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"Psilocybin shows you everything you know is wrong. The world is not a single, one-dimensional thing, but some kind of interdimensional nexus… What the voice in the psychedelic experience wants to reveal is the syntactical nature of reality. That the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of, you make of it whatever you wish!”
-Terence McKenna
This article is part three of my heroic dose experience with psilocybin mushrooms. A few years back I ingested around 7 grams of the mushroom. My experience was profound and spiritual in nature and I believe it was the most important experience of my life to date.
For part one and two of the article please see the links below.
Inside the Belly of the Worm: A Heroic Dose Part I
Saying Goodbye: A Heroic Dose Part II
Part III: Where is My Mind?
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It was a few hours into my trip – I think. Time is extremely hard to track when on psilocybin so I can only guess at how long it had been since I first ate the mushrooms.
I was in a state of singularity. My mind couldn’t categorize or differentiate between objects. Everything was one. The feeling created a sense of peace within me but it also created a lot of confusion. Everything was connected and nothing existed outside of me. I couldn’t distinguish myself from others and at one point I even asked a friend if we were the same person.
He assured me that we weren’t. Nothing made sense in my mind anymore.
I could feel my ego slipping away and along with it, my internal dialogue. What many people do not realize is that it is our internal dialogue which allows us to think, rationalize and understand our reality. Without our internal dialogue, words and concepts have no meaning.
If you would like to see this for yourself, try explaining the concept of a mother, or money, or ownership without words. It’s just not possible. There is only blankness.
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In this moment I was being given a profound gift. A glimpse at an untainted and unfiltered reality. Without the mind to categorize and separate each individual object the individual perceives their reality as a non-separated oneness.
In this moment I was at one with the universe.
However, my mind fought the experience and tried to hold onto what it knew and what made it feel safe. It wanted the world to make sense and fought desperately to hold on to its precious words - its language.
Though I was completely lucid and coherent I became very confused. I tried to think, but my mind was completely blank. Though I could talk out loud to others, I couldn’t talk to myself in my head and because of that, I couldn’t explain simple concepts to myself. The words inside my head just didn’t exist.
I couldn’t tell the difference between life and death. I didn’t know what a sister or a mother was. I couldn’t even reason to myself why different drinks in the glasses on the table were different colors. I asked my friends to explain these simple terms to me until they eventually became frustrated. I was like a child continuously and incessantly asking why or what?
Why are the drinks different colors?
What does it mean to die?
What is a sister?
Why do we have to eat food?
Images popped into my head and I immediately wanted to know their meaning.
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Overwhelmed by the questions raining down on them, my friends began to distance themselves from me. I could see it coming. I could sense a change in their energy. I was too much for them, which I can understand. They were afraid for me and annoyed.
But I became frustrated as well. I felt lost and confused. I knew that it was the mushrooms that weren’t allowing me to think but I felt scared that the confusion would never wear off.
Agitated, I began banging my hand on the counter saying
”I don’t understand”
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I asked if I would ever understand things again and was nervous and scared that I had done irreparable damage to myself. I was torn between wanting to isolate myself and hide from others and wanting to be accepted by the group.
I ultimately became afraid to speak.
It’s a strange thing to be fully lucid and aware of your surroundings, to see the world in a vivid clarity with your full memory intact, yet not be able to think or explain simple concepts. It was almost paradoxical. My friends were convinced that I was “Gone,” lost in an abyss of unconscious incoherence. Even to this day I haven’t been able to convince them that in that moment I was completely aware of everything that was going on.
Slowly, the mushrooms wore off and things returned to normal. I could feel it happening. Slowly things began to make sense again until finally I was completely “sober.”
Conclusion
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The experience has certainly changed my outlook on life and reality. I now realize how much we rely on words in order to understand ourselves and the world around us. Words, ultimately shape our reality and without them a lot of what we know to be true, crumbles away.
Words categorize the world around us and separate us from a unified oneness. However, without words there is no separation and the individual realizes that they exist as a part of the mysterious whole. This calls into question the very nature of reality and suggests that much of our understanding of the world is based on the words we use to describe it.
Thanks for Reading
Great write-up, bringing me back. Resteemed and followed!
thanks, I appreciate the support :)
I love this! Thanks for sharing. I wish more people would share their experiences like this. I love hearing other peoples stories because i know how profound my own experiences have been with heroic doses. I have been researching a lot with Psilacetin over the past few years and it has reminded me who I am.
yeah its interesting how a lot of experiences are very similar. Its incredible how certain plants have such an affect on the brain/mind.
Thanks for the comment and support :)
You should check out the The Psychedelic Anthology if you haven't already. it is a 7 volume series(only 2 have been released so far) of real-life psychedelic experiences from people using various substances and doses. I read the first volume and it was pretty amazing.
That sounds really interesting. I'll keep it in mind.
Thanks for the recommendation :)
Thank you for sharing this experience! I have had a few heroic doses myself and will be sharing some in a post soon! It's really amazing how detailed you were able to be with your descriptions; I could almost feel the mushroom :) following!
Thanks for the comment and the support.
I'm wondering if your experiences were similar to mine. I'll keep an eye out for your coming posts :)
Words and linguistics are very interesting in general. How a broader vocabulary let us structure more intricate creations and advanced mental landscapes is highly amusing. I've heard picking up new languages can also be very valuable because of this.
yeah I agree. Its interesting to think about different facets of language and how we use them and how they change over time. I've been fascinated by language for a long time now.
Very nice trip :) The feeling of unity with universe is common while experiences this kind of substances. During the stroke a similar impression occurs when brain doesn't recognize boundaries and everything merges into one. The most constructive process is when we starting to be able to control it and in this feeling of unity begin deep analysis of true matter of things, what they really are? I recommend you smoke dmt - it is great ;)
Yes I have heard that about strokes as well. I watched a video where a neuro-scientist explained her stroke experience. She suggested that it had to do with the stroke being on the left hemisphere of her brain which caused her right hemisphere to completely take over. The talk was very interesting. I think it was a TED talk.
I've never tried DMT but would like to. I'd like to do ayhuaska which is a drinkable DMT (you may be aware of that). I've smoked salvia and I think it would be similar to DMT based on what I've read but all that is just theory.
I probably wont get tired of reading psilocybin trip entries till i go on one.
but I think the common experience in every trip is always the fear that the altered state will persist forever. It even happens in lucid dreams and you get scared you wouldnt make it back to normal reality.
I think the chattering mind consistently interpret the world to us. without it, we would be aware of everything but not be able to interpret them. Words help us make meaning of the world. While meditation seeks to close down the automatic chatter and make it consciously controlled, I think substances like mushroom just shut it down immediately and temporarily. I want to believe advance state of meditation will help you experience the profoundity of the no thought state but you will be able to activate the chatter at will.
That's a good point and I agree. I also agree with what you said about meditation - I see it in the same way.
I often wonder what the long term meditation practitioners experience. I have read stories on monks trying psychedelic drugs like acid and stating that meditation is better lol. I have had some interesting meditation experiences but not ones that could be compared to psychedelics haha.
lol @ monks claiming psychedelics cant be compared with meditation, well, maybe it's true tho but after years of meditating on and off, I can say I have better control over my instincts and a few other things but it's hard to say I have experienced anything particularly interesting.. I would love to read from long term practitioners too but I think most of them embellish their meditation stories too much especially when you're reading from a blog online. lol
yeah you might be right. I don't doubt the power of the mind though. Especially for those that dedicate their lives to meditating like monks do. Meditating for hours on end each and everyday must have some affect. Maybe their minds have just gone insane from lack of stimulus hahaha ;)
Lol. I dont doubt the power of the mind too but going insane due to lack of stimulus is a bit funny.
Your post was resteemed on the @Pf-Coin blog thanks to @leaky20. ;-)
Thank you!
I just want to note that my title image is not a psilocybin mushroom its a fly agaric mushroom which can be toxic. Something to be mindful of :)
This post has received a 1.96 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @leaky20.