This is a post summarizing my recent experiences with psychedelics, the goals that are evolving for me for my future experiences, and the process of integrating my whole psychedelic philosophy into my believed, perceived, and understood realities.
I'm a fairly on-and-off member of these forums, but psychedelics always remain a major influence in my political and philosophical beliefs.
I ended a very busy semester at school in April, and I drifted from this community for a while. Really I drifted away from lots of my friends and activities; I started getting back into some of my older habits instead (like biking) and started programming a computer game with a good deal of my time.
I also started to get back into habits like meditation and self hypnosis, and found myself realizing that I had been under too much stress for the year previous and that I had lost quite a bit of awareness and direction in life.
I tripped a few times over the spring and summer, the three most recent times are of the most concern in this post.
My third most recent trip was a very interesting, novel, and enjoyable experience. I used ~5 grams of Syrian rue and ~2.5 grams of dried psilocybe cubensis. It was a fairly light hearted trip, I went for a walk on a sunny day, and talked about minor nuances of life with a sober girlfriend and close friend.
The trip seemed very familiar and indistinct from a regular mushroom trip for the first 2 to 3 hours, with perhaps the exception of more pronounced colours. After what I would have expected to be the peak ended however, the trip changed directions suddenly.
It was very unique compared to any other trips I have had, as I came up into the new mindspace it felt more and more as though there was an external force sharing my brain with me. There were thoughts that were entering my mind but I recognized that they had not been of my "construction". The thoughts were simply appearing in complete chains as if they had already been completely thought out before they entered the realm of my witness. I also found I could not help but explain the way the drug was influencing me, as if it were choosing the drug was choosing the actions I was to take. I found myself explaining that there was an unfamiliar intelligence which was occupying my physical brain along with me, and that it seemed to understand my physiology much better than me- as if my brain were a video game and this foreign intelligence had played it much more and had already learned all the secret areas and shortcuts.
The most interesting part of these 'compelled explanations' was that many of the times I would begin a sentence having absolutely no idea what the sentence was. The sentences would simply appear as I allowed my body to speak (much like the fully formed thoughts would arrive in my mind already complete). My voice was completely intelligible but often took on a very robotic tone.
The way that I felt during this part of the trip was also interesting in that I had an unfamiliar confidence. It was a confidence that was completely certain, as encouraging as any amphetamine could be, yet very smooth and without much force or impulse. I felt as though the manner in which I thought had granted me much more intelligence- not because it gave me more information, but because it seemed to allow my thoughts to become "omnidirectional" or "multidimensional". It was as if any formulation of thought intrinsically included the uncertainty of all considerable possibilities in a presented decision- and by including the acknowledgement of the uncertainties- it instead transformed these uncertainties into a new sort of certainties of the uncertain. I felt as though being allowed this sort of experience was of great value and gave me great existential power- and that I should try and direct my life in a way that helped me responsibly use this power.
After this trip I did not feel burned out, but very refreshed and exhausted in a very natural way.
It was actually following this trip that I was inspired to start putting more time into meditation and self-hypnosis again. There had been a lot of stress keeping me on the surface of my mind for the previous year; the types of relief that the depths of my subconscious could provide were welcome re-acquaintances. There was still one issue that I was still failing to address that kept me afloat in my shallow mind more than I was comfortable being. I had lied to a loved one about something important and I was not brave enough to admit it for some time.
I am a very good liar. As a child I chose to essentially never tell the truth. Practice makes close enough to perfect that I never had to confess before in my life. I gave up lying as a teen because of sympathy for those I lied to, but I never had to admit a thing, I never chose to use the parts of my mind that provided guilt.
My next trip was not too long ago, perhaps a month. I was frustrated with how little I was accomplishing this summer, and frustrated about the brownies I had taken not working. I took three grams of dried cubensis, and it was a welcome feeling, but I felt I was still too close too the surface, still agitated. I re-dosed on another 4 grams or so.
The trip changed direction and I ended up arriving where I wanted to be. As the second dose asserted itself, I found myself once again having thoughts which seemed to take on new dimension, accounting for uncertainty to attain new certainty. The state was very permeating, and I found it lent itself to many new ways of perceiving the psychedelic experience-
One new way that I found myself beginning to see the entry and exit of the psychedelic state was that of the emergence of a parallel being. It seemed that until this trip I had always been missing a utility to help decipher the clarity of the psychedelic mind from the confusion of the interference with the sober mind. "Realizing" that there are in fact two minds in the picture helps me separate the confusion from the clarity.
(pause second trip to describe theory)
Theory:
The existential mind is how you feel you are. Two important parts of the existential mind are the sober and psychedelic minds.
The psychedelic mind is a permanent being but one which does not reside in surface reality, generally the psychedelic mind hides behind the doors of your critical factor, in your subconscious, and can only be experienced directly in deep meditation, hypnosis, or dream. Intensity of exposure is hard to achieve even in experienced mental experts when sober. The psychedelic mind is expansive and is associative, non-linear.
When psychedelics are ingested this mind comes into experiential view- the confusion is great during the onset because it can only be glimpsed through cracks in the screen- but when the dose peaks (especially if it is a "saturation dose") the psychedelic mind is revealed experientially in all of its beauty and clarity. The confusion is not as great on the comedown because of the way the cracks drift closed in the screen, preserving much malleability for quite a long time.
The sober mind is the familiar, concretely evaluated, oversimplified, cause and effect perception of everyday reality. The sober mind is very small compared to the psychedelic mind and only accesses knowledge in small, tightly associated chunks. The data and processes that the sober mind utilizes are not contained within the sober mind, they are simply pointed to by the sober mind. Access is done in a linear fashion, and this is what allows processes such as question and answer, reason and prediction.
When psychedelics are taken the sober mind still has the desire to function as it knows- but its constituent parts it calls upon are largely modified. This is why when you are in a more active, less meditative state, confusion is greater on psychedelics (to meditate or hypnotize is to relax away the sober mind). This is also why normal functioning fades farther as dose increases- as the called upon constituent parts become more and more broadly associative, they are less and less familiar to the sober mind and more difficult to use effectively. The reason that some actions like juggling, dancing, and playing music alleviate the confusion of the sober mind is because the sober mind is able to direct the existential mind into a cycle which relies on heavy sensory-motor control association (so the over associative state is less cumbersome for the process).
And of course the most confusing part of the whole situation- the two of you are at once. This likely ties in with effects like time distortion and feelings of simultaneity.
(End discussion of theory- continue second trip)
As I laid on the floor, having been pacified quite nicely by the second dose, I found my sober mind relaxing away. One of the most memorable effects of the trip was lying on the floor, and drifting backward, slightly away from my vision (eyes still open). As my vision took the form of a dome in from of me I began to see magical alien structures stretching out into the skyline of my mind in every direction. The sights were reminiscent of closed eye visuals, but more opaque and seemingly more three dimensional. It was very interesting to be seeing my entire field of view drift in front of me as more breadth of visual experience occupied my mind simultaneously (is our brain so flexible that we may one day have a personal HUD display without losing field of view?).
But the more important effect of this trip was how it inspired me. It made me quite certain that I wanted to contribute to the translation of psychedelic experience into the language of modern understanding. I had powerful insights about the nature of "god"- it began to occur to me to perceive god not as a being, but as an access point in the mind, a portal in the mind. It seemed to me that encapsulation of ideas such as god, or points of view on god which allowed philosophical approaches from new angles, might be instrumental in bringing psychedelic reality closer to conscious understanding. I found myself asking myself how I could allow myself to study these things further in my life.
A wave of sadness hit me as my mind decisively showed me the secret I had been keeping. When I confessed to my loved one I found that it had taken more strength than I had within me to make the confession.
It helped me relax, it made me feel like I was allowed to speak to all of myself again. My meditation and hypnosis improved.
And so a few nights ago I tripped again. I realized that the 7 gram dried cubensis mushroom I had was not stored as air tightly as it could have been, and decided me and a friend should have it before it decreased in potency. I ended up eating more than her, maybe 4-5 grams. I also smoked weed before coming up. (I usually wait until after the peak)
I have heard tell that larger shrooms are sometimes less potent than smaller ones.
This was certainly not the case.
As we came up, it became apparent that my friend was not entirely comfortable with the atmosphere. I began to become concerned that I may have given her too much (not actually the case) and concerned that I may be negatively influencing her experience. As I became higher and higher, I suddenly realized that I was not able to omit myself from her reality, and that the more I tried to separate myself, the more decisively I entered her reality. My sober mind was becoming quite confused (marijuana tends to dissociate me a great deal).
I began realizing the experiential linkages between our minds, and it suddenly occurred to me that our links were hypnotic. As this point of view crept deeper into my mind, I realized that I did not in fact know where the control mechanism for our existence was centered, and the more I thought about it the more I realized that awareness was how all information entered the mind- and that therefor it must also be how all "sober control" entered the mind.
Suddenly my mind pondered the thought: "So does that mean that decoding god is actually decoding the control center of a human mind?"
And at that point my mind seemed to shatter. My sober mind was completely confused, to the point that I did not even know what I was saying anymore. My psychedelic mind seemed to be gaining valuable experience but my experiential mind was caught between the two.
My reality was suddenly very possibilistic- it seemed to be multidimensional in a way, like it had been before- but also very different. Having my sober mind attempting to assert itself so flailingly and failingly led my mindstate into one of suspicion instead of revelation. Instead of my uncertainties being composed into certainties, now my certainties were being composed into uncertainties.
Even though I had known my friend for over a year, I began to wonder if she was a police officer. I was aware that there were things about her that I did not know, and I knew that it would have been possible for a police operative to be infiltrated into the job where we met to locate drug users. It was not very realistic in terms of logical thinking (this was a very improbable possibility) but since I knew it was a possibility it was as real as the floor I stood on.
We talked for a while, I do not remember specifics in very much detail, I remember having a great deal of difficulty knowing whether I was the one controlling my own speech or her speech.
As my suspicions took on greater urgency, I decided to call my girlfriend. I was concerned that I may encounter the police, or god, or some other force that would sever me and my girlfriend permanently. I didn't make very much sense on the phone, I seemed to be talking about god, and time, and consequences quite frequently, but I never felt as if I was the one speaking.
The most interesting part of this trip was when I was on the phone: I began to feel a feeling of defeat creeping over me, the inevitability of my capture by whatever ominous force approached. As I relaxed into acceptance of whatever punishment awaited me, my existential mind began identifying less and less with my own voice, and more with the voices of my friend in the room and my girlfriend on the phone.
As I spoke in a calm defeated tone, I felt more and more as though I was actually controlling both my friend and my girlfriend speaking. The order of my thoughts seemed to reverse- I would hear the response they would give, and then say whatever it was I said to evoke it (I had no awareness of any specific thing I said). As I felt my existential mind associating more closely with the voices of the two I spoke to, the strangest thing happened. I began to evoke long chains of identical responses from both parties. It did not strike me as unusual at the time because I believed I was the one speaking, but for an unreasonably long succession both responses were the same words, spoken at the same time, from both people.
It was a long decent back to reality, and I crashed hard after that trip. It was quite exhausting.
--------------------
Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
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