LSD Trip Report- Beyond Life, Death and Schizophrenia

[tlowedajuicemayne]

I put a tab and a half of blotter under my tongue and waited. I sat on my zazen cushion facing the wall with my eyes lowered, breathing deeply. I felt shaky, as if energy was surging through me that would let me sit still comfortably. The come up hadn't even begun yet but the anxiety was already high. A tab and a half of this particular batch of LSD was the most I'd ever done, and on top of that these tabs were the strongest I'd ever faced.

 

The come up came on strong and swift. I found myself getting higher and higher. Each level higher bringing about its own fear. Each time I would break through into a higher level of consciousness, I would think to myself 'there's nothing higher than this' and it was only then that it would dawn on me that I was breaking through to yet an even higher dimension.

 

I eventually got off of my meditation cushion and sat down on my bed. It was early afternoon. I quickly glanced out the window to try and ground myself but I couldn't ground myself in physical reality. A revolution was taking place within me, The LSD wasn't about the let me ignore it. I tried to play music to keep me calm but any form of music felt distasteful so I opted out of music.

 

My heart raced, and raced, the fear got more and more intense. I shifted my position to a seated position where my back was leaning against the wall and my feet extended in front of me. I was facing the window and I looked out at the tree's and I noticed that they were no longer tree's. The leaves had taken the shape of geometric patterns that extended deeply into my visual field. I felt fear because I realized that reality was now radically different than it had ever been but I put the fear out of my mind pretty quickly by surrendering as deeply as I could to the experience that was unfolding before my eyes.

 

An energy rushed through my body, like a rapidly flowing river. The river flowed through all of the objects in the room and then to the center of the universe. As the current got stronger, I began to feel a slight pull at my ego. Stronger and stronger it pulled at my ego until I finally let it go. It was so uncomfortable at first to feel my sense of self be pulled away and then tossed into oblivion. It had happened to me before in other psychedelic experiences but it’s a feeling I don't think I'll ever get used to.

 

Anyhow,

 

I realized that I existed without any sense of identity or self. I sat there on my bed, totally nobody. The revolution going full speed within me capturing the majority of my attention. What was the revolution? I couldn't tell, it was too much for my mind to comprehend. As the current of the river got even stronger, I suddenly became one with it. Like a small bubble merging into a larger bubble. I flowed (as the cosmic river) through all the objects in my room and into my cat which was sitting on the window sill. I flowed into my cats tail and waved it.

 

As the revolution within me was dying down in intensity, I began to realize that I was reaching the peak of the experience. I got off my bed and walked downstairs to sit on the couch. The TV was on but I was too preoccupied with my inner state to even notice the outside world very much. I sat on the couch looking at nothing really. My full attention wrapped up in my deep inner state.

 

I felt myself begin to approach madness as I became less and less responsive to the outside world. I was leaving the outside behind entirely and diving deeply within myself. I no longer heard sounds in the room or outside, no longer smelled the air, or felt my body temperature, etc. I let go completely into the beyond. As the last parts of my outside attention began to slip away a feeling that I might never come back washed over me, but I didn't fear it very much. I simply let go into the beyond. My thoughts became more and more irrelevant as I went deeper into my mind. My intellect became like a mosquito. Landing on different parts of the experience trying to suck out any meaning, philosophy, wisdom that it could take back with it into the egoic mind. I was so conscious however that I didn't care that it operated in this way.

 

Large portions of my mind which (I realized) are normally shrouded in darkness or unconsciousness, had now become fully conscious. Where normally the intellect would take up quite a bit of conscious real estate, it was no longer large enough to even capture 1% of my full attention. I was deep in my own mind and with that depth came a great compassion for all life.

 

I saw the landscape of my mind like the stars speckled across the night sky. The darkness of space being the unconscious parts of my mind, and the little specks of light were the conscious sides of my mind. As I went deeper into my mind, there was less and less dark space and more and more light.

 

I began to approach schizophrenia. I saw it coming as I let go into my mind more and more. My conscious attention panicked and then rushed back to see what my body was doing in the physical world. It was like swimming to the top of the pool to make sure the waves were still okay. I immediately realized the futility of such a task. My body was sitting there, starring at the wall to my left, hands in my lap. The TV was on, the AC was running, the house was quiet. I felt the tug to turn inward pull my attention back away from my body and deep into my mind again. I felt myself entering schizophrenia yet again but I didn’t try to stop it this time. The part of my mind which gave things meaning was now under my full conscious control. I was ascribing the deepest of meaning to everything in my experience, even the smallest things were imbued with cosmic levels of meaning and purpose. There was no part of my experience 'inner or outer' that I wasn't consciously making blissful. I gave everything so much depth and meaning that I could hardly handle the beauty I'd made. I felt like a grape that was so ripe it could pop at any moment, releasing the sweetest of juices.

 

The deeper I went into the schizophrenia the more images of my family discovering me starring absent mindedly at the wall began to play in my mind. Visions of my family crying at my bedside as I was completely unresponsive played in my mind. For a moment I grieved the loss of my normal self but just as I began to feel too sad I dropped all human emotions and became something cosmic. Something impersonal.

 

I was now so deep in my mind that I was no longer aware of physical reality, sounds, smells, taste, touch. I was no longer even aware of emotions, or thoughts either. I found myself in the center of the universe as the center of the universe. I was no longer a human being at this point. I no longer cared whether or not I ever came back to my senses. The feeling of cosmic bliss was so deep that it fulfilled me completely. If I had died in this very spot, I would have been okay with that. Nothing mattered at all. I saw that there were no mistakes in the universe, no evil.

 

I nonchalantly witnessed the beginning of man kind. Millions of human beings sitting cross legged on the ground. All of the human beings, animals, and insects serving no other purpose than to be sensors from which I observe myself from within myself (as the universal). I witnessed the first human hug, the first dance, the first song, the first death and murder. All of this pleased me to no end.

 

I wasn't to keen on watching human history long however, or even cosmic history. I knew everything that existed in the cosmos, nothing was a surprise to me. One thing captured my attention more than anything else though- The fact that I was aware. I couldn't stop marveling at the fact that I was aware. Because I was aware, I generated nothing but Love. This was the most obvious thing to do. I generated love, love, love as the universe itself.

 

I didn't spend long in this schizophrenic state, I felt my ordinary consciousness begin to come back as the parts of my mind which were now well lit began to go dark again. I felt my emotions start to come back, then my thoughts, then my visual field came back online, then my smell, taste, touch, and body consciousness. I shifted myself in my chair to appear more normal in case anyone walked in and saw me. I realized then that my ego had also began to resurface. I thought to myself- ''so that's what schizophrenia is….wow. I do not fear that.''

 

I got up from the couch and walked over to the small bathroom on the far left corner of the living room. As I walked on the carpet I realized that the carpet was bearing the weight of my body. I saw that the carpet was conscious and was feeling me walk across it. I tried to walk gently and calmly as not to cause it any unnecessary suffering. I then noticed that all the inanimate objects around me were fully conscious just like I was. Inside of each thing was a deep inner experience. I flicked the light switch with great care, I used the bathroom with great care, and closed the door without slamming it. Everything had intense cosmic meaning. Meaning was shining brightly from every single being in the room. I was no longer seeing the living room as the living room, I was seeing it as Living Eternity.

 

I went into the kitchen and saw an orange on the counter. I picked it up and looked at it closely. I realized that what I normally referred to as 'the peel' was actually not a 'peel', it was skin. The same kind of skin that I have on my body and you on yours. I looked at a banana and saw the same thing. These were living beings who could feel. I thought of them as 'fruit' as a means to separate myself from them so that I could brutalize them without moral consequence within myself. I thought to myself- so then what do I eat?

 

My intuition responded to my intellect immediately. I realized that eating these beings was necessary when it was in the service of ending suffering (hunger). I felt the floor feel the pain of my standing on it. I said to it- "why don't you move if you are in pain?"

 

My intuition immediately responded- "Because I Love you."

 

I was crushed by that response.

 

I walked across the floor as gently as I could. My cat ran down the stairs and walked into the kitchen with me, carefully stepping across the floor as gracefully as it could. My cat rubbed against my leg to greet me and I saw through the delusion that there was a 'self' in my cat at all. All of my ideas of a relationship between my cat, our history, the ideas that my cat loves me, etc. was total delusion. I saw my cat as if it were a total stranger to me. I felt disgusted by it, and I pitied the cat. I saw that it had no spiritual depth. Its life was empty of all spirit, of all depth. It was purely a bodily existence. I do not believe that I ever got over this realization. Once I had seen that in my cat, I could not un-see it.

 

Note- I did not use it as an excuse to neglect my cat, instead I saw it as an opportunity to treat my cat better. Since its existence was purely bodily, I could easily bring it joy and comfort with things like catnip, quality canned wet foods, keeping the litter box clean, water fountain clean, playing more often, etc. So I took up the responsibility to do these things and carried them out until his death a little over a year later.

 

Beyond this point nothing remarkable took place. There were a few things which I walked away with that I didn't get to mention earlier. For starters, in the bathroom I looked in the mirror and smiled at myself. I saw my teeth were rotted and brown. I was shocked by this. A Jamaican woman's voice said to me loud and clear-

 

'You eat dead things (meat) and you wonder why you're rotting?'

 

I left the bathroom with a strong conviction to become a vegetarian.

 

As the trip came to a close I had a vision of myself sitting on a zazen cushion in a zendo. The vision had great emotional depth. I felt a strong conviction to devote my life to becoming a monastic.

 

Two weeks later I packed all my things and  moved to a zen center. I have lived here for 2 years currently.

 

End.

Edited December 23, 2021 by tlowedajuicemayne
fixed title

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, tlowedajuicemayne said:

Because I was aware, I generated nothing but Love. This was the most obvious thing to do. I generated love, love, love as the universe itself.

You got it.

But you still have yet to recognize yourself as God.

[How to be wise]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You got it.

But you still have yet to recognize yourself as God.

Why not use the word Reality instead of God?

The word God generates a duality between God and it’s creation. Nobody imagines God existing by itself.

[Breakingthewall]

Hace 2 horas, tlowedajuicemayne dijo:

   

beautiful report, I really enjoyed reading it, I even sent it to a friend. I have two questions: why did you think that the cat was a kind of false being, without depth, when the oranges and the ground were conscious, full of love? The other day I was observing some cats on the beach, and it seemed to me: they are all the same being, within them is the infinite emptiness, in silence, being. as in me, but more pure. I could kill one of those cats right now and nothing happens. There are the others.

Another question: how about these two years of meditation in the monastery? have you reached the purity of mind that makes it open in the same way it did with lsd?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

Why not use the word Reality instead of God?

Because you are fucking God.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura Can you explain why the word God is better than Reality or Self.

[tlowedajuicemayne]

@How to be wise

5 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

beautiful report, I really enjoyed reading it, I even sent it to a friend. I have two questions: why did you think that the cat was a kind of false being, without depth, when the oranges and the ground were conscious, full of love? The other day I was observing some cats on the beach, and it seemed to me: they are all the same being, within them is the infinite emptiness, in silence, being. as in me, but more pure. I could kill one of those cats right now and nothing happens. There are the others.

Another question: how about these two years of meditation in the monastery? have you reached the purity of mind that makes it open in the same way it did with lsd?

I really don't think I can explain the cat thing in a way that would make perfect sense tbh. It was mostly a direct emotional realization, thoughts about it don't really do it justice. If I were to try to put it clearly tho- I would say that I just saw that there was no 'person' inside the cat. It was just a body with nothing in it. We had no history together,  my cat appeared to be a wild animal I'd captured and tamed. It had no allegiance to me. Should I open the door, it would leave and never return. Ultimately I attribute this whole section of the trip to delusion, because it no one can really know for certain what the experience of another being is. That includes the oranges. There is something about schizophrenia which makes you gives random things deep meaning and I think that was happening in this particular instance. 

ps- I hope you don't go around killing cats. 

to your other question- In the past two years I've done a bunch of meditation and gone on a ton of sesshin (meditation) retreats. I'm still working with my Teacher on koan practice currently. I've had some oneness experiences on meditation retreats, but nah...nothing like LSD. Psychedelics and 'natural' spiritual experiences are two completely different things (atleast according to my own experience). I recall thinking after I had my first spiritual opening that psychedelics were a knock off version of what I had experienced. That was later disproven when I had God realization on an LSD trip a few months later. So i guess that's a long way of say 'no'. I do not reach LSD like states in my meditation, but i am waaaay more open and developed than I was before I moved here. 

[tlowedajuicemayne]

@Leo Gura Yeah, I think you're right. I certainly don't realize myself as God in my day to day consciousness. If I'm honest though, i just want to know what the Truth is. God, no God, I don't really care. I just want to know what the hell is going on and why the hell I can feel it! 

[tlowedajuicemayne]

@AMTO Yes actually, I've thought about this quite a bit over the years. In my opinion, All beings seem to be totally empty of any True person.  We are all bodies walking around with nothing in them. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by tlowedajuicemayne

[Breakingthewall]

@tlowedajuicemayne

Exactly, we are empty, just like the cat, only that we seem filled by our mind, the self, but this is unreal. there is no self, this is the illusion

[Vincent S]

@tlowedajuicemayne Thank you so much for sharing ???   
 

23 hours ago, tlowedajuicemayne said:

My intuition responded to my intellect immediately. I realized that eating these beings was necessary when it was in the service of ending suffering (hunger). I felt the floor feel the pain of my standing on it. I said to it- "why don't you move if you are in pain?"

 

My intuition immediately responded- "Because I Love you."

 

I was crushed by that response.

This crushed me. ??  
I felt this very deeply.

 

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

 

@tlowedajuicemayne

Exactly, we are empty, just like the cat, only that we seem filled by our mind, the self, but this is unreal. there is no self, this is the illusion

 

????

Edited December 24, 2021 by Vincent S

[Breakingthewall]

@tlowedajuicemayne @tlowedajuicemayne

are you or have you been schizophrenic? it is supposed to be irreversible. could you go deeper?

[tlowedajuicemayne]

@Breakingthewall No I'm not schizophrenic but LSD is a schizotoxin or atleast that's what they used to be called. Psychologists used to use LSD to have schizophrenic experiences so that they could relate to their clients better. Fascinating stuff but no, definitely not schizophrenic. lol. As far as going deeper is concerned, probably. idk. I'm taking a break from LSD as I find it deludes me quite alot and I have to spend like a year undoing all the delusion caused by these experiences. Ima stick to DMT from here onward, or 5meo If I can get my hands on it. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by tlowedajuicemayne

[Leo Gura]

16 hours ago, tlowedajuicemayne said:

@Leo Gura Yeah, I think you're right. I certainly don't realize myself as God in my day to day consciousness. If I'm honest though, i just want to know what the Truth is. God, no God, I don't really care. I just want to know what the hell is going on and why the hell I can feel it! 

You will never understand that without realizing you are God.

You are creating reality. ALL of it!

[Scholar]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You will never understand that without realizing you are God.

You are creating reality. ALL of it!

There is a time for everything, don't be a try-hard.