mustn't they still exist within time - within this world/dimension somehow.. A halfway zone makes a lot of sense to me..

Thanks so much for your advice guys.. It has been very helpful.. I am thinking my friend needs to go back in.. to be reminded so to speak.. because when he had the second experience he had definitely already forgotten, within a week, of just exactly how it felt.. he remembered the 'idea' but the actual sensation was lost.. However that sensation has definitely stuck after the second experience. I think he needs to steer clear of Changa (maybe too much Dimitri in his changa anyway, it's 50%) and just brew.. My friend lives in Brazil btw.

Oh there's Caves there too!?? Awesome.. Haha, my friend is actually a little worried about where he brews now.. While he was 'gone', his body jumped up and ran away - I think because it thought he was burning in the fire, when he came back to reality - he was standing like 10 meters from where he had been unplugged.. He's lucky he didn't drop off the bloody edge!

Hi everyone, I need some help with understanding something and I am hoping there are some people who are a lot more experienced than I in these things floating around here. A friend of my friend of a friend has been using Changa and Ayahuasca for healing with a small group on a weekly basis for about 8 months now. Last weekend, under the impression that the Aya dose had been a dud - this friend and his mate smoked some Changa. This led to him dying. I don't know if anyone here has experienced this but the person involved didn't know how - why - anything really.. just knew they were dead.. It was the most awful feeling ever - like he had hold of 'it' and had lost 'it'. There was almost a presence in there that had a deceitful tone as in 'you fucked up - and now you've lost it.. game over'.. Obviously there were no words, this was so deep down the rabbit hole that there was Nothing from this world.. nothing.. it was as if the body had been completely unplugged from the other side and due to the signal going dead, He now knew he was dead - how or why was beyond understanding - and irrelevant because he was fucking dead! anyway - after an infinite amount of time.. hehe.. fuck.. obviously not because he sits here now.. There was the voice of someone saying 'It's <insert name> you are at <insert place> and everything is OK!' - this made no sense, but then he heard himself start calling out 'Help' in a panic over and over. The funny thing was from this reference point he had no idea what that sound was. It was just an idea, kind of attached to a feeling of 'please god, don't let me be dead forever', but this was a helpless plea because he knew.. HE KNEW.. he WAS dead.. Anyway as it all started to come back - reality that was - it became apparent that he wasn't actually dead! and it was so deceiving, so cruel.. so traumatising.. to think it would do that.. make someone think they were dead.. like some kind of fucked up joke.. The trauma very much outweighed the excitement of actually being alive.. Anyway the next weekend (yesterday) this friend went back in, only just with Changa this time to test the waters.. There was no turning away - never in the past has this person turned away when the experience had been painful.. Only what happened was he was instantly transferred back to that moment.. like he had never actually left that night last week.. and there it was again 'you fucked up! you lost 'it', you left your body and now I have taken it from you'.. not in those terms because there is no language - just a feeling.. it was as if I never actually left the week before, that the week that had passed was just a delusion.. He was trapped in purgatory - He had it all and had now lost it.. Once were endless opportunities and possibilities - now was an endless nothingness.. No idea of who he was, what he was, just the idea that he was something, and now he is nothing.. Luckily this experience didn't last quite as long (dont know how this works because time stops in the middle, but obviously doesn't stop because it continues, very strange, maybe it just becomes so slow it feels as if it has stopped) He started asking 'am I ok? is everything OK!!??' to the person who was with them who replied that everything was ok.. This made him laugh.. a twisted laugh.. what the fuck! he is thinking.. what the fuck is this!? why!? why do I keep dying! Is it a joke!? Now he feels really disconnected and strange.. Not even sure if he IS alive? the death experience is more convincing than life itself.. The first experience was written off as a massive dose caused by the combination of aya and changa. The funny thing is the aya seemed to activate the instant the changa was smoked.. Perhaps smoked MAOI can influence the stomachs enzymes? .. but now that Changa on it's own has done it too, I am not so sure.. It feels like maybe he is connecting with his own death.. somewhere in time he will die, and that he is connecting with that moment.. or is he already dead.. He feels traumatised none the less.. In the past - the complete loss of self was a sought after experience.. there was no death.. there was no end of all opportunities - it felt more like infinite opportunities - He could become anything - anyone - from this infinite place.. Now it's become the opposite.. I am really hoping he can get past this.. In the past when he hit a repeating experience, it relates to something he had to figure out - to get to the next level.. so maybe no-one can help my friend.. I have heard the comment before in a doco that you use Aya to learn how to die.. Is this what he needs to do? Learn how to die? He has never tried to influence the experience.. His mantra has always been 'show me..' - 'show me what it is I need to see..' .. I am wondering if he is being too passive? or is this what he needed to see?

What level do we expect the Cicadas to be broadcasting at, with EGA at this time of year?

Hahahaha.. That's hilarious! Kind of like what happens to people who associate needles with getting high.. Whenever they show someone on TV shooting up - to try and disgust people, those particular people feel an insatiable thirst to do so themselves!

I'm not too keen on the whole 'actively seeking a partner' thing.. I think we all do it on some level - actively seek a partner, but the whole idea of actually advertising, and practically interviewing for the role, kind of ruins the spontaneity doesn't it? Mind you.. I will probably get a lot less dates than the chap who partakes in such methods - so maybe I am just a fool who is behind the times? Ahh.. But the quality of the dates - am I getting a higher grade because I save it for someone special!?

Thanks Torsten - great read.. This is something I am very passionate about.. I have spent a little time in an maximum security facility for adults and I learned an awful lot about 'criminals'.. I gave guitar lessons for a little while - for free, in the yard - for anyone who wanted it, and I noticed something profound. They lapped up positive feedback like nothing else.. If I could just find one positive thing to mention about their playing or if I highlighted that they had an untapped talent - they would absolutely light up. These people are so starved of positive attention it is amazing.. Starving being the operative word! If I had of stayed longer - I would have ended up with half the wing as my students. Mind you though - I was not in a stable enough frame of mind to be able to give that energy against all of that negative resistance 24/7 and it would have come to a head eventually I am sure.. I think as a society we need to reevaluate the goals of our justice system (well legal system - the word justice has been soiled, and lost, which is part of the problem). The way I see it - we have drifted so far from the goals, the system has almost become completely self serving.. If the intention is to improve society as a whole - to lessen harmful acts against others - we need a long term strategy.. At the moment we amplify the problem in order to serve some primitive need for instant gratification. As long as the criminal is suffering, they are happy.. well almost.. they seem more angry than happy to me to be honest, and it seems the level of suffering is never enough anyway.. I am going to say something pretty controversial (so watch out!! ) - I personally believe that any of us - given the same environment, circumstances, biology - would be just as easily one of the monsters we so quickly despise and label as 'inhuman' so we don't have to feel empathy.. My point is that they are human, they are us, and we could have been them if the dice rolled a different number.. I would even go as far to say we could all be the worst of criminals even with our current biology, with just the right circumstances and environment.. Don't get me wrong.. I do also believe we are more than the sum of our parts..

So many late nights watching SBS tripping.. I love SOS (the short story feature), man have I seen some weird assed shit on there! .. Even the little intro video to SOS is majorly tripped out! I think if I had of seen this advert on one of my expeditions - my head would have exploded from the pure weirdness that the TV was flat out talking to me and/or tailor making the content to suit my mindset.. Actually I have had that impression before with SBS.. Good on em! :D haha - maybe they are trying to tap into a niche market? or maybe there is just some cool assed tripper in their production team who is sending us all a little nod.. Well to this person I salute! and too nod in respect of all that is awesome.. I love it..