Thread: Psychonauts! Let's talk about altered states of consciousness.

Had an interesting experience earlier this week that I thought would be worthwhile sharing on this thread. I had this experience with the dream views user, Aqua. Interesting fact, we actually met through dream views ^_^ Here is the report.

"2 nights ago I had the most incredible acid trip of my life. While I cannot recall most of it, I will try to write what I do remember. I went camping with Aqua to Sequoia National Forest. We found a nice campground under tall pine trees, completely secluded, not near anyone else. At about 4:30 PM, we decided to each take 1 tab. The acid we took was extremely potent and pure acid. For reference, 1 tab of this acid is equivalent to about 6 or 7 tabs of your normal acid. This is real acid, I don’t know how it is so potent, but it is. I have done acid many times, mostly on low to medium doses. I have had many introspective trips, but have never had a spiritual experience on it, unlike Mushrooms.

The trip started as it usually does, things started to become more detailed and vibrant, slowly morphing into each other. I started to get intense euphoria and began to act very giddy. Aqua began to get anxiety, so I was focused on trying to calm her down. I think she started to get overwhelmed by all the sensory information, so we decided to go into the tent.

As we lay there, she kept talking about how intense things were becoming. I was noticing for myself, that things didn’t seem to be getting that intense, at least visually, although I could feel my consciousness begin to be altered in a profound way. Something about this trip felt different than it had ever felt before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

As the come up continued, my visuals didn’t really increase that much (didn’t know until later, that they were increasing, I just was not really noticing it at the time). I started to feel much more introspective, and was using this introspection to help Aqua with her anxiety.
Eventually Aqua decided to start meditating, and while she did that, I noticed a huge shift in my own consciousness. It started with a feeling of nostalgia. I was starting to remember something that I had always known. Similar to the nostalgia I experience on Salvia, but this time was different, I felt no fear. I then started to feel like I was entering a place outside of time, I felt like I was entering the true psychedelic state. As I began to enter it, I could feel a conflict between my ego and what I perceived as my higher self, I could feel knowledge streaming into me, but I could not fully grasp it. It was like having something on the tip of my tongue, but never being able to quite get at what it was. I started to go deeper and deeper into this state. As I went deeper, I started to feel a connection to past Shamanic traditions. I felt as if My mind was connecting with Shamans who had entered this state in the past, and I felt as If they were sharing their wisdom with me.

I started to feel a profound connectedness to everything. I realized that there was no dichotomy between the spiritual and physical, but that they were one in the same. I started to feel as if everything around me, was me, and began to enter that state of consciousness where you feel as if there is only one consciousness, that is reality. I started to realize that nature, at its truest form, is reality. I realized that the earth is actually a living organism, and it first it made me feel trapped, I realized that there was no way I could escape this earth, that I was completely in its clutches and in i’s control. Then I realized, that all the cities and buildings that are created, are maybe a way to escape the earth, but in the end, we cannot escape it.

I continued to get more insights like this, although I forgot the most profound ones. As I went up and up, the feeling of oneness with the earth and universe increased, as did the feeling of familiarity. I was certain that I had been here before, although I cannot recall any trip when I had. I wish I could get back to that feeling to explore it more. I began to tell Aqua my insights, and to my surprise, she was feeling the same thing. For some reason we decided to try creating an energy ball with our hands, and to both our surprise, it actually began to work. I could feel energy pulsating from my hands, my hands were vibrating on their own, without my control, and I began to see a hazy white light fill our hands, along with colorful geometrical patterns that connected our hands together. After that, I began to start getting anxiety, probably claustrophobia from the tent, so we decided to go outside.

It was completely dark, so I shone my flashlight on the ground to see. Holy shit, the ground was morphing into incredibly complex, infinite, geometrical patterns, at very high speeds. I turned off my flashlight and we went to sit on the bench, and just observed everything. The only light to be seen was the light of the moon. I was amazed at how the moon lit things up, and how it created shadows like the sun does. It was the first time I remember seeing the moon be the only source of light. I watched as the moon moved across the sky. And I thought about how most people are not even aware of the moons true purpose, as we are used to our cities lights.

As I watched this, I felt an unbelievable connectedness to the moon and trees. I understood the true purpose of everything. I thought about how some people go an entire lifetime never realizing who they really are. I realized that death is not real, it is just an illusion, our ego may die, but we still live on as at our truest core, we are one consciousness, in an endless cycle of experiencing itself. I realized that everything is cyclical. Perhaps that is what the wheel I saw on Salvia was telling me.

I then looked around at the areas of the forest that were not lit by the moon, even though they were not lit, I could still see the outline of the trees in a faint purple and red glowing/shimmering. It looked almost as if everything was a virtual reality. It was incredible. I then looked at the top of treetops that were lit by the moon, and was amazed to see the top triangle of the tree was glowing a brilliant orange and red color, and this energy was radiating out into the stars. I also noticed that the leaves were forming amazing patterns that looked very much like sacred Buddhist paintings. Everywhere I looked, everything looked incredibly sacred and even more incredibly familiar. I was sure I had seen this forest before.

I then began to have more conversations with Aqua about our insights. I was talking about how the last time I did a high dose of Acid, 1.5 of these extremely potent tabs, I had a bad trip because I was so focused on my own trivial life and civilization, while in the midst of an extreme spiritual trip, that I mistook what I was feeling as insanity. I felt as if my respect for the psychedelic state, by tripping in nature with my full attention and devoting 3 days to it, allowed me to be respected in return.

We then heard what sounded like a bear walking around, so we decided it was best to go back inside the tent. I turned on some music which sounded unbelievably incredible, and cracked open some glow sticks. I watched as the chemicals mixed and created a brilliant explosion of green, yellow, blue, red, and orange. The chemicals inside the glow stick looked like the universe expanding, I was in a trance watching them. I then started to get really sleepy, so we tried to sleep, with no success for a few hours. Finally around 3 Am I fell asleep.

While unfortunately I was not able to recall most of my trip, It still had a big impact on me, and really makes me want to continue exploring the psychedelic state. I do not pretend to think that all my insights are fact, but they were very interesting and intriguing, especially the feeling of intense familiarity and nostalgia, as well as the feeling of being connected to one consciousness. What is interesting is how on this trip, I was able to explore more of this feeling of nostalgia and oneness without feeling intense fear. My mistake was not writing things down while I tripped, I will definitely not be making that mistake next time!"