Aspects of the Entheogenic Experience: The Collective Unconscious
As i walked outside i realized that life was such an elaborate dream that it cloaked the reality of being stationary. the mind was the only thing moving. i realized i had never taken a step in my life and never will. everything was playing out according to the predestined fundamental laws of the universe and everything in it including what it is that i most identify myself with. suddenly images of some heaven danced in my head and i realized earth is a level of hell due to the negative potential and catastrophic possibilities. i knew something could be done to help this devastated lower realm but it wasn't clear as to exactly what. had my soul been sent here to help or merely engage in its suffering? i was wondering why i was wondering, shouldn't i just intuitively know why i came? at a very early age i realized the world was home to the temporary. but with age a heedlessness had come over me. and now, standing alone, naked, at the edge of a corn field, past life memories flooded my inner eye. i now know. i turned around to embark on the true beginning of my journey.
Withheld - entheogen not listed
This report could also fall into the Fear or Death/Rebirth section, but I find the collective unconscious feature of it to be of utmost importance.
I had ingested a larger than usual dose of LSD on blotter paper, 5 hits separated into two doses: 2 hits and then 3 hits approx. 2.5 hours later. This was probably my 25th or so experience with LSD, and perhaps my 3rd strongest. The entire trip had so many facets worth writing about, but for the sake of objectivity I am going to skip right to the highlights.
At around +6 hours after ingestion (1:30am), paranoia had begun to envelope my headspace. I lived on a very quiet street with neighbors somewhat close by and was becoming uneasy with my own behavior in my house. I felt trapped. I was pacing, trembling slightly, and generally acting what you might call "shady" - but only because I felt that an outside force was watching me, or was conscious of my behavior. Someone or something knew what was going on and it was certainly not facet of my own mind.
As a side note, I think it is worth mentioning that although LSD can create profound spiritual experiences, it can also create profound and very real delusions. However, in my experience I almost always realize by the end of the trip (or the end of a certain headspace during the trip) what was caused by delusion and what stemmed from something grounded in reality. You might say, well how do you know? And the answer is that you simply do; through hundreds of psychedelic experiences, I've become well practiced at discerning the difference between the effects of intoxication vs. the effects of a substantial change in brain physiology (i.e. brainwave patterns, visually accessing memories, etc.), the conclusion to which is made post-trip or during the end of a trip. Back to the story...
More and more, perhaps as a result of the increased intensity of sound (everything sounding louder), I began to feel as if I could feel my neighbors' thoughts or hear their words, because I knew something was watching me, and it seemed like the logical explanation. I felt an attention surround me that was not my own, and I couldn't escape it. An incredibly feeling of scrutiny came over me... what I was doing was illegal, unacceptable in this neighborhood, irresponsible, etc. Suddenly I realized I was going into a bad trip and fast. I saw the future unfolding before my eyes, me at a hospital and then talking with police, counselors, etc. and my entire life crashing into one very scary moment in time.
I sat on the couch and held on for dear life. My heart began to race and pound through my chest, I thought it would simply explode at any moment -- it very well could have been beating normally and I was just incredibly sensitive to it (touching on the delusions comment earlier). Irregardless, I began to admit my guilt and cry for mercy to God or any higher power that could save me at that point. I made promises, some silly, and sobbed... broken, shattered, at the complete mercy of a Nature that now seemed more powerful than ever, as if my life stood on the line.
I realized later that I was experiencing what is commonly referred to as ego death. Ego death is interesting for me because I always struggle with it and never understand what is happening until after it's over. It is constantly marked by confusion, a feeling of guilt, panic, but in various levels of intensity and duration. I consistently try to remember the sound advice I always read, "just let go", succumb to it, etc., but the thought to 'let go' seems to come directly from the voice in my head, the ego, and therein lies the fallacy.
As an analogy: complete ego loss is your consequential destination, but your ego provides your consciousness with the light to see the map you (think) you need to get there. As a result, as the ego/light starts to fade, so does your sense of direction; you begin to panic if you don't have complete faith in accepting your death then and there, the adrenaline flows like a river, and the trip just seems to intensify 10x over in what seems like the longest 5 minutes of your life (and I have yet to figure out a smooth way to ride through ego loss).
Eventually I did give in, but it was not my conscious mind that could do this for me. It was my body, it was the REAL me, not my ego. My body decided enough was enough, perhaps through emotional response or a chemical release stemming from the intense anxiety. Once this happened and worked through my body, I felt an incredible calm wash over me and I drifted off. Soon I realized I had begun conversing with a faceless, motherly Goddess or guardian angel of sorts. The weirdest thing about this part of the experience was that I did not seem to actually experience it in the present moment, but rather it seemed as if I walked into a dimension of my mind where this was already happening, or as if it only appeared to me upon reflection of my short-term memory, after the fact... a sudden realization of absolute truth.
While conversing with this entity (who seemed to only be concerned with encouraging me to love myself deeply, and love others just as deeply, and ensuring me I was alright and safe), she had been leading me through what seemed to be a very small and simply castle filled with many (probably 8-12 that I had saw, but sensed an infinite quantity to them nonetheless) ordinary-looking wooden doors. I was able to fly in one door and fly out the other, but I perceived my action from a third-person point of view, i.e. outside of myself. The rooms within had no perceivable details; that is, they were like the face of a stranger in a dream... unimportant and therefore disregarded. The doors were what was important and stressed to me by the entity. Doors aren't an uncommon reference in psychedelic culture... one might consider the band 'The Doors' or Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception' as examples, but this was not on my mind at the time, only in retrospect did I consider this profound connection.
Sitting there, sensing the fleeting nature of this headspace I had found, I was struck out of the blue by 'de ja vu' or incredible familiarity with this castle and this particular entity that seemed to own it or protect it. I simultaneously realized I had regressed somewhat and felt young again, perhaps 8 or 9. For a few minutes I sat confused, trying to figure out what it all meant, exhausted beyond belief, and drained completely. Just as quickly as the de ja vu came, I was able to connect the dots and realized this was in fact the entrance to my dream state. I do not remember the exact details as to how this was logically deduced in my mind, only that it was undeniable. This visualized headspace was in fact the core process of my subconscious mind at the beginning of every dream I had ever had.
Upon further research later, I realized what had happened in all likelihood was that the combination of the high LSD dose and the exhaustion from my panic (or perhaps simply the LSD alone) had put my brain into a theta wave producing state. This is the state most commonly known as the deep sleep state, where the subconscious mind rules and the conscious mind sits in the back seat. Interestingly enough, theta waves are known to trigger advanced intuition, subconscious connections, bridge the spiritual body with the physical body, lower stress/anxiety, and perhaps most pertinent: the ability to reprogram the subconscious mind. This explains perfectly my deep sense of truth, the castle "program", the physiological reaction to the stressful situation, etc., and I think it is important to mention that I was unaware of these features of theta waves at the time.
What I found interesting was that I had never remembered this part of any dream in a conscious wakeful state, but still intuitively knew it was always there when it revealed itself during my trip. And this makes sense when you consider the conscious/subconscious function of the mind and how it relates to dreaming. So I immediately began to wonder if this castle I pictured was personal or a trait of the collective human experience in regard to going into dream states. Irregardless, I absolutely knew my conclusion to be true, for upon considering it, I felt an incredible amount of pure white light (absolute Truth?) fill my consciousness; indescribable with words, I just somehow knew this was correct and spot on. It was the most profound and exciting revelation I have had on LSD to date, perhaps in my life entirely.
This is where the collective unconscious component enters my story. What was interesting about this castle, or this mental "program" if you will, was that it seemed to be a creation of my own mind with the help of others guiding me at some point during my life or development. What I was unable to discern with absolute certainty was whether the helping 'others' were spiritual entities, such as the one I met, whether it was my own creation as a natural function of psychological development process, or whether it was perhaps the contributions of a collective unconscious force (the most exciting hypothetical proposition in my opinion).
Remember I had mentioned the feeling of being watched, and of sensing my neighbors, that I had experienced earlier in the trip? This feeling has come across during many trips, in fact, but it never felt foreign or exclusive to the trip itself. At this point during the trip, I explored the notion that perhaps during sleep, our brains communicate on some level (the exact mechanics of which are might be left to a science vs. spiritual debate). I considered this because I felt like this castle had been built with the help of not just random 'others', but my friendly neighbors who I had bonded with over the years and who served much good will toward the neighborhood during my childhood. Remember that it was 1:30am and my neighbors were most likely deep asleep, producing their own theta waves. Was I picking up on them? It is a very exciting speculation, but I stress that this component is mere speculation and not solid Truth like the previous section. At any rate, when and how this castle in my mind came to be, how long it had been happening for, etc. were all question marks to be entertained later. What was most important was the idea that if I had tapped into my pre-dream subconscious headspace, perhaps it was the theta waves that allowed this subconscious communication between minds to become possible.
Perhaps the castle in my mind was not my castle, but Our castle. It sure was nice :)Thomas - LSD
Whenever I have experienced this type of headspace, it has been very profound and meaningful to me. There’s no better way to learn about another religion or spiritual tradition than actually re-living it yourself. It is difficult to even begin to describe the beauty and the magnitude of this type of experience; the words do not exist in our language. Yet, I will go ahead and try to explain what it felt like to me for the first time:
After a succession of fear driven trips, I felt like I might never have an easy happy trip again. The bad trips just kept happening, one after another. During one of the most fearful moments, I started to feel a new language appear in my head, and then involuntarily spill out of my mouth. I had no idea what it was at first. The words were unlike anything I had ever heard. Yet when I chanted them, my headspace calmed down and became more centered. Deep within myself, I felt that the words were the divine language that gave birth to all the languages that exist today. It was the basis for all the root words of all the languages. I was immediately at home when I was chanting or singing it. I knew that I had spoken it before in some other incarnation. My trips immediately started to get easier to navigate. I quickly discovered that the chants or songs could shift my consciousness and move my visions in the direction of their heritage. After researching the world's religions, I discovered that my new language was very similar to the mantras of Hinduism and Buddhism and the speaking in tongues of Christianity.
Krystle A. Cole - LSD
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