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Hovering Above the Void

2.5 gram L. Burma

I began writing this report at 8 pm on July 10, 2025, the evening after my second psilocybin therapy session (for a TLDR account of my first session and 2-year integration, see “Death by Astonishment” in the Level 4 section). Given my earlier report, I will not repeat my description of the background, set, and setting. The major difference is that I have been integrating my first ego-obliterating, awe-inspiring trip for 25 months and was ready to dive back in (to a slightly shallower area of the pool).

I started writing this second report on my iPhone while sitting at a Chinese restaurant near my home. This sounds mundane, but that is, in fact, the theme of my second session and this report. During the journey, I saw once again shimmering colors, fractal patterns, and experienced reality-melting moments beyond description. But having had a prior psilocybin journey, I was more prepared for what occurred. I neither sought nor experienced ego death; I neither sought nor experienced an encounter with the divine (I would have accepted them both).

My homegrown L. Burma mushrooms mercifully allowed me to stay lucid enough to request from my guide changes in music (to avoid negative thoughts), water, etc. I was able to stay out of the bad trip zone, even as I saw it lurking. Lucky boy, I know! My carefully cultivated playlist turned out to be a dud - an hour into the trip, it became too dark in places for me, and I invited my guide to share her upbeat tracks instead. Even a few of these were too dark, sharp, or piercing, and we settled on the instrumental version of Sting's "Lullaby For An Anxious Child" (very appropriate). Similar light string music was all I could stand to hear (my poor guide had to play DJ a lot).

During the peak of this trip, I briefly hovered above the void. I recall looking down on its threshold from someplace above, feeling its gentle pull. By “void,” I mean the experience of seeing within the endlessly cascading, iridescent, blue-green fractals the place of all knowing, unity, and existence. I knew from my first journey that entering this void for only a moment lasts for all eternity. To enter the void, I knew I would have to let go of everything: self, time, discernment between real and imaginary, physical and mental – in other words, all dualisms. As I hovered above the void, I acknowledged that I had been at its threshold before, aware of what awaits when entering the “gateless gate.” But I had told myself and the mushrooms that I did not necessarily seek ego death or an encounter with the divine, so I did not choose to enter the void, and I was not forced to. Despite great difficulty, I was able to say to my guide something like, “I want to remember that I saw it [the threshold of the void]. It is a secret between us: It knows that I know [what's inside], but it cannot be brought back and [sufficiently] talked about. It is ok; I know it is there. And that’s enough” [my guide has no recollection of these utterances, so it is possible they were a total hallucination].

On July 13, it occurred to me that had I sought to enter the void, I probably would not have been permitted to enter anyhow. As Alan Watts has said:

“You see, it's the same old thing. That is spiritual technology [things like psilocybin]. And the people who want power, who want to get there fast, [say] ‘I want results now.’ The same temperament that wants it in the management of the material world wants it in the management of the spirit spiritual world. … So, we come to the great question: Where is ‘there?’ You’re going to get that? Where is it? What do you want? Where are you going?"

"You therefore come to the knowledge of it [the void] not by trying to possess it, but by faith in and wholehearted assent to the fact that it possesses you. To try to possess it puts you further away from it because it is quite unnecessary; it is like adding legs to a snake or putting red paint on roses. It’s a gift, and you don’t have to feel it to have it because it has you."

Am I disappointed that I did not "break through" during my second journey? Not in the slightest. Having to use the bathroom several times on account of consuming a large amount of water on a hot July day underscored the mundane point: The non-dual void is God's world. As Leonard Cohen once said, quoting his Zen master, "You can't live in God's world. There are no restaurants or toilets."

Turning from the void, I came back to myself as embodied form. I wanted to remember more mundane insights about taking care of my body and mind, loving myself, loving others, and so on. All of this was in the realm of duality, which I recognized at the time but was happy to be engaging with during the session. I was able to remember my three words throughout the journey: trust, surrender, and acceptance (via the unfortunate but easily remembered acronym TSA). Had I entered the void, I know I would not have remembered these words because (as I had experienced during my first astonishing trip) “I,” “remember,” “words,” and everything else would have lost all meaning – only existence itself is experienced in the void (in ways that cannot be fully captured in words, as every mystic since time immemorial has noted).

Still, my second journey was important and insightful. I gained self-assurance that I was able to manage it, even while feeling that I may not return to the medicine for some time (or ever - it just depends whether or not I feel called to it). Re-entry was again challenging, but I did not have a near panic attack. This time, I knew I needed to be very patient as my mind reassembled itself. Talking with my guide was helpful, although a few times I lost the thread of the conversation. One day later, I am still tired and unable to fully concentrate on tasks (which is understandable).

I see this medicine as treating our alienation, and I am now finding it easier today to look people in the eye. I have gained better recognition that I have within me further capacity to love (including loving myself), and that I have been blessed in receiving love from my mother (before I was even born). Helping others might often involve just “showing them some love,” even in the most mundane ways. I therefore have brought back a better recognition of the symmetry between ordinary reality and what I have experienced in the psychedelic realm. I am better recognizing that the mundane and sacred are the same thing, and that “God” may be found at the peak of a mushroom trip and also when parking the car. I hope I can remember this more often. I also have an inner voice that I can listen to, trust, and rely on. The inner and the outer are one, although it is challenging to feel this in everyday life.

Other insights were obtained, but these were rather mundane, so I will spare the reader.

Again, having a skilled guide was essential, and I am grateful for her rituals, wisdom, kindness, attention, and insights. Becoming unmoored from “reality” isn’t something I necessarily enjoy or am prepared to do alone (at least until I die). I can appreciate how easily it could become a terrifying experience. I am in awe of those who can journey to such places alone and return free of psychosis or PTSD. Good luck to all those who travel. Stay safe.

Guides Notes and Partial Transcript [lightly edited by the author]

“The colors, they are back, the iridescent, beautiful colors on the background of the blackness of the eye mask… I’ve been waiting for you (tears).”

“What if they have been waiting for me!?! I love you (tears). I’ll accept whatever you want.”

“Why wouldn’t they be here to show me love? Love is fine, it’s wonderful.”

“I see a white crane surrounded by blues and greens.”

“It’s okay to slow down [telling myself].”

“Tears [holding self] ... I [can] just love myself so much. My mother loved me, and my father too. I can love myself too. And take care of myself.”

“I picked the piano [music] because I knew I wanted to dance and move.”

“Just dance to all of it! You don’t have to wait for the fucking happy ones [songs], just dance to all of it! [dancing, crying, being so free].

“[I] can take care of [myself]. I can love [myself] as much as my mom and dad loved me.”

“I am so blessed to be loved, and I’m so grateful for it.”

“[Riding the colors] It’s so beautiful; it’s so Goddamn beautiful.”

“We’re here for such a short time, why not just enjoy it?”

-- I believe it was around this point when I was hovering above the void, in silence, for just a moment. --

“Even in your workday, take time to soothe yourself, to feel alive.”

“The mushrooms are telling me that it’s okay to be this deeply relaxed and refreshed and to remember this feeling of deep relaxation.”

-- Skittering slowly back into reality. --

“I didn’t see God, but God told me to take it fuckin’ easy.”

“At 50 years old, it’s time to learn how to deeply relax.”

-- Effects lessening. --

Guide: “There’s nothing like the first time.” [after reminiscing about the first trip]

“I could love my partner the same way my mother loved me.”

“My best is unattainable.” [talk toward the end of the trip]

Integration

Your Mate Tom on YouTube once said that taking psychedelics without integration work is like "spiritual masturbation." Therefore, I aim to integrate my second session in the following ways:

Begin an approach to meditation practice as a way to have fun and relax.
Bring the question, "How could I 'show some love' in this situation?" to my awareness as another way to remember compassion.
Enjoy my exercise practices.
Try to remember this passage from Alan Watts: "Relaxed people have what in Arabic is called Baraka. It means divine grace but it also means the quality of an old frying pan that has had long years of use and is just perfect. That's Baraka. And there are people like that too, you see. And all these are the great spontaneous virtues that cannot be contrived. See, we can try to produce Baraka by finding some scientific process for artificially antiquing things, for putting patina on bronze in 5 minutes, or pre-aging wine, or something like that. None of it works. It's all phony because this thing can only come in the process of growth. So, you say, 'Well do I have to wait?' But the whole thing is in the waiting.... When you see there is nothing to do but wait, then it happens, but it won't be hurried because the minute you're trying to hurry it, that introduces the one thing that stops it. The miracle, the magic thing is happening all the time but you can't see it when you're trying to get it, and you can still less see it when you're trying to get it fast. So, there is no alternative but to go through to the point of: you can't get it at all. You are going to be you the same slob you've always been. See, you can't change it, and all your good resolutions are just bombast. And then you start to be real."

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