April 15, 2010

Pre-start: had a chat with God while in the shower; didn't apologize for what I was about to do, but it
had a semi-apologetic tone to it. Confidently told God that this was not an intoxicant, that I wasn't
masking my senses, but rather it was a psychedelic, a 'mind-manifester.' Told God/myself that if these
substances that we co-evolved with were put on this planet with us, that if they could be used as a tool
to find some deeper reality, that it was my duty to do this. Not for a 'high' or anything like that; but for
experience/knowledge. I thought about quran 17:36 And do not uphold what you have no knowledge
of. For the hearing, eyesight, and heart, all these you are responsible for. I was holding firm to that
promise, that I wouldn't uphold something I had no knowledge of; that I wanted to be sure. My
hearing and eyesight knew; I had to find out if my heart would know too since I was also
responsible for it. I put myself in a good place mentally, thinking positive thoughts. Thinking about
this as an expedition. I had almost zero anxiety because of that preparation.

1026 pm, start (had almost entire bag several dried caps/stems including two big caps/stems, left two
small cap/stems in there, had between 3-4 grams Sarah said she tried about half a bag the night before
and that for whatever reason it was very potent --, just chewed and swallowed, drank some coke zero,
the mushrooms didnt taste bad at all, last time I ate was 2:30 pm, had subway meal large meal, hungry
now but not starving), me and sarah just talking about history, mckenna, anthropology, her dmt trip
(didnt even know she had done dmt before) etc.
Note: after looking up pictures of different strains on the net, it appears the strain I had was psilocybe
azurescens, though I am not positive.
1057 not feeling much, took a leak, listening to Bad Plus Karma Police on repeat, yawning a bit, just
one light on, sitting in chair, sarah reading DMT book lying down in bed
feel a bit heavy, not sure if psychosomatic effect
1100, just trying to send positive thoughts out there, focusing on breathing, relaxing, not meditating,
but meditative
1101 room getting a little brighter, effects heightened, I can see sarah breathing where I couldnt before,
detect minute movements where I couldnt see them before, describing this to sarah, she's laughing
while still reading
1103 walls and bookcase especially starting to 'breathe' feel inanimate matter pulsating
but I still feel myself and my body looks normal
god this music is great, end of the song is a bit too fast and much but otherwise great
1106 starting to see flexy bendy nature of room, things pulling and pushing away from each other in
room, less rigidity, sarah asking why she can hear the music through my headphones, explained to her
it's cause they're open phones, apologize for their loudness
things farther away in visual field do stretchy thing more, I look at my laptop in front of me or the
books next to me on floor and they're still fine, they're still rigid and 'stable'
laughing to self thinking about the rigid nature of things
1111 close eyes and see the music shimmering pulsating
ok things even close to me are bending and stuff now, the screen is pulsating and the letters on the
screen are bending back and forth a little, though when I focus on it they become rigid again like when
typing these sentences about them, about the letters, like the letters just got offended or something
haha, sorry little letters, didnt mean to insult you
just explained to sarah that i'm documenting this, that it's my way of experiencing it, she was non-
judgmental saying it's natural and just went along reading her book, haha she's a good trip-sitter, she's
here but not HERE, good combo
relaxing
god just love this song
feeling sensations more, feel the heat from my fingers and wrists rested on laptop, didnt feel the heat
before, now feel it magnified, I think my palms are sweaty? relaxing more, enjoying the meltiness of it
all, and by all I mean nature, oh yeah this is 1115 now
1117 told sarah there's so mcuh 'm not telling her about what i'm experiencing this very second, she
smiled and nodded, I told her everything in the room is breathing with me
1118 wow the room just GOT SO MUCH BRIGHTER, this is so great
keep seeing things in my periphery like my cap or the books behind me, keep turning to them like
'hello oh yeah you're there, forgot that'
laughing, not sure what at
nwwo adwow all that was only 10 mins??? 1128 now
so mucch overlay when I put head back, feel so much ,dont feel like typign anymore, ok i'm putting
this away bye
everytime I put head back and look up the overlays come back, hello you're back, like it's ready for me
waiting, it? They? It's just ready for me, we'll go with it for now, it's ready for me
so much information, so much, in just a few mintues?
Its 1133, so many things that I didnt even type

4 am and i'm back, the most insane ego dissolution, transcendence, forget words, cant explain it, I
understand what ineffability is now, I get it, I keep thinking i get it
it's a gift, I was given a gift, not going crazy, it was a gift from something
all from mushrooms? Am I a lightweight? Dont know, dont care, I know it was all real, it was more real
than real, more real than this, i'm just trying to get down as many of my thoughts that i've had over the
past few hours (what are hours?) just a million thoughts, so much, I kept thinking, I keep thinking so
much so much so much, it was a gift, it is a gift, my conception of time itself is changed
vibrational awareness, energy condensing into this reality which is a construct, a reality I choose, I
understand what observer/observed is about, i'm willing myself into this reality
kept thinking I'm intelligence experiencing itself kept saying that out loud I think or thinking it, not
sure, is there a difference anyway? Difference between saying something and thinking it, its all energy
regardless

I remember I told sarah I get it now (I said this a lot about many things that I was thinking), I told her I
get it, I get why we live in this reality, cause it's easier, it's more convenient to live in this compacted
physical stuff-ness, it's practical for lack of a better word, I told her I was Is-ing, like all tenses of a
verb at the same time, the verb being Is or to be, existence

i'll never be the same, it was a gift I was given, I feel special, sounds so cheesy now but I just cant get
away from the thought, I know that that you're not supposed to have experienced all this on just 3
grams of mushrooms but I cant help it, I'm not lying, I was so ready for it or something, I was
completely tuned in

anyway, trying to recreate it from the beginning, after I stopped typing around 1130 or whatever,
things got more and more vibrational, I kept thinking vibrational awareness over and over again, just
all matter around me vibrating, shimmering, reality was fuzzy, so much fuzziness to everything,
nothing is solid, there is no solid solid, and I dont mean alcohol-induced drunk fuzzy vision, I mean
matter itself was fuzzy, I was totally fine and not drunk but I was viewing matter in its fuzziness and
vibration-ness
I remember so much from it and I just kept thinking I have to tell everyone, I wanted to remember it, I
wanted to hold onto it and bring the info back, I had this bright overlay in my visual field, like the
fabric of reality being stretched and almost ripped apart, was like looking through my ceiling into the
real reality, not this lower matter, definitely felt entities.

they were just minding their business 'flying above', it was all a sense of above me, like higher planes,
not geography but planestates, and they were floating along, like flying but without wings, it was all so
ethereal, not like physical, but I did see/feel them, I was so happy and I kept thinking/saying it's so
much, there's so much several times I felt 'evil' entities, it wasnt scary, and I felt only their faces, it
would be an ethereal face-entity that had an evil feel but it wouldnt bother me, it would look at me
quickly and then just move along sort of with a hmph whatever expression, felt several of these
faces, though I could clearly tell they were less than good, I didnt feel scared cause they never actually
acted threateningly, they just glanced at me from afar and went about their business
I felt other entities, the wiser souls were sort of floating along not paying me attention, not in a bad
way, but they were existing on their own and periodically they'd acknowledge me and just sort of move
along, like 'he doesnt get it yet', I felt this smaller childish entity almost pick at me, not pick at me, but
like try to come down to my level and play with me and what felt like a wiser soul, that entity's parent
it felt like, almost scolded the smaller entity telling it dont bother him, he's not ready yet, stop it and
the little entity withdrew and got coy and deferred to the wiser soul above it like oh, sorry, heehee
you're right I took this as a challenge almost. I was thinking wait, I dont get it yet? I want to get it!
Let me get it!

I was trying to make sense of that, and I heard a voice or just felt it somehow, the idea stop
intellectualizing was inspired in me. (Sidenote: none of this stuff was voices, nothing physical, it was
all mentation, dont know what other word to use, it wasnt even telepathy, it wasnt one entity sending a
thought to my mind or anything like that, it was instantaneous, these ideas were inspired in me, I
'heard'/felt them) The challenge was being put forward to me. This stop intellectualizing statement
was said a lot, kept 'hearing' it, like I was being scolded, I had the distinct idea that I couldnt break
through with logic and reason alone, that the true reality was beyond all that, I kept hearing stop
intellectualizing, stop trying to grasp this, stop trying to human intelligence-ify it, it's beyond that,
reality is beyond that, so I started accepting that, I kept mentating to it (whatever it is, God?) i'm
ready i'm ready ok give me the training, teach me, I surrendered, I submitted to its will, then,
seemed like instantly as soon as I thought about the surrender, had a okayyyyyyy here we go then,
remember, you greenlit this voice inspired in me, by some wise soul that knew what I was about to get
myself into.

I took the plunge, reality unfolded itself, all this from a few grams of mushrooms? And when I say I
took the plunge, I don't mean going downward; but it was definitely an upward sensation. It's
interesting; it was the feeling you have when at the top of the crest on a roller coaster, right before
you're about to come soaring down. Well, I felt the same sensation except my rollercoaster plunged
upward; it was the anti-roller coaster. I know this is insane by any normal definition but I just cant
define it, and I feel like putting it into words right now is cheapening it, but I want to put it into words
anyway, I want to extract some essence from the experience even though my words wont encapsulate
the experience, Im not sure who i'll even show this Word document to, I kept thinking Navid, I want to
show Navid, that was a constant theme, I want to show my brother, I want to make him understand, I
love him so much, I want him to experience this too, but it's scary, I'm not acting like i'm some great
receptacle of knowledge (and there I go human-izing it again, trying to come lower when I know I
experienced something so special, now in the here and now i'm trying to deny it or something, i'm
trying to cheapen it, i'm trying to INTELLECTUALIZE it), but I kept thinking of Navid. I had a
thought of Momon too but it was weird, I had this thought like oh she already knows about all this. I
didn't have the same sense to rush to tell her cause I felt like she already knew all these secrets, for lack
of a better word.

I felt oneness, I was thinking this is insane, that i'm choosing a human experience, being human is a
choice, I'm something else, I'm definitely something else that is just using a human vehicle, I moved
past the there's so much statement cause the much implies numerosity, implies more than oneness,
and that's an illusion, separateness is an illusion, that the grounding of it all is oneness but that we are
choosing to view it as separate, but that's self-contradictory in itself cause who is the we i'm speaking
of, we-ness itself implies separateness, so even though i'm understanding the concept of oneness, the
very act of speaking about it, of putting it into words, denies the understanding itself, speaking about it
intellectualizes it, turns it on its head, we-ness implies numerosity implies more than one, but I just said
we are choosing to view it as separate, who's saying that? Who is saying that? Who is making that
statement? An intelligence experiencing itself.

Suddenly all the al-Hallaj Sufi transcendental I am nothing, I am all made sense to me. It all makes
sense. I kept saying that throughout the night, i get it i get it. I learned so much, in a few hours
learned more about reality than lifetime of book-reading, all that thirst for knowledge I have and all that
knowledge I gained, feels so trivial, so small, so human, it's all human-knowledge, it's low-level
knowledge, you cant intellectualize it, you have to experience it, this all sounds so cheesy, sounds like
the pseudo-philosophical dick waggling as dolapo says, but it's not, I cannot explain this, at the
beginning of the experience I kept thinking I have to tell people, this is a gift, I have to tell people what
i'm learning, this is all proof, this is just insane, but how do I tell them? How do I explain it? I cant
even really put it into words in my head (whatever that is). All these concepts of consciousness leaving
body, this was all beyond that, I learned that, it became so clear to me, it's not about leaving the body or
going back into the body, that itself implies physicality, and it's beyond that, it's dimensionality,

I kept thinking of proof, then I realized as I went through more and more planes (again not
geographically, I wasnt seeing stars or galaxies that I was rushing past or anything like that), as I was
breaking through new vistas of knowledge, I finally entered the this is beyond proof, proof is
pointless plane, I realized I cant prove anything to anyone, and I shouldnt even try, that it doesnt even
matter, that i've experienced reality, i'm getting a glimpse of what existence is, and I dont have to bring
it down to human level, I dont have to intellecutalize it, and that's fine. That's fine.

This is all in my head so far. in my head but it was so real, more real than real. I cant emphasize that
enough. It was more real than real. More real than real. It was true reality. This is the illusion. This
here and now. This is a constructed reality. After being given all this vast sum of information, I started
getting scared. Cant deny it. I started thinking am I going insane? How would I even know if I am? I
could end up in a straitjacket in a mental hospital for the rest of my life. Is that what all those people
who are in mental hospitals talking to themselves, is this what they go through? How can we even
tell? I felt like I could end up as just some dream of some higher entity, like I'm trapped in some other
entity's dream, with no control. There was a fear of losing control, for sure. My ego was trying to hold
on, in spite of all the reality. My ego kept trying to push me back in: No! Think human thoughts!
Think about craziness, and insane asylums, think about family and friends and what everyone is going
to think of you, they're going to come visit you in the insane asylum and lament all this, you've totally
done it, you just completely fried your mind, you are certifiable, 100% insane with no sense of reality.
I felt free-will-less. Though all those thoughts felt real, I see now that it was my ego's self-defense
mechanism. It was trying to jolt me back into physical reality, I wonder now if I had taken a higher
dose if I would have completely bypassed all that entire ego self-defense stage. The lower dose,
ironically, gave me some of the fear cause it made me aware of what was going on in certain stages of
the experience. Metaphorically speaking, I was seeing my ego completely assaulted, wounded, and
beat into nothingness. Maybe with a higher dose, the ego is obliterated in a split-second like from an
atomic bomb, as opposed to dying a slow grind-it-out meat and potatoes death. I realize now that all
the fear parts of the experience came at the end when I was tuning back into Channel Normal; the
beginning process, the anti-roller coaster plunge into Oneness, was all great, and I didn't want to leave.
I wanted to Is it forever, stay in its awesomeness, but eventually I started becoming more and more
aware of the consensus reality, and once the awareness of coming down set in, once the ego started
taking hold is when I started feeling concern; it was all my ego. The fear resulted from the dissonance
between me not wanting to come back and my ego forcing me to come back.

I felt trapped. I was given this huge gift of understanding, but I was denying it, I was sort of snapping
in and out of human-ness, not just consciousness leaving the body, way beyond that, I had an insane
sense of time

I always read about time and how it's relative, and I get that conceptually, but I experienced it,
experiencing time distortion, it is not a measurement of a series of events behind us, present, and ahead
of us, it is not that at all, it's all mental, time is thought, I totally totally totally get now how things like
psi phenomena work 'across time', the illusion of time is just that...an illusion, a convenience, just like
our reality in general, a practicality, it's just a practicality, it's easier to have 'time' or to think about
'time,

Time is an intellectual copout. It's the easy way out. It's a human mind trying to escape from the true
reality, which is exactly what I was trying to do in certain moments, and that was what made me afraid.

That is when I told Sarah ok I want to come back now. I'm sure she remembers this, I'll make sure to
ask her about it.

Ok, I'm gonna do a sidebar here of my interactions with Sarah that I remember throughout all this,
things I told her, and thoughts I had:

I'll try to use normal chronology (though it's all scattered in my head cause time is fractalized):

Told her I love this

I cant believe this
This is so much
This is more real than real
Told her I get it now
Told her I'll never be the same, never.
Told her it was all buildup to this moment, I think she looked at me like ok weirdo, this was just
mushrooms, stop acting like you're so enlightened. Not that I'm saying Sarah was judging or being
condescending cause she wasnt at all, she was so supportive and just so warm, I think I was projecting
things, projecting this self-imposed idea of ok Nima you're such a douche, stop trying to act so
enlightened but I couldnt help it, I cant help it now, it was so real, and I told her all previous life was
buildup to this moment, to this event, to this Gift of Reality.
Told her I'm forever changed.

Sarah was going in and out of sleep, poor thing, I kept waking her, and I felt like at times I was
definitely annoying her, she has to wake up early to go to an event and I know I've messed up her sleep,
but during all this I couldn't stop, even though my normal nice Nima ego would normally be like oh
i'll let you go to sleep sarah I couldnt do that.

Instead, I kept telling her:

Stay with me sarah
you're my reference point in all this
you're confirmation that i'm not going crazy, that there's another intelligence with me in here
Look at me Sarah
I wanted to see the life in her eyes, the other intelligence looking back at me, confirming my own
existence and sanity, Did I already mention this? I really did get worried for a while. I thought oh
man, I'm going crazy, what are my parents going to think? What's my family going to think of me?
How can I go back to my job? I'm done. This is it. I totally obliterated everything, my family and
friends are gonna think amongst themselves that I've totally lost it, gone off the deep end. Then I
thought How can I be 'normal' with my family and friends again? I'll feel like I'm hiding this secret,
for life.

Anyway, I held Sarah, told her I love her, said she was beautiful, it wasn't sexual, it was just love and
energy, vibrational awareness, held her, I said at one point I dont know where I end and where you
begin it all felt so blended and blurred together, this whole reality thing, this was the first steps of me
'coming back' to this physical lower reality I think, I was coming back but it was a slow process, that to
get to the mundane normal consensus reality I had to go through the mucky lubricated melded-together
transition of physicality, me-ending her-beginning, blurry spectrum

What else did I tell her? (By the way, this is all Hemingway-esque stream of consciousness, I'm typing
what seems like at 150 words per minute, not even really cognizant of it all)

Anyway what else did I experience with her? I kept pacing back and forth, I remember burping haha, I
took a leak a few times, very human functions, which was adding to the fear, cause I was 'in between
the planes' or something, I was having these insane Immanence transcendental experiences and yet I
would quickly come back through a burp, or through urination; I kept yawning. Lots of yawning.

I held Sarah some more. I think I kissed her on the cheek. She was very loving through it all. She was
great. I know I said a lot more to her but I'm having trouble remembering now, Note to self: ask her to
recall as much as she can back to me, tomorrow

I remember at one point, I left the room and walked to Reza's door and knocked, he was asleep I guess.
He didn't wake up. My motivation for doing so (I told this to Sarah afterwards I think) was cause I
wanted to experience that third intelligence (not me, or Sarah, but a third). I wanted more confirmation
of this here physical reality. I was trying to come back. I wanted another reference point. Anyway, I
never saw Reza the whole time.

What seemed like an eternity passed and I started telling Sarah ok I kinda want to come back now, I
want Channel Normal (as Rick Strassman puts it), was I chickening out? Or was I just exhausted from
it? Sarah said that was normal, that you kinda want to just come back after a while when it takes so
long.

Sarah remarked that it hit me hard and that she had never seen it hit anyone that hard and deep. I
thought haha is she calling me a lightweight? but then I instantly didnt care about that thought, I let it
go. Even though I'm sure she didnt mean it that way, the point is: I had the thought, let it go.
Dissolved that bit of my ego, got rid of that pride.

I didn't care about dosage, lightweight this, or 'he can hold it better than him' that, or psychonaut this,
or anything else, was beyond all that, that felt all so trivial and puny and classist.

I remember Sarah (not sure in response to what) saying stop trying to label it, stop trying to be
masculine about it, like naming it this or that, just let it be
I liked that. It was a good point. And I think I told her that.

After I told Sarah that I was getting a little concerned, when I was coming back but not fully back yet,
she suggested we eat something, said that might bring me back, I thought yeah, that might carnalize
it (is 'carnalize' even a verb? Whatever I just made it one, if it isn't). I thought we had no food at all
cause we never have food in our house, and we didnt just a few hours ago, but I went to the fridge
anyway in some futile attempt, and it was packed. Food everywhere. I then remembered hearing all
this noise as I was starting to take the plunge, it was Reza coming home after grocery shopping and
packing the fridge, it was all so loud at the time (and I remember hearing the words that's all she
wrote' or murder she wrote ? Something like that, some rap song he was singing out loud). Anyway,
so we had a lot of food. I only had a few almonds though. Sarah made a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, we came back to my room, she ate it, I lied down still coming back from the obliteration of it
all, she said she wanted to take a nap, at first I was so hesitant to let her go, I didnt want to be the only
intelligence operating within my immediate visual field, but within a few minutes (I think?) that feeling
subsided, and when she said I'm gonna go to the living room to sleep a bit I totally accepted it and
was fine with it. We went out to the living room, gave her a blanket, and I came back to my room.

Turned on the TV, and started watching this HBO young comedians show from the 80s, and I started
typing all this out.

A lot more happened, more I cant even remember or put into words even if I could remember, I know
that sounds so cliched and just stupid but, it's true. I just don't know how else to put it.

As I was coming to, I started thinking this is too much, too much reality. Thought to self, I don't
know if I want to do psychedelics again. It was a great trip (and a bit scary in parts) but I'm not sure. I
don't know how I feel now. It was a huge gift. I kept thinking gift, gift, gift, I remember trying to
hold it all in, trying to hold onto it so I could tell everyone when I got back. I couldnt hold all the
information in so instead I tried to boil it down to single words or pithy aphorisms. Gift, this is a gift
was one of statements I tried to remember. Remember when all this is done Nima, remember to
remember that it was a gift, that I was given knowledge. That ultimately I didn't try to get there. I
didn't do this on my own, I didn't rationalize or intellectualize my way into Truth, but that it was a gift
from a great Intelligence. That trying to get there is such a human ego trivial thing to think, to even
have the audacity to think that I could do it on my own. I get that now. Sure, with my human will I
tried to make my mindstate blank and I tried to have a fertile mind, waiting for some seeds to be
planted. But the rest was not me. The rest was a gift from an Intelligence, no way around it. Trying to
wrap my head around it and I cant get away from this fact: it was something given to me, not
something I did or strived for on my own. So much reality, all at once.

Coming back from the Oneness feeling, went through various stages, put more and more veils of reality
on, this was the process of reality as far as I could tell and put into words:

The ultimate grounded reality: the Oneness, all One, ego-dissolution, even thinking about an ego that
has to be dissolved is stupid and nonsensical in itself
Step back one step, put one veil of reality onto the true landscape: astral planes, spiritual planes,
various levels of existence
Step back another step, put an additional veil of reality onto the previous one, go lower: I am an
intelligence experiencing itself, that this reality is an illusion, realizing that I'm creating the
separateness of reality
Step back one more step, put yet another veil of reality on top of the one prior: separateness, though an
illusion and a conscious choice by an intelligence, is a necessity? There are other intelligences, One
becomes manifested through many
Step back yet another step, put on another veil of reality, another layer on top of things: physical here
and now, energy condensed and made into 'matter,' into solid 'stuff', but it's all just vibrations, still get
glimpses into the truth with things like psi phenomena and quantum physics, but these are just
glimpses, echoes of Reality, mere aftershocks, reverberations
Final veil: totally small human things, politics, institutions, culture, etc. I think I tried to voice this to
Sarah in one of my ramblings, I think the way I phrased it was: this is all low, all baser stuff, all this
Noam Chomsky view of things Not belitting Chomsky, but he was the personality or word I used to
sum up the idea of small human-ness, politics, culture, etc. little small things that occupies most
people's minds at all times, even a mind as great as Chomsky's.

And now that I'm thinking back on all this in human terms, all this from a few grams of mushrooms? I
know, but I don't care. It was real. No one can tell me otherwise.

I no longer believe or intellectualize, I now know, and knowing itself is such an I-centric ego-centric
idea too, so it's one level beyond that, knowledge upon knowledge, knowledge folded in on itself

I can't type anymore. I'm gonna try to sleep now, it's 5:15 am. I wonder what my dreams are going to
be like from here on out. Wonder if I'll go back.

Back again, it's 6:20 am, I can't sleep. I keep reading this document over and over again, have read it 6
or 7 times. With each reading, it sounds more and more stupid, cheesy, pseudo-philosophical. What I
felt as I was typing it all out was completely profound and enlightened and just insane, but with each
reading, it's sounding more and more cheesy. I cannot explain this in any way except to say it's as if
my ego is crystallizing, I'm becoming more and more human, and my ego is already starting to try to
deny it. Not deny that it happened cause that is impossible, but instead my ego is trying to cheapen it,
by telling me it's cheesy. This is what being human is all about: it's a temporary deliberate escape from
reality. I'm really glad I typed all this out when I did, before my ego had a chance to ridicule it; had I
not, I would have ended up chalking it to a crazy enlightening experience but it would have felt less
real. I'm sure I would have started doubting myself and playing mind-games with myself. Now, if I try
to do that, I can look back at this document and realize I typed everything I did for a reason. And any
cheesiness I'm ascribing to it is just a function of my distance from the original event. I'm going to
trust the person who wrote this, instead of the later-crystallized ego that is currently living in the
present tense. It wasn't cheesy dammit.

More real than real.

Finally went to sleep around 8 am, up at 930.

Just cried thinking about it all. Ok I'm completely done typing now, no more.

April 18, 2010

Not sure why I'm writing about this in my Trip document. Maybe cause, deep down, I think it's
related? Or maybe it's just cause I don't have paper in my room to write on so I'm using this. For a few
weeks now I'd say a few times a week when I wake up, I'm vibrating. It's hard to describe. The
best way I can put it is it's a mini-bodily-earthquake. I wake up and for probably 5-10 seconds, my
upper body is doing this subtle but distinct vibration. I can feel myself buzzing. It's the feeling you
have when you're cold and with the shivers, only I'm not cold at all. I'm not sure what it is. I did a
Google search and came across a lot of results of people reporting similar things. One thing is common
across all these reports: all the people experiencing it are relatively healthy, and the ones who visit their
doctors cause of it are all met with astonishment and puzzlement; the doctors don't know what is
causing it.

Early afternoon, today, in addition to the vibration, something else really bizarre happened. This is
what prompted me to write about it so that I wouldn't forget. Right when I woke up from a nap, I
opened my eyes, and for a fraction of a second, my bedroom was vibrating really frantically. Only way
I can try to explain it is: the room was shimmering and fluctuating, as if it were in a pre-solid state, a
transitory flux of some sort, a sea of less than discrete potentiality that hadn't yet fully actualized. As
soon as the fraction of the second was over, the entire room rigidified; once my mind focused, the room
went from pre-solid to normal solid stuff-ness. I had this distinct impression that I caught the room
red-handed with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar. The room was almost embarrassed, like a child
who knew he did something wrong when his parents opened his door and gasped at the mischief taking
place. The thought was inspired in me that the room's quick condensation into a solid fully physical
state was its way of apologizing to me; its way of saying, 'Hey, sorry you had to see that Nima, never
again, back to normalcy, forgive us'.

I am not crazy.

Postscript: One other thing I wanted to note. When I have this happen to me, I feel like I am radiating
intense energy. I feel it so strongly, in fact, that twice now (today being the second time) as it's
happening, I become semi-convinced that I can somehow telekinetically move an object. Both times, I
put my TV remote on the bed next to me, and focused on moving it. Nothing happened either time.
But for whatever reason, I felt like I should try.

Post-post script: After mentioning this to Navid, he asked a few questions to fully understand my
experience. I'll try to flesh out here what I told him. He asked if I was fully awake and whether things
were just 'fuzzy' in that split-second. My response: I was fully awake. I wasn't groggy, foggy, or any
other -oggy. The chronology of events was: I snapped awake, and by that I mean both eyes opened.
My visual field was filled with what I described in the paragraph above, a sea of vibrating potentiality
that hadn't yet distinguished fully into discrete pieces of matter. The 'vibration' of the room wasn't akin
to an earthquake; maybe 'vibration' is the wrong word. A better word would be shimmering or buzzing.
Shimmering flux. All of this lasted maybe a few tenths of a second; as soon as my mind focused its
attention on the state of things, and before I could even voice the words umm...what?, the room
rigidified into its normal state. This is why I likened it to an apology on the room's part. It was as if as
soon as I 'caught' it in its naked state, it instantaneously shied away from my gaze, and snapped back
into solidity. My room: Adam and Eve blushing at the thought of their own nakedness, and quickly
covering themselves up.

April 20, 2010

As an addendum to my last entry, I wanted to say that the vibrational buzzing upon wakefulness is now
more intense and happens every time I nap/sleep. I feel this energy radiating from me; and in fact in
my right hand (not palm, but top of hand and some of forearm) I feel periodic bouts of heat simmering
off my skin. It is not unbearable or even painful, but there is a distinct heat. I am not presupposing that
this, or the vibrational sleep phenomena, are related to each other or that either one is related to some
spiritual gnostic post- or pre-psilocybin induced-state. I don't know. I just wanted to write this all
down for the sake of exhaustiveness. Just want to tabulate all possible data. In fact, if the buzzing/heat
persist, I may see a doctor. I hope they're not related to some neurological condition or something.

The real reason I wanted to write this entry: it's now been 4 full days since The Trip. I am still
astonished. I was not a 'prisoner of the moment,' as the saying goes. Four days later, I still have been
operating in a sort of daze; an awe-filled trance. Still glowing from the majesty of it all. I am
definitely transformed. I have moments when the Realness of it all still frightens me, but overall, it has
been uplifting, and positive. I have felt incredibly calm, light. Others may mistakenly see me as vacant
or vacuous, but it's really just lightness. I feel like I'm in a perma-meditative state, where day-to-day
thoughts ruminate less in my mind. The typical mental clutter has been greatly reduced. I am not
apathetic; far from it. I've just re-prioritized the direction of my pathos.

As an aside, when I gaze at my reflection in the mirror, several times I have felt an Otherness to it all.
Have felt a non-I stranger peering through these human eyes at the reflection. It is a bit off-putting; I
think it is just an artifact of the ego-dissolution. My ego is still picking up the pieces.

I talked to Brenda today about some of it. She asked some poignant questions. I'll paste my response
to her here, seems relevant: I feel great now. Maybe the happiest I've ever been in my life? I feel like a
new person. That was a constant theme throughout: "but how can this be? I'll never be the same." I feel
light. I'm still in a daze of sorts. I've realized a lot, things that maybe I believed before, but now I know
with certainty. That this reality is a temporary respite from the real Reality. That we are all connected
through the One Mind. That all the problems we have, even big ones, are truly trivial when realizing
that Reality is so much more expansive than all this, so much wider. I cried because of the beauty of it
all. It was just so much. Ego-dissolution was just so much. To be completely without 'I." To be only
Not-I. It is an insane indescribable feeling. The main outlook I would say that has changed is the idea
of separateness being an illusion. Dissolving my ego taught me that; that there is just Oneness, which
manifests through many, down in this consensus reality we are living in. Being cognizant of this
separateness is really liberating; I realized that I shouldn't be upset at this person, or hate that person,
cause in a very non-hokey non-cheesy way we are all interconnected; he is me and I am him.

The main takeaway is: it's all so cheapened when put into words. You can't even talk about it without it
sounding like New Age-hippy talk. I am fully aware of that. It all sounds pseudo-enlightened, but when
you experience it, it is INCREDIBLY REAL. I am fully convinced it wasn't just a 'hallucination' (such
a dismissive word). I really do think it was real.
Anyway, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this over the past 4 days. I am thinking about it on
an almost minute-by-minute basis. I just can't unglue myself from the reality of it all. I've thought
about the experiences, digested them in my head over and over again. Intellectualized them. With
regard to the veils of reality schematic I talked about, going from the grounded Oneness all the way
through the various levels to the here and now, I've realized it is like an asymptote in calculus.

That with ego-dissolution, I-ness becomes suffused into the Oneness. That all the levels, starting from
the base here-and-now, all the way up to the Oneness, act asymptotically. Working from human-to-
Oneness, we go through the various veils, and ultimately tend toward infinity, like with the asymptote.
Complete ego-dissolution results in suffusion with the One. Where 1, 0, and infinity, collapse in on
each other and become meaningless distinctions of the same concept: Being. Pure naked existence.
Working backwards, coming back from The Trip, reversing the anti-roller coaster, as each veil of
reality is draped over the prior, the Oneness reverses the suffusion, unrings the bell. With the passing
through of each veil, the Oneness fractalizes into and manifests through the many. Oneness becomes
various astral and spiritual planes, which then start forming the rudiments of egos, with intelligences
experiencing themselves as separate facets of the same Oneness. As Being wills itself into various
beings, as more veils are added, little egos begin crystallizing. Existence funnels itself into trillions
upon trillions of tiny hologram-egos, who etherealize in various stages of existence, some of which
become compressed into the practicality of this here-and-now consensus reality. Intelligence, with a
capital I, becomes various intelligences that, in their lowest state, interface with and become hardwired
to the wetware of biological entities, some of which are human beings, us.

That's how I've made sense of all this anyway.

Is this monistic, as opposed to monotheistic? I am not sure. I am still a monotheist but my conception
of what that means is maybe expanding. It need not be 'us' and 'Him' separated by a large gulf.
'Supreme Being' implies that there are various actual beings, one of whom is the greatest, God. This
idea does not make much sense to me, and in fact cheapens the True Being in a way. What makes more
sense to me, to use an analogy, is to think that we are mere thoughts of the one Mind. That we are not
God, but that we are part of God's thoughts. In this sense, we a part of God, but not God itself. Just as
I cannot say my finger is Nima, but is rather a part of Nima, I cannot say that one ego amongst many in
the One Mind is the One Mind itself, but is rather part of the One Mind. During my Trip, as I was
coming to, going through the scary ego-crystallizing phase, I had this same thought: I thought, how do I
know I'm not in a dream taking place in some entity's mind? Thinking back on that part of the
experience, maybe I actually hit on something. Maybe we are all just partaking in a large dream taking
place in the One Mind. In this way, separateness really is an illusion. Some Aborigines believe this, if
I recall. Some Hindus conceive of reality this way as well, with Brahman being all. I'm not sure what
exactly I think. Constantly evolving.

April 26, 2010

My vibrational buzzing has finally ceased. I was actually worried for several days because it soon
became a 24 hour phenomenon. It wasn't just during my waking/sleep phase, but was actually all day
everyday for the past several days. I was slowly becoming convinced that I had early onset Parkinson's
or some other neurological disorder because I was involuntarily trembling all the time. It was
concerning. In fact, I told myself that if it lasted through the weekend, I would see a doctor this week
about it.

Interesting story about when it finally ceased. As I do not believe in coincidences, I think it's worth
documenting. About a day after my last entry, my vibrational buzzing 'problem' started happening all
day everyday. When it wouldn't stop, I started thinking about Parkinson's. I went to Las Vegas with
Sunny, Anand, and Yasir this weekend for Yasir's bachelor party. The vibrating still continued all day
Friday and all day Saturday. All 4 of us lost a lot of money betting on sports; I lost $440 by Saturday
night. Everyone was tired and went to bed around 1 am. When they did, I went downstairs to the
casino and played blackjack. I bought in for $100, busted out. Down $540. This nice couple sat next
to me. After a couple hands, it became very obvious that the man...had Parkinson's. He had to use his
left hand to hold his face to stop it from shaking, and he used his right hand to make his bets, all while
trembling. He was young, in his 40s I would say. I took this as a sign. Here I've been worried about
Parkinson's for several days, and on Saturday night, I actually meet a person who has Parkinson's. I
had never met one before. The synchronicity just seemed too odd. What happened next only solidified
things for me: I re-bought in for $40, started playing again. Started talking to the couple; they were
actually from the Valley and great people. The Parkinson's sufferer, especially, was a very nice humble
guy. 45 minutes later, I had made my $40 into $540, completely making back all my losses. He made
his $500 into $6,500, and left. My string of bad luck all weekend completely reversed while I was
interacting with this guy, while I was quite literally facing my fear.

I went back up to the hotel at 2:30 am, and went to sleep. Woke up, and my vibrational problem was
completely gone.

I can't help but think about the chain of events. I have nonstop pulsating for days, get worried and
constantly think about Parkinson's, meet and interact with the first Parkinson's sufferer in my life, and
my bad gambling luck completely turns around. And magically, the next day, the nonstop pulsating is
completely gone.

I think I've now nailed down why this all happened in the first place. As I mentioned, I looked this up
on the Internet to see if anyone else had similar experiences. Many people did. Most the things I saw
focused on medical conditions, but one post came out of left field. Some excerpts:

What almost all of you will find if you have medical tests done is that there is nothing wrong with
you. Upon research I found this happening all over the world to many hundreds of thousands of people.
Some during the daytime! I had a huge spiritual awakening several years ago (without ANY spiritual
interest or practice I might add), and I have noticed this symptom off and on ever since. If you cultivate
awareness you will notice this pulsating seems to originate in your body energy centers (Chakras).
Anyway, I tried to make sense of it, and have done a lot of investigation into it It was further
investigation that revealed this is something called "Life Force, Prana, Mana, Chi, Ki, Orgone, Soul
Force, Kundalini, etc". It's very natural; every human on the planet has it. If you cultivate awareness,
discernment, and gratitude for life, you will notice this energy pulsating up you during the day, as
well as the night. There is nothing to fear here. The more you have, the more powerful, loving,
and creative you are. Every saint, guru, high level Christian I have checked has an intense level
of life force flowing through their body. Children have incredible levels of this in their bodies.

This post reassured me. I just wanted to believe it; I wanted to think it wasn't tied to some neurological
disorder like Parkinson's. When I reflected on his post, and thought about my own timeline, it all made
perfect sense. My 'symptoms' started a few weeks ago; happened sporadically after waking up. During
the past 5 or 6 weeks, as I mentioned to a few people, I have had a paradigmatic shift on my view of
consciousness and reality. I essentially went into hibernation and voraciously read and listened to
anything related to psi phenomena, consciousness, and psychedelic drugs insofar as they relate to
reality and consciousness. I learned a lot during that span; as I remarked to a couple people, it was one
of those hyper-learning phases in my life, when something just clicks. I have had two other ones in my
life. The shift brought a newfound spiritual awareness of Mind and minds; it was right around this time
that I started to have the vibrating symptom sporadically. As the poster mentioned, my cultivating
awareness brought on this excess life-force or chi, or whatever you want to call it. This all hit a severe
and intense peak after my mushroom experience where I was completely transformed spiritually. After
that day, the symptoms became more frequent and more intense, finally culminating in a 24 hour a day
pulsating, which is what made me worried about Parkinson's. I can see now that it's no coincidence
that my full-on 24 hour a day pulsating coincided with my post-Trip permanent semi-meditative awe-
filled trance state. I had an insane amount of energy and spirit flowing through me, and it was
manifesting bodily with the pulsating and vibrating. The vibrations were the aftershocks of the Trip, so
to speak.

I was actually worried when I saw Yasir, Anand, and Sunny this weekend in Vegas, that they would
think something is wrong with me cause I felt like I was in such a daze from the majesty of it all.
When the weekend finally rolled around, however, the final steps of my ego re-crystalizing was taking
hold and I felt more and more 'normal.' After the events of Saturday night, I finally was back to normal
pre-Trip Nima, and I woke up Sunday morning without the pulsating, without the energy flowing
through me. It all goes hand in hand.

Various searches led me to the concept of 'kundalini.' I didn't know anything about it till today, really (I
had heard the word before but had no idea what it meant or referred to). It's supposed to be the 'coiled'
energy at the base of your spine which can be awakened. A kundalini awakening can manifest
physically in many ways; two of the ways is vibrating/pulsating and feeling heat. I exhibited both of
these symptoms. Apparently, people who do not intend to have one can still have one. I wonder if I
had a kundalini awakening, or something similar.

One random note I wanted to talk about: I did searches on the Freeminds forum I visit to see if any
threads talked about psychedelic drugs, kundalini, and the like. I found quite a few posts by Tay and
idolfree1. I remember those two members years ago; reading their posts now, what they say resonates
a lot more with me than it did in the past. I find what they say aligning closely with what I experienced
in my Trip. One thing Tay said really hit home with me. He said our 'soul' is infinite, and that our
minds are finite processing machines experiencing the infinite. This is incredibly similar to my ideas
of an intelligence experiencing itself, and One being manifested through many tiny hologram-egos. We
are all interconnected. Separateness is an illusion.

More about kundalini from some websites I bookmarked:

Relevant symptoms of kundalini -

Feeling as if you are in a strong earthquake

Muscle twitches, cramps or spasms
Energy rushes or immense electricity circulating the body
Itching, vibrating, prickling, tingling, stinging or crawling sensations
Intense heat or cold
Involuntary bodily movements (occur more often during meditation, rest or sleep): jerking,
tremors, shaking; feeling an inner force pushing one into postures or moving one's body in
unusual ways. (May be misdiagnosed as epilepsy, restless legs syndrome (RLS), or PLMD.)
Altered states of consciousness: heightened awareness; spontaneous trance states; mystical experiences
(if the individual's prior belief system is too threatened by these, they can lead to bouts of psychosis or
self-grandiosity)
Psychic experiences: extrasensory perception; out-of-body experiences; pastlife memories; astral
travel; direct awareness of auras and chakras; contact with spirit guides through inner voices, dreams or
visions; healing powers.
Feeling as if you are here and not here
Enlightenment experiences: direct Knowing of a more expansive reality; transcendent
awareness

I bolded the symptoms that I felt personally.

"What is Kundalini Really? More commonly known in western cultures as Holy Spirit, Kundalini is
the ancient Sanskrit name for the primal life force that animates all living entities -- the evolutionary
force behind all living matter.... Shaktipat is a Sanskrit word for the process of activating the higher
Kundalini-Shakti energy, initiating the process of spiritual growth and enlightenment and advancing
personal evolution dramatically. This has also been called the "baptism by fire" and "second birth" -- a
truly sacred mystical experience.

The awakening occurs through yoga, meditation, breathing exercises etc., and was called "the shorter
way to God".

The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas, of India, tell us that the process of spiritual
awakening by which one attains truth -awareness is called 'Self-Realization'. The Self Realized person
lives in direct experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a traditional sanskrit word meaning
'knowledge' or 'Gnosis').

This sounds awfully like what I experienced during my Trip.

Supersensual visions appear before the mental eye of the aspirant, new worlds with indescribable
wonders and charms unfold themselves before the Yogi, planes after planes reveal their existence and
grandeur to the practitioner and the Yogi gets divine knowledge, power and bliss, in increasing degrees,
when Kundalini passes through Chakra after Chakra, making them to bloom in all their glory which
before the touch of Kundalini, do not give out their powers, emanating their divine light and fragrance
and reveal the divine secrets and phenomena, which lie concealed from the eyes of worldly- minded
people who would refuse to believe of their existence even.

When the Kundalini ascends one Chakra or Yogic centre, the Yogi also ascends one step or rung
upward in the Yogic ladder; one more page, the next page, he reads in the divine book; the more the
Kundalini travels upwards, the Yogi also advances towards the goal or spiritual perfection in relation to
it. When the Kundalini reaches the sixth centre or the Ajna Chakra, the Yogi gets the vision of Personal
God or Saguna Brahman, and when the serpent-power reaches the last, the top centre, or Sahasrara
Chakra, or the Thousand-petalled lotus, the Yogi loses his individuality in the ocean of Sat-Chit-
Ananda or the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute and becomes one with the Lord or Supreme
Soul. He is no longer an ordinary man, not even a simple Yogi, but a fully illumined sage, having
conquered the eternal and unlimited divine kingdom, a hero having won the battle against illusion, a
Mukta or liberated one having crossed the ocean of ignorance or the transmigratory existence, and a
superman having the authority and capacity to save the other struggling souls of the relative world.
Scriptures hail him most, in the maximum possible glorifying way, and his achievement. Celestial
beings envy him, not excluding the Trinity even, viz., Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

May 2, 2010

It has been more than a couple weeks now since the Trip. My ego is now fully formed; I feel normal
for lack of a better word. But, I'm still armed with the knowledge of my experience, my transformative
experience. I find myself still frequently thinking about it, though slightly less so than during the first
couple of weeks. One thing I wanted to point out is that for the first week or so, I felt a lot more
creative. I'm sure that's one possible effect of the psychedelic, as evidenced by the many artists
(musicians, writers, etc.) who used and use psychedelics. I felt like I was a better writer the first week
or so than I do now. Like so many things related to this experience, it's hard to explain; my thoughts
just felt more inspired. Things are muddier now. Ego stands in the way between me and the ether, like
a gunky screen door.

May 10, 2010

So, even though I was aware of the basic concepts of Sufism, for some reason I had never heard of the
concept of 'fana' which is essentially ego-dissolution. I just came across it in passing in the Inner Paths
to Outer Space book I'm reading. Looking into it some more online, it's remarkable how closely it
aligns with my Trip. I'll paste one relevant part I read about it:

As soon as an individual emerges from the state of deep sleep, ego arises spontaneously and along
with it the gross, physical universe becomes manifest with its concomitant joys and sorrows. I am the
body thought is experienced in the dream state as well but in the dream state the i (ego) identifies
itself with the astral body and the universe is perceived at an astral level.

The i gets considerably thinned out in deep sleep though not completely annihilated. Though an
individual loses awareness of the external universe in deep sleep and is free from all worldly problems,
it is a state of total ignorance, devoid of any spiritual enlightenment. It is only in the supra-causal state
of consciousness that the Self or pure, undifferentiated Consciousness is realised. The i am the body
thought then gives way to `I am That (anal huqq) thought. It is akin to a drop of water falling into a
river and losing its separate entity.
Realisation then dawns upon the seeker that absolute Consciousness assumes limitations in the form of
time and space, becomes differentiated, and projects the seeker as the wondrous universe by becoming
the ego with myriad names and forms. She is in fact both the seer and the seen; the knower and the
known; and the hearer and the heard. Thus with the annihilation of the ego (fana) through deep
meditation, vast expanses of the inner spiritual realm are opened before the seeker.

One part that particularly stuck out was, The 'i am the body' thought then gives way to 'I am That'
thought. It is akin to a drop of water falling into a river and losing its separate entity. This perfectly
sums up how I felt at the peak of my Trip, when my ego was fully dissolved.
Realisation then dawns upon the seeker that absolute Consciousness assumes limitations in the form
of time and space, becomes differentiated, and projects the seeker as the wondrous universe by
becoming the ego with myriad names and forms sums up perfectly what I said about the veils of
reality, One manifesting in many, existence acting like an asymptote, etc. It's amazing how closely it
parallels my experience. Importantly, I have to note that I did not read about this before my Trip, nor
before what I wrote since.
I can't help but fully relate to what I've read about Sufism and to a lesser degree Hinduism (I haven't
read as much about it, something I should remedy).

May 24, 2010

Upon reading Amit Goswami's The Self-Aware Universe, the import of one of my experiences dawned
on me. I mentioned that after my Trip, I woke up from a nap one day and noticed the shimmering
fluctuating nature of my room, for a fraction of a second. It only lasted that long because as soon as I
focused my consciousness on the room, it quickly solidified into a 'normal' consensus reality state. I
now know that I was somehow experiencing the manifestation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Quantum mechanics dictates that matters exists in a duality, as both a wave and a particle. It is both a
wave and a particle simultaneously, and it is also neither a wave nor a particle simultaneously. Matter
is mere possibility until a conscious observer observes it. Matter exists only in wave possibilities; only
when an observer measures it does it solidify into 'something.' The question, of course, becomes where
does the matter exist before an observer measures it? And the answer is nowhere, not in space-time at
least, for space-time is the very thing that it exists into once it is observed; in other words, matter is just
an illusion, a shadow of the transcendent reality, the ground of Being.

Goswami succinctly states: When we look, the wave collapses instantly; thus the wave could not be in
space-time. It makes more sense to adapt an idealist metaphysical assumption: There is no object in
space-time without a conscious subject looking at it.

In my post-Trip perma-meditative transcendental state, I believe I was confronting the direct

experience of this metaphysical assumption. My consciousness was in between the transcendental and
immanent realities, the ground of Being and the illusion of matter, the heavens and the earth. When I
focused my intention, when I as the subject cast an observation within that fraction of a second, the
room went from wave probability to discrete particulate locality. The room rigidified.

August 9, 2010

It's now been almost 4 months since my Trip. I still think about it. Every day. My post-sleep tremors
sometimes come back, but are mostly gone. I'm ready for another trip. Will likely take a larger dose,
while lying down in my bedroom in the dark for total sensory deprivation. We'll see.
One random aside: I saw Alice for the third time this year, last week. Things happened that I won't go
into. Just wanted to say that I told her about my Trip while we were both in this drunken stupor. I
know I didn't explain it well and pretty sure I just mumbled about it nonsensically. Really did a
disservice to the experience and to what it meant to me. Oh well. Maybe I'll tell her about it again one
day. If we ever talk again. Who knows.
September 19, 2010

Decided to take a pretty massive mushroom dose this time. 5 grams (50% larger dose than first time)
and decided to do it in silent darkness so that it would be as introspective/spiritual as possible.
Unfortunately, it turned into a pretty bad trip:

The first trip I had back in April was amazing. Even still, at the tail end of it, I went through a bout of
psychosis where I thought I was a character in some entity's dream, that I was going insane. I was
convinced I was the only living being in the entire universe. The trip this time around was the same,
except the entire trip was like that.

I took the mushrooms, sat in the living room in a meditative state for about 50 minutes, and then started
seeing open-eyed visuals. Aztec-like intricate patterns overlaying the normal reality of my living
room. As soon as I saw these effects, I went into my silent dark room to start the full trip. And that's
when things started getting crazy. With no sensory input, all I experienced were purely the effects of
the mushrooms. The silence was so loud. Deafening. I could hear the hum of the planet. Soon, I
started hearing machine-like effects. Very hard to explain but I got the distinct feeling I was in a
metallic tunnel of sorts. I kept hearing whirring and buzzing. Every now and then I'd hear a second of
a buzz-saw noise, or what sounded like a bee buzzing. At this point, I started feeling pressure in my
skull; I could tell my consciousness was rising up, trying to break through my head. There was this
incredibly strong urge to push through the barrier, to go through this metallic tunnel. The machine
noises kept getting louder and louder, urging me to break free. I felt there was something on the other
side waiting, but then...I cowered. I resisted it. Instead of giving in and letting the trip take me
wherever it wanted to like the first time, this time I completely resisted.

And that's when the trip took a downward spiral. It was all because of my resistance.

I left my room and started talking to Reza as a form of reassurance. When I was out in the living room,
I had this strong urge to go back to my bedroom to let the full trip commence. I could literally feel It
(what It is, I can't really say) calling to me, like a magnetic force. It gave me this "come back, so we
can start this thing" vibe. And I didn't give in, like a scared idiot. I stayed outside in the living room.
And this just made it worse. I thought I could handle this dose. I couldn't.

I asked Reza to come to my room to watch basketball with me. I wanted to have some grip on my
normal reality, which basketball represented I guess. I started experiencing psychosis. A flurry of
contradictory dualities were going through my head at light speed. I simultaneously felt a sense of
self/not-self, a sense of time-boundedness/timelessness, a sense of the here-now/eternity. I thought I
was experiencing all of human history at once. I didn't know who I was.

I would tell Reza to leave my room, only to come after him and ask him to come back. I did this many,
many times (Reza confirmed for me the next day). The dominant theme was me pacing back and
forth. I literally walked around my room and the apartment for hours. "You walked 6 miles inside the
house last night" was what Reza said the next day. He confirmed that it was just endless repetition
where I would walk back and forth and say the same things. Mainly, I would ask him if I'm going
crazy and if he was worried. He kept trying to reassure me, mostly with no success.

I lost all sense of time, thought it was just an insane concept and not real. I remember commenting on
how utterly bizarre the concept of memory was. Just the idea that we remember things, that there is a
past, and not just an eternal present. The thought of that literally blew my mind; I just couldn't get over
it.

I thought I had taken too high a dose, thought I had finally broken myself. Got thoughts of me being in
an insane asylum with my family visiting me and pitying me.

I thought of Reza and me as "related apes." I commented to him "you're my cousin, that's so weird,
like that humans have these relationships, cousins, such a weird concept." I remember commenting on
how pointless basketball seemed. "It's just these, like, guys going down one end of the floor, and then
going to the other end, and they keep doing this, why?"

At one point, I told him the family was worried for him cause of all the work he's doing and how he's
miserable. I told him that even though I don't want to tell him how to live his life, that I think he
should focus less on materialist things and focus a bit more on spiritual things, that I think that might
make him happier. I had never told him that, at least not in those terms.

One bizarre feeling presented itself: normally, you have that voice within you, the inner you who talks;
you align your thoughts with that voice. "I am hungry". "I am tired." "It's hot." etc. All an inner
dialogue. And the dialogue is so close. It's like a whisper that your ego is telling the real you, and it's
so close. It's one millimeter away, less than that, so intimately close that in fact you think you and the
voice are one and the same, you identify with it, it is me, I am it.

Well, during this bad trip, that one millimeter divide between the inner voice and the real me became
MILES WIDE. No other way to explain it. There was a huge chasm between that inner voice and the
real me. It was no longer a self-whisper, a chattering of my brain. It was over THERE and I was over
HERE. It was so interesting. During my first trip, I experienced total ego death where i felt one with
All That Is. This time I felt nothing of the sort, instead of ego death, I felt ego separation. Like that
inner voice was catapulted hundreds of miles away. That's when I totally thought I lost it. Cause I was
without an ego, not cause my ego had died, but because my ego had gone somewhere far away.

So, even though i was absolutely horrified that I completely lost my sanity, I'm trying to see what i can
learn from this bad trip. The best thing I can come up with is this:

Because of my resistance, the mushroom basically made this existential statement on life by playing
this sick repetitive joke on me, by making me literally walk back and forth for hours, repeating the
same nonsense over and over again. I was literally running around but going nowhere. It was the
perfect metaphor for the Rat Race. It basically used my body as a vehicle through which it could act
out this statement: "You want to resist? You want to deny yourself the larger set of Reality? Well then
this is what you're restricting yourself to: repeating the same thing over and over again, walking but
going nowhere, doing something repeatedly but ultimately for naught. This is what you get for
resisting. You resist, you're doomed to a life of mundane pointlessness. Had you let go, well...you'll
eventually find out. Learn to let go." Final lesson is I denied myself access by cowering in fear and
not letting go. I realized it's all about the limitations I put on myself.

I know that sounds cheesy but I'm really trying to integrate the experience. And that's the best i could
come up with.
September 21, 2010
Addendum: During this last trip, it was mostly horrifying because I thought I was the only entity in the
universe. I was all that there was. It was incredibly jarring and disorienting, but maybe the experience,
scary though it was, was showing me the reality of things. That I am all there is. An excerpt from Alan
Watts that I read today:

"So then, here's the drama. My metaphysics, let me be perfectly frank with you, are that there the
central self, you can call it God, you can call it anything you like, and it's all of us. It's playing all the
parts of all being whatsoever everywhere and anywhere. And it's playing the game of hide and seek
with itself. It gets lost, it gets involved in the farthest-out adventures, but in the end it always wakes up
and comes back to itself."

I sort of understood the existential 'dilemma' of Being during the trip. Pure Being is lonely. I felt
scared cause of the loneliness, I get it. Being manifests itself through the Many in order to experience
itself as a non-lonely multiplicity of Unity, which is why we have creation in the first place.