Ecstasy Not Included

The revelations from the universe that I have experienced when ingesting psilocybin mushrooms were not gentle. I was hoping for the ecstatic we are all one moment, or my other favorite, the losing all fear of dying that I've heard reported. But alas.

At low doses, my experience can be both pleasant and interesting. I take walks and am more intensely focused on my surroundings than on the usual bombardment of thoughts. My ego, my personality, loses its entrenched hard edges and becomes more diffuse. There are fleeting moments when I lose all sense of a human form consciousness for something "other." All quite predictable and by the book for any self-respecting alternate state of consciousness adventure.

At higher doses, it becomes considerably more unpredictable but for my two forays into deep mushroom territory there was a pattern. I get somewhat nauseous which is unpleasant but can be ignored. The sensations in my body are more disagreeable and can't be ignored. The visuals are distorted which is a given. My ability to express my thoughts to other people seems little impaired. 

Emotionally for me it was a confusing and negatively charged space that just persisted, a wait it out situation. On the other side of that state was an intermediate place; not fully normal yet and highly reflective in nature. On my initial trip, I was confronted by fear and sadness. I had chosen my companion well and was with a long time friend who allowed me to shift into what felt like a therapy session.

My second high dose experience was by accident. I had intended to take a milder dose but miscalculated. Again the negatively charged state; wait it out, and then an intensely introspective state of mind followed. This time I was alone. I was sitting next to the fireplace watching the fire when I was besieged by a series of memory clips; times when I had felt most alone and abandoned. Memories so painful I could hardly bare to relive them even in brief. From there I jumped to thoughts of my two granddaughters who have both been emotionally struggling and in the next leap I was experiencing the collective pain of all beings. 

In my normal non-altered state I'm a political junkie and I spend far too much time on social media sternly judging and criticizing those beings who run the world in the most corrupt manner possible. In my altered state, I saw them differently. I saw that their raw pain matched my own, and that their actions were varying degrees of unskillful and deluded attempts to escape that pain, and to be loved and admired. My casual meanness toward them on social media is equally unskillful and deluded. 

The epiphany was not entirely new; I've had similar insights in meditation. The mushrooms demanded of me not just an understanding but a deeper participation. It was, I suppose, a we are all one moment with a twist; ecstasy not included.