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Fear and the Way Through
Mushrooms - P. cubensis & Meditation
Citation:   Anandarah. "Fear and the Way Through: An Experience with Mushrooms - P. cubensis & Meditation (exp116559)". Erowid.org. Aug 10, 2022. erowid.org/exp/116559

 
DOSE:
2 - 3 g oral Mushrooms - P. cubensis
BODY WEIGHT: 170 lb
Fear. Intense, every moment present. A twisted knot in the pit of my belly, maybe my heart..somewhere in between?

My first kid has just been born- 4 months old now and beautiful. Perfectly healthy, so adorable and I love him so much. His mom, my partner, the woman of my dreams. So why am I experiencing so, so much fear? I try to sort this out, understand, and I seem to get nowhere- no insight into the fear I feel, its reason for being.

I had had experiences in the past with a few mind altering substances that had deeply shifted my way of being, of thinking, of feeling for the better- new awareness of subtleties of language, the spirit of grace, my connection to water and flow, for example. In an attempt to sort out the source of my fear, I decided that I would, one evening, dive in to meditation with the aid of one of these substances. With my previous experiences of healing and transformation with different substances I believed that it could be possible to use them consciously to work through this issue in some way, find some relief, some insight.

Preparing the setting wasn’t difficult as my partner and I had a very supportive relationship at this point and kept our place neat, tidy and beautiful. Set was easy too, as I was feeling supported and safe and so confident that I would, at the very least, experience something positive, if not enlightening.

Once we got our kiddo to bed, I sat down to partake and begin my inward dive. In they go, one, two, three, and then I’m chewing and they are earthy, but taste somewhat gentle compared to some more potent flavoured ones. I think it was somewhere between 2 and 3 grams I ate that night. Sitting at the dining room table, with Shpongle playing quietly in the background, I close my eyes and begin. I first breathe as I’ve learned through meditation practice- in and out with ease, allowing the breath to be what it is. I meditate on fear and more specifically the question of what the source of it is.

The come up is slow in this state, though I do feel more sensitive than I often have at this point due to my deeper sense of presence in the meditation. As I come up I notice sensations beginning to build in my chest; a sense of containment around my whole body- as though my skin is the walls of a cave and my eyes and mouth are the doorway and all around within is me. Centered on this question of fear and its source, I’m still listening, open, hoping for a clear understanding. The come up continues and, though gradual, Eureka! It is me! I am the source of my fear! This awareness comes from somewhere in my heart area and is not a thought, but a sensing/feeling/being/knowing. It’s not that I can think it, but that I experience the realness of it.

So not more than an hour into this journey, I have the answer I’ve come for! I am so excited- just beginning to come up and already I’ve found the answer I was looking for!

Looking back now I see how much more deeply I could have gone in to this- I could have gone so much more deeply into what within me is the source, and why do I create it in the first place. But alas, much too excited by the initial discovery, I gave myself the freedom to ‘party’ instead. I went in to our bedroom to share with my partner the good news. She was glowing and seemed so happy to hear what I had found, but when I looked at her it seemed that something was pushing out from under her skin and it looked like parts of her face would push out at me. It was quite unnerving and so, being relatively put together still I said “I’m going to go look at the stars for a while.”

I find myself outside and, at whatever time it was that night, the stars were bright. Perhaps due to the effects of the substance I was on, there were many more stars visible to me than normal in our neighbourhood. Tonight they moved. They moved in such chaos I couldn’t comprehend it. It wasn’t just a dance, it was a frenzy. Each star, instead of a little dance as I’d seen before, was rocketing across the sky in every and any direction. It looked like the sky was a storm of laser like movement, each star moving so fast they looked like lines. And in the instant of the most intense chaos I seemed to move from my body to beyond the bounds of the universe. So fast that I didn’t register what I was seeing, what was happening.

Suddenly it was completely quiet and peaceful. I was in a space (for that’s all I can say it was) of non-light, as though I was in a non-place that only became a place when exposed to the presence of consciousness. No thing around, no sky, no ground, there was a sense of uprightness but no external thing to reference to. I suddenly became aware of a swirling orb in from of me. I have no concept of the distance it was from me, nor it’s size. I had no sense of a body. I watched this swirling orb for a time and slowly began to pick out pinpricks of light and swirlings of colours and shapes within me. In awe, I observed until my ‘eyes’ widened in amazement. I am looking at the universe! Oh my god- that’s the universe! And as I realized this, I noticed tendrils coming off of the spinning universe. It looked as though they were actually going in to it as my awareness travelled along them. The tendrils reminded me of the arms of the milky way galaxy, but instead of spreading out from the center, these seemed to feed it, to add to it.

Well, I followed the tendrils and saw abruptly that they ended, or more accurately, began, somewhere near the center of what appeared to be 5 to 7 cloaked and hooded beings. Shocked to see anything that resembled a person here, I realized that the hood hid whatever was inside them completely. I somehow became aware of a sound, so subtle that I only slowly could make it out. It became apparent to me as I listened and watched that the sound was something like a chant and it was coming from each of the cloaked beings as the tendrils of the universe came out of their hoods. Suddenly I had the sensation, the awareness that I had been a note, or melody, or at the very least some sort of piece or part of this chant! I had been, perhaps, a melody in the chant of creation and now was in the realm of the creators! I realized in that moment multiple things- I had been a part of their song, I was now in their realm and most amazingly, had a voice that could also chant, and perhaps chant universe into existence as well! And in the moment I became aware of this, I was shot back down into my body in what seemed an instant.

Suddenly back in my body, down here on earth, I stood there, still staring up at the stars. Nearly normal again, they danced a little in their places, but not with such a frenzy, and only tiny distances from their center space. I can’t hear the chanting anymore, nor see the hooded beings. In my minds eye it was all still there- the whole experience, but the immersion in it was gone.

This journey has had a profound effect on me. It is as if something was woken up within me, or created in me through this journey. I believe the former. Soon after this journey I had a dream that seemed quite connected to the sound creation aspect and I found myself more and more inclined to use my voice in potentially violent situations. Not to talk to people but to chant, so quietly that the people around me couldn’t hear it. The results were stunning. I’d see people fighting and as I walked up chanting, they would get further and further apart. I’d see people in intense emotional distress on the bus and chant with a hope for peace inside, and in minutes see them shift into chatting with the driver and laughing. This journey with sound and creation has been powerful and though now, as a parent with two kids and less opportunity, I still feel the power of the chant and am inspired to dig deeper into both the fear source and the creation source.

Exp Year: 2022ExpID: 116559
Gender: Not Specified 
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Aug 10, 2022Views: 347
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66), Meditation (128) : Entities / Beings (37), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), General (1), Alone (16)

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