DOSE:

3 g

oral

Mushrooms

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

I am writing this a few hours after my spiritual voyage with the sacred mushroom (Psilocybe cubensis). This is not my first experience with this ally. In previous encounters, I discovered worlds I did not know could possibly exist, and these experiences completely changed my orientation towards life. But I would say that they only acquainted me with the psychedelic realm; I had only gotten my toes wet up until today. I say this not because those experiences were any less profound, mind-shattering, or important to who I am as a person, but because I really wasn’t prepared for them in the way I was for today’s journey. Following those experiences, which also included numerous other ones with allies like LSD and DMT, I took a roughly two year break to integrate what I had learned. Notably, I became acquainted with the palette of philosophies and religions of the Far East, totally new to me, which helped frame my experiences incalculably better than my Western tradition did. In addition, I started a semi-regular meditation practice to cultivate equanimity of mind, a skill I certainly lacked. Armed with these new skills and tools, along with a much more intentional, planned, and ceremonial approach, I had a highly productive and beneficial trip. As any psychonaut or spiritual traveler knows, these journeys are ineffable and difficult to lay out in linear prose. What follows is my best attempt at recalling the journey.
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I set up an altar and blanket on my backyard lawn to serve as a point of departure and resting space for the experience. After the initial ceremony, I ingested the tea I made from 3 grams of powdered cubensis (about 11:00 AM). I sat upright and assumed a meditative awareness. Within 20 minutes or so, I already began to feel the effects – an increased heart rate, a tingling throughout my limbs, and a shifting external perception. After I relieved myself in the nearby ferns, I felt like lying down, and did so. It’s hard to remember exactly what I was feeling in the next moments other than a vague sense of ego-dissolution; my awareness certainly felt less connected to my physical body. I can’t say it was a pleasant sensation, but I was intent on letting go nonetheless.

I noticed myself feeling chilled and shivering despite wearing a sweater. I decided to get up and move into the sun. I could barely walk correctly. The external world was moving and shimmering quite a bit, and my sense of self was becoming very fractured. Sitting down in a chair, staring at my orange tree and the plants surrounding it, with a juniper hedge behind me, I felt as though my consciousness was a collective of all of the living beings around me, each one expressing itself through my being. The orange tree and company felt like allies, while the shadowy area under the junipers behind me felt like a source of evil. I felt vaguely under attack, and noticeably anxious. This is where I embodied the archetype of the oppressed hero, leading his plant kin out of darkness and towards a hopeful future. A song came to my mind with lyrics to the effect of “We are one, we are together, and we will prevail.” I felt like I had found my true self. Closing my eyes, I saw fractal geometric objects moving and turning in symmetry, and changing colors with my emotions. Within the sides of these shapes, I could see dozens of smiling faces looking back at me. It reminded me strongly of the final canyon sequence of MGTM’s music video for “When You Die.” I realized I was communicating with the part of myself ordinarily reserved for the dream state. I was impressed by how quickly the effects were coming on.

I should note at this point that there was quite a bit of construction going on in my neighborhood today, especially across the alley from my backyard. These external stimuli became a very important element during the remainder of the trip. I became acutely aware of all the noises around me including the wind, birds, dogs, and especially the construction. Every thought, feeling, and perception I experienced in my mind seemed inextricably connected to the noises around me, and vice versa. In fact, they weren’t really just noises anymore, but expressions of good or bad vibrational energies. When I perceived a particular energy within my own mind, there came an instantaneous and corollary change in the vibration of the surrounding environment, as if one was conducting the other. With darkness came aggressive dog barks; ominous bird caws; and saws, hammers, and nail guns. With light came gentle breeze, happy bird chirping, and a sense of general peace. Were the sounds evoking the energies in my mind, or vice versa? I don’t think there was ever a separation to begin with; the energies came and went through me and my environment simultaneously.

At what must have been at least an hour into the trip, I was firmly removed from normal egoic consciousness, and engaged in what I can only describe as the realm of the collective unconsciousness. I also felt increasingly under assault by the aggressive energies entering my awareness. I eventually could not distinguish between external noises and what I thought were possible auditory “hallucinations” in my head (but which felt like incredibly real and malicious spirits). I began to wonder whether or not I was losing my mind to some degree (and this actually gave me a profound glimpse into what must be the perception of a “schizophrenic” mind). I tried to get up and move around, but my body felt incredibly weak, so I resigned to lying in the sunny grass, now engaged in a battle for my psyche with the demons that had arisen from my subconscious. Although the warmth of the sun felt nice, I could feel the rays burning my skin, and so I decided to move back to my blanket next to the altar.

The sense of losing my mind became increasingly apparent. “What’s the difference between what I experience inside my mind and what is occurring outside it?” I wondered. “Is my entire reality a figment of my imagination? Will I someday wake up to a completely new one where I have been labeled clinically insane by my family members?” I decided that if this were so, then there was nothing I could do about it, and I allowed myself to let go completely. If I am crazy, so be it. I am still here, and nothing can change that.

After about 2 or 3 hours from ingestion now, I had finally reached plateau (this is an estimate, because I had absolutely no sense of time by then), I have tried to remain objective in my description of this experience so far, so if the following account seems completely subjective or ridiculous, forgive me. It felt as objectively “real” as the reality we are experiencing now, so I will describe it as such….Over the next hour or so, my ego was finally vanquished and the anxious tension that had welled up inside me transmuted into a blissful ecstasy. I remembered who I am. Who we are. I/We (because there really isn’t a difference) remembered that we are the ground of being. Some call it God, Tao, Atman, but it really doesn’t matter what you call it. It is the eternal awareness that resides in everything. I (again, this pronoun is just a placeholder; the sense of “I” encompassed everything in the field of my awareness) became aware that I am an eternal being playing roles and games in all the manifestations of life, from minerals, plants, animals, cities, cars, humans, and every other element that comprises my life. In fact, everything that I had typically considered “other” or the “environment” is a direct reflection of my internal consciousness. When my consciousness focuses on any particular theme, motif, idea, goal, or attitude, no less than the entire universe follows suit. If I focus on war, the world will focus on war. If I focus on peace and love, the world will focus on peace and love. I remembered certain events that had occurred in the days or weeks preceding my awakening, and I realized that they manifested as a direct result of my consciously (or subconsciously) directed attention at them. For example, my reading and commenting on a Reddit post about someone desperate to escape nihilism a few days prior was the result of my own subconscious mind trying to engage with my conscious one. Whether or not there was an actual, “separate” person behind that internet post is irrelevant. The fact that it occurred in my consciousness was a result of my own doing; “I” conjured it into existence. I realized that “I” am everything, experiencing itself from the vantage point of pure conscious awareness, which is the same everywhere. I am simply an infinite and continuous energy, flowing through and directing every manifestation of physical reality. I was no longer under the illusion that I only reside inside a human body, or that I have a particular identity. Suddenly everything made sense. My mind raced through its memories of events and ideas, connecting them together and understanding that they all emanated from the same source. Ideas, attitudes, and platitudes like “it’s just a people thing” (a quote from Joe Rogan about vegans, lol…), “always was, always will be,” “that’s just how it is,” and countless others bounced around my consciousness, clearly carrying the exact same sentiment – a sentiment that embodied the deepest truth of reality, that there is only a single, united energy in the universe. I also realized that past events are caused equally as much by present and future events as the other way around. Everything derives from this moment, because there is literally nothing else.

Every element of my experience reflected a fundamental archetype of reality. The self, the elm tree above me that acted as my axis-mundi, the orange tree and grass that provided food and habitat, the house I lived in, and even minor elements like the smell of incense and the ceremonial objects around me all seemed to be fundamental qualities of existence itself, as if they had always been there and always would be wherever my soul traveled in time and space. I understood that “the human” is the highest expression of nature, that humans are the most fulfilled expression of the universal self, and that all of reality, including the earth and its myriad vegetable, mineral, and animal beings, support them in their endeavors. I saw that all humans of all times and places are essentially a manifestation of the same creative desire, and who possess the same fundamental fears, hopes, faults, and aspirations. The aspiration of Western industrial culture is, at its most fundamental level, no different than the aspiration of the Native Americans that I so often idealize. We are all after the same essential end, though our means may vary. The world I lived in, though flawed, was incredibly beautiful. I felt extremely happy simply to be alive in it, and no longer felt shame in being part of a “destructive” culture. All of life is destructive. But it is always in balance as well; it’s simply a matter of perspective. There is no need to fret over the details. We are constantly in search of a future that will never come, forgetting that ultimate contentment can only ever be found in the present moment.

Somewhere during all of this, I became acutely aware of how the energy of my heart, my embodied, non-cognitive awareness, flowed seamlessly with the energy of my greater reality, just like how I previously described the sounds of my environment correlating with my internal perceptions. This time, though, I could feel intensely how the living beings around me, especially plants, insects, and animals, responded to my energy. When I felt uptight, anxious, or apprehensive, the other beings would be repelled from me. Often, this was also accompanied by the dog barks and loud construction noises I described before. A general sense of anger, fear, and disintegration dominated the ether when I resisted a particular urge or flow of energy. When I finally let go and allowed them to go where they wanted, suddenly the entire energetic atmosphere shifted, and the living beings (especially the trees) in my environment reached out and connected with me, rejoicing in a deep harmony that nourished everything. “This is how we must live with the planet,” I thought, “in total trust and acceptance of whatever expresses itself.” At one point, I allowed myself to let go so deeply into this harmonic energy that an incredibly powerful and magnetic force seemed to coalesce around me. Strong winds swept through the yard, creating a loud din of leaf and branch rustling, and several animals, including birds, squirrels, and tiny insects gathered towards me in mesmerized curiosity. I was lying on my back, and turning my head to one side, I saw a family of squirrels running around me. One of them stood about fifteen feet away, staring straight into my soul, and I into his…I kid you not…he looked like a little kid who wanted to play with me. It was probably the most magical thing I have ever experienced. When I would look up into the trees during these moments, the foliage seemed alive, green, and flourishing. And when I resisted out of fear or anxiety, I saw them as old, sickly, and dying. I swear I saw green leaves where there had once been dead branches, as one mode of awareness shifted to the other. “It’s all a matter of perspective!” I thought once again. I realized that he idea of parallel universes as well as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle echoed fundamental truths of consciousness.

I knew then that I create my own reality, through and through. I can be anything I wish to be. Literally anything is possible; I am truly God in the sense of omnipotent creator. Build an empire and rule the earth? Go for it. Travel to the moon? If you wish. Become a jaguar? It’s only a thought away. I can travel inner space, outer space, and the four corners of this physical plane simply by traveling there with my imagination. And if this whole “human” thing is too boring, I can destroy it all and start a whole new universe from scratch, like the gods of ancient myth. Perhaps I realized, in a way, that the mind is as powerful as anything else in the physical universe. There really is no difference anyway, it seemed. I felt incredibly powerful knowing this. However, I then recalled the concept of yin/yang. This was not a new concept to me, but I had never felt it to be so real on such a deep level. Every action you take in this world has an equal and opposite reaction, I remembered; there is no spiritual free lunch. Every good comes with bad, and vice versa. Pleasure begets pain, joy begets suffering, and success begets failure. But perhaps, I thought, if “I” (the eternal, universal awareness) am experiencing joy, what does it matter that there is pain on the other end? How can it be real if “I” am not experiencing it? It soon became clear, however, that if “I” am able to delight in joy at the expense of “others,” I am still experiencing the pain on the other end, simply removed by time and space. There is no real separation, after all. It will always come back to you. On top of this, I saw how although my potential is infinite, I am restricted to a certain degree by cosmic inertia, or what some might call karma. It is much easier to move from A to B than A to Z in one step, and the harder you try to force your will, the harder the universe will push back. Infinity comes with checks and balances!

I saw my soul’s timeline of manifestations – the path of karmic travels that echoes forever into the past and which streams forever into the future. I saw that while remaining still at the deepest level, I have been and always will be changing my form, like sitting in an eternally still boat on top of an eternally shifting river. And the great driver of this motion, I knew, was the back-and-forth play of yin and yang. I felt how this dynamic tension or friction between up and down, black and white, existence and nonexistence, good and evil, etc., creates the energy that spawns life itself. When reality is in a state of pain, suffering, darkness, or dissatisfaction, a dis-ease will propel it to seek pleasure, joy, light, and satisfaction. But once this is achieved, a new dis-ease, usually boredom, will take its place and propel reality back to where it started. I felt each state and its accompanying emotion fill me, become dissatisfied and move onto the next state of being, only to find itself in the exact same place. I experienced this cycle, the wheel of samsara, turn for what seemed like ages. I soon realized, in fact, that “I” am responsible for both the good and the bad. As Alan Watts would say, “Be careful when you tell yourself you are going to outwit the devil, because who do you think the devil is?” I realized that I am both god and devil, responsible for my own undoing, as it were, because without this perpetual threat of bad, there would be no good. Nothing would have a quality one way or the other. Each has a hand on the steering wheel of the karmic boat, and when one steers one way, the other steers it back. And thus I am always in balance. My mind raced ahead in time, seeing how every pursuit ultimately goes nowhere. I am always here, so what use is it to try going anywhere else? I allowed myself to simply be where I was, where I always had been, and where I always will be, watching this eternal back-and-forth motion. I felt stuck in a way, not sure how to proceed.

Although I felt somewhat cursed by this incredibly profound insight, I took solace in the fact that I could just simply be, without having to do anything. It felt very peaceful to let go. It was during this time that I lost whatever sense of social anxiety I might have had before. I no longer cared what my neighbors might think of me, or how they might react to my own actions. I felt confident, in fact, that if I maintained this energy of peace and acceptance, that we would naturally bond. Hearing some construction workers speak in a foreign language, I felt I could understand them regardless, since we both spoke a common language of the heart. There really is nothing to be afraid of! I laughed out loud. Even if our actions our futile, we can at least enjoy the ride together, I thought.

Now lying in the sun, although I felt at peace, I knew that in order to get out of this yin/yang, karma, samsara conundrum, I would have to willingly forget everything I had just learned. I would have to make a deal with the devil, so to speak, and sell away my newfound knowledge in order to return to ordinary reality. The phrase “pick your poison” came to mind. Until I did this, I thought, I would be stuck watching this cycle turn forever. I had to make the decision to become a separate entity again. “Who should I choose to be now?” I thought. “What part in the story should I play next? Well, the one I was playing wasn’t so bad. What should my name be? W, of course.” Slowly I regained my normal sense of self, and my ego started re-integrating. It was about 3:00 PM. I walked into my house, still a little dazed, and greeted my cat after what had seemed a lifetime. Going outside again and sitting under the elm tree, I felt refreshed, born anew. I was so thankful to be back. “Life is so beautiful!” I exclaimed. “Thank you, sacred mushroom! Thank you so much!”
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Going into the trip, I set three intentions: healing, learning, and fun. The mushroom sure as hell showed me a good time! Not only did it help me heal parts of my subconscious that I had trouble accessing without it, but it also taught me a great deal about myself. I think the most important lesson I learned was that I am not my current ego, identity, or manifestation, and that there is no need to be afraid of danger or evil. “You” will always come out the other end, even if you end up dying in the process. Second of all, there is no need to get hung up on any state of being, no matter how good or bad it looks. Nothing lasts forever, and life is constantly in flux. Life is perpetually in balance. There’s no need to hold on to anything! Third of all, the mind creates at least half of the world we experience. We are truly masters of our own reality. Our thoughts, attitudes, and intentions affect everything, spoken aloud or not. Fourth of all, humans are fundamentally a natural expression of nature itself, and we are meant to be here. We all share a common spirit, even if our cultures vary greatly. Fifth of all, the living world around us is tuned in to our psychic energies on an incredibly deep level. If we can learn to be open to it rather than approach it with fear, we will find the answers to our ecological crisis. Sixth of all, I don’t have to be as socially anxious as I have been in the past. It’s ok to express myself and be open with others. More often than not, this openness is met with respect and reciprocal openness. Seventh and finally, there really is nothing more important than family and community. We’re all in this together.

Going out of this experience, I am setting three more intentions: to continue my meditation practice to further develop the skill of equanimity, to approach others with an attitude of openness and acceptance to the best of my ability, and to not get too hung up on the inevitable change that occurs to everything and everybody in this universe. Overall, I am really proud of myself for being able to face down my demons and come out the other end, and of how well I managed to let go during the experience of ego-death. I have grown a lot in the two or three years since my previous mushroom encounter, when the same kind of experience left me very scared and confused. I am a better, stronger, wiser, and more integrated person after today’s trip. I’m sure it won’t be the last!

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 111999
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Jun 5, 2018	Views: 903
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