Seeing More: The Experience that Opened My Eyes

This week, supervised by a spiritual guide/friend, I took a fairly high dose of mushroom for the first time. We went to a secluded beach. Here is what unfolded.

Higher Consiousness

The experience was completely different from anything I’ve ever had. As opposed to being drunk or stoned I didn’t feel less in control of my body or in a less conscious state. I actually felt more alert than ever. My thoughts came faster, my emotions were stronger and yet more enjoyable. I was still highly functioning.

Better Vision

The most noticeable and most enjoyable change was my vision. During the high I never saw anything that wasn’t already physically there. All I saw was more of what already was. Every crashing wave looked like a Clark Little photo. The colors were more vibrant and ranged through a larger spectrum than I’ve ever been able to see. It was like everywhere I looked I was looking through the most perfect instagram filter for that particular field of vision.

I was profoundly aware that I wasn’t making anything up in my head, I was just seeing what was already there. Those colors are there, in the clouds and in the waves, we know they are there because a computer can pull them out from a digital photograph even though the photo only captured light. Within that light all those colors existed.

Clouds

Then there was the interplay of the clouds and the sun. It was a very windy, partly cloudy day so clouds would periodically cover the sun for several minutes. I noticed that if I reached for my hoodie I was immediately taken back to a more out of sync place. The colors got duller and so did my senses. But if I waited it out with the rest of nature it was like I could feel the entire macro environment around me groaning along with me for the return of the sun.

The wind, the trees, the ocean, there was a palpable sense of yearning for the sun. And then the sun would reappear and it’s rays would light up everything around me with so much joy. Watching the clouds cover and uncover the sun was like watching an emotionally evocative symphony or ballet.  My heart was pulled up and down. The sun would peek through a gap and all of nature would hold our collective breath hoping she would make it though. Then a minor chord would be struck and the darkness would temporarily win. We would all sit on the edge of our seats hoping with all our soul that the sun would be triumphant. We would hunker down and experience cold in our bones until – bursting forth, the symphony of birds and waves and my own pleasurable moans would strike the apex of a crescendo and there he would be -the sun in all his incredible glory. I felt like I was inside the most incredible ballet ever performed. But I wa just laying on the beach, like I’ve done 1000 times.

Confronted by My Humanity

Any time I felt hungry or craved warmth or felt the need to urinate I felt pulled away from all that was happening around me. It was like my human body was preventing me from being a part of all of this that has always been going on around me. An airplane would fly over and it just seemed so out of place. My friend got an important call on his phone. As he stepped away he stepped completely into his ego, the identity he has a as a business person. (Ego as in the masks we all wear, as opposed to ego a synonym to arrogance).  As soon as he did, the trip ended for him. As soon as he put the phone away he was right back in it.

Language Hasn’t Reached This Far

I was deeply aware that my language could not keep up with my experience. Everything that I was seeing was so new, and in a new dimension that I did not have the correct words to fully describe it. It reminded me of speaking Spanish, there was so much I wanted to say but I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to say it right. It was like the one time my four-year-old niece said there was water in sleeve. No one could figure out what she was talking about until several grains of rice she had spilled came tumbling out her sleeve cuff. We all laughed as we understood the sensation was new to her and she had no frame of reference to describe it properly. I felt like I was speaking like a four-year-old. I noticed nature doesn’t use words but yet it communicates with itself all the time.

Everything is New

The stiller I got, the more I could see. I imagined the look on a newborn baby’s face staring up at the mobil above her crib. She could stare at that completely transfixed for hours because it was so new. At times I just burst out into laughter or a loud sigh because some colors in the clouds were just so breathtakingly beautiful. To think, all of those colors are always there but my eyes are just not sensitive enough to see them!

I Wasn’t Hungry

I held a star fruit in my hand and I didn’t want to eat it. The texture was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt. I felt energy coming into my body just by holding it. It reminded me of an alternative medicine practitioner I went to once who had me hold certain foods in my hand and then hooked me up to a machine to measure electrical signals in my body. Those signals told her if I was allergic to the food or not. But in this heightened state of consciousness I could already feel those electrical signals without the need for a machine. They’ve been there all along, I just couldn’t feel them.

Super Powers

My body felt incredibly light. I even told my guide I felt like I was going to blow over. Even though I’ve been dealing with an incredibly painful back injury, I felt no pain. My hands wanted to float upward and I could hold them over my head for several minutes without any fatigue. It reminded me of how the Yoga Sutras talk about the power to levitate after you have achieved a certain level of meditation. They say you can communicate telepathically. I could see energy lines running like telephone lines every which way and I understood how communication through these lines could be possible. All of this was confirmed in the book, The Autobiography of a Yogi, where the author describes several saints who had these abilities. The author’s body itself, 21 days after his death, showed no signs of decay. It looked as life filled as if he was sleeping. Suddenly I began to understand how none of this was super natural at all, but rather the most natural thing ever.

I Don’t Even Need Food

At one point I ate the most amazing banana I’ve ever tasted. As I ate it I realised how much my body didn’t need the energy. I hadn’t eaten anything all day since you must fast before you take mushrooms. And yet I wasn’t hungry. I was fully energized by the surrounding nature. The banana was there for my pleasure. I realized that all of these human things- warmth, food, sex, houses, iPhones, they are all here for pleasure. But it is an attachment to that pleasure that turns them into addictions. I feel hungry and I think I must eat. I feel the world will come crashing in after just 8 hours without food. But the reality is that I don’t need it. Not for several days. There are document cases of people who do not eat. The survive off of air and sunlight. It is possible.

Living in a Fog of Dhuka/Sin/Ignorance

I thought about the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. I thought about how much they must have been able to see and enjoy everything I was enjoying. But the more they formed addictions to pleasure, like food and shelter, the more disconnected they became. I remembered how when I camped for 10 days on the side of a cliff, spoke very little, didn’t use technology and ate only food that my friend fished for that day, how connected I felt to everything around me. It felt like all of this human stuff has pulled the wool over my eyes. It seems I’m actually living in a fog. And coincidentally that’s what the yogis call say too. They call it Dhuka. They liken dhuka to a mist and say it is the root of all suffering.

When it was all over

Today I feel sad. Likely because I depleted a weeks worth of feel-good chemicals in one afternoon. I went to the beach, spread out my towel and looked up at the clouds. They were just regular clouds. If I focused long enough without wandering thoughts I could start to see some of the depth and color that I could see yesterday. Not nearly as much but more than I have ever noticed casually observing the clouds before. I looked at the waves and noticed how all those same colors I could see yesterday were still there but they were just so difficult to register. I shouted up at the clouds, “Where are you?” I feel jipped, I know all of that depth, all of that energy, all of that vibrance is still there. But I’m once again disconnected.

How My Life Will Be Different

My biggest takeaway from the experience is how I am connecting or disconnecting all the time. Probably the biggest disconnection I feel for myself is the way I eat. While on mushrooms the experience of eating was the most pleasurable thing ever. But normally eating is just something to fill my belly, to stop the hunger. I might enjoy the first few bites but begin shoveling it in quickly as if to accomplish a task. I often don’t take the time to heat up leftovers. I frequently eat foods without even knowing I’m doing it. Some other ways I feel so disconnected are spending too much time indoors, using social media, having plastic in my life, having too many items in my life and drinking alcohol.

That experience was so powerful that I want it back, but I don’t want to chemically induce it. I want to live this way. It also got me thinking; if all that exists and I didn’t know it, then for sure so much more exists beyond our sight that we haven’t experienced, but likely could if we could just connect.

I would definitely say the experience was life changing. It changed the way I think.  I will certainly be dedicating more time to meditation in nature as well working to not label sensations like hunger as “bad”, but rather enjoy the pleasure of eating so much more.