Background:
I’ve only used cubensis mushrooms by themselves. I’d only used Syrian Rue extract by itself. I had never tried DMT. I knew that Syrian Rue was an MAOI that would intensify and lengthen the effects of shrooms and DMT. I am apparently very resistant to hallucinogens. As an example: I get very minor visuals only at about 7 grams (dried) or higher. I was taking only 4grams of mushrooms this trip because I had heard MAOI’s can nearly double the effects. I had 9 dried grams once and it was manageable, but I didn’t want to have the equivalent of 9 grams this time because I was mixing them with other substances and I did not know how they’d interact.
Consumption:
I had read that Syrian Rue took effect within 20-30 minutes. I had not eaten for 8 hours to ensure my stomach was empty. At about 9:15pm I drank the rue. At about 10pm I completed eating the shrooms. They had been powdered and soaking in a jar of honey for about a week. They are very tolerable consumed this way.
At about 11:30 I wasn’t feeling anything so I tried to lay down in bed beside my wife. Right before then I poured out around 80mg of DMT powder and licked it off a spoon. I had never taken DMT before. I had tried smoking it once but like many people find it can take a few attempts to get that right. I haven’t yet.
Setting:
I waited until the spousal unit was snoring strong, and at around midnight snuck out of bed to go to my man cave. This is a large basement room with the windows covered by insulation boards, many sound-absorbing panels, and a very nice 6-speaker sound system. I settled on the Vidna Obmana (ambient) channel and set it to 7-channel stereo. My ears get very sensitive so I set the volume fairly low. But it felt very immersive and atmospheric.
I could scream my brains out here and no one could hear me except maybe my wife upstairs. It is a safe, relaxing place. I lay on the futon and waited.
Stage 1: Music became transportation
At about 1am the music brought me great joy. More importantly, the music was changing channels in my mind. What I mean is my consciousness molded itself to the texture of the music. More dark music would bring a really strong change in my perception from more upbeat music. Lots of primal drumming would bring energy and power to my mind while fluid, droning tones would bring relaxation and a sense of peace. Sometimes it was like my mind was floating in an ocean of sound.
My perception of time slowed. There was only “now” and musical pieces seemed to last a LONG time. But as psilocybin typically works, there were lots of peaks and troughs of effects. I often felt like there was no effect at all.
Stage 2: HI! (The perception of entities)
I can’t say when this started. The waves of hallucinogenic effect got stronger and stronger and longer and longer until I felt thrust into some new mental space.
I never “see” anything. People talk about seeing entities or glowing lights or whatever. This has never happened for me. My feeling is that some perceptions of entities are actually just parts of myself I experience in a kind of dissociative way. And the rest…? I just can’t say. I can only say what I perceive, so that’s what I’ll do here.
For me, hallucinogens are like transportation. The best way I can make sense of what I experience is this: Reality, for me, is all mental space. In trips I sense that minds of a certain nature gather in the same place. I sense there are many many places in Reality, and trillions of minds out there. Many are incorporeal/ transdimensional/ whatever.
So when I take enough psilocybin, my mind gets pushed out to “somewhere else.” Not always the same place, as far as I can tell. It’s like traveling in a foreign city blind. I say I “hear” things but really they’re thoughts that feel foreign, or the feeling of a presence followed by thoughts I do not recognize as my own. Sometimes I hear myself speak and it is not me thinking or organizing the words that get expressed.
On this trip, I feel myself traveling and then BAM! I feel myself in the presence of other consciousnesses. “Hi, everybody!” I say. I open myself up to them and make myself available to whatever connection they are willing to make. Over the course of about an hour I probably feel 10-15 entities brush against my mind and exchange thoughts. A couple of them are not exactly surprised but find me a bit odd: “You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?” one says, referring to my move of opening myself up to them. “Not really,” but they understand I am not afraid, either.
Remember I said I believed that my mind is transported places with like-minded beings, or with beings that match some vibration or nature. So embracing fear would put me somewhere there is something to be afraid of, or around entities where there is lots of fear. I don’t want that and I’m thankful this has not happened in my trips so far.
Stage 3: Connection
There are a few minds that seem to hang around me (or I’m hanging around them). As the hallucinogenic effects increase, so do my feelings of connection. At one point opening my body and mind to them I feel one or more have entered me and they are kind of looking out through my body as if looking through a window to our world. I’m like a small submarine tour, I guess. They are still kind of “amazed” that I would let them do this and feel almost wary of taking advantage but I assure them it’s ok.
The potential to connect feels like it’s increasing, and I’m feeling really good. I feel so connected with these beings and “Reality” and everything. I get the sense that these beings are creators, helping create things that have effects from their “level” all the way down to our physical world. One of the things they do is take the energy created by joy and use it to create. I don’t pretend to understand. When I marvel at this they remark “You’re right here with us, Mark, you are just not configured to understand that right now. But you’re co-creating everything with us.”
While in this place there were 1 or more entities that voted “Let’s break it!” He was advocating killing me. This was not a malicious thought. He was not trying to hurt me or cause me pain. He was simply offering that as an option. My visit offered a novel opportunity for them. In thinking about timing my death at that instant, the transition of my consciousness – while connected to entities elsewhere – is mindblowing. I only later understand how this could be an exciting (new/interesting) possibility.
My mind connected with the risks involved: I had mixed several drugs, was not sleeping, and the human body is a frail thing. What would it take for a seizure or heart attack to happen? Probably not much. “NO!” I insisted, “We are not breaking this! We are not dying here tonight! We are keeping this thing alive.” The odd thing is that this certainly was my vote – but my vote was part of a “we.” I felt everyone else agree simultaneously with me that I was to stay alive. I really did see my body and the construct of “Mark” as a thing that we would choose to keep going.
Stage 4: Visitation
I am not going to pretend I understand what I’m about to tell you. And I cannot tell you it is accurate in the sense of Ultimate Truth. I can only share what I perceived.
The entity that is my wife suddenly popped in. She felt like a bright light full of joyful, goofy energy. But her face kept getting projected into my mind with a big smile and unabashed joy. It felt a lot like how holding my wife close to me would feel – but a much more pure and clear vibe of unfettered happiness. I was talking with her. The other minds around me were all ecstatic that she pulled this off.
The perception was that she had to FIND me, then she had to project her human self to me, then connect with me at just the right time. This was no small feat and very rare, apparently. So it not only felt awesome and intimate and amazing, but it felt like it was a special thing. Others were rejoicing in our rare and beautiful moment. I was tearful and full of joy. I could not be any more convinced that my wife’s consciousness was right there with me. I said “Are you going to come downstairs?”…meaning her physical self. Immediately I got the point that she would not remember this event, because “that is not how things work.” The memory wasn’t encoded through her human self, so her human self would not recall it. Within minutes she was gone but it was an incredible experience.
At one point I tried to conceptualize how she could do this at all. I immediately started giggling and getting disoriented. “Stop, Mark! You can’t understand this in your current configuration! Stop reaching for that,” they urged. This was a fast, compact thought that flew through my mind with a sense of urgency.
This kind of discussion took place 2 or 3 other times about curiosities I had. And it seemed to “burn up” a lot of energy when I tried to grasp the unknowable. I got a sense about what kinds of things I could address and what I couldn’t. Basically, anything that my physical mind could not possibly grasp was off limits. Like how I could be a consciousness within a physical body but still connect with disembodied consciousnesses. If I reached for anything incomprehensible like that I would get disoriented and start to leave whatever space I was in. Usually in a fit of giggling. But if I just let the curious thought pass by I was fine.
I’ve had consciousnesses meld with mine in the past. But this merging of minds with my wife was indescribably awesome. And when a consciousness melds with mind it briefly leaves a residual imprint behind. Like wine that coats a glass after you’ve drank from it. Even after she left I felt little bits of her that remained behind. I do not know how to describe this.
The beings there explained that joy was a construction material. “We can build whole worlds with the joy you’ve just radiated.” It became more and more clear that all of Reality is pure consciousness. Everything that exists (physical and nonphysical) is a projection, creation, force, or consequence of consciousness. Some being or beings were involved in its existence or happening. And all consciousness is linked in some way. Everything from a fart to a karate kick is to a solar storm are part of an enormous complex reciprocal system of co-creation. We are all - always - creating. That was the perception.
“Clusters” of harmonious and compatible minds work together. Compatibility is important as you will see. If I tried to understand how separate clusters can connect and coordinate with one another I was sure I would have been a giggling mess.
I did not learn anything specific about sorrow, or pain. My sense was that joy creates energy, and other things like sadness or pain consume energy. And it is this undefinable energy that is everything.
Stage 5: You Can’t Bring Them With You
I began thinking about friends and family that I would want to share this view of Reality with. I imagined introducing them to hallucinogens or these ideas or whatever. I thought I could share my joy with them and they would experience it. I imagined bringing them with me here to this wonderful place. At one point I thought of a friend and I heard loudly in my head “YOU CANNOT BRING HIM HERE!” It was a strong, sudden message. The thought of this friend, & the connection I tried to create to his mind, was incompatible with these beings. The other friends I had thought of could possibly visit this place, apparently. With some time or some life experiences. But this one friend absolutely had no place there as far as these entities were concerned. I had to distract myself and think of something else completely just to stay among them. I think they helped me do so.
This strong, whiplash reaction was completely unexpected. I could feel the waves of psilocybin returning, and its power going down. I would not stay here much longer. It was at this point that they related back to my earlier act of opening myself up to them so they could experience my body and consciousness. About this they said “You throw the best parties.” I asked if others know this and the response felt very clear “No. Only those who come to your parties know how good they are.” And then they added “You parties are so good because you know who to keep out.” And I got the image of a bouncer at a club.
This message would be even more meaningful later.
Stage 6: Descending to home
My mind began to feel less connected to that realm and the music began to take center stage. A dark, ambient piece was playing and it really was a stark contrast from the previous upbeat music. I felt like the beings I was with were suddenly gone. I protested. “Wait! I want all the same people in the room!”
I heard myself say (I did NOT think): “They are all still in the same room. But you’ve moved to a different room.” I got the sense that I did not like this new place nearly as much. I recognized that the music had transported me somewhere else and I temporarily made myself shift back to where I was through sheer force of will. But I could not kept that up for longer than a minute or so.
As I began to come down I felt and very briefly saw in my mind 2 insect-like beings. They had the feel of mischievous and curious adolescents. I opened up to them and said “It’s ok, you can visit. But don’t break anything!” I didn’t really trust them but I was being generous. They poked around warily and I felt a very strange, unwelcome pressure in my brain. I felt myself push away forcefully and they were gone.
Stage 7: Home
Around 5am or so I began to connect with the music a lot more. But I also reflected on the people I care about. I really want them all to experience such beauty and joy as I did in this trip. I felt like I understood myself better: that I am one of these beings co-creating Reality. I see the world and Reality as a beautiful place with so many possibilities to explore. I want all my friends and family to know this. But I began to realize the validity of the message I was given. They would not be able to experience this with me.
Realization as I’m coming down: Everyone reaches a certain consciousness through experience and effort. Nothing can replace that. We can give love, we can offer friendship and support, we can share ourselves. But we cannot bring others to experience Reality the way we do. I throw good parties because I know who to keep out. The people who can “get” me, and people who can accept novel ways of looking at the world will connect with me without me working very hard for it. So I need to stop pouring my energy into hopes and wishes for people that cannot come true. I need to focus and discipline myself so that I can accomplish more of what CAN be accomplished.
This is not to say I am some upper-tier guru. I’m just with a particular cluster of (noncorporeal) friends. We have our own little cloud, apparently, and not everyone is compatible with our location. We may not have the best real estate in all of Reality, but it’s still got its homeowner’s association rules and restrictions. Not that I understand any of them right now. I don’t know that I will return to that particular cluster upon death, or ever. Perhaps I’d wind up somewhere else after this human life. But I imagine the same kind of compatibility / harmony issues are involved with travel to any location.
I began to feel very small and so very very limited. If we are to call it “ego” or my sense of self, that’s fine. It got really really small. I realized that I had seen just a tiny fraction of Reality and it dwarfed me. I was so very miniscule in the grand scheme of things. And all the work that there was to be done was inconceivable. “The work” was nurturing and facilitating growth in all sentient life. That may not be the focus of all clusters of consciousnesses, but that was the work of mine.
I was shown I couldn’t really make that much of an impact on even a single person, and there were billions and trillions of consciousnesses in the universe. And I had so much to learn, myself! I was inspired by tonight’s trip, but also felt somewhat helpless.
Stage 8: Ego Loss
Around 6am.
In feeling this way, something new and different happened. I was suddenly flooded with thoughts of my step-dad. Out of nowhere I saw that throughout my time knowing him, he was pummeled by life. So many assaults on his mind. Divorces, losses, miseries, sacrifices, pain, suffering…it was overwhelming. And through all this suffering, he tried to do what he could for his family. He has sacrificed so much.
And I saw my role in it. No, I was not responsible for his suffering, but neither was I compassionate or supportive. I was a selfish ass. I was angry that I didn’t have the kind of father I wanted. I felt burdened with a stepdad who was absolutely nothing like me and offered me so little as a father or friend. And that’s how I behaved until one day I just had nothing to do with him.
It felt like all his pain accumulated through the years was flowing through me in concentrated form.
“I’m sorry!” I wailed, “I’m very very very sorry!” I began to scream horrific, painful, inhuman heaving sobs into a pillow. Mucous and tears poured out of me as from a faucet and I nearly lost total control. I had thoughts of killing myself if it did not end soon. Recognizing just a fraction of all my stepdad has been through, the selfish ways I contributed to his troubles, and withheld support he could have used…it was just too much for me to handle. I felt like I had failed him horribly. There is a lot more involved with this part of the trip but it is the intensity that is important to convey. It was definitely a life-changing experience.
This went on far longer than I would have imagined. 15 minutes is not typically a long time. But this felt like eternity.
I never want him to experience a single unpleasant moment the rest of his life. And I committed to the deepest apology and to offer him my support if ever he wanted anything from me. And later that day I did just that.
In effect I was shown how I had failed another human being. This was what I experienced failing ONE human being. And this was someone who wasn’t even dependent on me for anything. If I truly wanted to help others in this life, I would have to pay closer attention to the opportunities and far less attention to my own childish complaints. Focus on what I really can do and stop wasting so much time and energy on what I wish would happen.
The end of this trip left me so very grateful, and more compassionate toward others. I’m also more aware of what I lack in patience and understanding. In general I just lack certain skills in dealing with people who are very different from me (like my stepdad). I want to get better. I don’t want my frustration to overcome my higher aspirations.
Stage 9: The End
I continued to feel strong effects until about 8am, and lesser effects until about 1pm. This was definitely longer and more intense than any experience I had ever had before. I do not know how the DMT contributed because I’ve never tried DMT alone. I hope to experiment more to discern the different effects between shrooms and DMT. It was certainly far more intense than 4 grams of mushrooms would ever yield alone.
I’ve only used cubensis mushrooms by themselves. I’d only used Syrian Rue extract by itself. I had never tried DMT. I knew that Syrian Rue was an MAOI that would intensify and lengthen the effects of shrooms and DMT. I am apparently very resistant to hallucinogens. As an example: I get very minor visuals only at about 7 grams (dried) or higher. I was taking only 4grams of mushrooms this trip because I had heard MAOI’s can nearly double the effects. I had 9 dried grams once and it was manageable, but I didn’t want to have the equivalent of 9 grams this time because I was mixing them with other substances and I did not know how they’d interact.
Consumption:
I had read that Syrian Rue took effect within 20-30 minutes. I had not eaten for 8 hours to ensure my stomach was empty. At about 9:15pm I drank the rue. At about 10pm I completed eating the shrooms. They had been powdered and soaking in a jar of honey for about a week. They are very tolerable consumed this way.
At about 11:30 I wasn’t feeling anything so I tried to lay down in bed beside my wife. Right before then I poured out around 80mg of DMT powder and licked it off a spoon. I had never taken DMT before. I had tried smoking it once but like many people find it can take a few attempts to get that right. I haven’t yet.
Setting:
I waited until the spousal unit was snoring strong, and at around midnight snuck out of bed to go to my man cave. This is a large basement room with the windows covered by insulation boards, many sound-absorbing panels, and a very nice 6-speaker sound system. I settled on the Vidna Obmana (ambient) channel and set it to 7-channel stereo. My ears get very sensitive so I set the volume fairly low. But it felt very immersive and atmospheric.
I could scream my brains out here and no one could hear me except maybe my wife upstairs. It is a safe, relaxing place. I lay on the futon and waited.
Stage 1: Music became transportation
At about 1am the music brought me great joy. More importantly, the music was changing channels in my mind. What I mean is my consciousness molded itself to the texture of the music. More dark music would bring a really strong change in my perception from more upbeat music. Lots of primal drumming would bring energy and power to my mind while fluid, droning tones would bring relaxation and a sense of peace. Sometimes it was like my mind was floating in an ocean of sound.
My perception of time slowed. There was only “now” and musical pieces seemed to last a LONG time. But as psilocybin typically works, there were lots of peaks and troughs of effects. I often felt like there was no effect at all.
Stage 2: HI! (The perception of entities)
I can’t say when this started. The waves of hallucinogenic effect got stronger and stronger and longer and longer until I felt thrust into some new mental space.
I never “see” anything. People talk about seeing entities or glowing lights or whatever. This has never happened for me. My feeling is that some perceptions of entities are actually just parts of myself I experience in a kind of dissociative way. And the rest…? I just can’t say. I can only say what I perceive, so that’s what I’ll do here.
For me, hallucinogens are like transportation. The best way I can make sense of what I experience is this: Reality, for me, is all mental space. In trips I sense that minds of a certain nature gather in the same place. I sense there are many many places in Reality, and trillions of minds out there. Many are incorporeal/ transdimensional/ whatever.
So when I take enough psilocybin, my mind gets pushed out to “somewhere else.” Not always the same place, as far as I can tell. It’s like traveling in a foreign city blind. I say I “hear” things but really they’re thoughts that feel foreign, or the feeling of a presence followed by thoughts I do not recognize as my own. Sometimes I hear myself speak and it is not me thinking or organizing the words that get expressed.
On this trip, I feel myself traveling and then BAM! I feel myself in the presence of other consciousnesses. “Hi, everybody!” I say. I open myself up to them and make myself available to whatever connection they are willing to make. Over the course of about an hour I probably feel 10-15 entities brush against my mind and exchange thoughts. A couple of them are not exactly surprised but find me a bit odd: “You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?” one says, referring to my move of opening myself up to them. “Not really,” but they understand I am not afraid, either.
Remember I said I believed that my mind is transported places with like-minded beings, or with beings that match some vibration or nature. So embracing fear would put me somewhere there is something to be afraid of, or around entities where there is lots of fear. I don’t want that and I’m thankful this has not happened in my trips so far.
Stage 3: Connection
There are a few minds that seem to hang around me (or I’m hanging around them). As the hallucinogenic effects increase, so do my feelings of connection. At one point opening my body and mind to them I feel one or more have entered me and they are kind of looking out through my body as if looking through a window to our world. I’m like a small submarine tour, I guess. They are still kind of “amazed” that I would let them do this and feel almost wary of taking advantage but I assure them it’s ok.
The potential to connect feels like it’s increasing, and I’m feeling really good. I feel so connected with these beings and “Reality” and everything. I get the sense that these beings are creators, helping create things that have effects from their “level” all the way down to our physical world. One of the things they do is take the energy created by joy and use it to create. I don’t pretend to understand. When I marvel at this they remark “You’re right here with us, Mark, you are just not configured to understand that right now. But you’re co-creating everything with us.”
While in this place there were 1 or more entities that voted “Let’s break it!” He was advocating killing me. This was not a malicious thought. He was not trying to hurt me or cause me pain. He was simply offering that as an option. My visit offered a novel opportunity for them. In thinking about timing my death at that instant, the transition of my consciousness – while connected to entities elsewhere – is mindblowing. I only later understand how this could be an exciting (new/interesting) possibility.
My mind connected with the risks involved: I had mixed several drugs, was not sleeping, and the human body is a frail thing. What would it take for a seizure or heart attack to happen? Probably not much. “NO!” I insisted, “We are not breaking this! We are not dying here tonight! We are keeping this thing alive.” The odd thing is that this certainly was my vote – but my vote was part of a “we.” I felt everyone else agree simultaneously with me that I was to stay alive. I really did see my body and the construct of “Mark” as a thing that we would choose to keep going.
Stage 4: Visitation
I am not going to pretend I understand what I’m about to tell you. And I cannot tell you it is accurate in the sense of Ultimate Truth. I can only share what I perceived.
The entity that is my wife suddenly popped in. She felt like a bright light full of joyful, goofy energy. But her face kept getting projected into my mind with a big smile and unabashed joy. It felt a lot like how holding my wife close to me would feel – but a much more pure and clear vibe of unfettered happiness. I was talking with her. The other minds around me were all ecstatic that she pulled this off.
The perception was that she had to FIND me, then she had to project her human self to me, then connect with me at just the right time. This was no small feat and very rare, apparently. So it not only felt awesome and intimate and amazing, but it felt like it was a special thing. Others were rejoicing in our rare and beautiful moment. I was tearful and full of joy. I could not be any more convinced that my wife’s consciousness was right there with me. I said “Are you going to come downstairs?”…meaning her physical self. Immediately I got the point that she would not remember this event, because “that is not how things work.” The memory wasn’t encoded through her human self, so her human self would not recall it. Within minutes she was gone but it was an incredible experience.
At one point I tried to conceptualize how she could do this at all. I immediately started giggling and getting disoriented. “Stop, Mark! You can’t understand this in your current configuration! Stop reaching for that,” they urged. This was a fast, compact thought that flew through my mind with a sense of urgency.
This kind of discussion took place 2 or 3 other times about curiosities I had. And it seemed to “burn up” a lot of energy when I tried to grasp the unknowable. I got a sense about what kinds of things I could address and what I couldn’t. Basically, anything that my physical mind could not possibly grasp was off limits. Like how I could be a consciousness within a physical body but still connect with disembodied consciousnesses. If I reached for anything incomprehensible like that I would get disoriented and start to leave whatever space I was in. Usually in a fit of giggling. But if I just let the curious thought pass by I was fine.
I’ve had consciousnesses meld with mine in the past. But this merging of minds with my wife was indescribably awesome. And when a consciousness melds with mind it briefly leaves a residual imprint behind. Like wine that coats a glass after you’ve drank from it. Even after she left I felt little bits of her that remained behind. I do not know how to describe this.
The beings there explained that joy was a construction material. “We can build whole worlds with the joy you’ve just radiated.” It became more and more clear that all of Reality is pure consciousness. Everything that exists (physical and nonphysical) is a projection, creation, force, or consequence of consciousness. Some being or beings were involved in its existence or happening. And all consciousness is linked in some way. Everything from a fart to a karate kick is to a solar storm are part of an enormous complex reciprocal system of co-creation. We are all - always - creating. That was the perception.
“Clusters” of harmonious and compatible minds work together. Compatibility is important as you will see. If I tried to understand how separate clusters can connect and coordinate with one another I was sure I would have been a giggling mess.
I did not learn anything specific about sorrow, or pain. My sense was that joy creates energy, and other things like sadness or pain consume energy. And it is this undefinable energy that is everything.
Stage 5: You Can’t Bring Them With You
I began thinking about friends and family that I would want to share this view of Reality with. I imagined introducing them to hallucinogens or these ideas or whatever. I thought I could share my joy with them and they would experience it. I imagined bringing them with me here to this wonderful place. At one point I thought of a friend and I heard loudly in my head “YOU CANNOT BRING HIM HERE!” It was a strong, sudden message. The thought of this friend, & the connection I tried to create to his mind, was incompatible with these beings. The other friends I had thought of could possibly visit this place, apparently. With some time or some life experiences. But this one friend absolutely had no place there as far as these entities were concerned. I had to distract myself and think of something else completely just to stay among them. I think they helped me do so.
This strong, whiplash reaction was completely unexpected. I could feel the waves of psilocybin returning, and its power going down. I would not stay here much longer. It was at this point that they related back to my earlier act of opening myself up to them so they could experience my body and consciousness. About this they said “You throw the best parties.” I asked if others know this and the response felt very clear “No. Only those who come to your parties know how good they are.” And then they added “You parties are so good because you know who to keep out.” And I got the image of a bouncer at a club.
This message would be even more meaningful later.
Stage 6: Descending to home
My mind began to feel less connected to that realm and the music began to take center stage. A dark, ambient piece was playing and it really was a stark contrast from the previous upbeat music. I felt like the beings I was with were suddenly gone. I protested. “Wait! I want all the same people in the room!”
I heard myself say (I did NOT think): “They are all still in the same room. But you’ve moved to a different room.” I got the sense that I did not like this new place nearly as much. I recognized that the music had transported me somewhere else and I temporarily made myself shift back to where I was through sheer force of will. But I could not kept that up for longer than a minute or so.
As I began to come down I felt and very briefly saw in my mind 2 insect-like beings. They had the feel of mischievous and curious adolescents. I opened up to them and said “It’s ok, you can visit. But don’t break anything!” I didn’t really trust them but I was being generous. They poked around warily and I felt a very strange, unwelcome pressure in my brain. I felt myself push away forcefully and they were gone.
Stage 7: Home
Around 5am or so I began to connect with the music a lot more. But I also reflected on the people I care about. I really want them all to experience such beauty and joy as I did in this trip. I felt like I understood myself better: that I am one of these beings co-creating Reality. I see the world and Reality as a beautiful place with so many possibilities to explore. I want all my friends and family to know this. But I began to realize the validity of the message I was given. They would not be able to experience this with me.
Realization as I’m coming down: Everyone reaches a certain consciousness through experience and effort. Nothing can replace that. We can give love, we can offer friendship and support, we can share ourselves. But we cannot bring others to experience Reality the way we do. I throw good parties because I know who to keep out. The people who can “get” me, and people who can accept novel ways of looking at the world will connect with me without me working very hard for it. So I need to stop pouring my energy into hopes and wishes for people that cannot come true. I need to focus and discipline myself so that I can accomplish more of what CAN be accomplished.
This is not to say I am some upper-tier guru. I’m just with a particular cluster of (noncorporeal) friends. We have our own little cloud, apparently, and not everyone is compatible with our location. We may not have the best real estate in all of Reality, but it’s still got its homeowner’s association rules and restrictions. Not that I understand any of them right now. I don’t know that I will return to that particular cluster upon death, or ever. Perhaps I’d wind up somewhere else after this human life. But I imagine the same kind of compatibility / harmony issues are involved with travel to any location.
I began to feel very small and so very very limited. If we are to call it “ego” or my sense of self, that’s fine. It got really really small. I realized that I had seen just a tiny fraction of Reality and it dwarfed me. I was so very miniscule in the grand scheme of things. And all the work that there was to be done was inconceivable. “The work” was nurturing and facilitating growth in all sentient life. That may not be the focus of all clusters of consciousnesses, but that was the work of mine.
I was shown I couldn’t really make that much of an impact on even a single person, and there were billions and trillions of consciousnesses in the universe. And I had so much to learn, myself! I was inspired by tonight’s trip, but also felt somewhat helpless.
Stage 8: Ego Loss
Around 6am.
In feeling this way, something new and different happened. I was suddenly flooded with thoughts of my step-dad. Out of nowhere I saw that throughout my time knowing him, he was pummeled by life. So many assaults on his mind. Divorces, losses, miseries, sacrifices, pain, suffering…it was overwhelming. And through all this suffering, he tried to do what he could for his family. He has sacrificed so much.
And I saw my role in it. No, I was not responsible for his suffering, but neither was I compassionate or supportive. I was a selfish ass. I was angry that I didn’t have the kind of father I wanted. I felt burdened with a stepdad who was absolutely nothing like me and offered me so little as a father or friend. And that’s how I behaved until one day I just had nothing to do with him.
It felt like all his pain accumulated through the years was flowing through me in concentrated form.
“I’m sorry!” I wailed, “I’m very very very sorry!” I began to scream horrific, painful, inhuman heaving sobs into a pillow. Mucous and tears poured out of me as from a faucet and I nearly lost total control. I had thoughts of killing myself if it did not end soon. Recognizing just a fraction of all my stepdad has been through, the selfish ways I contributed to his troubles, and withheld support he could have used…it was just too much for me to handle. I felt like I had failed him horribly. There is a lot more involved with this part of the trip but it is the intensity that is important to convey. It was definitely a life-changing experience.
This went on far longer than I would have imagined. 15 minutes is not typically a long time. But this felt like eternity.
I never want him to experience a single unpleasant moment the rest of his life. And I committed to the deepest apology and to offer him my support if ever he wanted anything from me. And later that day I did just that.
In effect I was shown how I had failed another human being. This was what I experienced failing ONE human being. And this was someone who wasn’t even dependent on me for anything. If I truly wanted to help others in this life, I would have to pay closer attention to the opportunities and far less attention to my own childish complaints. Focus on what I really can do and stop wasting so much time and energy on what I wish would happen.
The end of this trip left me so very grateful, and more compassionate toward others. I’m also more aware of what I lack in patience and understanding. In general I just lack certain skills in dealing with people who are very different from me (like my stepdad). I want to get better. I don’t want my frustration to overcome my higher aspirations.
Stage 9: The End
I continued to feel strong effects until about 8am, and lesser effects until about 1pm. This was definitely longer and more intense than any experience I had ever had before. I do not know how the DMT contributed because I’ve never tried DMT alone. I hope to experiment more to discern the different effects between shrooms and DMT. It was certainly far more intense than 4 grams of mushrooms would ever yield alone.
