Shrooms Trip Report. Deep Down The Epistemological Rabbit Hole

[Yamazaki]

I just had quite a disturbing experience on shrooms. I feel freaked out and compelled to share my experience.

I have been meditating seriously for about a month and a half now. I have become much more aware of the movements of my own mind, and have had a few short peaks behind the curtain of self. I have had experience with LSD and mushrooms before, many positive, some very negative. But what I saw with my recently cultivated awareness on shrooms today was rather terrifying to say the least. I took a little over 5g at 11:30, home alone. When things started kicking in my sense of being a coherent self completely started melting. It was pretty clear that the self-concept was just made up of thoughts, yet thoughts have no substance. This stirred up a lot of anxiety; no-self felt like a very scary and ugly truth. But once I just surrendered and let everything be, things got a little better. I already can’t remember the details very well, but many ideas and concepts I was attached to were seen as baseless ideas and melted away. I was thrown into a sea of anxiety about not actually knowing or understanding anything, and that I had no chance in hell at winning this silly game I playing of "trying to beat the game of life". Eventually I was able to totally surrender and make a huge break through. I realized that my whole life I was trying to “get somewhere” and “have the one right life”, but that that was all empty and meaningless, and that there was nothing to gain in the end. It was clear that true freedom comes from completely letting go, surrendering to things how they are and stop needing them to be a certain way. I remember thinking, “yes, nothing matters, and thank goodness for that. If things mattered, that would be a lot of trouble”. Everything is just how it is, and that OK. Even if I never amount to anything or never get enlightened, that’s ok; no matter what happens, that is just fine, everything will be ok. I felt so silly for judging the people around me for not being interested in consciousnesses. I was filled with love for everything and started sobbing. I felt like I had just died, and that the rest of my life was just extra. Words really can’t even get close to expressing the essence of the realization. I thought that the rest of my trip would be me basking in the afterglow, and then me not taking the rest of my life as seriously.

But then the whole essence of the realization started to stir up a bunch of anxiety. “Wait what? There’s no point? To anything? I’m just going to go through a bunch of annoying shit like going to school and working, just to die? Holy shit, I’m going to die, and then just lights out for the rest of eternity?” I tried to reassure myself that I had to be misunderstanding something, and that things can’t be as bad as they seem. I tried to recall my intellectual understanding of no self, and the essence of my earlier break through. But the second I tried to do that, it immediately became clear that ALL of that was just concepts and ideas, and might have no basis in reality. This is where my nightmare started. I went down a deep epistemological rabbit hole, and ended up coming head to head with how beliefs and webs of beliefs works, and that me and everyone I know is living in a world of concepts made up by the mind. I realized that I didn’t know what I am, or anything about the nature of reality. Everything I thought I knew of reality was just a conceptual model created from limited evidence. All sense of happiness, sadness, direction and purpose were derived from that conceptual model, and without it, not even the most basic of decisions can be made. I thought about all of the ideological disagreements people have, and realized that I have no way to know what the right thing to do with my life is. Every time a concept or idea arose in my head, I instantly torn it apart and saw how it was merely an idea, and could have no basis in reality, and was then again left in a void. I also came head to head with the fact that I seem to be driven by instincts, and only have very limited control over the way I am. I realized the limits of my own perception and intellect, and that I really don’t have any reason to believe that my mind is equipped to understand the deepest truths. Even if it is possible, how can I trust myself to actually do the things necessary to get there. At this point the feeling of being a coherent self was still weak, and the problem of self-control felt possibly insurmountable. I am really at a loss of words to explain how I felt. I was really able to see my mind fabricating experience in real time, including the experience of “being me”. I went meta on myself so many times that I was truly left in a void. But I also had enough awareness to see that my intellect was still working properly; all of these conclusions I was coming to wasn't just "drug bullshit" that I could forget about later. This rabbit hole is real, and it is "normal people" who are delusional for mistaking their beliefs as reality.

I have come down now, and am mostly fine, but feel a bit scared. I guess I have to say that it was a positive experience in the end, because I don’t think I will ever take any belief that seriously anymore, and my mind is extremely open to any and all possibilities. I have come to a place of true not knowing, which feels absolutely awful, but necessary to make real growth. I also respect psychedelics much more now…. These are not toys, all right.

Edited June 2, 2017 by Yamazaki

[Real Eyes]

Wow, thanks for sharing that experience.  

[nightrider1435]

Good report man! Nice work. 

[Paintballer]

Dark night of the soul, depression and other negative side effects when one has an opening they are not ready for is a commom side effect of awakening. A rarely talked about one at that. It'll blow over. You can not get rid of the ego without it struggling.

 

Good luck man

[Leo Gura]

@Yamazaki Good work! Some heavy lifting done there. All very positive stuff. Your future trips can now go deeper into Truth. This was you getting your cup emptied of bullshit.

You've felt a tinge of ego-death, but it gets way deeper. After you work through some of your worst fears, the immense beauty of nonduality will shine through.

Take some time off and your mind will be back to normal in no time.

5g is a pretty strong dose, and mushrooms are pretty twisted. You might want to consider future trips on small doses of LSD or AL-LAD or the like, which give you more opportunity to contemplate and make sense of nonduality without getting your whole world flipped inside out.

[No-Thing]

You awakened from the dream. Now comes the difficult part. You will feel a split within yourself. Sometimes your conditioning ego structure will be in the foreground and sometimes you will just be still. Everyday you will realise how full of shit you were yesterday and that you are probably still full of shit today. There is no turning back anymore. The best you can do is to just surrender and point the flashlight of your awareness onto everything that goes on in your life. You might want to research the dark night of the soul. Don't make any radical changes in your life too quickly. Don't drag others into your stuff too much. Don't seek the absolute too heavily and get one sided. Enlightenment doesn't have a preference for either form or the formless. 

About your fear of infinity. I had the same just a couple of days back. It is just your ego making a story out of it. Everything is just as it is. It is what it is and everything is exactly as it should be so thinking, oh it is me alone forever and ever is just your ego thinking it is Truth but it's not.

Don't deny your negative emotions. Allow them to be just as everything else. Don't think, oh in need to release them to become enlightened. Look at them and just see what they are without a story.

Go further as Jed Mckenna likes to put it. Further! But at the same time, realise that there is nowhere to go and you are it already. Just don't make the mistake of thinking you are enlightened. The you that thinks it is enlightened will never be. The you that doesn't care about enlightenment is it already. It was and will ever be it which is a stupid sentence because it is outside of time.

 

Edited June 2, 2017 by No-Thing