I feel discouraged most of the time.

"I've tried some drugs [weed / shrooms / salvia divorium] but didn't experience
anything really unsual.  Lights seemed brighter, sounds seemed wavier.  That's about it."

Sounds like you did very small doses of salvia and shrooms.  If you have ever taken a large dose of either, I promise you will get WAY more than wavy sounds and bright lights.  Next time you eat shrooms, make sure to eat at least 7 grams (if you have done that and still just had brighter lights, you must have extraordinary natural tolerance, in which case 14 grams would be about right).

But before you do that, stop trying so hard.  You can't force spiritual experiences.  I think what you need to try is the Inner Smile.  It is at once the opposite of spiritual experience, in that it is supremely grounding, and yet the most profound spiritual practice.

Read this book, it should be a good start.  I know it sounds funny that I'm recommending some practice after a long list of failed practices, but it seems as if all those practices were aimed at achieving something external or other, whereas what I'm recommending is radical acceptance of what IS.

Try this

http://www.healingdao.com/pdf/innersmile.pdf

I got some advice from a source that well appeared to be nonphysical it was probably another aspect of myself it told me this: Don't define just be. That was the way to go beyond all the traps. Sometimes I do this and other times I fall and I don't. But, it is my goal.

SAM: perhaps the lesson you are being taught is patience.  Some people spend their whole lives seeking what you seek and don't receive these answers.  I personally had my first "experience" on Ayahausca.  I went to some amazing places and experienced some amazing things.  I now realize though that not only could I get to these places on my own, and had in fact been there at times as a child, I realized that it was my higher self that made the decision to hide these things from me.  Those things you seek require a lot of inner strength and discipline to see, if you do not have these things you can very easily go insane.  To see and remember the things I saw very easily could have driven myself insane and I remember repeating over and over to myself during the scariest parts of my journey "You can't remember this, don't remember this, if you remember this you will go insane once you go back"  To go to these places and return with your memory would most likely kill your ego, which is mostly who you identify as yourself.  To open the door is to invite visions, and things into your life that will cause you ridicule and derision from your family and friends.  I personally want to open this door myself, but I know if I do it before I develop enough inner strength I may very well lose functionality in this reality. 

I found one way to go back is to meditate with a mantra such as "I want to open my third eye"  I just repeat that over and over.  While I was repeating it I made sure to understand the risks that I was taking, and to address any fears that were brought up, and then to ask myself again "Do I really want to do this?"  If I do, I express determination and conviction towards my chosen mantra.  Any time I found my thoughts drifting I used the mantra to force myself back by focusing on what each word of the mantra means.  The mantra, I found, is just a tool to force my focus on what it is I want to see and to bring myself back to that thought whenever distraction interrupts my intentions.  The more power and confidence I express in repeating my Mantra the better it seem to work at manifesting a result. 

I've used this mantra meditation to bring me to the doorway of the third eye and take a peek through.  But my fear of seeing whats on the other side every time shuts the door immediately.  It brings up fear of physical and ego death, loss of friends and family if I lose my grip here.  This is why I know if I go through before I am strong enough I risk losing all those things upon my return.

I know where you are coming from.  I asked these very same questions not long ago.  I've tried the meditations and OBE and all that stuff.  Never successful with any of it.  I used an analogy that put the feeling I had in perspective for me.  It's like dropping a pebble in a pond and getting no ripples.  You do something that is supposed to do something and there is a vacuum.  I know.  My whole life has been like this.  Spiritual and non-spiritual pursuits alike.  I'm fairly certain at this point that I had some "friends" on the back end screwing things up for me.  The law of probability states that something should work.  One thing, anything.  So yea, I'm saying all this so you know that I know what you feel.

How did I move beyond it?  I guess you are asking for advice.  Well, in a sense I gave up, gave in, let go.  The door kept being closed and I kept banding my head into it.  I guess at some point I was tired of banging my head.  I then realized that seeking these things wasn't going to help me anyway.  It took awhile to come to that conclusion because it goes against logic.  Logic tells me that if I had some of these extra talents that I could do this or that or whatever.

And that's true but what kind of challenge would it be if I had my higher powers.  I mean you got some galactic bragging rights if you can come into this black hole of a society and actually progress to a point beyond duality.  All the MILAB people can go suck it.  They have all the technology and all the power but they can't stop me.  This is the attitude that helped me out of my victim stupor.  My attitude is more refined now but at some point I had to stand up and take responsibility.  I don't mean take responsibility for the cage or that I brought on the actions of others through negativity.  I mean take responsibility for just being.  All the other mess is temporary.  If I kept seeking outside myself, then 'myself' might not be able to handle a face-to-face with infinity.

If the sun goes super-nova tomorrow all the reiki in the world won't help you.  But seeking the depths of self will.  Obviously, not in the 3d physical sense but an extinction level event would be no more an issue than changing jobs.  It might be a bit weird at first but you have prepared you for it.  And with a prepared "you", you will be able to help others.  Without a prepared "you", you would be of no benefit to others.  The blind leading the blind and they both fall.

So that's part of the way I got through what you are going through.  The use of "you" is not specifically referencing you unless you find it useful.  Just easier to write that way.

This is a major turning point if you can turn it.  Going from discouraged to envigored is really only a moment away.  You just have to figure out how to create that moment for yourself.  You know yourself best so you are the best person to ask.

The serenity prayer helped me many times too.  "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Those things had to come from inside not out.  And once you find yourself trully, you will forget about all this other stuff.  You will know inside that whether you OBE or not, it doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

Yes!  I think we all go through this, I know I do.  There are many things I am holding myself back from experiencing, or in some cases reexperiencing, because I feel a sense of fear about it.  I think deep down, maybe it is just a fear of being loved, and the ultimate feeling that comes in a spiritual experience is that you are loved no matter what.  All of our programming, beliefs, and opinions about ourselves become meaningless in light of that. 

I was thinking on this some more Sam and I wonder if you could be overlooking some of the signals that will let you in to the kind of experiences you want to have.  Psychic abilities can be very, very subtle at times, because you are working with subtle energies, higher energies, and situations that are not literal.  It is not always going to come up and tap you on the shoulder to say:  here you are having a psychic experience.  Sometimes you might not understand or recognize something until you find yourself in a particular situation where it does become very obvious and literal.  I find that I don't get hit over the head with something unless I have been missing the more subtle messages along the way. 

When I was growing up I always knew that I had certain abilities, but I doubted myself enough to the point of shutting it down because no one around me talking about those things.  For many years I wasn't even able to find books that really discussed the kinds of experiences I was having.  I had no map so to speak to navigate my way, and it would take something really obvious and literal to get through to me.  For instance it took me a long time to understand how strong my telepathic ability is.  I would find myself thinking about other people and have no external signs to tell me that it might actually be coming from their thoughts instead of mine.  I learned about it through using the internet, because I began to see concrete examples of it.  I would find that the thoughts I picked up from other people matched things they said a bit later on message boards or emails.  When I have a conversation with someone in person, they might not share those thoughts with me verbally, unless I pick up on it and give them an opening to talk about it. 

Sometimes relationships of any type can be blocked because it would not be good for you to become close to a certain person.  If you are incompatible with them on some level there will be a resistance in energy.  It will be harder to connect with that person, maybe there will be missed phone calls or emails, or things that come up to keep you from meeting with them.  Sometimes this can result from interference by other parties, but most of the time I feel it is actually for a good reason.

I agree everyone has these abilities, but in some people it is stronger than others, and we all have different strengths.  I am not able to use my abilities "at will" like a fortune teller, and I don't like to even say that I have any psychic abilities because a lot of people have an attitude like ok prove it, show it to me.  I also don't like to pry into stuff I don't need to know about, but sometimes I can't help it, I just know things about people.   

I lived for years being driven to distraction with other people's thoughts coming into my head, and I had no idea.  I thought it was just my overactive brain thinking too hard.  When I first started using the internet, it suddenly became blatently obvious, because I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about someone, and later find out that person had sent me an email at exactly that time of the night.  That finally explained a lot about things I had experienced throughout my life.  I had to learn how to filter it out, fast, because when you use the internet and post on public message boards, you are basically opening yourself up to the entire world, or least everyone in the world who has an internet connection.  The feedback you get through the internet on an energy level can actually be a lot more intense and overwhelming than when you go about your day meeting people one by one in person. 

I am so sensitive that I tend to have physical reactions to the energy around me.  I rarely "see" things with etheric vision, but I feel sensations of energy intensely.  I envy people who can see clairvoyantly, because I feel like they know who or what they are dealing with, they can see it!  Whereas I just have to interpret it through my feelings.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed by denser energies, and those drown out the more subtle energies...which is often exactly what the person or entity with denser energies wants to do!  When a person is really angry with me my entire body shakes from head to toe.  It is much more difficult to understand what a gentle spirit is whispering to me when an irrational human being is screaming at me telepathically.  But like you said tillibullu, the way we think about others changes our interactions with them.  It's usually better to work with the energy to shift the situation before you meet with them again.

Sometimes people resist using their psychic abilities because of things that are happening to them in other lifetimes.  Many people have been persecuted or even killed in other times and places for demonstrating their abilities.  Some of us may have misused our psychic powers in another life, or witnessed others doing so, and swore to never allow it to happen again.  Or Sam, you might have been a healer in another life who was never allowed a minute of peace, because people surrounded you begging for your help.  These issues won't surface unless they are affecting your present life, but if you feel this could be a factor, you might want to try breaking contracts or vows you have made in other lives.