Flickering
Bluelighter
A national park, on my own, with a backpack and a regrettable lack of sun protection. Twenty inches of weak peruvium torch cactus boiled down to 50mLs of sludgy tea, ingested around 5:30a.m., followed by 1.5 tabs of fairly strong (~100ug) LSD at 7:30a.m. My sixth time taking mescaline, though all experiences have been mild, and my fourth with LSD.
The mud was alive with crabs, hundreds of colourful little crabs swarming below the boardwalk. Twisted trees on every side a radiant green, and sunliight danced on the water in ripples. "Life is forever," I mused. "How could anyone look at this and believe anything else?"
But I made sure to keep walking. I had discovered that the best way to bypass the come-up anxiety of acid was to walk it off; it was only when I stopped, and realised just how much everything was bulging and stretching around me, that I started to feel vulnerable. Had the mescaline taken any effect at all? It seemed to be there in the background, offering some affinity with nature, along with its brash confidence and cocky humour. My mind was keyed in to survival, an intuitive understanding of all the lifeforms around me.
By 8:30a.m., I was at the peak, alone in the wilderness. I alternated between the ambient swamp song and my own music.
Some brilliant moments with music
'Alone', by Portal - Stark, moody and with a raw acoustic guitar, this song filled me with a sense of heroism. I strode down a path into the rainforest, with blackened trees on one side and twisting bushes on the other. Ruins long since overgrown, sang the vocalist. At the height of my grandiose trek into the unknown, I saw the path ahead was lined with spiderwebs - lots and lots of them. The spiders crisscrossed each other and glittered like jewels. "Well. Fuck that," I said, and turned and walked away. Lyrics accompanying this tactical retreat: A once brilliant odyssey, abridged forevermore. (I shit you not.)
'The Defense', by Frank Klepacki -This is no song. This is an alien transmission being beamed into human consciousness. The entire thing is a message, to prepare us for the coming of this powerful new Other, who we already know through the iconic image of the Area 54 being. Listen for yourself! :D Having this dissolve from a song into a rhythmic para-binary transmission is probably the best musical effect I've ever had on anything.
'Octavarium', by Dream Theater - I never wanted to become someone like HIM. At this exact moment, a bushwalker ahead of me who looked like Average Joe incarnate turned around and smiled broadly - I very nearly burst out laughing.
I began to settle in to the dissociation, taking a backseat as my body did the walking, watching everything through an HD movie screen. But my stress returned when people began filing into the park. It was typical enough: I couldn't tell whether I was acting sober or not, and I'm awkward enough without the help of two psychedelics in synthesis. For everyone I passed, I had to think about exactly how much eye contact to give, exactly when to say "Hi," how widely to smile, and all the other nuances we don't tend to think about. All my subconscious perceptions were relegated to the conscious, so I could see how they were feeling and what they thought of me, and the overwhelming majority were clearly freaked out. They might not have realised it themselves, but on some level they thought, "There's something weird about this guy." It didn't make things any easier that they were morphing into ridiculous caricatures beforre my eyes!
Some moments:
This last encounter drove me off the main path and into the mud groves, covered in crab holes and roots jutting out like needles. I was quite upset, so I sat down and meditated. Childhood memories of being ostracized in school and made to feel like an outcast came back to me, and I felt inconsolable rage towards the children who did that to me, and the adults who didn't help. Now I was being made to feel like pariah again, because society can't let a guy have a spiritual journey in peace! I went deeper and deeper into my head, and began to get faint closed-eye visuals, black-and-white and hard to distinguish from imagination, of rippling energies and sacred mandalas.
I wept as I thought about all the problems in my life, specifically how even while on LSD and mescaliine, I can't seem to properly enjoy anything. There's always a feeling like I'm missing the moment, waiting to die. It sucks the life out of everything. It's a void and a splinter in my mind, and it's been a major source of depression for the last six or seven years.
I looked inward. The path of enlightenment presented itself to me: no more desire, no more pain and suffering. I rejected it. This was not what I was looking for. What I sought seemed beyond that; this was why I could never experience true contentedness and oneness even in a psychedelic state. In my mind, the Buddha (soul of enlightenment) agreed that enlightenment could not help me pry out this splinter. "Well," I said, "is there anything you can do to help me?"
"Oh no," it said. "You have rejected our path, and so we cannot help you. Yours is a way of desire. Only in releasing yourself from all desire can you ask for our help." Behind my eyes was a mandala of unity.
I opened my eyes. The return to reality came with a powerful blast with an increase in visual activity. A plane flew overhead and it sounded like the hideous growl - as I looked left, I thought I saw a giant monster watching me from the swamp, but it was only mangrove needles amongst blackened trees. I then began receiving lessons from nature about strength and survival, most likely the influence of mescaline. I was reluctant and deliberately disrespectful. But the world around me suggested that I stand in front of an open tree branch that looked like some kind of consciousness conduit, so I stood there and closed my eyes once more.
I found myself in a sky fortress where beings stood over me in judgment. I felt small and humbled, with tears still running down my face. Was I worthy? they seemed to be asking. I answered with pride that yes, I was. This is who I am, and I have been strong in life, I have endured and I have been true to myself. They were satisfied with this. They then revealed that this earthly life, with all its politics and its survival mechanisms, is only a trial of sorts, to forge souls through fire amid the unshakeable but unnecessary fear that one day, they will cease to exist forever. This was all the judges had to say, and I was left in awe at the power of my imagination to conjure such an encounter.
By then it was midday and I was already getting sunburnt, so I made my way back out of the park forr the next three hours as they trip wound down. The path was thick with spiders but I no longer felt so afraid of them, so I just brushed right past. All the while I contemplated this splinter in my mind. It is there, I realised, because not a single thing I've experienced over these last years has been what I truly wanted. It has all been an act, an attempt to be happy. What I really want is to go back to a state of love, warmth and peace, to not be constantly on edge and anxious inside myself. That state of mind is buried deep in the childhood memories of my subconscious. I knew from a former mescaline trip exactly how it had been locked away, through a series of traumas very early in my life. The goal now is to find it again. Until then there is no point taking LSD or mescaline; they made it clear on the way out that they have little else to show me. They pointed me towards ibogaine, which I plan to take in two months, and bid me good luck in finding what I was after.
The mud was alive with crabs, hundreds of colourful little crabs swarming below the boardwalk. Twisted trees on every side a radiant green, and sunliight danced on the water in ripples. "Life is forever," I mused. "How could anyone look at this and believe anything else?"
But I made sure to keep walking. I had discovered that the best way to bypass the come-up anxiety of acid was to walk it off; it was only when I stopped, and realised just how much everything was bulging and stretching around me, that I started to feel vulnerable. Had the mescaline taken any effect at all? It seemed to be there in the background, offering some affinity with nature, along with its brash confidence and cocky humour. My mind was keyed in to survival, an intuitive understanding of all the lifeforms around me.
By 8:30a.m., I was at the peak, alone in the wilderness. I alternated between the ambient swamp song and my own music.
Some brilliant moments with music
'Alone', by Portal - Stark, moody and with a raw acoustic guitar, this song filled me with a sense of heroism. I strode down a path into the rainforest, with blackened trees on one side and twisting bushes on the other. Ruins long since overgrown, sang the vocalist. At the height of my grandiose trek into the unknown, I saw the path ahead was lined with spiderwebs - lots and lots of them. The spiders crisscrossed each other and glittered like jewels. "Well. Fuck that," I said, and turned and walked away. Lyrics accompanying this tactical retreat: A once brilliant odyssey, abridged forevermore. (I shit you not.)
'The Defense', by Frank Klepacki -This is no song. This is an alien transmission being beamed into human consciousness. The entire thing is a message, to prepare us for the coming of this powerful new Other, who we already know through the iconic image of the Area 54 being. Listen for yourself! :D Having this dissolve from a song into a rhythmic para-binary transmission is probably the best musical effect I've ever had on anything.
'Octavarium', by Dream Theater - I never wanted to become someone like HIM. At this exact moment, a bushwalker ahead of me who looked like Average Joe incarnate turned around and smiled broadly - I very nearly burst out laughing.
I began to settle in to the dissociation, taking a backseat as my body did the walking, watching everything through an HD movie screen. But my stress returned when people began filing into the park. It was typical enough: I couldn't tell whether I was acting sober or not, and I'm awkward enough without the help of two psychedelics in synthesis. For everyone I passed, I had to think about exactly how much eye contact to give, exactly when to say "Hi," how widely to smile, and all the other nuances we don't tend to think about. All my subconscious perceptions were relegated to the conscious, so I could see how they were feeling and what they thought of me, and the overwhelming majority were clearly freaked out. They might not have realised it themselves, but on some level they thought, "There's something weird about this guy." It didn't make things any easier that they were morphing into ridiculous caricatures beforre my eyes!
Some moments:
- I returned to the main park area for water. When I got there, the sight of so many people was overwhelming, and I could hardly keep from laughing. I looked at a map while I composed myself, but all I could think about was how funny it was that I appeared to be reading it while it was melting. Eventually I started towards the tap, but I moved as though in parody of someone trying to appear inconspicuous. At this point I turned and fled back to the bush.
- One elderly man and woman passed me and I went to say "Hello" but they weren't looking at me. Suddenly as they were passing, they gave their perfunctory greeting, and I missed my cue. I met them again later, and the man gave such a sharp nod and greeting that he looked like he wanted to start a fight for the offense. It was his fucking fault, I reflected bitterly. Human interacttion is illogical and a pain in the ass.
- I had headphones on to make it look like I was distracted. Suddenly a very loud and intense song started up, and at the same time, two mentally handicapped people and their caretaker walked up ahead. I jolted. I must have looked like I was shocked to see mentally handicapped people.
- A woman was photographing something on a tree. I was right in her line of sight, and there was no way to step to the side. Nervous at having to say more than "Hello" to someone, I put on a big smile and said, "Would you like me to go past you so you can take the shot?" She completely ignored me. She walked on and I followed (and heard her speaking in English to her friends) , but I felt so put off that I turned and went back the way I came, cusing the human race. All she had to do was say "Sure, go on ahead!" and I would have been fine!
This last encounter drove me off the main path and into the mud groves, covered in crab holes and roots jutting out like needles. I was quite upset, so I sat down and meditated. Childhood memories of being ostracized in school and made to feel like an outcast came back to me, and I felt inconsolable rage towards the children who did that to me, and the adults who didn't help. Now I was being made to feel like pariah again, because society can't let a guy have a spiritual journey in peace! I went deeper and deeper into my head, and began to get faint closed-eye visuals, black-and-white and hard to distinguish from imagination, of rippling energies and sacred mandalas.
I wept as I thought about all the problems in my life, specifically how even while on LSD and mescaliine, I can't seem to properly enjoy anything. There's always a feeling like I'm missing the moment, waiting to die. It sucks the life out of everything. It's a void and a splinter in my mind, and it's been a major source of depression for the last six or seven years.
I looked inward. The path of enlightenment presented itself to me: no more desire, no more pain and suffering. I rejected it. This was not what I was looking for. What I sought seemed beyond that; this was why I could never experience true contentedness and oneness even in a psychedelic state. In my mind, the Buddha (soul of enlightenment) agreed that enlightenment could not help me pry out this splinter. "Well," I said, "is there anything you can do to help me?"
"Oh no," it said. "You have rejected our path, and so we cannot help you. Yours is a way of desire. Only in releasing yourself from all desire can you ask for our help." Behind my eyes was a mandala of unity.
I opened my eyes. The return to reality came with a powerful blast with an increase in visual activity. A plane flew overhead and it sounded like the hideous growl - as I looked left, I thought I saw a giant monster watching me from the swamp, but it was only mangrove needles amongst blackened trees. I then began receiving lessons from nature about strength and survival, most likely the influence of mescaline. I was reluctant and deliberately disrespectful. But the world around me suggested that I stand in front of an open tree branch that looked like some kind of consciousness conduit, so I stood there and closed my eyes once more.
I found myself in a sky fortress where beings stood over me in judgment. I felt small and humbled, with tears still running down my face. Was I worthy? they seemed to be asking. I answered with pride that yes, I was. This is who I am, and I have been strong in life, I have endured and I have been true to myself. They were satisfied with this. They then revealed that this earthly life, with all its politics and its survival mechanisms, is only a trial of sorts, to forge souls through fire amid the unshakeable but unnecessary fear that one day, they will cease to exist forever. This was all the judges had to say, and I was left in awe at the power of my imagination to conjure such an encounter.
By then it was midday and I was already getting sunburnt, so I made my way back out of the park forr the next three hours as they trip wound down. The path was thick with spiders but I no longer felt so afraid of them, so I just brushed right past. All the while I contemplated this splinter in my mind. It is there, I realised, because not a single thing I've experienced over these last years has been what I truly wanted. It has all been an act, an attempt to be happy. What I really want is to go back to a state of love, warmth and peace, to not be constantly on edge and anxious inside myself. That state of mind is buried deep in the childhood memories of my subconscious. I knew from a former mescaline trip exactly how it had been locked away, through a series of traumas very early in my life. The goal now is to find it again. Until then there is no point taking LSD or mescaline; they made it clear on the way out that they have little else to show me. They pointed me towards ibogaine, which I plan to take in two months, and bid me good luck in finding what I was after.
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