There is a wordless place, if you want to call it that, which one may reach with psychedelics. One may arrive at it by other means as well, but psychedelics are the most expedient. It is beyond life and death, time and space, or the scope of any human language. While one is there, it seems that life here on Earth is illusory, or at least of lesser significance. It reminds me of early childhood, before phenomena became signifier rather than signified, but beyond saying that it's difficult to specify.

In that "place" the processes which arose to deal with the peculiarities of this world, i.e., the ego, dissolve and that part of us that is hidden reveals itself. I venture into very murky territory here, but I will say that it seems to me to be a part of us that is beyond the world of linear time, which takes no part in this world and to which this plane of reality is completely alien. In fact, I cannot emphasize the strangeness of this "place" enough. It is the strangest thing one can experience, and yet it is also right here, all the time. We're there now, in fact! Yet, more often than not it is hidden from us, or we from it. When we go to that "place," everything that was familiar, ourselves included, is no longer so.

For some of you, I suspect you will know immediately what I'm pointing at (albeit in a very roundabout way); but, for those who are not aware of it, it is impossible to convey in words.

I now know, thanks to psychedelics, that I have been aware of this place all my life, I've just been hiding from it. On a heavy mushroom trip three years ago, I was forced to abandon myself and this world completely and spend a stretch of time there so vast that it bordered on the infinite. Just recently, I took mushrooms again, and was again brought to that place; however, this time I stood on the edge and was allowed to step back.

I was terrified, beyond terrified. To step into that "place" looks like madness, absolute insanity of the kind that no conscious being can survive for long.

The place I speak of, and the awareness of it, leads one to what I like to call the "singularity of the self." It is an awareness of our incredibly strange predicament as conscious beings in a universe of impermanent phenomena. The depth to which we are alone is staggering, and, at least for me, shattering. I can get along fine, as long as I ignore this fact, but that seems like a escape to me, and, of course, there aren't really any escapes.

Are there any here that can face the fact of their existence without fear? I would dearly love to know how one deals with this deep and harrowing truth, for I freely admit that it terrifies me more than anything else.

I would love to have enough faith to step into that place and let go, but it looks and feels so much like insanity and death that I choke every time I venture there.

Best of wishes to you all,
Beelzebozo

"It is an awareness of our incredibly strange predicament as conscious beings in a universe of impermanent phenomena"

Yeah that is definitely a frightening point. But we are all in this together and are never really alone..or we're atleast 'alone together', if you know what i mean

and maybe (or atleast hopefully!) Blake was right when he said that nothing lasts..but nothing is lost

I'd had an experience with this place that you describe which, also like you, had been reflected by things in my childhood. i'd have egodeath and visions sometimes before sleep and earlier dreams which i only started to grasp once id discovered the psychedelic states. really hard to even begin to try and explain any of it though..Im not fearful of it all now but i was in some horrible places for a long time until i just worked through it, let go, and realized its far more beneficial to myself and the world, and just plain FUN, to just live in the moment with gratitude and amazement at this infinitely bizzare predicament we find ourselves in- and realizing it was missing the point to worry and take it all way too seriously. like allan watts would say, the point is not whether or not its a journey with an endgoal, so acting like it is is silly -its a musical thing where we're supposed to sing and dance along the way while the music of the universe is being played. little pieces of the universe perceiving only little pieces of what is perceivable in this universe, all construing it into our self narrated story we reassure ourselves is 'reality'. we are the universe waking up to itself, enjoy it! :]

Although alot of times the fear seems definitely valid..yoga and meditation are sooo essential to me for this..its insanely scary to take the plunge but the rewards are always so immense. regardless, i still can't bring myself to do it that often most of the time- but doing what feels right and just going with the flow definitely works well anyway

I think for me it works best to just acknowledge the fear and try to accept it..to be as conscious of it as possible so that it can't take the drivers wheel and steer you into places and thoughts which may serve to be detrimental- as it can construe things up endlessly with our hyperactive imaginations, many which might seem extremely true but are often times just comical spinoffs of realities possibilities that we sometimes identify with too strongly (true or not)- and then as a result become naively fearful of its aspects(which is never good even when true). i like to push myself back from it all and try to see it as an outside observer would as often as necessary to keep my sanity -to just live in the probabilities without believing any particular one of them too much. Its fine to have suspicions, but becoming too certain about ideas regarding the odd nature of this big reality conundrum can be a bad headache, things all the way from the little scope of experience to the big philosophical ponderings, and can narrow the scope of experience in my opinion.



welcome to the nexus!

Yeah, having your ego obliterated by tryptamines, or any other substance, is a horrible/ecstatic experience. What a great way to reboot your brain though, start with a fresh slate. Every time I get blown away and end up drooling on the floor, I treasure the opportunity to grasp the threads-of-fate anew. What a wonderful world we live in, and what a terrifying machine is the human mind. Goddamn.

Thank you both for your replies!

I've realized that you can scare yourself to death over anything, if you work yourself up enough. This isn't the kind of thing that can be confronted all at once, at least for me, but it needs to be worked through slowly and carefully. And that's what shrooms showed me last time I dove in anyway. I knew that I had a lot of work to do before I could go back into that state safely.



Yes! Thank you for this great reminder. This is one of the blockages I ran into on my last trip. No matter what I did, I couldn't get my mind to shut up, it kept pulling me in bad directions. I knew if I could just get it to stop, the experience would change completely.

"Stop thinking! Look! Just look!" It means being in the moment instead of getting caught up in the nebulous purgatory of our thoughts about "being in the moment."

Yea, perhaps the best philosophy is just to keep an open mind and not think too much of these experiences. Just enjoy them instead, because by allowing all the experience in means that you are not depriving yourself of the truth which is part of your growth process....