DOSE:	5.0 g	oral	Mushrooms - P. cubensis	(dried)
	2 hits	smoked	Cannabis - Hash

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

I usually do heroic-dose mushroom trips indoors in a secure environment. This time, however, I decided to try an experiment outdoors since the summer weather was wonderful and the site was a lonely beach. I'd been there once before in the company of an archaeologist friend to look at an ancient canoe run and petroglyphs. He claimed one of the petroglyphs referred to a ritual site where transformations in a supplicant's life could occur.

This time I couldn't find the petroglyphs, probably because the tide was coming in and they were below water. But a transformation occurred all the same.

Shade was at a premium on this beach since fenced railroad tracks divided the rocky shore from the steep wooded cliff behind it. Only one small thicket of insect-eaten birch saplings and blackberry vines provided protection from the sun. There I found a driftwood shelter, a fire pit, and thick plank to sit on. The view to the west and north was excellent. In the far distance I could see a few people clam-digging. So far, so good. I felt the need to clean up the two cigarette packages and a butt left behind by the previous guest and made a small fire of them while offering a prayer to the ancient spirits of this place, asking that I be allowed to visit in peace because my quest was for wisdom. Perhaps I should have brought some tobacco to carry the prayer to the spirit world but I don't smoke, so my hope was that the fuel for the fire would serve as a substitute.

I also inhaled a few tokes of hash bud and let the smoke support my prayer. Now prepared as well as possible, I drank the sacred tea and waited. The first thing I noticed was a prehistoric-looking, abstract future-primitive face in the largest fire-pit rock. It seemed neutral in its expression, but then loud buzzing came from the thicket I was enclosed in. Bees or wasps were encroaching. However, I didn't let them bother me. But then the insect-eaten leaves silhoutted against the summer-blue sky started looking ominous; at one point I thought something dark was rapidly approaching from my left but then assumed it was just a branch moving in the breeze.

Gradually it became clear that something was putting a lot of pressure on me to move as quickly as possible away from my chosen vigil site: I was not welcome there. I became cold on this hot July day and decided to warm myself in the sun. But first I decided to present my case again by silently stating that I would not tolerate any intrusion on my psyche and that I came in peace.

Before I made it 20 feet toward the water I became aware that I was no longer 'me.' Instead, I was an alien being from another world who had possessed my body. Making a 360-degree circumspection, the entire planetary landscape had changed such that the huge evergreen trees screening the cliff face, the rocky beach, the glittering sea, the sun and clouds in the blue, blue sky, everything belonged to an alien world. 'It' seemed experienced at this sort of thing but was fumbling a bit looking for the 'controls' to the its new psychosomatic unit. It's self-image was something like the alien in the Schwarzenegger film, Predator, totally silent, all business and on a mission. Then the realization struck that the alien world was actually Earth as seen through alien eyes.

Something deep within though made an effort to remember my name, address, and telephone number in order not to lose itself completely. It was odd how there was no barrier or borderline between the alien and 'myself.' And yet, the earlier warning started to ring louder in my ears, so I headed back to the site and rapidly packed up and headed out. Then the voices started.

I couldn't quite translate the language, just bits of vowel pairs were actually distinguished. However, I knew what they meant. The voices were jeering, insulting, calling me a coward and a fool. Typically, I didn't react to this sort of attack and just keep up my determined and steady effort to move out. Once or twice I tried to mentally reply in order to maintain my dignity as an equal and a yogi psychonaut. Big mistake. The source of the voices made it known its power was greater than mine and I felt intimidated to the point where I clearly saw myself as weak and lacking the integrity to resist. Perhaps I should have taken the time to question this mental image. Nothing like panic was happening, but I felt a strong need to get back home, so I climbed back up the cliff (where a man passed me on the path who looked uncannily like myself when younger; a voice pointed out how he averted my glance) found my car and started to drive through unfamiliar neighbourhoods until I could find streets I recognized. This proved to be more difficult than I'd anticipated: I'd lost the ability to read street signs and nothing looked like anything I'd seen before. So I just followed my intuition but kept asking myself, 'Should I be driving right now?' I saw that this was a matter of faith and continued. Once I got closer to home, the air pollution on the highway was choking and I couldn't wait to breathe freely again.

The voices sounded in my mind undiminished until I made it into the house. Before I describe what happened then, I should make it clear that there seemed to be another more subtle spirit at the beach, one I came to call 'grandmother' and visualized as a medicine woman. She showed me in quick visual flashes that, spiritually, I am a small boy and that I should not get into mischief. She was very stern but loving so I followed her direction. It seemed she was responsible for giving me the wherewhithal to get out of immediate danger. But after I left the beach, I was on my own.

Back home, feeling somewhat roughed up, I cooled myself out and tried to get into a space where my search for wisdom could continue, since the voices had left.

I had several visions and personal insights, one of which was of the vast population of humanity cresting like waves on the shore of time. I saw how family relationships are so important to the working-out of this process, and how women are emanations of the feminine principle. I saw their suffering and how the ignorance from which it springs is a necessary part of our human evolution. I came to realize my own position as an individual in this cresting wave and how my solitary path is just 'the way it is' for me. With it came peace and the knowledge that all is well. I spent some time reading 'Gnani Yoga' by Swami Ramacharaka, written 100 years ago and understood much more than I'd gleaned from a previous reading.

This trip was high adventure indeed. What I came back with was a clear image of my actual self in the concensus reality, something like the Fool of the Tarot. And I experienced the being of an alien life form as my own, something awesome and unforgettable. I wonder what would have happened if I'd stood my ground at the beach. Perhaps, I wouldn't be telling the story now if I had. But just perhaps, if my spiritual development was more advanced, a total transformation would have been the gift of the spirits.

Note: Terence and Dennis McKenna make the case in 'The Invisible Landscape' that the brain is a kind of frequency modulator or tuner that can channel information from anywhere in the hyperspatial universe. I've come to share this point of view based on experience. Mushroom experiences especially leave in their wake increased dreaming abilities and these dreams are often telepathic in nature because I often find myself as both someone else and 'me.' The experience on the beach was the first time a being from another world shared 'my' psychic space. My advice: forewarned is not necessarily forearmed.

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 16203
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 1, 2005	Views: 16,036
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Alone (16), Personal Preparation (45), Entities / Beings (37), Nature / Outdoors (23), Mystical Experiences (9), Difficult Experiences (5)