TheAppleCore
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2007
- Messages
- 5,511
It had been awhile since I'd taken any LSD. I've completely reinvented myself since I last took LSD - I mean, I think the physical structure of my brain has been altered, due to my heavy use of MXE (for the better, it seems, as every event of apparent destruction is really evolution in disguise, and vice-versa). But, perhaps even more importantly, I've spent a semester pouring my soul into schooling some 2,500 miles from home, something totally transformative. In addition, I haven't tripped off this particular blotter before, but I'm taking a leap of faith and starting out with two hits, so there are a couple reasons to be a little uncertain and apprehensive.
I come up while brewing some Japanese sencha tea in my kitchen, back home with my parents. But they're fast asleep, and it's dark. The kitchen is very dimly lit, and I can only see enough to brew the fragrant and revitalizing beverage without any grave error. I'm very particular about that sort of thing, and I won't stand for any harsh artificial light when it's dark out. You know, without the night, what would the daytime be? And perhaps more in accord with my taste, without the day, what of the night? Haha. I pour the steaming water over the leaves, the tasteless paper tickling my tongue in the way so distinctive of LSD. By the time the tea is ready to drink, and I spit out the paper, I'm already feeling significantly altered.
The trip begins rather darkly, which was to be expected - I had not yet drunk the tea, and of course all of the aforementioned apprehension came into play. There is some part of my mind which is deeply questioning everything, casting my entire life into the light of suspicion - what is this life you're living? Staying up all night, while you scramble your brains on drugs, so you can sleep all day and waste what precious little time you have with your aging parents? Etc. But, all the while, I've got a proverbial smirk, knowing LSD well enough that it would never overwhelm me, and knowing life well enough that fear and pain is as good a sign as joy and gratitude.
By the time I'm brewing the second cup, the illusion of concrete material reality is giving way to the realization of endlessly evolving, intangible, indefinable consciousness-stuff. I can hardly remember how to swallow the tea, although to be fair, swallowing was never a strong suit of mine, honestly. I laughed manically as I poured more water into the tea kettle, at the time that I began to fully realize that I was in control and everything was O.K.
I remember telling myself, months ago, "I'd sell my soul not to be an anxious wreck. I just want to become a fucking robot, I just want to be rid of emotion, positive and negative, if that's what it takes to become a functional member of society…" I wasn't suicidal, but I certainly was willing to part with the most essential aspect of my humanity, which was my emotion. And, for better or worse, that seems more or less to be what I achieved with MXE - a therapeutic, partial suicide. Ah, the old soul - that thing was pretty nifty - a shame, really.
I mention this only because of the way in which it transformed LSD. It had certainly retained its distinctive character - this was the same molecule that I remember as LSD - but, for the soul. LSD always used to have a profound emotional warmth, a pure and natural but powerful joy. Now that all was gone, and it was rather mechanical and analytical.
I put on some soulful music. In times past, this sort of thing would bring me to such heights of ecstasy and such pangs of bittersweet that I would weep. Now, I was downright bored. I couldn't believe it! Mr. Spock would have nothing to do with music that pandered to the emotions. Instead, I put on some very, in my opinion, intellectual music - the Keith Jarrett Trio, the album Whisper Not specifically. Wow! Now this is right up my alley! Jazz music like this used to be an intimidating mess of seemingly unrelated notes, but on LSD, it all seemed so simple, and so clear. Keith Jarrett's marvelously subtle playing spoke to me in such a way, that the following revelation struck: jazz music is essentially the development of a highly complex and contrived language, within which the following is then encrypted: "BOO!".
The trip was packed to the brim with introspection, in the intellectually curious flavor, rather than say, 4-AcO-DMT's darkly emotional and forced manner. If I had a dime for every noteworthy thought I had… alas, memory being imperfect as it is, there's only so much I can say. Let's see… well, certainly the overruling theme was the demonstration to me again and again, through a multitude of different angles, the pointlessly self-defeating nature of intention. Grasping good things, as they'd say in the Hindu tradition. This was my secret recipe for success at school - the grades I achieved were not a result of feeling pressured to do so - they were a result of the wisdom that school, and indeed life itself, is merely a game. I happened to feel like playing the game. So I did, and I lost sometimes. But mostly I won.
But, I must stress that the LSD trip wasn't just a repetition of this preexisting wisdom - my knowledge was reinforced through a completely different angle. I temporarily, in the torrential dissolution of self, forgot everything that I knew about life, and had to rediscover it, like a newborn. And, when I did rediscover it, it was voiced to me in completely different terms, in a language completely unlike the language I was in the practice of using, almost as if I were being handed this knowledge from the Gods Themselves, although I don't consider myself foolish enough to say something like that without some added qualification. So, I knew that this was genuine. When a man has a sudden "revelation", a sudden "flash of insight", well, that's one thing. But when your discoveries parallel the hard-learned lessons of flesh-and-bone experience, that's another.
I remember reflecting on the concept of Zen. The true nature, the very essence of oneself, completely incapable of being described with language, only capable of being communicated by direct pointing. Well, having never studied with a Zen master, and having constructed my idea of Zen based on a hybridization of literary descriptions and personal experiences, I suppose it would be pretty haughty and foolish to assume any authority in the matter, but here are my thoughts nonetheless. Zen can be described with language, easily. We just need an expanded vocabulary. That's exactly what we did when we created the word "zen". Or the word "red". Describing the experience of the color red to a blind man is about as effective as describing zen to the uninitiated. But, I think that zen could be even better described in the negative, rather than the positive - instead of referring to possessing "zen", refer to NOT possessing any … well, whatever you want to call it. It should have some abrasive sounding name, naturally, because it's a rather abrasive thing.
I called it häk. And, it can be roughly translated to intention, or desire, but it's much more subtle. To lack any häk is not necessarily to lack intention or desire, but more accurate would be to say that you possess a certain ability to eventually fall back to perfect acceptance of all things and perfect contentedness. Even though you may find a positive application of force, and may indeed pressure yourself to do something, a complete lack of pressure is your most natural, "default" mode. I think, although again I may be wrong, that when it was said that zen is completely indescribable, the subtlety of the Chinese language, and perhaps the self-awareness of Zen practitioners, were lacking.
And, as everything does, the new relative lack of emotion in LSD had a flipside - this time, there was very little hangover. I remember, the day after LSD for me always was the polar opposite of the LSD high itself - dark, sad, uninspired, and in general emotionally void. But now, hurrah, there was no emotion to void! And thus, no hangover.
tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_lsd
substancecode_lysergamides
explevel_experienced
exptype_positive
exptype_spiritual
roacode_sublingual
I come up while brewing some Japanese sencha tea in my kitchen, back home with my parents. But they're fast asleep, and it's dark. The kitchen is very dimly lit, and I can only see enough to brew the fragrant and revitalizing beverage without any grave error. I'm very particular about that sort of thing, and I won't stand for any harsh artificial light when it's dark out. You know, without the night, what would the daytime be? And perhaps more in accord with my taste, without the day, what of the night? Haha. I pour the steaming water over the leaves, the tasteless paper tickling my tongue in the way so distinctive of LSD. By the time the tea is ready to drink, and I spit out the paper, I'm already feeling significantly altered.
The trip begins rather darkly, which was to be expected - I had not yet drunk the tea, and of course all of the aforementioned apprehension came into play. There is some part of my mind which is deeply questioning everything, casting my entire life into the light of suspicion - what is this life you're living? Staying up all night, while you scramble your brains on drugs, so you can sleep all day and waste what precious little time you have with your aging parents? Etc. But, all the while, I've got a proverbial smirk, knowing LSD well enough that it would never overwhelm me, and knowing life well enough that fear and pain is as good a sign as joy and gratitude.
By the time I'm brewing the second cup, the illusion of concrete material reality is giving way to the realization of endlessly evolving, intangible, indefinable consciousness-stuff. I can hardly remember how to swallow the tea, although to be fair, swallowing was never a strong suit of mine, honestly. I laughed manically as I poured more water into the tea kettle, at the time that I began to fully realize that I was in control and everything was O.K.
I remember telling myself, months ago, "I'd sell my soul not to be an anxious wreck. I just want to become a fucking robot, I just want to be rid of emotion, positive and negative, if that's what it takes to become a functional member of society…" I wasn't suicidal, but I certainly was willing to part with the most essential aspect of my humanity, which was my emotion. And, for better or worse, that seems more or less to be what I achieved with MXE - a therapeutic, partial suicide. Ah, the old soul - that thing was pretty nifty - a shame, really.
I mention this only because of the way in which it transformed LSD. It had certainly retained its distinctive character - this was the same molecule that I remember as LSD - but, for the soul. LSD always used to have a profound emotional warmth, a pure and natural but powerful joy. Now that all was gone, and it was rather mechanical and analytical.
I put on some soulful music. In times past, this sort of thing would bring me to such heights of ecstasy and such pangs of bittersweet that I would weep. Now, I was downright bored. I couldn't believe it! Mr. Spock would have nothing to do with music that pandered to the emotions. Instead, I put on some very, in my opinion, intellectual music - the Keith Jarrett Trio, the album Whisper Not specifically. Wow! Now this is right up my alley! Jazz music like this used to be an intimidating mess of seemingly unrelated notes, but on LSD, it all seemed so simple, and so clear. Keith Jarrett's marvelously subtle playing spoke to me in such a way, that the following revelation struck: jazz music is essentially the development of a highly complex and contrived language, within which the following is then encrypted: "BOO!".
The trip was packed to the brim with introspection, in the intellectually curious flavor, rather than say, 4-AcO-DMT's darkly emotional and forced manner. If I had a dime for every noteworthy thought I had… alas, memory being imperfect as it is, there's only so much I can say. Let's see… well, certainly the overruling theme was the demonstration to me again and again, through a multitude of different angles, the pointlessly self-defeating nature of intention. Grasping good things, as they'd say in the Hindu tradition. This was my secret recipe for success at school - the grades I achieved were not a result of feeling pressured to do so - they were a result of the wisdom that school, and indeed life itself, is merely a game. I happened to feel like playing the game. So I did, and I lost sometimes. But mostly I won.
But, I must stress that the LSD trip wasn't just a repetition of this preexisting wisdom - my knowledge was reinforced through a completely different angle. I temporarily, in the torrential dissolution of self, forgot everything that I knew about life, and had to rediscover it, like a newborn. And, when I did rediscover it, it was voiced to me in completely different terms, in a language completely unlike the language I was in the practice of using, almost as if I were being handed this knowledge from the Gods Themselves, although I don't consider myself foolish enough to say something like that without some added qualification. So, I knew that this was genuine. When a man has a sudden "revelation", a sudden "flash of insight", well, that's one thing. But when your discoveries parallel the hard-learned lessons of flesh-and-bone experience, that's another.
I remember reflecting on the concept of Zen. The true nature, the very essence of oneself, completely incapable of being described with language, only capable of being communicated by direct pointing. Well, having never studied with a Zen master, and having constructed my idea of Zen based on a hybridization of literary descriptions and personal experiences, I suppose it would be pretty haughty and foolish to assume any authority in the matter, but here are my thoughts nonetheless. Zen can be described with language, easily. We just need an expanded vocabulary. That's exactly what we did when we created the word "zen". Or the word "red". Describing the experience of the color red to a blind man is about as effective as describing zen to the uninitiated. But, I think that zen could be even better described in the negative, rather than the positive - instead of referring to possessing "zen", refer to NOT possessing any … well, whatever you want to call it. It should have some abrasive sounding name, naturally, because it's a rather abrasive thing.
I called it häk. And, it can be roughly translated to intention, or desire, but it's much more subtle. To lack any häk is not necessarily to lack intention or desire, but more accurate would be to say that you possess a certain ability to eventually fall back to perfect acceptance of all things and perfect contentedness. Even though you may find a positive application of force, and may indeed pressure yourself to do something, a complete lack of pressure is your most natural, "default" mode. I think, although again I may be wrong, that when it was said that zen is completely indescribable, the subtlety of the Chinese language, and perhaps the self-awareness of Zen practitioners, were lacking.
And, as everything does, the new relative lack of emotion in LSD had a flipside - this time, there was very little hangover. I remember, the day after LSD for me always was the polar opposite of the LSD high itself - dark, sad, uninspired, and in general emotionally void. But now, hurrah, there was no emotion to void! And thus, no hangover.
tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_lsd
substancecode_lysergamides
explevel_experienced
exptype_positive
exptype_spiritual
roacode_sublingual
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