Link to:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3



PART 4 Wherein the author endeavours to scribe a summarial understanding :

So from 4 hits of acid, approximately 4-500ug, I intuited that I am God, that I signed a contract with myself to play a sort of game in which there are keys (the familiar entheogens), keys that allow a sort of partial freewill in a largely deterministic gameplay ; that the use of the keys, while allowing a connection to our (my) true nature and allowing for limited choice, is a risky tactic in the game, the outcome of which is potential dementia, schizophrenia and/or «key» induced psychosis. The trick of the game is understanding the only other choice you have, once you have employed the keys of freewill : Fear or Acceptance.

The game itself seems to take place on a playing field of infinite probability, flitting in and out of existence moment by infinitesimally small moment, creating the illusion of continuity, and hence of TIME itself.

From there I partially left this solipsism to envision a world of many truths, each truth a player in the game (perhaps evoked by me, but at the very least all interconnected), shards of truths that in their totality, the totality of all fragments of consciousness, is the sum of all, the TRUTH, the ABSOLUTE. And that, in the terms of the material world, these little partial truths either encode or decode this truth in an eternal tennis match of quotidian life. By merely living we incarnate truth and hide that truth or endeavour to disclose it with the weak tools at our disposal : Language, Art, Music, Architecture (empire building for that matter), Technology, Progress, and even, yes, War and Killing.

All in an attempt to understand some small part of this reality, of this billowing, expanding and incomprehensible universe. It applies here somewhat, but this is what I thought of this place we visit after a particularly harrowing DMT breakthrough :

Imagine the utter terror experienced by a newborn: jettisoned from the womb, umbilical cord clipped, drawing in its first gulp of air and opening its eyes to the hostile light of the world for the first time; oxygen flooding virgin lungs, a whole cardiopulmonary system shocked into action, those little orbs set in a tiny skull that have never seen more than the dim red glow of placenta being opened to a universe of reflection and refraction, shards of light bounding around in a seeming assault, a barrage of alien colour and intensity; and the sounds - never such cacophony, billowing around the small cartilaginous shells that heretofore have heard no more than the dull distant thud of their mother's heart, now subjected to screeching frequencies unimaginable...

I have to think of these experiences as a form birth for them to make sense. Something that will soften to some level of comprehension, or at the very least diminished violence, in subsequent trips, like the newborn slowly adapting to a novel, strange reality...

And the death of my old self, the precious illusion (if it indeed be one) of my old mind, the shedding, the passing on, the evolving... For every birth requires a death, and every demise, a blossom.

(Maya, pronounced in reverse, is a phonetic analogue of I am. IAMAYA. Illusion is the illusion; THE ILL YOU SHUN IS THE ILLYOUSHUN.)

We strive to understand, to compartmentalize with these weak symbols, for they are all we have. The irony being, of course, that where the mind and spirit are concerned conclusions are antithetical to understanding. We are the symbols we use. At the end of the day, all we have is imagination and those things imagined.

So I propose a model, a symbol, a conclusion that veils and unveils :

Imagine the universe, reality itself in its entirety:

An eternally folding reflective punctured torus of ONE consciousness, no inside, no outside, no beginning no end,
bending, gyrating, enveloping, folding over itself and reflecting the reflection of itself reflecting - this multitude of reflections creating the illusion of many, of infinite consciousnesses, all containing all others but distinct unto itself...

ALL WE HAVE IS IMAGINATION AND THOSE THINGS IMAGINED. So imagine this torus, with a mirrored surface. It is you, it is me, it is nothing and it is all there is in this grandest of mysteries:

Interesting reads to say it in the very least.
Amazed at how many realizations you were able to note from a 1st trip on a virgin voyage.
To top it off, a lot of those realizations seem to resonate with core fundamentals.
Seems like you hit a home run or accomplished a hat trick.
It is truly inspiring to be able to read such immense material generated by a unique mind set.
Congratulations on the 1st steps into the unknown yet familiar, and looking forward to other progress reports.

PS. By the way the attached animated image reminds me of the hypercube a lot.
A multicolored version of the summary of the thought to be 4th dimension.

Bingo. If you go deep enough, you realize that you really can drive yourself nuts, and the only option is to accept what you have learned, or the knowledge WILL break you, exploding off in every direction, manifesting fear all over the place.



Oh yes, there is also no limit to how far you can go..... if you proceed at a pace that you don't overwhelm yourself.

Caen wrote:


Yeah, it was a bit of an epic trip, particularly for a first time with LSD. I was not expecting it to be that strong! I guess when I dive in, I dive in... good thing, perhaps, because its hard, for me at least to sit down and PLAN something that intense.

Stay tuned for "MYCOMYSTERIUM" - sort of a continuation of this trip - another accidental huge dose of mushrooms... really taught me a lot - or nothing, depending how much of it I will actually believe and put into action! I wil be posting it in a couple of weeks.

Thanks so much for your interest and your input.

Cheers,
JBArk

Thank you for the recap to this wonderful series, JBark. Looking forward to your next installation.

It's been since the mid 1970's for an acid trip for me.

On an aya trip last month, I went back in time to infancy. I was feeling the terror of an infant trying to figure out what all the voices were.... It was as if I had been taken back in time to a few months old. I heard gibberish that sounded like nursery rhymes. Water and air looked like clear jelly. It seems that all kinds of neurons start firing that bring back memories from the beginning. I heard the critical shaming voice of my grandmother with whom I lived from 4 years old until I was 15.

I also saw dancing 'Gumby' like green blue entities dancing before my eyes.

Oh yes I'm looking forward to it. Most trip reports are quite boring and repetitive but these reports are a real treasure.

I have had this realization too. And i very clearly had a choice. I declined to go deeper because i didnt want to risc going insane. Ego should be lost first i think. But it was quite a new experience to be there (ego intact) halfway into the world of the schizophrenic and having a choice to go 'all the way' or just step back and open my eyes.

Mescaline is gentle to take it slow, but im not yet confident and comfortable enough with it. this can be spooky stuff man.

What a chillingly perfect conclusion.

jbark, these have been an absolute pleasure to read and experience by extension. Thank you.

Wow - that's a lot of what I will be covering in MYCOMYSTERIUM - the regression to prelingual, infant states. STAY TUNED!!

And thank you rivea for your interest!

JBArk

Fnog9 - the "going nuts" thing is much on my mind these days - how far can we push? Should we continue pushing to answer that question, the answer of which is entirely unwanted?

And limits, yes... have yet to find that pace. I always seem to be in over me head these days...

Thanks for the input.

JBArk

Very nice conclusion. Here’s my 2¢:

Regarding “going nuts”: is it possible? During a difficult journey, it not only seems possible, but also very probable. Yet as the experience fades, as my mind reassembles itself, as the forgetting progresses, I always return to normalcy. I’m hoping (and for now expecting) that this will always be the case.

You ask how far we should push, and I can say that I no longer push at all. Prior to my most difficult experience, there was always a desire (not necessarily always conscious) to repeat or even top my “best” experience, and I frequently did. This led naturally to the question “How deep does this go?” I was curious, and wanted to know how far I could go.

And then, after my most difficult experience, all curiosity vanished. All questions became insignificant. My appetite was permanently satisfied. I continue to journey, but the reasons are now a part of the larger mystery.

So to answer the question “how far can we push?” We can push until there is no desire to push further. We push until we realize that there is no need to push further.

Regarding free will: there is none. Free will is a human abstraction used to explain our autonomous behavior. An absence of free will does not imply a deterministic universe, so it’s possible that the future is unpredictable AND there is no free will. We make choices, but those choices are determined by our mind-state and environment-state.

I like your folding torus analogy, but I imagine it to be eternally unfolding – eternally opening.

Awesome conclusion, Jbark! I really like this game analogy, and the endless mirrors that reflect each other and together compose the Absolute, while at the same time each part being the absolute, and at the same time the absolute being more than all of these parts.

I find interesting that you compare birth to the hyperspace launch, its a fitting analogy in many aspects. The force that launches us and scares us at first, before we reach that other side, where unimaginable things are happening, where it feels at the same time so alien but also like a home (or maybe like a predictive feeling that it might be our home soon enough). There's even the damn doctors there too, haha, and maybe the mother too.. But in my 'real' birth there were no jesters and cooking elves jumping around and giving me self-reproductive living escher-like cubes

Its funny though, because, as acid goes for me, it brings so many of these analogies and ideas and realizations, but how tangible they are is questionable. They seem beautiful, consistent, relevant and important as they show up, but then when you start looking from close, it all starts melting away, slipping through your fingers, and leaves you with some beautiful words and definitions, but its hard to know if it really presents something more than the pure philosophical analogy realm. I always feel the acid like the joker, that shows you the truth but then tricks you and you dont know anymore whats truth and whats 'light show and fireworks', or deliberate deceptive humour. Its amazing nonetheless and im always thankful for the experience

I really can't wait for the mycomysterium experience you mentioned about

Sounds very familiar! But while in the "trance", sometimes, the idea of ever being normal seems beyond improbable... One of the things haunting me is not the possibility that one of these trips will be too much, but rather an accumulation will push me toward the tipping point. We are, after all, toying with our minds and possibly, according to some, replicating states of psychosis... How long before these states cross over, fade into, become indistinguishable from our "sane" state? I seem to have warnings, strong warnings, from somewhere:

"stop fucking with this!"

But we all know how capricious, how mischievous those on the other side of the veil can be!! So, when to listen?




Interesting. I hope I get there. I have a seemingly insatiable drive to know, to push, and of course, I ask over and over, to whence am I pushing? Deeper and deeper into the miasm of madness? Day to day, it doesn't appear so - I am happier, more inspired, more active and more compassionate as a result of theses voyages. But where lies the point of tip? Ahhh... if only we could know.



Can you explain this paradox? How can the absence of free will not denote a deterministic universe? I am sure some phiolosopher I have overlooked in my education has covered this ground thoroughly, but I am curious in my ignorance...



We need a new word. Neither folding nor unfolding capture it adequately on their own. How about FoldolFing? the universe is eternally FoldolFing, eternally clopening...

Thanks for taking the time gibran2.

JBArk

How can you be so sure about that?

Yeah, I find the birth analogy captures it for me particularly well for DMT. Except that it's a new birth, a new natal violence EVERY TIME!



The ideas are feelings as well - deep seated and profoundly felt notions about reality. And while under the influence, we seem somehow aware that the arithmetic of our state will not add up when we "wake down". The certainty while in that state baffles me - it is something I remember feeling so well. The absolute certainty that NOW I UNDERSTAND!, and that that understanding will fade into a remarkable, but seemingly illusory, memory.

The voyage continues!

JBArk

lol jay sounds like you had a full philosophical and visual day on that cid trip ..four hits for your first time...the trip report sounds like you were having some good indepth lessons great visuals and insights..

i haven't had a good acid trip in about 10 years they just don't make it like they used to anymore it seems ......you were lucky to find some good paper out there ....nice write up on your trip thanks for sharing

Randomness, my good man. Randomness.

The physical world is intrinsically random (Quantum Mechanics), and for that reason we can only describe certain physical phenomena in terms of probabilities. This precludes the possibility of determinism, yet has no bearing at all on free will. (Unless you can somehow equate randomness with free will.)

So the world is both absent of free will and non-deterministic.

It's pretty amazing that I've had a VERY similar experience to this while on four tabs. I remember how profound coming to the realization "I AM GOD" was. Congratulations on this wonderful experience.

Interesting point - I arrived at a similar conclusion about the coexistence of free will and determinism, but it had more to do with the altered state I found myself in (both literally and figuratively).

But no one to my knowledge has asserted that quantom mechanics is random - probabilistic, yes, but random? Not that I am aware. Asserting randomness assumes knowledge of the absence (or presence) of a cause, or source, which in this case seems to fall out of the purview of the scientific method.

In fact, the copenhagen interpretation asserts that it is the act of measurement, and hence the observer, that forces the hand of quantum mechanics, causing a particle that exists in two states at once to display its existence in only one. The outcome of this observation/measurement, while appearing random - or more accurately probabilistic - could also however be a product of determinism (all outcomes of measurement being potentially predetermined, like the outcome of any phenomena).

Maybe its just me, but I can't wrap my head around, or i guess reconcile, the two notions that time is a collapsible illusion and that free will can nevertheless exist... IT MAKES MY MONKEYBRAIN HURT!!

JBArk

One example of randomness without the involvement of measurement is radioactive decay. I don’t know much about quantum mechanics, but my understanding is that certain core aspects of nature are considered truly random – occurring without an underlying cause.

I personally don’t believe this (I’m a Hugh Everett fan myself) and Einstein was uncomfortable with the idea as well:



My belief is that the universe is deterministic, but the point I was making is that non-determinism doesn't imply free will. (Obviously, a deterministic universe precludes free will.)