Trip report: very twisted mushroom session (2,5 gr.) – Darkness and Light

[Gneh Onebar]

Set and Setting

I meditated for two hours that day. I had two good sessions: very focused and quiet mind. I entered the mushroom session with a clear intent: Contemplating about what I can do to heal or strengthen my body – I have to deal with a very rare genetic disease called FSHD 1, which causes muscle loss mainly in the upper body and is uncurable from the perspective of western medicine. Right before the mushroom session I did some breathing exercises. Before a trip I’m always nervous and this helps me to get the right focus.

I did the session at a friend’s house, who also took 2,5 gr. He made sort of a tea with homegrown psilocybe cubensis.

 

Upcoming

Normally when I consume mushrooms as a tea, they kick in like hell. I had a 3,5 gr. trip, where after 10 minutes my head was so quiet, that I thought time had stopped – after 15 minutes everything was covered with strange patterns. But this time the upcoming was a lot slower, the mushrooms started to kick in after 50 minutes. I felt a lot of energy, my mind going quieter and a broadening of my perspective. I had some trouble to focus on my contemplation object, but somehow I got along.

 

Darkness

I was lying on a couch looking at the ceiling. Suddenly the ceiling turned into a dark moving substance, that seemed to move towards me. This is where the trip gets a bit creepy. I saw that a black tube is attached to my body going up to the dark substance. My first ‘thought’ was, that this is some kind of a spirit attack, because it felt like the dark substance is sucking energy out of my body. My second ‘thought’ was, that this dark spirit/being is stealing my energy and causing my disease. Strangely I felt rather strong in that situation and commanded the darkness to leave. A second later I was amazed that the dark substance actually withdrew.

A few moments after the withdrawal I had the epiphany, that what I saw and felt wasn’t some kind of an attack, but rather a prenatal memory: me in the womb of my mother. However as far as I can remember I had also some ‘insights’ about my ancestors being haunted by dark spirits. Unfortunately I can’t remember a lot I experienced in this part of the trip – or maybe I just repressed it.

 

Light

After the darkness vanished, the light began to rise. I was ‘called’ by this light or beings of light. I got up from the couch and sat on the floor folding my hand as you do when praying and stayed in this position for over half an hour – normally I never pray. At some point my friend asked me, if everything is good and I replied yes, it is just too good. I don’t like the word ‘god’, I prefer universe, consciousness, infinity etc., but what I felt during this time, can best be described as being ‘touched by the love/grace of god’. A bath in an infinite sea of pure bliss and ecstasy. I remember being shocked and irritated because of the intensity, but at the same time I knew that there is a LOT more.

 

Conclusion

As much as I appreciated the second part of the trip, I am confused about the first one. Was the dark substance a visualization of my disease – a metaphor –, a prenatal memory or indeed some kind of a spirit attack – is an attack under these circumstances possible at all? During the trip my intuition told me that the spirit attack was real, but after the come down this seems like a big delusion and my mind making up a strange story. 

Have you experienced similar things while taking psychedelics? What would be your Interpretation? 

[Leo Gura]

14 hours ago, Gneh Onebar said:

Darkness

I was lying on a couch looking at the ceiling. Suddenly the ceiling turned into a dark moving substance, that seemed to move towards me. This is where the trip gets a bit creepy. I saw that a black tube is attached to my body going up to the dark substance. My first ‘thought’ was, that this is some kind of a spirit attack, because it felt like the dark substance is sucking energy out of my body. My second ‘thought’ was, that this dark spirit/being is stealing my energy and causing my disease. Strangely I felt rather strong in that situation and commanded the darkness to leave. A second later I was amazed that the dark substance actually withdrew.

A few moments after the withdrawal I had the epiphany, that what I saw and felt wasn’t some kind of an attack, but rather a prenatal memory: me in the womb of my mother. However as far as I can remember I had also some ‘insights’ about my ancestors being haunted by dark spirits. Unfortunately I can’t remember a lot I experienced in this part of the trip – or maybe I just repressed it.

Your entire life and reality is imaginary and how you understand any part of life is itself an act of imagination which uses symbols and metaphors and other such functions of consciousness. So when such things happen during trips what you should notice is that these are just various ways that consciousness is imagining and communicating with itself.

For example, you could picture that you have a disease by imagining that there is a problem with your DNA. Or you could picture that you have a disease because there is an evil spirit lurking in your body. Neither one is more "real" than the other because everything is imaginary. It doesn't really matter whether you imagine DNA or evil spirits. It's all imaginary!

If you say, "But Leo, DNA is scientific and not as imaginary as evil spirits." You're wrong. Science is as imaginary as evil spirits. The only difference is that you imagine science is "real" and you imagine that evil spirits are somehow unreal. So there's multiple layers of imagination at work which create the illusion of reality.

What you need to realize is that all ways of holding reality are totally relative. There is no one true right way to hold reality. All communication is relative. How you communicate with yourself depends on which symbolic paradigm you want to use: scientific, religious, mathematical, etc. It doesn't really matter what the paradigm is as long as it's internally consistent.

[Nak Khid]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Everything is imaginary.

That's no more true than saying everything is real

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Nak Khid said:

That's no more true than saying everything is real

No. "Real" is something imagined.

[Dan502]

I feel like a fair few people consider science to be more "real" than what gets referred to as "paranormal" because sometimes science can seemingly be reliably used to predict outcomes. e.g. believing a vaccination can prevent polio works, whereas believing an exorcism can prevent it doesn't work.

To use an analogy, in a videogame, some items might make Mario stronger, whereas some items might be redundant or harm Mario. When Mario gets an item that predictably helps him, he thinks "hooray, I got a real item". However what Mario doesn't realise is it's all made of the same code.

Or something.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Dan502

[Nak Khid]

37 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No. "Real" is something imagined.

that's a belief

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

that's a belief

You imagine it is.

Imagination is not belief. But belief is one kind of imagination.

[Nak Khid]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You imagine it is.

Imagination is not belief. But belief is one kind of imagination.

I didn't say imagination is a belief. 
You said reality is imaginary. That is your belief

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Joshi3 said:

The more "I" hear about imagination being reality and whats real being just a duality I feel like "I'm" going insane.

Of course. You're literally losing your mind. That leads to awakening.

5 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

You said reality is imaginary. That is your belief

No it's not. You don't understand what reality is. Stop acting like you do.

Awakening is not a belief.

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Joshi3 said:

@Leo Gura I feel like the best way to cope with all of this is to ground myself in now.

That can be tricky. Depends on what exactly you mean.

Be careful not to ground the ego or its sense of reality.

Awakening is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute only to realize that there is no ground. Then your life is a constant free fall for eternity.

The ego-mind will do everything possible to stay grounded in the false ground of "reality". To seriously awaken this ground must be completely unraveled. You must realize that reality has no ground. Of course that ultimately will leave you right in the NOW. But first the entire ego-mind and sense of reality must collapse.

Your entire sense of what reality is must be unraveled and deconstructed.

[Gneh Onebar]

@Leo Gura  I get you. So from an absolute perspective one should be able to heal every disease, if the attained level of consciousness is high enough - at least theoretically.  

[Leo Gura]

44 minutes ago, Gneh Onebar said:

@Leo Gura  I get you. So from an absolute perspective one should be able to heal every disease, if the attained level of consciousness is high enough - at least theoretically.  

No, not necessarily. God is in charge and some diseases are part of its larger plan. Just because the ego wants a disease cured doesn't mean it will happen. Awakening requires surrender to the higher will of the universe. This higher will might require you to die in a car crash, or whatever.

[Consilience]

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Your entire life and reality is imaginary and how you understand any part of life is itself an act of imagination which uses symbols and metaphors and other such functions of consciousness. So when such things happen during trips what you should notice is that these are just various ways that consciousness is imagining and communicating with itself.

For example, you could picture that you have a disease by imagining that there is a problem with your DNA. Or you could picture that you have a disease because there is an evil spirit lurking in your body. Neither one is more "real" than the other because everything is imaginary. It doesn't really matter whether you imagine DNA or evil spirits. It's all imaginary!

If you say, "But Leo, DNA is scientific and not as imaginary as evil spirits." You're wrong. Science is as imaginary as evil spirits. The only difference is that you imagine science is "real" and you imagine that evil spirits are somehow unreal. So there's multiple layers of imagination at work which create the illusion of reality.

What you need to realize is that all ways of holding reality are totally relative. There is no one true right way to hold reality. All communication is relative. How you communicate with yourself depends on which symbolic paradigm you want to use: scientific, religious, mathematical, etc. It doesn't really matter what the paradigm is as long as it's internally consistent.

You once mentioned in a blog post the importance of recognizing sameness and difference. In this example, spirits and science are both imaginary, but the difference would be that science has a predictability to it. So what is the difference between an imagination that’s not predictable or consistent (spirits) vs an imagination that is predictable (science)? Perhaps the majority of humanity isnt in a state of consciousness where spirits could enact predictable consistency, whereas if our baseline was more like NN-DMT, maybe spirits would be our normal. 

[Leo Gura]

@Consilience Predictability is of course imaginary. The difference is exactly whatever you imagine it to be. All difference is imagination itself.

There is no difference between anything until you imagine there is. In this way you construct all of reality.

The desire or need for spirits to be predictable or consistent is YOUR projected expectation, part of the scientific paradigm. Nothing says they have to fit your paradigm. They are their own paradigm.

[mandyjw]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No, not necessarily. God is in charge and some diseases are part of its larger plan. Just because the ego wants a disease cured doesn't mean it will happen. Awakening requires surrender to the higher will of the universe. This higher will might require you to die in a car crash, or whatever.

For those with religious backgrounds, since they've been believing for years that God has a larger plan, it looks like ownership of choice, "I" chose what it seems I would not have chosen. "I" chose and love my parents, my flaws, every enemy I've ever had and the problems they caused me. Faith in God's love for you becomes Self love. Love is strangely as much empowerment as it is surrender. 

[Nak Khid]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 God is in charge and some diseases are part of its larger plan.

God is not in charge of all diseases?    What are some of the diseases God is not in charge of?

[Ananta]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This higher will might require you to die in a car crash, or whatever.

Or die of cancer like Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana maharshi 

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, Nak Khid said:

God is not in charge of all diseases?    What are some of the diseases God is not in charge of?

He said God is in charge, and some...not God is in charge of some.

[oMarcos]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No, not necessarily. God is in charge and some diseases are part of its larger plan. Just because the ego wants a disease cured doesn't mean it will happen. Awakening requires surrender to the higher will of the universe. This higher will might require you to die in a car crash, or whatever.

 

in a sense, is the ego trying to control the plot that was originally assigned by the universe? but what if the ego has better options than something so tragic as an accident, so what's the point of  surrender for the true will  @Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, oMarcos said:

in a sense, is the ego trying to control the plot that was originally assigned by the universe? but what if the ego has better options than something so tragic as an accident, so what's the point of  surrender for the true will  @Leo Gura

The ego's delusion is to believe that one outcome is better than another. The ego is a biased perception of reality. This bias is what creates suffering. So if you want to manipulate reality your whole life, go ahead. The cost of that will be living in a self-created hell. If you want an easy and effortless life, surrender to the will of the universe and stop manipulating.

The point of surrender is heaven and joy.

By trying to get everything your way, you end up creating your own hell. That's the tragedy of the ego's game.