Ever since I took that large dose of LSD a few months ago, I have been replaying many moments from it in my mind, dissecting them, analyzing them, pondering on their inherent value for me as a person. I want to discuss this topic with you to see your POV and expand on it.

One of the moments that struck me as phenomenal was the point where I connected to this omnipresent noded grid. I was never able to shake the feeling I am a part of some superintelligent digital brain. An inexhaustible database of information concerning not only humans and Earth, but the vast Universe itself. There was something of a divine awe present when I realized I have access to all the information about anything and everything. On demand I could sift through the memories of any human - dead, alive, or yet to come. In a fraction of a millisecond, I gained a complete understanding of the content and context of their memories. I asked about black holes, and with the speed of light, I traveled through the nodes in this vast network and gained the entirety of knowledge regarding those mysterious cosmic objects/events. The fact that I was unable to bring back any of that information outside the grid was rather understandable. However, what are the implications of this kind of experience? What does it mean for us humans, with our gift of consciousness and curiosity?

Is it perhaps possible that psychedelics will be the key that unlocks that heavy door behind which lay all the secrets of the Universe? Are we meant to extract anything therefrom? Does that imply the sciences that have been hitherto developed are powerless in the context of making a truly significant breakthrough but need to be used rather for further development of the information extracted from the realms beyond?

In any case, one question remains - how do we know if that is the way? Who gets to don the psychonaut helmet and venture into the void on a quest for ancient knowledge and profound revelations? Can anyone do it, or are there specific requirements?

I frequently quote our beloved Terence on the following:

Perhaps this is the key - true bravery in the face of that gash in the matter of reality that is a journey deep into the mind. Can someone who is afraid of those realms - of their mind - successfully extract potent knowledge therefrom? Or is bravery the only armor able to withstand the blows of the unknown and the unknowable?

The second moment of my journey that left the brightest mark in me was when reality ripped apart before me. I explain it in more detail in the linked trip report so I'll omit those details here. Around the time I made that journey I was heavily into sci-fi novels (thanks Traveler for all the amazing book recommendations!!!). Suppose what I saw and experienced was purely born from my obsession with sci-fi, and was a product entirely of my imagination. In that case, it is still incredibly hard to believe that my brain took this theme from my imagination and recreated it in such a novel and convincing way. Sound and sight combined into a perfectly coherent and believable "reality". I will never, to the end of my days, forget the sound that was coming from all the iterations of the Kali stick in my hand as I waved it around. I get shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Like a thousand borderline invisible robotic arms protracting between many dimensions stacked on top of each other. It was a thing straight out of a sci-fi movie that I've never seen. The very matter of reality started boiling right where the stick passed through. The boiling ripped slits into the material and through them, one gazed into the boundless, dark depths of the Void.

But what if it wasn't just a product of my sci-fi fueled imagination? What if it was as real as anything can be? Who could've created it if it wasn't my mind? And why did I see it? Was I chosen? Was I deemed "worthy" of seeing it? Or was it just pure coincidence or a mistake on part of the entity that governed who gets access to that technology? What are the implications of experiencing something so utterly alien and novel?

I've thought about that over many sleepless nights. I cannot say if such a thing can be used by us humans, with our primitive technology. And if it can, what would the application be - malevolent or benevolent? Maybe a mix of the two?

In many of the sci-fi worlds, you will encounter something that is scientifically referred to as The Fermi Paradox. It's the notion that when a civilization reaches the technological level of interstellar travel and becomes a galactic civilization it becomes a "threat" to the balance within the Universe. That is when said civilization reaches a "barrier". In most cases, that barrier takes the form of an entity responsible for maintaining that balance. In the "Revelation Space" series by Alastair Reynolds (again, a million thanks to Traveler for recommending this outstanding piece of sci-fi literature), they are called "The Inhibitors". In the Mass Effect videogame series, it's called "The Reapers". The idea behind all of them is the same - wipe out civilizations capable of interstellar travel before things get out of hand.

In the context of human civilization, we have observed that the rapid development of intelligence is a very thin ice to walk on. The more technologies we develop, the more harm we do to each other and our planet. It's only a matter of time before this destructive tendency expands to an interstellar scale. The wars on Earth are devastating enough, but imagine how much resource and energy would be wasted on a galactic or intergalactic war. Not to mention the utter pointlessness of such an event beyond material gains and the race for power/dominance of certain individuals.

In this train of thought, I recall how I was abruptly pulled out of the mesmerizing transformation that was happening before my eyes, and an insurmountable amount of fear was forcefully inserted into my consciousness for a short while. One possible explanation that rose up in my pool of questions was that whoever pulled me out of there did so to prevent me from gaining any sort of understanding concerning what I was seeing. Why? Perhaps gaining that understanding would mean a giant leap in humanity's understanding of space propulsion systems, which could lead to the development of interstellar engines. That brings our kind one step closer to reaching the barrier in Fermi's Paradox assuming there is any truth to it whatsoever. Maybe I was stopped in a gesture of protective concern by some intelligence vastly more complex and advanced than anything even our bravest sci-fi novelists have ever conjured. Even so, why would that entity protect us, or care what happens to us at all? Could it be that it's a technology (and an entity) coming from humanity's future? Maybe it is humanity itself, but a vastly more advanced version of ourselves.

Another point in my journey carried a more personal tone to it. It happened shortly after I connected to the intelligence grid and started asking questions. As soon as the answers started coming in, I recognized the pattern of fractality. No matter what the question at hand was, some portion of the answer contained fractals as the fundamental solution. No matter what angle I looked at it from, fractals were involved in the equation. Soon this revelation started putting my brain into a very stressed-out state. The realization of how important and embedded fractals are in our existence enveloped me like a thick blanket of informational overload. In a sense, I started going mad. I asked too many questions for whose answers I just wasn't ready. And for the first time in my life, I realized how fragile our consciousness is. How little we are able to comprehend without losing our shit. I lamented my weakness, and I started slipping away into pure madness. But I fought it, and I found a way out.

That way out was my devotion to transforming my entire mind and body into pure, unobstructed energy. As soon as I did it, I felt inexplicably profound calmness and harmony. Tears of awe and gratitude streamed down my cheeks. And then it was all white. Everything became energy. I stopped seeing, thinking, and feeling. I was nothing but a continuous pillar of cosmic energy that was connected to some sort of source. It felt like the energy that first occurred in the Universe - the one that gave creation to everything - was still unchanged from the very beginning, and that it would stay that way until the very end. And I, like everything else in existence, was comprised entirely of that energy in different vibrational patters, resonating at different frequencies, and taking different forms and shapes. I felt that this energy doesn't go anywhere but to its own source. A snake eating its own tail. A never-ending cycle of exchange and transformation whose beginning and end were blurred by mystery.

Doing that saved me from the creeping madness that was beginning to take hold of me. And once I did that I was invincible. Nothing could shake me, because I knew that we are all but simple, pure energy, that would always remain in constant motion, and undergo eternal change. I recalled what Seneca said about that:

Now months later I still can't shake the feeling that what I did wasn't just a mechanism to cope with the difficulty of the moment, but something vastly more powerful. Something accessible to everyone. But what are the implications of that ability? How does one trigger it? Are pure intent and devotion enough? Or are psychedelics a required ingredient? Does it speak of the power of mindfulness and desire as inherent catalysts of profound change? Has it always been a part of us, or is it an evolutionary trait that is developed by undergoing specific experiences?

One thing I am certain of - going through mysterious experiences like this one gives me so much food for thought. It inspires me in a way nothing else does. It makes me ask questions that revolutionize my way of seeing our role in the Universe, as well as our place therein. It keeps me going because I know I know nothing. They say a man dies only when he stops learning. But how can anyone learn everything?

Alan Watts speaks of the valve that tightens the stream of information that pours into our minds thus protecting us from what I went through with the fractals. He believes psychedelics open up that valve a little bit, and then the ordinary mind of men becomes "the mind at large". And now I firmly believe that. The tricky part is knowing how much you can afford to open that valve. Open it too little, and you're left with a lot of answers. Open it too much, and you're left with too many answers, and a lot more questions. I don't know which is better, but I know which one I want.

The most valuable thing I've gained from the psychedelic mystery is the knowledge that what we call "reality" is far from as simple as we experience it. That there are uncountable layers atop and below it. Dimensions that go deeper than we are able to imagine. Events that unfold on scales unfit for human understanding. Mechanisms that govern so many intricately connected aspects of existence and the laws of the Universe. Again quoting Terence:

I'd like to end this with a tiny little poem I made at the end of an LSD journey I had a year or so ago:


Looking forward to your opinions and ideas.

With boundless love,
Nydex

Good read.

I too believe that during the psychedelic experience we are logged on to universal consciousness and that all knowledge can be obtained from it. The problem we all face is the fact that the psychedelic experience can not be told in words or mathematical formulas. Every experience must be seen as a personal lesson. And you have to fill in the details yourself.

To give an example. If I go to a museum and see a painting, no words or formulas are able to describe it. Everyone has to take a look himself. And when the other person does so, he might see in the painting a whole different world than I do. So even then the painting has two stories.

There is not one reality, there are trillions. In the trip I know what the universe is telling me. No one else will understand. Because it is a custom made lesson.

Don’t overthink your journey, don’t take it too serious and enjoy the outcome.

Gone, gone, gone all the way over;
everyone’s gone to the other shore; Enlightenment, All Hail!

The tread "what are the implications for mankind if the DMT world is real" made me think, and i eventually came to the conclusion there, that if indeed the DMT worlds are real, then it must innevitably be the case that counsciousness is at the basis of reality. Not just phenomenologically speaking, but also in a much more absolute sense: the world=counsciousness.

But does that mean that the ego, or the separation of one-ness is an illusion? No, i don't think it definately does. I think both oneness and individuality are true. I think the relationship between them is like the oroboros, the snake that bites it's own tail.

Maybe that is why we can never fully understand the totallity of it. The snake can never realy eat itself completely. The only way to understand the totallity would be to destroy ourselves, but then the vessel to contain this knowledge and understanding would also have to be gone.

Could that be the intelligence that held you back when ripping reality apart with the kali-stick? Reality itself keeping you from destroying yourself?

Yes, I get what you're saying, and you might very well be correct. Thing is, we can never be really sure until some sort of hard evidence and infallible logic are at hand. But that is what's most fascinating in the journey to me - the uncertainty of answers, and the endless mystery that unfolds into eternity.

If indeed reality has a built-in mechanism that protects it from destroying itself, taking the vessel that carries that understanding with it, then I want to know WHO or WHAT is responsible for creating this mechanism. If we ourselves are the creators, I want to know HOW we did it, and how far we can take it. If that is the case, it means we are capable of so, so much more than we can even imagine. I want to explore those possibilities, hence why I will go in at least as deep again, and I will test my theories and search for answers. If it is so that my mind isn't capable of containing that information or the realizations that unfold and I burn out forever, then so be it. At least I will go out knowing I tried to find some answers.

One thing is for sure though - I am enjoying every single moment of it, and I am grateful for being able to experience things like that and ponder on the questions that arise therefrom. I wouldn't trade it for anything.