Idealist777
Greenlighter
My best friend T asked me in 2005 if I wanted to take a psychedelic trip with her. It took me 10 years to feel that I was ready. I did my research and established appropriate set and setting and for the first time in 40 years, I took a hit of LSD with T. We are in our late 50’s. We took it as a tool for further spiritual awakening. We were at condo on the beach in Alabama- with a balcony looking out on the Gulf of Mexico. We ingested it one hour before sunset. Here are my notes- taken the day after the trip. Any comments are welcome!
These are the categories of my sharing- all detailed below:
Behind the curtain
Truth Detector
Paradox
Profound Awe
Clarity of Vision: Energy- Music- Physical
Darkness
Multidimensional Experience
Love
Duality/Non-Duality and the Paradox
Inability to describe the Experience
Personality
Attention and Curiosity
Surrender
Mutual Experiences
Individuality
After the Trip
Behind the curtain: As we sat on the balcony, it was as if the curtain was being raised bit by bit.There came a point where it seemed that any type of shield or curtain had been entirely removed. It seemed that I was seeing the true nature of reality- that the drug had removed a sense of separateness and we had entered a realm where you could see that the entirety of existence is all made up of the same stuff- including us. And that stuff is constantly moving, vibrating and fluctuating. Wherever I put my eyes, the matter I looked at was vibrating and fluctuating.
Truth Detector: As I first began to try to talk in my usual way (as T and I share everything with one another), I found I was unable to complete a sentence. I could not take myself seriously. It was obvious that I couldn’t simply state my thoughts as “truth” as usual- even just to try the thought out and see how it landed. It was as if there was a major truth detector that had been installed by the universe and it wouldn’t allow the completion of a stream of bullshit- no matter how good it might sound or no matter how convincing it was.
We found this hilarious as we continued to talk anyway and could see how our ideas landed flat at times which would reduce us to doubled over laughter at ourselves.
Paradox: It was shown to me that you can't explain the nature of reality although there were many times when we thought we could nail it down. It would show itself so clearly and then we would expound about what we were being shown. But before getting the thought completely out of our mouths, reality itself would flip around on us. There were many times when we would laugh until we were crying at the absurdity of thinking we could grasp it in any way and nail it down.
Profound awe: We would stand on the balcony looking out at the most incredible display of multidimensional movement of swirling and ever changing patterns of reality that could be seen as constant eternally existing fluctuations of waves of dancing light.
There would be the experience of amazing clarity that would visually open up and reveal itself in an ever changing multidimensional explosion of light and color that would be so beautiful that we would stand there and sometimes feel the impulse to physically bow down to the magnitude of what was being shown and the body would weep tears of joy and release while being in profound awe while looking directly at the sheer immensity of the infinite layers that were clearly visible.
Clarity of Vision: Energy- There was no more sense of solidity as it became obvious that everything in this reality is made of vibrations of pulsating light and color. A thought or word could set off a swirling display of light and color where energy could be clearly seen. I started noticing energy rising from my own body in the form of waves that looked almost like a smoky mist. These energy waves would be generated by my inner energy as I talked or even as I had powerful thoughts. It would seem to rise from my solar plexus area and evaporate over my head.
Clarity of Vision: Music- There was one point when we came inside and turned on some music. We could both see the music producing colored light swirls of energy patterns in the room that were being produced by the music.
Clarity of Vision: Physical- LSD let's you see with your own eyes what quantum physics is uncovering about reality. There is obviously no actual solidity and that can be seen with your own eyes as we existed within this holographic reality (unable to know anything solid) for at least 10 hours. It seemed clear that an idea of physical location is only able to exist due to agreements we have made about physical reality on so many levels included but not limited to societal agreements, archetypal energies and collective agreements on many levels. Although it was obvious that my physical body was standing here, I couldn't entirely feel comfortable with the idea that "I am located right here".
We could feel the ground beneath our feet and that ground did stay on the bottom for me as long as my eyes were open but as soon as I closed my eyes there was no ground and there was no sense of top or bottom.
Darkness: The only sense of a grounded center for me was my own personal bottom which was dark and foreboding and would also show itself.
The idea of being able to avoid any darkness could be seen as ludicrous and so I would reaffirm within myself the willingness to surrender to whatever wanted to come forward. That willingness alone would flatten me out into nothingness until I would see a glimmer of light in the edge of my periphery vision and the curiosity would bring my attention to that sliver of light and that would catapult me into an entirely new bright explosion of light and color that swirled around me and her and everything in existence.
My conclusion is that (in a trip and in life) the only thing that sustains darkness is the aversion to it and the anxiety and impulse to avoid it. It was confirmed during this trip that surrendering to any darkness that wants to appear is what allows it to move on quite rapidly. At the same time, I did not look for it nor did I focus on something which seemed dark unless I had an intuitive sense that it was important to focus on it. The dark moments which were not uncomfortable in any way only made up a few minutes out of 10 hours.
Multidimensional experience: The experience seemed to unfold in a sequential way- from the flattened experience of non existence to a sense of being right here in the moment and then the expanded awareness of being everywhere. As this sequence began to repeat itself throughout the evening, it could be seen that all of these ways of knowing myself was actually happening simultaneously. My personal habitual way of knowing myself as either empty or present in the moment or located everywhere was being stripped away and I couldn't seem to maintain only one way of knowing my existence. The more I could relax into the fullness of including all of these ways to exist, the more relaxed and calm my mind became.
Love: It did seem clear that (although there was total non attachment to our actual lives) love is what life is all about. This wasn’t an emotional experience for me, just a profound truth which was understood.
Duality/Non-Duality and the Paradox: One aspect of reality that was shown clearly to me is that at every level of existence (not just physical existence) is this yin and yang fluctuation of energy. I have personally accepted that this duality permeates all of existence and my trip confirmed that. I am well aware of the collective desire to believe in a place where there is no duality or fluctuations of opposites, but my trip showed me that the duality permeates everything (in this particular reality). At the same time- there is a (non-dual) field that the fluctuations exist in. As long as you can remain in the field, you do not experience the fluctuations. But I noticed that the whole nature of reality is designed to spark the curiosity out of the field.
The LSD allows you to be able to be one with the field while also riding in the fluctuations. At times the entire focus would remain completely in the field for a period of time, but then the fluctuations would dance and form around me and the attention would be drawn to the fluctuations.
This field and these fluctuations were visible as well as mental and energetic. It was fascinating to be able to experience this field and the fluctuations on many levels simultaneously. If I made a mental shift from the stillness of the field into mental fluctuations, I could also observe the shift visually as energy patterns of light and color would shift from calm spacious light to fluctuating patterns of colored light shapes that would wind and unwind as the thoughts went from one perspective to the opposite perspective. It became clear to us that under the influence of the drug we were incapable of holding one position as the opposite of that position would automatically present itself and there was no avoiding it.
There was no idea that duality appearing as the fluctuations was anything to be avoided. It was perfectly clear that engaging with the fluctuations of reality is what life is all about. In fact, it was shown that in this reality it is impossible to not interact with the fluctuations of duality unless you are unconscious. It was clear however that the drug not only allowed our consciousness to simultaneously remain engaged in the field but there was no way to disengage from the field. The paradox of being swept up in the fluctuations while remaining in the field was one of the things that would render us speechless.
Inability to describe the experience: Concepts about time, physical location, surrender, intentions, manifesting, curiosity and the reciprocity of this entire relationship with reality itself would seem to clearly be exposed and laid out beautifully and clearly in a grand and elaborate understanding. Our desire to share what we were seeing would make us talk about it and it was so obvious before we would finish a sentence that you couldn't grasp this understanding with words in any way and we would find ourselves hanging in mid sentence, our mouths gaping open and our eyes wide. All we could do was laugh and cry at the magnificence we were being shown and the magic of sharing it with one another was overwhelming also.
Personality: It did seem to me that the personality is simply another agreed upon structure like time and space. It obviously didn't seem that solid either and didn't seem to have much importance in the grand scheme of things for me.
Attention and Curiosity: There was a sense that this relationship with reality is reciprocal at times and at other times it seemed that this reality simply unfolds. There was a sense that reality at times requires some sort of personal engagement, but instead of that engagement being about desire and intention, it seems to simply require attention. So in a way reality which can create and manifest anything at all does exactly that and whatever can grab and hold your personal attention for more than a few seconds begins to expand and reveal itself. As it expands and reveals itself, you are drawn into it and begin to see it in deeper and deeper ways. This goes on and on as long as you can hold your attention there.
Eventually, the attention returns to the field or to something else that has manifested and grabbed your attention within the field. This is when the problem of location comes up because the ability to move into multiple dimensions allows for fluctuations in another dimension to grab your attention and by focusing on that, your position shifts to that dimension.
An authentic curiosity would propel us individually and together into deeper and deeper clarity and as each level unfolded the energetic swirls of pulsating light and color would overwhelm us and carry us into the infinite expanses and then we would find ourselves standing together on the balcony again overlooking the water, sand and sky.
Surrender: Surrender revealed itself as a multi dimensional process that has infinite ways to be experienced and it continued to be profoundly clear that there was ultimately no other way to be in this relationship with a reality that would seem to completely form and then it would turn and seem to fall away. I could get in touch with the desire to manifest and affect our own experiences of life and this desire seems to be a natural component of this relationship with reality but it would be shown to me time and time again that surrendering to whatever is coming forward or surrendering to the movement of self and others and energy is the key to a smooth experience of life. At the same time the curiosity about reality would set off a spark of light off in a corner and as I would turn towards that spark it would expand and explode into a vast infinite swirling display of energy, light and color and I would be taken away again into a new vastness of thought and understanding that seemed endless.
Mutual experiences: The feeling of desire wasn't really present- it was more like authentic curiosity that would spark some kind of personal relationship to what was unfolding and that would seem to affect what each of us were experiencing. So we were having individual experiences but our physical proximity allowed us to move from our own experience into the experience of the other one as soon as the other one would either speak or look or have any intention of sharing. This intention of sharing (whether it was verbal or not) would combine our experiences into one and we would luxuriate together for a while before going off on our own perfectly orchestrated personal journeys through space and time in multidimensional realities that seem to be layered infinitely.
I felt that we were sharing the same reality but the ability to share it with anyone else that wasn't on the drug seemed to be improbable. As we deepened into the trip, we would explore Individually and separately and we would continue to meet and share as we traversed into what seemed like multiple dimensions.
T got the message about the importance of standing in your power and as she did so I could see her transform into an archetypal being that had great magnificence. We were also getting the message about the importance of vulnerability in life which allows for intimacy in loving relationships. As these messages came through it was clear that this is an important paradox to keep in mind......allowing for vulnerability while standing in your power.
Throughout the experience I could see T morph right in front of my eyes from a child to a girl to an adult to an old wise woman and even at times seeing her being dissolve into darkness only to reappear in a splendor of light and color.
Although It didn't seem like there were entities with us it also didn't feel like we were alone.
There was a quality of having the experience and viewing the experience simultaneously.
Individuality: In the end I am back to knowing the importance for each individual to understand that although we may stand side by side with another being, that there is no way to share the same experience completely- yet at the deepest level it is all the same and that vastness of all that is will gladly reveal itself if you can surrender to knowing it and be willing to accept it completely and wholeheartedly no matter how it wants to show up.
After the trip: The drug seemed to allow us to see reality for how it really is all the time. Even now if I think about what is actually going on here, I am aware of how reality is at every moment revealing itself completely with no holding back in any way and our ability to see that seems to be clouded, but it really isn’t.
My senses seem to be enhanced. I am more sensitive to light beams, reflections of light and shadows. I can hear the invisible fence of the dog down the street (for the first time and I’ve been walking past it for 10 years)
I’m finding more and more how difficult it is to hold a definite perspective. Sometimes I find myself trying to do just that, but the usual justifications can not stand and are seen to be mere ghosts in the wind. The opposite perspective appears unbidden to soften my stance….It’s so freeing
My final thoughts about spiritual awakening:
Awakening is ultimately the same and it has infinite ways of expression.
The Truth is One on the absolute level and the ways it reveals itself on the human level is varied and will never exactly repeat itself.
The way awakening is experienced by each person is completely unique and can develop in an infinite number of ways.
These are the categories of my sharing- all detailed below:
Behind the curtain
Truth Detector
Paradox
Profound Awe
Clarity of Vision: Energy- Music- Physical
Darkness
Multidimensional Experience
Love
Duality/Non-Duality and the Paradox
Inability to describe the Experience
Personality
Attention and Curiosity
Surrender
Mutual Experiences
Individuality
After the Trip
Behind the curtain: As we sat on the balcony, it was as if the curtain was being raised bit by bit.There came a point where it seemed that any type of shield or curtain had been entirely removed. It seemed that I was seeing the true nature of reality- that the drug had removed a sense of separateness and we had entered a realm where you could see that the entirety of existence is all made up of the same stuff- including us. And that stuff is constantly moving, vibrating and fluctuating. Wherever I put my eyes, the matter I looked at was vibrating and fluctuating.
Truth Detector: As I first began to try to talk in my usual way (as T and I share everything with one another), I found I was unable to complete a sentence. I could not take myself seriously. It was obvious that I couldn’t simply state my thoughts as “truth” as usual- even just to try the thought out and see how it landed. It was as if there was a major truth detector that had been installed by the universe and it wouldn’t allow the completion of a stream of bullshit- no matter how good it might sound or no matter how convincing it was.
We found this hilarious as we continued to talk anyway and could see how our ideas landed flat at times which would reduce us to doubled over laughter at ourselves.
Paradox: It was shown to me that you can't explain the nature of reality although there were many times when we thought we could nail it down. It would show itself so clearly and then we would expound about what we were being shown. But before getting the thought completely out of our mouths, reality itself would flip around on us. There were many times when we would laugh until we were crying at the absurdity of thinking we could grasp it in any way and nail it down.
Profound awe: We would stand on the balcony looking out at the most incredible display of multidimensional movement of swirling and ever changing patterns of reality that could be seen as constant eternally existing fluctuations of waves of dancing light.
There would be the experience of amazing clarity that would visually open up and reveal itself in an ever changing multidimensional explosion of light and color that would be so beautiful that we would stand there and sometimes feel the impulse to physically bow down to the magnitude of what was being shown and the body would weep tears of joy and release while being in profound awe while looking directly at the sheer immensity of the infinite layers that were clearly visible.
Clarity of Vision: Energy- There was no more sense of solidity as it became obvious that everything in this reality is made of vibrations of pulsating light and color. A thought or word could set off a swirling display of light and color where energy could be clearly seen. I started noticing energy rising from my own body in the form of waves that looked almost like a smoky mist. These energy waves would be generated by my inner energy as I talked or even as I had powerful thoughts. It would seem to rise from my solar plexus area and evaporate over my head.
Clarity of Vision: Music- There was one point when we came inside and turned on some music. We could both see the music producing colored light swirls of energy patterns in the room that were being produced by the music.
Clarity of Vision: Physical- LSD let's you see with your own eyes what quantum physics is uncovering about reality. There is obviously no actual solidity and that can be seen with your own eyes as we existed within this holographic reality (unable to know anything solid) for at least 10 hours. It seemed clear that an idea of physical location is only able to exist due to agreements we have made about physical reality on so many levels included but not limited to societal agreements, archetypal energies and collective agreements on many levels. Although it was obvious that my physical body was standing here, I couldn't entirely feel comfortable with the idea that "I am located right here".
We could feel the ground beneath our feet and that ground did stay on the bottom for me as long as my eyes were open but as soon as I closed my eyes there was no ground and there was no sense of top or bottom.
Darkness: The only sense of a grounded center for me was my own personal bottom which was dark and foreboding and would also show itself.
The idea of being able to avoid any darkness could be seen as ludicrous and so I would reaffirm within myself the willingness to surrender to whatever wanted to come forward. That willingness alone would flatten me out into nothingness until I would see a glimmer of light in the edge of my periphery vision and the curiosity would bring my attention to that sliver of light and that would catapult me into an entirely new bright explosion of light and color that swirled around me and her and everything in existence.
My conclusion is that (in a trip and in life) the only thing that sustains darkness is the aversion to it and the anxiety and impulse to avoid it. It was confirmed during this trip that surrendering to any darkness that wants to appear is what allows it to move on quite rapidly. At the same time, I did not look for it nor did I focus on something which seemed dark unless I had an intuitive sense that it was important to focus on it. The dark moments which were not uncomfortable in any way only made up a few minutes out of 10 hours.
Multidimensional experience: The experience seemed to unfold in a sequential way- from the flattened experience of non existence to a sense of being right here in the moment and then the expanded awareness of being everywhere. As this sequence began to repeat itself throughout the evening, it could be seen that all of these ways of knowing myself was actually happening simultaneously. My personal habitual way of knowing myself as either empty or present in the moment or located everywhere was being stripped away and I couldn't seem to maintain only one way of knowing my existence. The more I could relax into the fullness of including all of these ways to exist, the more relaxed and calm my mind became.
Love: It did seem clear that (although there was total non attachment to our actual lives) love is what life is all about. This wasn’t an emotional experience for me, just a profound truth which was understood.
Duality/Non-Duality and the Paradox: One aspect of reality that was shown clearly to me is that at every level of existence (not just physical existence) is this yin and yang fluctuation of energy. I have personally accepted that this duality permeates all of existence and my trip confirmed that. I am well aware of the collective desire to believe in a place where there is no duality or fluctuations of opposites, but my trip showed me that the duality permeates everything (in this particular reality). At the same time- there is a (non-dual) field that the fluctuations exist in. As long as you can remain in the field, you do not experience the fluctuations. But I noticed that the whole nature of reality is designed to spark the curiosity out of the field.
The LSD allows you to be able to be one with the field while also riding in the fluctuations. At times the entire focus would remain completely in the field for a period of time, but then the fluctuations would dance and form around me and the attention would be drawn to the fluctuations.
This field and these fluctuations were visible as well as mental and energetic. It was fascinating to be able to experience this field and the fluctuations on many levels simultaneously. If I made a mental shift from the stillness of the field into mental fluctuations, I could also observe the shift visually as energy patterns of light and color would shift from calm spacious light to fluctuating patterns of colored light shapes that would wind and unwind as the thoughts went from one perspective to the opposite perspective. It became clear to us that under the influence of the drug we were incapable of holding one position as the opposite of that position would automatically present itself and there was no avoiding it.
There was no idea that duality appearing as the fluctuations was anything to be avoided. It was perfectly clear that engaging with the fluctuations of reality is what life is all about. In fact, it was shown that in this reality it is impossible to not interact with the fluctuations of duality unless you are unconscious. It was clear however that the drug not only allowed our consciousness to simultaneously remain engaged in the field but there was no way to disengage from the field. The paradox of being swept up in the fluctuations while remaining in the field was one of the things that would render us speechless.
Inability to describe the experience: Concepts about time, physical location, surrender, intentions, manifesting, curiosity and the reciprocity of this entire relationship with reality itself would seem to clearly be exposed and laid out beautifully and clearly in a grand and elaborate understanding. Our desire to share what we were seeing would make us talk about it and it was so obvious before we would finish a sentence that you couldn't grasp this understanding with words in any way and we would find ourselves hanging in mid sentence, our mouths gaping open and our eyes wide. All we could do was laugh and cry at the magnificence we were being shown and the magic of sharing it with one another was overwhelming also.
Personality: It did seem to me that the personality is simply another agreed upon structure like time and space. It obviously didn't seem that solid either and didn't seem to have much importance in the grand scheme of things for me.
Attention and Curiosity: There was a sense that this relationship with reality is reciprocal at times and at other times it seemed that this reality simply unfolds. There was a sense that reality at times requires some sort of personal engagement, but instead of that engagement being about desire and intention, it seems to simply require attention. So in a way reality which can create and manifest anything at all does exactly that and whatever can grab and hold your personal attention for more than a few seconds begins to expand and reveal itself. As it expands and reveals itself, you are drawn into it and begin to see it in deeper and deeper ways. This goes on and on as long as you can hold your attention there.
Eventually, the attention returns to the field or to something else that has manifested and grabbed your attention within the field. This is when the problem of location comes up because the ability to move into multiple dimensions allows for fluctuations in another dimension to grab your attention and by focusing on that, your position shifts to that dimension.
An authentic curiosity would propel us individually and together into deeper and deeper clarity and as each level unfolded the energetic swirls of pulsating light and color would overwhelm us and carry us into the infinite expanses and then we would find ourselves standing together on the balcony again overlooking the water, sand and sky.
Surrender: Surrender revealed itself as a multi dimensional process that has infinite ways to be experienced and it continued to be profoundly clear that there was ultimately no other way to be in this relationship with a reality that would seem to completely form and then it would turn and seem to fall away. I could get in touch with the desire to manifest and affect our own experiences of life and this desire seems to be a natural component of this relationship with reality but it would be shown to me time and time again that surrendering to whatever is coming forward or surrendering to the movement of self and others and energy is the key to a smooth experience of life. At the same time the curiosity about reality would set off a spark of light off in a corner and as I would turn towards that spark it would expand and explode into a vast infinite swirling display of energy, light and color and I would be taken away again into a new vastness of thought and understanding that seemed endless.
Mutual experiences: The feeling of desire wasn't really present- it was more like authentic curiosity that would spark some kind of personal relationship to what was unfolding and that would seem to affect what each of us were experiencing. So we were having individual experiences but our physical proximity allowed us to move from our own experience into the experience of the other one as soon as the other one would either speak or look or have any intention of sharing. This intention of sharing (whether it was verbal or not) would combine our experiences into one and we would luxuriate together for a while before going off on our own perfectly orchestrated personal journeys through space and time in multidimensional realities that seem to be layered infinitely.
I felt that we were sharing the same reality but the ability to share it with anyone else that wasn't on the drug seemed to be improbable. As we deepened into the trip, we would explore Individually and separately and we would continue to meet and share as we traversed into what seemed like multiple dimensions.
T got the message about the importance of standing in your power and as she did so I could see her transform into an archetypal being that had great magnificence. We were also getting the message about the importance of vulnerability in life which allows for intimacy in loving relationships. As these messages came through it was clear that this is an important paradox to keep in mind......allowing for vulnerability while standing in your power.
Throughout the experience I could see T morph right in front of my eyes from a child to a girl to an adult to an old wise woman and even at times seeing her being dissolve into darkness only to reappear in a splendor of light and color.
Although It didn't seem like there were entities with us it also didn't feel like we were alone.
There was a quality of having the experience and viewing the experience simultaneously.
Individuality: In the end I am back to knowing the importance for each individual to understand that although we may stand side by side with another being, that there is no way to share the same experience completely- yet at the deepest level it is all the same and that vastness of all that is will gladly reveal itself if you can surrender to knowing it and be willing to accept it completely and wholeheartedly no matter how it wants to show up.
After the trip: The drug seemed to allow us to see reality for how it really is all the time. Even now if I think about what is actually going on here, I am aware of how reality is at every moment revealing itself completely with no holding back in any way and our ability to see that seems to be clouded, but it really isn’t.
My senses seem to be enhanced. I am more sensitive to light beams, reflections of light and shadows. I can hear the invisible fence of the dog down the street (for the first time and I’ve been walking past it for 10 years)
I’m finding more and more how difficult it is to hold a definite perspective. Sometimes I find myself trying to do just that, but the usual justifications can not stand and are seen to be mere ghosts in the wind. The opposite perspective appears unbidden to soften my stance….It’s so freeing
My final thoughts about spiritual awakening:
Awakening is ultimately the same and it has infinite ways of expression.
The Truth is One on the absolute level and the ways it reveals itself on the human level is varied and will never exactly repeat itself.
The way awakening is experienced by each person is completely unique and can develop in an infinite number of ways.
