psychonauts = people that enjoy exploring and plumbing the depths of their brains/psyches/reality/consciousness/souls and seeing what’s there

aaaaand holy shit, you try taking weed or LSD or shrooms and pipe a song like this at loud volumes into your eardrums…… my brain just explodes in magic

i have danced and felt like the music was a part of my very soul, deeper than my humanity, part of the ancient animal inside me, connecting me to the earth and to the whole tribe of humanity. and the strangers dancing next to me were my brothers and sisters. i have explored somewhat under the surface of my supposedly-advanced brain and found peace and contentment and happiness and joy there. and i want to explore further. find my broken parts and mend them. find my joy and embrace it. figure out what it means to be HUMAN, to be alive, to be the universe observing itself across the cosmos, but also an organic being made of carbon, living out a finite lifespan on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. i want to enjoy BEING, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, singing the song of life, spreading love and harmony over the earth and with all living things.

i have watched in amazement as my phone screen started subtly rippling back and forth, knowing that it was a still picture before i took plant medicine (OR WAS IT??? HAS IT ALWAYS BEEN ANIMATED???), knowing that this only exists in my head, in my perception, that a molecule can change my perception so drastically, that I am infinitely more plastic and flexible than i thought, that no one else can see or experience this, because it’s IN MY HEAD – i cannot record, capture, transmit, or communicate this, it is only to be enjoyed by me, in my head, while it is here, before it inevitably comes to an end, as all things do. made all the more precious because of its transience.

sometimes you get "closed-eye visuals" and fractals and shapes and colors dance across your closed eyes. other times, i was out in nature, and the clouds turned into multiple translucent fractal layers, that danced and recombined with each other. i wanted to take pictures!!!! until i realized it would just look like clouds 🤣. the green grass was more ALIVE than ever, and the sun was warm, the sky blue, everything so much more vibrant than before, and it was like the instagram filter over my eyes changed subtly and profoundly in ways that i couldn’t quite put my finger on.

my first shroom experience, i had JUST resigned from the church. i was confused, angry, and also afraid that the … DEPTH and MEANING i had found all my life in spiritual experiences was going to be lost to me now. I knew the church was not true, but i was terrified that I’d just cut myself off from living a deep, meaningful life – however you define that ;).

because all of my most meaningful experiences up until that point had been in the context of organized religion.

a friend prepared the doses for us, provided the material, gave us the set and setting. we were up a canyon in the summer, in nature, in a secluded meadow, with a tent and sleeping bags for lying down if desired, snacks, etc. he had us break up the sacred medicine with our fingers, and he used a small camp stove to prepare the lemon tea.

we drank, and waited. and wondered if anything was going to happen.

and then it did! and we marveled at our own brains and the beauty of what we were seeing, and wondered if it looked the same to everyone.

I remembered I wanted to process some of the anger and betrayal i felt towards the church. so i laid down, closed my eyes, put in my headphones, and listened to an entire Breaking Benjamin album from beginning to end.

my brain followed every single guitar note and drum hit and FELT the emotion in the singer’s voice. it was their "dear agony" album, which is full of angst and real emotion and soul searching. and it was pure magic. i felt alive. i felt emotion. i smiled to myself at the thought that had worried that religion was the only way to find meaning in life. i realized that i could believe, or not believe, anything i wanted. that i didn’t have to choose right away even, that i could change my mind at any time. if i did choose to believe in a god of some kind, it would be DESPITE the lack of evidence. it would be faith more real than i had had for mormonism even at my most devout. the pressure to choose, to KNOW, lifted. i realized that ambiguity is okay. that humans have wrestled with the question of what happens when we die since the very beginning, that i was in good company. even the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers didn’t know. NO ONE does, no one ever has or will. and in that, i could take comfort.

it was a transcendent, spiritual, dare i say sacred experience. at one point i looked up from where I lay and saw my friend smiling down at me. behind his head, the sun wrapped his face in bright light. he was wearing some kind of shawl-type thing on his head. and i spoke.

"Shroom Jesus!!!!" I said, and we had a good laugh.

and I knew i was going to be okay.