Opening up your eyes to, a hospital bed?

[Xorkoth]

Had an experience similar to that last night. I glimpsed reality and the lies that hides it. It was a tough but very rewarding night. For me the reason I take psychedelics is because of that challenge to the accepted 'reality.' I do not know if I am a dream, God, good coding or genetic accident I've yet to see any evidence that can make me any more sure than that. I spend a lot of time wondering if I am real!

You're at least functionally real, because you were able to post a thought on the Internet and people responded to you. And you could get hit by a car and it would end your experience. Whether it's an illusion or not makes no difference in the end because you still wake up every morning as you.

 

[OneTwoSeven]

I've had similar experience to the OP, although mine also included two additional situations: being a baby in a hospital crib, being young man with cerebral palsy syndrome that is drooling and staring blankly at the wall (this one scared me a bit). At one point I was kind of cycling between those four states (4th being my room where I ingested LSD).

 

[themanofmystery]

I've had similar experience to the OP, although mine also included two additional situations: being a baby in a hospital crib, being young man with cerebral palsy syndrome that is drooling and staring blankly at the wall (this one scared me a bit). At one point I was kind of cycling between those four states (4th being my room where I ingested LSD).

I get what you mean by the baby part. Expand a bit more on the drooling with mindfuck part if you could.

Did you, more than anything, feel in these states or some that you were not just the centre of everything but, the centre of attention as well?

 

[OneTwoSeven]

I get what you mean by the baby part. Expand a bit more on the drooling with mindfuck part if you could.

Did you, more than anything, feel in these states or some that you were not just the centre of everything but, the centre of attention as well?

During the hospital situation I didn't really felt as center of attention per se, but I kind of felt that if I'd suddenly made a sound, some people would rush to me to see what the hell is going on. I decided to stay quiet instead.

Soon after that I lost my ability to speak and think, whilst still having intense and strong visuals, I was flipping back and forth between different realities (I think there was more than 4 I mentioned, but I remember those most distinctly).

After that I had a feeling that time to CHOOSE comes now, and I could stay in one of those bodies permanently. I was scrambling to think, combine that with memory loss of who I am, where did I started from and uncertainty where I should go made me VERY uneasy, to say the least.

For a long long while I couldn't seem to remember who I am and what I am doing. Panic started to creep in. Then somehow a single thought/sound - .... WATTS .... - popped in out of nowhere and that grabbed my attention - it sounded familiar to me, although I didn't know why.... After a while it all clicked together, I remembered that I was listening to his talk earlier, from that, all of the memory instantly flew in - I remember I took LSD, who I am and that I will be fine once the drug wares off. WHAT A RELIEF!

As I say, I had a feeling I could've stay permanently as "vegetable", stuck on constant high/bliss trip, unable to communicate with anyone (but I guess having fun nontheless...?). Generally the experience led me to ease of LSD a bit, and figure out what are my goals and priorities for taking it.

Staring at the ceiling of white hospital wall was certainly recurring theme during my earlier trips too, but it hasn't been as intense as above. Although during whole ordeal I had a strong feeling "I was here before, I already went through all this earlier, several times".


I summary - Alan Watts saved my life that time


EDIT: afterwards I wished I had a trip sitter

 

[herbavore]

I am sometimes plagued by the thought that I will have to experience every possible kind of life--from abject desolation (from every possible cause from prison to torture to living in a war and/or genocide) to every possible body type, race, gender identification, relationship and on and on. Since I feel like I am living in the absolute 1% when it comes to a safe and serene setting for my life, despite personal tragedies or difficulties, (I have a loving family, I have my physical needs met adequately, I do not live in a war zone, I am not living in fear that someone will come take me away in the night, etc, etc) I feel like someone that is quite privileged. So maybe my thought (which is obviously my own creation) is simply something akin to "survivor's guilt"?

 

[OneTwoSeven]

I am sometimes plagued by the thought that I will have to experience every possible kind of life--from abject desolation (from every possible cause from prison to torture to living in a war and/or genocide) to every possible body type, race, gender identification, relationship and on and on. Since I feel like I am living in the absolute 1% when it comes to a safe and serene setting for my life, despite personal tragedies or difficulties, (I have a loving family, I have my physical needs met adequately, I do not live in a war zone, I am not living in fear that someone will come take me away in the night, etc, etc) I feel like someone that is quite privileged. So maybe my thought (which is obviously my own creation) is simply something akin to "survivor's guilt"?

On a couple trips I did have an impression that this is exactly what has happened to me, and I didn't have a choice in the matter. Couple times I appeared to be stuck in some painful situation, and cyclically reliving it until I seemed to learn the lesson form it. But most of the time it happened in such a speed and intensity that I didn't have ability to stop it and "figure it out".

I did learn a lot of compassion during those experiences though, kind of selfish compassion - since all that pain seemed as if happening directly to "me" - me in different bodies but nonetheless, I did experience it "personally", I really felt it. That was followed by great sadness and shock, when I realised all that pain was also CAUSED by "me" (but not premeditated most of the time).

I am probably not explaining it right (ah, the frustration of all trippers to put IT into words and communicate). Anyway, I repented and decided to be more mindful and not to cause more pain from then on. (for selfish reasons but hey, that's something!)


Back to the experiencing every kind of life though - I think that what's already happen before, is gone forever, in the sense "lesson learned" and we won't be able to re-live it ever again (in this slow-moving reality that is).

Unfortunately it doesn't mean that all pain and suffering will be gone in the future - if anywhere, that's where we'll get our chance to suffer (either in this life or when we're re-born ). I am quite hopeful though - the probabilities of experiencing genocide or torture are getting lower and lower. It's not perfect but I do feel we're going in good direction overall, eg. nowadays the consensus seems to be: genocide=not good, slavery=not good. Some crazy people even think war=not good! And on those values future will be built.

I sometimes wonder how the world would look like if all the people were absolutely CONVINCED that there is no "heaven" and after they die, they will be reborn again here on earth, into completely random place. Wouldn't it make them want to forget about divisions and try to make every corner of the earth good place to live?



In summary, past is gone forever and we can't change it, but we can change the future by acting in the present. At least that's my trip for now.

 

[themanofmystery]

I think the "it" feeling more than anything is something that when felt is originally something that shouldn't be talked about. It feels like you'll die if you express it right, and you've probably got it right once or twice and felt the fear of totally getting "it". I think though, overall, it is just irrational fear. It is where all problems stem from. In my own experience, I would say the original problem of all things was thinking that there was a problem in the first place.
I think in regards to what that fella said about reliving countless lives, that would be awfully boring. And long, and in my opinion, irrational (that is if I haven't experienced it all already), and to go away somewhere else that makes sense as it does here would be the better option (though I could see myself returning to a human body if it works like that, I think the experience in the known universe is extraordinary and unique)

 

[cosmic._.ape]

*We Die To Remember What We Live To Forget*

the other day my dearest
a mushroom talked to me
and though no words were spoken
what it said has set me free
what the mushroom has told me
is that we are the universe
dividing our consciousness
to experience ourselves

[chorus]
i shall not hear the shadows
i shall not feel the rain;
i shall not hear the nigthingale
sing on, as if in pain
and dreaming through this twilight
that does not rise nor set,
haply i may remember
and haply i may forget

so when i´m dead my dearest
sing no sad songs for me
plant thou no roses at my head
nor shady cypress tree
be the green grass above me
with showers and dewdrops wet
and if thou wilt, remember
and if thou wilt, forget

[chorus]
i shall no fear the darkness
i shall not feel the pain
i shall not let the greediness
turn me into a slave
travelling through this tough life
i learned to accept my fate
when to die is to remember
what we forget at birth

This might be of interest to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcbdUrU56v4&list=PLC08230E51CF8718B

And this: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/27/alan-watts-taboo/

"Our normal sensation of self is a hoax, or, at best, a temporary role that we are playing, or have been conned into playing — with our own tacit consent, just as every hypnotized person is basically willing to be hypnotized. The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego.

And yet, he argues, the sense of “I” and the illusion of its separateness from the rest of the universe is so pervasive and so deeply rooted in the infrastructure of our language, our institutions, and our cultural conventions that we find ourselves unable to “experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe.” The antidote lies in recognizing not merely that we belong to and with the rest of universe, but that there is no “rest” in the first place — we are the universe."

And finally this (the comments are good): https://www.facebook.com/notes/henry-chinaski/gnostic-light/316311165085712/

 

[themanofmystery]

And finally this (the comments are good): https://www.facebook.com/notes/henry-chinaski/gnostic-light/316311165085712/[/QUOTE]


There was one comment in particular the just stood out to me, and this was exactly it. Any tripper who's made it into this position of no return and maintained a clarity will know the shivers on your spine from this,

it felt like I couldn't
hold reality together so that everything made sense. I've had the same feeling
on shrooms and salvia. I become frightened that I will stay that way forever
and will never be able to get back to the way things were before. But yes, as Xorkoth
said, I always do eventually get back to the way it was before. In fact, by now
I should be able to have confidence that I will get back to reality every time
it happens but still, when it's actually taking place I always manage to think
that this time is the time when I really screwed up the universe for eternity
because I took a weird chemical.

The scariest part is when I think I am
realizing that the universe can't really exist. It's not really possible. I
realize that the universe is really just me. There are no other real people or
anything. It's just me and what I did was somehow create the universe by a
trick. I managed to trick myself into creating the entire universe by getting
myself to temporarily believe that it's possible. As long as I can trick myself
into forgetting that's it's impossible for anything to exist, as logically you
must all agree (because how can something come from nothing, right?), the
universe can exist. But if ever I become conscious of the fact that the
universe, my life and everything I am aware of, is not actually possible then
the whole thing will collapse and it will go back to eternal nothingness.
That's what brings on the extreme panic, the feeling that I'm getting close to
remembering that it's all just a trick and nothing really exists. If I ever get
all the way to no longer being fooled by my own trick, that will be the end of
everything that ever existed or ever will exist. So far the trick is still
working, but for how long?

The fact that the universe exists right now
shows that I succeeded in formulating a complicated enough trick that it's
still holding together. That was the greatest accomplishment I ever made, I
figured out a way to make the universe exist even though in reality it's
impossible. I made a trick so incredibly convoluted that I haven't been able to
remember what it was yet, which thereby allows it to continue to work. I had to
make it so complicated that I myself could never figure it out. Think how hard
that would be. I also get the feeling that I created the universe numerous
times before but all those times I hadn't made the trick complicated enough
therefore they all collapsed and I had to start all over again, making it more
and more complicated every time. That's why the universe seems so complex right
now, with the galaxies going on and on seemingly without end, because this is
the most complicated version yet. I made this one so complex that it will take
a real long time for it to collapse due to the trick eventually failing to convince
me that the universe is real. Maybe this one will actually work permanently.
Maybe I made it so perfect this time that I will never fail to believe that the
universe is real again and therefore it will never collapse

 

[Xorkoth]

^^ I really relate to this post, I've been there several times. It's a powerful ineffable feeling. I think it happens because in fact "you" and "I" are the universe, we're that same force of awareness, and we DID create subjective experience through a desire to forget the loneliness of the void. That's what reality is. And when you touch on that, and the illusion is threatened, there is deep existential panic.

 

[burn out]

on ketamine one time I woke up in a hospital bed. I was actually in my bed the whole time, but I had the experience of waking up from a coma in a hospital bed and it seemed so real I was convinced that I was really in the hospital. I remember there were small green gremlins which would put thoughts into my mind trying to distract me from the revelations I had had about the nature of reality and the nurses in the hospital also were trying to convince me my experience wasn't real. They would smile at me and say "you were just dreaming dear, we gave you some some anethesia) I remember when the trip was over and I looked around and saw I was still in my own house and there was no hospital or nurses I could scarcely believe it.

 

[burn out]

And finally this (the comments are good): https://www.facebook.com/notes/henry-chinaski/gnostic-light/316311165085712/

There was one comment in particular the just stood out to me, and this was exactly it. Any tripper who's made it into this position of no return and maintained a clarity will know the shivers on your spine from this,

it felt like I couldn't
hold reality together so that everything made sense. I've had the same feeling
on shrooms and salvia. I become frightened that I will stay that way forever
and will never be able to get back to the way things were before. But yes, as Xorkoth
said, I always do eventually get back to the way it was before. In fact, by now
I should be able to have confidence that I will get back to reality every time
it happens but still, when it's actually taking place I always manage to think
that this time is the time when I really screwed up the universe for eternity
because I took a weird chemical.

The scariest part is when I think I am
realizing that the universe can't really exist. It's not really possible. I
realize that the universe is really just me. There are no other real people or
anything. It's just me and what I did was somehow create the universe by a
trick. I managed to trick myself into creating the entire universe by getting
myself to temporarily believe that it's possible. As long as I can trick myself
into forgetting that's it's impossible for anything to exist, as logically you
must all agree (because how can something come from nothing, right?), the
universe can exist. But if ever I become conscious of the fact that the
universe, my life and everything I am aware of, is not actually possible then
the whole thing will collapse and it will go back to eternal nothingness.
That's what brings on the extreme panic, the feeling that I'm getting close to
remembering that it's all just a trick and nothing really exists. If I ever get
all the way to no longer being fooled by my own trick, that will be the end of
everything that ever existed or ever will exist. So far the trick is still
working, but for how long?

The fact that the universe exists right now
shows that I succeeded in formulating a complicated enough trick that it's
still holding together. That was the greatest accomplishment I ever made, I
figured out a way to make the universe exist even though in reality it's
impossible. I made a trick so incredibly convoluted that I haven't been able to
remember what it was yet, which thereby allows it to continue to work. I had to
make it so complicated that I myself could never figure it out. Think how hard
that would be. I also get the feeling that I created the universe numerous
times before but all those times I hadn't made the trick complicated enough
therefore they all collapsed and I had to start all over again, making it more
and more complicated every time. That's why the universe seems so complex right
now, with the galaxies going on and on seemingly without end, because this is
the most complicated version yet. I made this one so complex that it will take
a real long time for it to collapse due to the trick eventually failing to convince
me that the universe is real. Maybe this one will actually work permanently.
Maybe I made it so perfect this time that I will never fail to believe that the
universe is real again and therefore it will never collapse[/QUOTE]

Thats sort of the revelation I had on the ketamine that the gremlins and nurses were trying to hide from me. They would try to convince me they the universe was real and what I had just experienced was a dream but I think its probably the opposite, life is the dream.

 

[FnX]

Curiously, my cat is having serious objections about me replying to this thread, which is completely out of place mind you. Please interpret previous sentence literally and brace yourself for answers in the form of questions, suggestions and a story if you're up for it.

Anyway, words, thoughts, feelings and ideas can indeed be quite deadly in many so ways. Seems like many have ran into this catch-22 situation that is being described in the thread. How many of you entered the situation with the premise of expanding your existence, consciousness, sense of self or universe? How many to end their own existence? What if the matter at hand is simply so much beyond the understanding of mind that it would contradict so bad with the very basis of our own reality that to acknowledge it would mean end of our own very existence in an instant? At least it would be plausible enough or we would outright believe in it enough to warrant evoking our basic survival instincts. Fatal syntax error, if you mind. Consequences could be larger than a single life, if such a thing indeed exists. What we do has an effect on the whole, is the idea of provoking a chain reaction that ends consciousness as a whole preposterous?

Would it be worth it to take the leap anyway? One (fragment of) experience weighed against the whole? If what we call reality isn't real after all, how dangerous can it be to break the illusion? Are we as a species so immature, unpredictable and self-destructive that there are things which other species (or just people) don't want us to understand about how the universe works, because we might actually break the whole damn thing? Would you entrust yourself with the responsibility of literally holding the universe together consciously (or making conscious effort not to break it at least) or if you were really honest with yourself, would that kind of seriousness become a heavy burden that could eventually drag you to darkness?

Selfish compassion... I like those words. One way to understand them would be compassion of the self towards the self. Many ways to go from there on. Survivor's guilt, when mentioned in the context of this thread is also something that raises plenty of thoughts.

All it takes to construct a whole world, even a "universe" is a mental exercise after all, if you think about it and a world without countless shards of consciousness reflecting on each other while continuously building onward would be quite hollow and lifeless indeed. A shared universe can have many authors, but if one deviates too much from the others they will essentially splinter off, because otherwise everything would get inconsistent and at least when I look around, everything generally is consistent. "Our universe doesn't tolerate paradoxes" I can't even count how many times have I heard that one along with the proposed consequences if one were to occur.

In the end, there is so, so much we don't know, understand and which is beyond our very perception, perhaps even imagination at this very moment. Who's to say that we can't reach there eventually? It's the journey that is as important as the destination at the very least though. Say you were being offered answers to the fundamental questions of the universe, knowing they would change everything forever, would you not hesitate even for a second if you had absolutely no idea what the questions even were and thus what would happen besides absolute, irreversible change? If you hesitated, should they be given to you considering something like that should probably be as informed a decision as possible? If you didn't hesitate even for a second, should the answers be given to you considering you wouldn't even care that you haven't got a clue what you are doing at that moment and god knows what you would do when you knew these answers? Same could be said about the questions too, except that they are even more important and if you let someone else dictate to you what is the most fundamental question in the universe let alone the answer to it, you let them dictate your very own reality.

If you ever find yourself standing at a cross-roads between what you thought was possible and what was impossible, literally at the edge of the conceivable universe, you will very likely only find the clarity of confusion, delusion or rejection. Imagine if you will, an aquatic species going through thousands, millions of years of evolution and then by accident surfacing for the first time ever while actually surviving the process itself and being on land too. Surely the member of this species would believe same fate awaits them as did all the millions of individuals before it who died, suffocating on the shore? They would instantly know when they reached the shore despite never being there before because it's outside of their conceivable universe. Others would be yelling from behind, urging them to quickly come back because they couldn't bear to lose another one to the great unknown. Best to forget about the traumatic experience of being on land altogether, because the ones who remember it and managed to come back alive were never quite the same, obsessing with absurd, impossible thoughts of going back there and actually being able to survive too. What a disaster would it be, if suddenly everyone was convinced they could survive on the land and surfaced. It would, by one definition be the end to the species.

But the once aquatic now amphibian creature, the freak of nature - in the most complimenting sense of the expression - knew it could survive. However, it was facing the dilemma of leaving everything it previously knew about the world behind, including its own identity as a creature of the sea or listening to the advice of the ones it held dear, as it had a happy life despite never quite fitting in. Would survival alone be worth all the sacrifice? What perils even awaited there, it thought to itself as it saw something fly in the sky. Very navigation was a struggle, it didn't quite get why the substance it would come to know as air provided so little resistance that no matter how much energy it spent to flapping it's body, it barely even moved. Desperation started to sink in and it was hoping for the next tide to take it back to the sea when it saw another creature at the shore. The land dweller seemed more curious than dangerous, even if it had absolute power over the life our struggling sea creature. They exchanged looks and somehow understood each other on a instinctive level, the primate who had only seen dead sea creatures end up on the shore thought he would perform an act of compassion and used its hands to return the surfaced creature back to the sea thinking it was saving a life. If only it would have known that what it had seen was the next step in evolution, an amphibian, instead of an aquatic creature. You see later, these primates would come to experience that amphibians are quite adept at surviving on the land, once they had learned to use their inherent capabilities to the full. The amphibian, returned to it's sea, sure as hell didn't feel like it had experienced enlightenment of any sort, it was utterly confused, unsure if delusional, contemplating what to reject about this experience so it could move on with it's life.

Enlightenment however, would have been the very same experience accompanied with the comprehension of what was happening. At least as close as it could reasonably expect to get within its own lifetime. While getting shot to the vacuum of space would certainly have been much more mind blowing in a very literal way, too much or too far along with way too fast is rarely a good thing. Just the right amount of 'too much' at a pace that feels almost like too fast is often what happens before the impossible becomes possible.

Who knows though, maybe there are primates patrolling the shores, tossing back everything that comes out of the sea just to maintain their dominance over the land or sort of as reverse beach guards, sworn to protect the lives of the ones who stray too far from the sea for their own good. Perhaps an amphibian conspiracy to keep the possibility of living on the land a well kept secret for selfless or selfish reasons. Perhaps other creatures of the sea believe amphibians (who do not fully understand themselves) are sick and disfigured, trying to 'cure' them by cutting off the limbs that would allow amphibians to navigate on land and ridding them of such thought by convincing them it was delusion, believing they are doing them a favor or just acting out of plain jealousy. Perhaps there are other complicated agendas at play that not a single creature mentioned in the story could even begin to comprehend.

No matter what, change is inevitable and nothing last forever. We are graciously given the choice whether to embrace this or not. We have every reason to be afraid, the world is a dangerous place after all. Fortune favors the bold, however, or so they say at least. They also have a saying where curiosity kills the cat. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle and the cat that got itself killed had both boldness and curiosity, just not in the right amounts.

Stay safe, stay curious, be bold and remember compassion to both self and others and don't let feelings of guilt weigh you down too much.

 

[cosmic._.ape]

"A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

(Edgar Allan Poe)

 

[themanofmystery]

Curiously, my cat is having serious objections about me replying to this thread, which is completely out of place mind you. Please interpret previous sentence literally and brace yourself for answers in the form of questions, suggestions and a story if you're up for it.

Anyway, words, thoughts, feelings and ideas can indeed be quite deadly in many so ways. Seems like many have ran into this catch-22 situation that is being described in the thread. How many of you entered the situation with the premise of expanding your existence, consciousness, sense of self or universe? How many to end their own existence? What if the matter at hand is simply so much beyond the understanding of mind that it would contradict so bad with the very basis of our own reality that to acknowledge it would mean end of our own very existence in an instant? At least it would be plausible enough or we would outright believe in it enough to warrant evoking our basic survival instincts. Fatal syntax error, if you mind. Consequences could be larger than a single life, if such a thing indeed exists. What we do has an effect on the whole, is the idea of provoking a chain reaction that ends consciousness as a whole preposterous?

Would it be worth it to take the leap anyway? One (fragment of) experience weighed against the whole? If what we call reality isn't real after all, how dangerous can it be to break the illusion? Are we as a species so immature, unpredictable and self-destructive that there are things which other species (or just people) don't want us to understand about how the universe works, because we might actually break the whole damn thing? Would you entrust yourself with the responsibility of literally holding the universe together consciously (or making conscious effort not to break it at least) or if you were really honest with yourself, would that kind of seriousness become a heavy burden that could eventually drag you to darkness?

Selfish compassion... I like those words. One way to understand them would be compassion of the self towards the self. Many ways to go from there on. Survivor's guilt, when mentioned in the context of this thread is also something that raises plenty of thoughts.

All it takes to construct a whole world, even a "universe" is a mental exercise after all, if you think about it and a world without countless shards of consciousness reflecting on each other while continuously building onward would be quite hollow and lifeless indeed. A shared universe can have many authors, but if one deviates too much from the others they will essentially splinter off, because otherwise everything would get inconsistent and at least when I look around, everything generally is consistent. "Our universe doesn't tolerate paradoxes" I can't even count how many times have I heard that one along with the proposed consequences if one were to occur.

In the end, there is so, so much we don't know, understand and which is beyond our very perception, perhaps even imagination at this very moment. Who's to say that we can't reach there eventually? It's the journey that is as important as the destination at the very least though. Say you were being offered answers to the fundamental questions of the universe, knowing they would change everything forever, would you not hesitate even for a second if you had absolutely no idea what the questions even were and thus what would happen besides absolute, irreversible change? If you hesitated, should they be given to you considering something like that should probably be as informed a decision as possible? If you didn't hesitate even for a second, should the answers be given to you considering you wouldn't even care that you haven't got a clue what you are doing at that moment and god knows what you would do when you knew these answers? Same could be said about the questions too, except that they are even more important and if you let someone else dictate to you what is the most fundamental question in the universe let alone the answer to it, you let them dictate your very own reality.

If you ever find yourself standing at a cross-roads between what you thought was possible and what was impossible, literally at the edge of the conceivable universe, you will very likely only find the clarity of confusion, delusion or rejection. Imagine if you will, an aquatic species going through thousands, millions of years of evolution and then by accident surfacing for the first time ever while actually surviving the process itself and being on land too. Surely the member of this species would believe same fate awaits them as did all the millions of individuals before it who died, suffocating on the shore? They would instantly know when they reached the shore despite never being there before because it's outside of their conceivable universe. Others would be yelling from behind, urging them to quickly come back because they couldn't bear to lose another one to the great unknown. Best to forget about the traumatic experience of being on land altogether, because the ones who remember it and managed to come back alive were never quite the same, obsessing with absurd, impossible thoughts of going back there and actually being able to survive too. What a disaster would it be, if suddenly everyone was convinced they could survive on the land and surfaced. It would, by one definition be the end to the species.

But the once aquatic now amphibian creature, the freak of nature - in the most complimenting sense of the expression - knew it could survive. However, it was facing the dilemma of leaving everything it previously knew about the world behind, including its own identity as a creature of the sea or listening to the advice of the ones it held dear, as it had a happy life despite never quite fitting in. Would survival alone be worth all the sacrifice? What perils even awaited there, it thought to itself as it saw something fly in the sky. Very navigation was a struggle, it didn't quite get why the substance it would come to know as air provided so little resistance that no matter how much energy it spent to flapping it's body, it barely even moved. Desperation started to sink in and it was hoping for the next tide to take it back to the sea when it saw another creature at the shore. The land dweller seemed more curious than dangerous, even if it had absolute power over the life our struggling sea creature. They exchanged looks and somehow understood each other on a instinctive level, the primate who had only seen dead sea creatures end up on the shore thought he would perform an act of compassion and used its hands to return the surfaced creature back to the sea thinking it was saving a life. If only it would have known that what it had seen was the next step in evolution, an amphibian, instead of an aquatic creature. You see later, these primates would come to experience that amphibians are quite adept at surviving on the land, once they had learned to use their inherent capabilities to the full. The amphibian, returned to it's sea, sure as hell didn't feel like it had experienced enlightenment of any sort, it was utterly confused, unsure if delusional, contemplating what to reject about this experience so it could move on with it's life.

Enlightenment however, would have been the very same experience accompanied with the comprehension of what was happening. At least as close as it could reasonably expect to get within its own lifetime. While getting shot to the vacuum of space would certainly have been much more mind blowing in a very literal way, too much or too far along with way too fast is rarely a good thing. Just the right amount of 'too much' at a pace that feels almost like too fast is often what happens before the impossible becomes possible.

Who knows though, maybe there are primates patrolling the shores, tossing back everything that comes out of the sea just to maintain their dominance over the land or sort of as reverse beach guards, sworn to protect the lives of the ones who stray too far from the sea for their own good. Perhaps an amphibian conspiracy to keep the possibility of living on the land a well kept secret for selfless or selfish reasons. Perhaps other creatures of the sea believe amphibians (who do not fully understand themselves) are sick and disfigured, trying to 'cure' them by cutting off the limbs that would allow amphibians to navigate on land and ridding them of such thought by convincing them it was delusion, believing they are doing them a favor or just acting out of plain jealousy. Perhaps there are other complicated agendas at play that not a single creature mentioned in the story could even begin to comprehend.

No matter what, change is inevitable and nothing last forever. We are graciously given the choice whether to embrace this or not. We have every reason to be afraid, the world is a dangerous place after all. Fortune favors the bold, however, or so they say at least. They also have a saying where curiosity kills the cat. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle and the cat that got itself killed had both boldness and curiosity, just not in the right amounts.

Stay safe, stay curious, be bold and remember compassion to both self and others and don't let feelings of guilt weigh you down too much.

I loved the analogy, tickled me. I get what you mean though, you can't boot strap yourself to Godhead and expect to play the role without knowing anything about the act let alone your lines. I've been to that place on acid where it feels like it's make or break, for everything, if I go through with this then I will never return to reality and I will come back to the mess I left behind/am in for good to deal with it.

Is it all just some delusion of all this mindless confusion,
Or is it the penultimate conclusion?

 

[themanofmystery]

"A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

(Edgar Allan Poe)

What else other than some coping mechanism for the most troubled of Gods? A dream after all comes from the primitive state of consciousness. Most of the dream consists of conflict, and decision making. How could this be any different, other than it is a long dream, that is stretched out, follows narrative and never ends?

 

[Jabberwocky]

*We Die To Remember What We Live To Forget*

i shall not hear the shadows
i shall not feel the rain;
i shall not hear the nigthingale
sing on, as if in pain
and dreaming through this twilight
that does not rise nor set,
haply i may remember
and haply i may forget

so when i´m dead my dearest
sing no sad songs for me
plant thou no roses at my head
nor shady cypress tree
be the green grass above me
with showers and dewdrops wet
and if thou wilt, remember
and if thou wilt, forget...

That's beautiful. Did you write that?

 

[cosmic._.ape]

The part you quote is from a victorian british poet whose name I don't remember. I wrote the other half, the one with the mushrooms references, to make a song out of it... a punk song actually

the following is not mine either, but again, can't remember who wrote it:

" It was like I was instantly transported to a realizaition/place I have
been many times before and want so terribly to forget exist. The most absolute
horror I can ever imagine. Like if I had a pistol next to me I would have shot
myself to end it, but in actuality nothing would have ended and nothing would
have changed. That was the terrifying part.

I felt like I am God, and the truth of it is
God is just insane and made all this shit that we call reality up to distract
from the fact that in actuality there is nothing and no way of ending the
nothingness. It will go on forever and ever.

It's hard to explain, but like withing 5
seconds of hitting the DMT (coke bottle/foil vape. had 50mg but I think I only
got about 30 or 40, but all at once) I was like "oh NO not this again I
fucking broke reality and remember what I keep trying to forget like an
idiot(which I get the impression I have done many many times... its like the
secret of life we are trying to find is actually exactly what we DO NOT want to
know)"... I was sitting meditating, and immediatly got up to grab a
dropper of etiz solution and felt an entity push me back and basically say
"sit with it". That lasted maybe a minute until I flipped out and
took maybe 10-20mg etiz (knowing it would do nothing before the dmt faded....)
and lay in bed begging to "forget" again" The more I type the
closer I feel to remembering and that is literally the most terrifying thing
imaginable.

annnnnddddd I wanted to
smoke more like 10 minutes after it faded. what in the fuck is that?

I think I would kill myself if I thought it
would make any difference. I think that is the most fucked up part, the
realization that there is nothing, no one, just an insane God creating itself
into everything to distract from the nothingness, but it always fails in the
end.

on the complete flip side I have experienced
the full on body filled with light, pulsing love oneness
"god/spiritual" trip as well. so I don't know. That fear was the most
intense real thing, it should scare me off psychedelics forever, but it hasn't
and probably won't until I am dead of incarcerated for the rest of my life...
oh well."

bonus song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXevC0I4n1M&list=RDiXevC0I4n1M&index=1

 

[FnX]

..."on the complete flip side I have experienced
the full on body filled with light, pulsing love oneness
"god/spiritual" trip as well. so I don't know. That fear was the most
intense real thing, it should scare me off psychedelics forever, but it hasn't
and probably won't until I am dead of incarcerated for the rest of my life...
oh well."

Suppose you can go forwards, why not backwards then as well? Along with every other direction, dimension, level, form, state, whatever? If infinity is 'cyclical' like a circle or a sphere, you can go around in circles, never seeming to reach anywhere, always returning where you started. You could also find your consciousness in it's very core, where everything is essentially a clean slate and depending on your mindset and capabilities, either full of infinite potential or infinite nothingness? If infinity was an infinite 'field' of inter-connected but in a way independent circles, by getting to the edges of one circle you might be able jump between them, traveling from 'reality' to another. There could be rules, like gravity, certain circles having a stronger pull than others, making it very hard to switch back. One second in one circle could mean an eternity in another.

If I can imagine it, can something prevent it from existing on some level at least? I am so very interested in the things I (or perhaps no human) can't even imagine which are still out there though. Just like I am so very interested in the things that are right in front of me, but I somehow still manage to miss them. Things that I have faith I can imagine, but haven't imagined yet. Things that are just outside my field of vision, but which I can't see by turning my head, only by 'zooming out' (like walking backwards except without moving at all) and realizing I'm just looking through a looking glass/window. The fact that the observer cannot directly observe himself, only indirectly. The dreams of strangers I hear from, which are so similar to mine, even when I have never talked to anyone about them, almost as if I they had the same dream. When someone else puts my own thoughts into words, pictures or songs. When the subject of discussion feels like it's literally floating in the middle of the people having the conversation, almost like you could grasp it, everyone reaching out for the correct word or expression, almost as if they could see it.

 

[vortech]

This would be a great subject for a book, to compile reports from trips and even people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other altered mental states, accounts through history in philosophy and the arts and as it appears in various manifestations in movies and modern literature, and finally bring it all together with possible explanations, insight, theories.

I have more experiences with this theme than I can count or mention (but would be interesting to document all of it and look for connections). Many trypatmines and LSD offer a touch or a feeling like this, and many people write it off as remembering bits of our soul that extends beyond this life. Salvia offers a much more visceral manifestation of this theme. Dissociatives take it up to level 11 with full blown 'realizations' of this theme as some color of truth through an extended disembodied journey.