Yesterday Tripper
It took 4g of psilocybin mushroom tea to realize that I am not John Lennon, but I am a bit of an asshole. I say this not to criticize but to accept my shadow, as Carl Jung would say. Over the past year, where my intentions were good, good things were given to me. Where my intentions were bad, bad things were given to me. The mushrooms showed me this. They said, “If you want to play with fire, then be prepared for fire to play with you. If you want to go places where you do not belong, then those places will belong in you.”
The beginning of my trip was the harshest part. I felt as though I was in a dark place, in the presence of dark entities. But these entities were not strangers; they were welcomed into my life by my own nefarious intentions. My selfishness, self-loathing, laziness and narcissism guided these entities to my door. I did not want to stay in this place, but I knew that it was my karma. Towards the end of my time there, it felt like I was stuck somewhere in between, a sort of purgatory. I knew that I did not want to stay there, and I prayed that I would soon move on to a more welcoming space.
Once the dark entities had left, I felt myself tripping on a level that I had never tripped before. It was the first time I had actually said to myself, “Oh my god, I am actually tripping”. The place I found myself in reminded me of the movie Interstellar, where the father realizes that all of time is connected and he can pass through it seamlessly (at least that’s what I remember). This place was showing me that all of time and space is connected, and somehow, someway, you can travel through it. I was laying in bed and completely hallucinating; I could not tell if I was in my bed or in the bathroom. That’s when I realized it is all in my mind, that I could hallucinate myself into anywhere I wanted to go, but I did not take advantage of this power. I was thinking of my brother and my grandmother, who have both passed on and I was hoping that the afterlife is where I was because it was a profound and powerful place. I felt myself hanging on, extremely curious of what would happen if I let go, but afraid to God that if I did that, I wouldn’t come back. I knew I could go further but I did not want to; I have unfinished business.
The dark place I started out in, the place that showed me I was an asshole, had me realizing that I was not being my best self lately. I was being very dishonest with myself and others. I was being selfish with my time, money, and energy, and it was affecting the world around me. I was spending my time learning about William Blake, Beethoven and the Beatles but not my own Grandfather. I know more about dead people I have never met than I do about my own family members who are alive and well. The magic of mushrooms is that they allow you to realize these things with minimal guilt. The same message coming from my parents would cause me to shrivel with resistance, but coming from the mushrooms I am completely accepting.
I realized that I need to come out with my tail between my legs and tell my family that I was being an asshole and I am sorry. I have spent the last few years putting my childhood into perspective, reading about intergenerational trauma and PTSD. I thought that somehow I could get even with my family for a terrible past by ruining the present, but it really didn’t solve anything. I felt slighted by my childhood and thought that gave me the right to act like an asshole.
I realized that I had been spending too much time on frivolous things, thinking about what t-shirt I am going to wear or shopping for the perfect pair of pants. Everything is just life and death and all else is an illusion.
When I was hallucinating and could not tell if I was still in my bed or in my bathroom, what I could tell was that everything is connected, all of our intentions and actions, this world and the afterlife. I thought a lot about misplaced feelings, the times I get angry with others when really I am just angry at my parents for an imperfect childhood. I thought about my dreams of fame and wealth, dreams I thought I had largely rid myself of, and I realized how it was all just misplaced feelings, wanting others to like me so I can like myself, so I can justify my existence, my childhood.
Before my trip I had written a list of what I wanted from the experience; on this list was “courage”. This trip told me that what I need is the courage to be honest, not just with others but with myself. I realized in many ways I have spent the last few years making my life into a mess that I do not know how to fix. I need to have the courage to be honest, make changes and ask for help.
The serentiy prayer kept coming into my mind:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
I realized I had been avoiding so many things out of fear, mostly fear of rejection. I have a million and one things that I would like to be doing, but I often find myself doing only one thing, procrastinating.
Sometimes I think if I could just write an album or a play or a novel then it will all be figured out, and although all of those thing are nice, I have been putting so much weight on them that it paralyzes me. If I think that my album is going to change my life and it doesn’t then I will only feel disappointment. I have to learn to put aside my misplaced feelings and do the things I want to do without attaching so much external pressure to them. Living is in the doing, in the here and now. The cliché rings true; it’s the journey not the destination.
Realizations need to come from the self, not from the outside. When you find yourself obsessing over the little things, ask yourself what are the bigger things that you are avoiding.
How much mental illness is just people afraid to be honest with themselves? I thought a lot about the holes we dig and how one lie at a time, one misstep at a time, one wrong turn at a time, the hole just gets deeper and deeper to the point where you don’t even know that you are in a hole anymore, so you tell yourself it’s something that it’s not.
The time I spend trying to figure out what is wrong with others are times that I am just too afraid to ask what is wrong with myself.
I remembered the Alan Watts quote on psychedelics: “When you get the message, hang up the phone”. No trip has ever made that clearer. Now that I have the messages, I need to apply them to my life and actually do the hard work.
All of my trips bring to mind a song, on this trip I thought a lot about John Lennon, and I kept hearing the lyric, “Love is the answer” and I couldn’t agree more.
I miss my grandmother, I miss my brother, I am so grateful to be alive.