Psychedelics can be more than just fun. They can change people’s lives for the better or give you a pretty big kick up the ass if you walk into it blindly or with too many expectations. One user speaks about their most illuminating experiences with psychedelic substances.
I would consider myself an experienced psychedelic drug user. I don’t like the word ‘drug’ to describe something that has been beneficial to me. It doesn’t have the same level of respect attached to it as for instance the word “medicine” does. These days, I get a lot out of my acid trips. I first tried it when I was 17. I took a tab, waited, took another one and then my acid-riddled mind decided it would be fun to take another. Then, during the peak, I inhaled a balloon of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which resulted in reality disintegrating into small geometric fragments upon an infinite black backdrop and a feeling of pure pleasure and excitement that I had never felt before rushed through me. A voice told me to let go and appreciate this for what it is and that this experience is valuable but will never be available to me again. The voice had the quality of a pre-formed idea, it was something felt, rather than heard. I returned to my body, a dribbling mess of excitement and ecstasy unable to come to terms with what I was told by this otherworldly voice while the rest of my friends were sitting with their eyes closed having yet to return from the nitrous oxide acid world.
This was the point when my love for the power of psychedelics was sparked. I have since tried various research chemicals, psychoactive plants and DMT. LSD used to give me pretty weird trips but it was a bit of a gamble, so I preferred to experiment with it in my apartment so not to deal with confused drunken beasts or people on speed talking intensified shit to me when all I wanted to do was absorb myself in a positive atmosphere. I was actually high on acid when I realised nothing I was doing made me happy. I just called in to quit my job and university and moved as far away as possible within a fortnight. This upset my parents, but it was the best decision I had ever made for myself and it actually empowered me to take control of my life even more. Straying off at that time was tough but it gave me more valuable life experience than I would have had in any 9am Seminar or drinking at corny student nights.
Over time, LSD developed a more mystical edge than a wacky one. It began showing me new things. Under the influence I could see what I believe is ‘Qi’ energy, manipulate it and understand its essence, but this ability was first realised during a particularly challenging trip when I overdosed on a chemical called DOC (that’s a story for another time!). Playing with simple tactile objects like a piece of string or a ball or a hula hoop is fascinating when you can witness the energy actually transfer, intensify, release and flow. It clicked that music, other people, your breath or your environment can actually GIVE you or enhance your energy. Qi is a real thing, the colour is somewhere beyond ultraviolet, but it has a violet/quicksilver/watery quality to it, it’s too high a frequency for our eyes to see on a normal day but you feel it when you get those warm tingly rushes of excitement, and it is what shoots forth from you when you apply it with your individual skill to any creative practice whether that be; dancing, martial arts, music, painting, singing or writing. As soon as your mind interferes, the flow is interrupted and this is why balancing your mind through meditation is a worthwhile practice to engage in.
Until recently, I thought I saw as much as I personally needed to in terms of visions. After trying DMT numerous times, I got only so far to feeling pure and connected with beautiful colours, visions and fractal geometry. Usually someone was around so I couldn’t relax or I wasn’t familiar enough with its nature so I was scared of its potential. I read many accounts of people reporting travelling to other worlds or dimensions and interacting with entities, aliens and deities.
This winter was getting pretty difficult for me. I was feeling depressed, had low energy and was disappointed to the point of wishing I could be somewhere else. I noticed I was staying in bed, escaping into my fantasy world and unable to deal with reality. The feeling of heaviness in my chest was a growing burden. I put myself through detox because unless I am high, that low feeling is always there creating a barrier between me and the world around me–isolating me in my own mind. I had been doing a lot of spiritual work and hit a rocky road so I figured I had come to a deep layer of resistance that I must release. Ultimately I knew I wanted to feel better, permanently.
I took some DMT in the bath and I skimped on the dose in case I finally had a ‘breakthrough experience’ and drowned. I had a little hit and relaxed in the water. I got out the bath and finished some work, then felt that grimness deep in my heart again and made a cup of tea. I then followed an urge to light some candles and I tried vapourising more DMT with the intention to help me release my problems.
I put a small amount in the pipe and closed my eyes. After 2 pulls, I felt a cathartic pressure which exploded into cascades of soft purple waves covered in patterns of golden scintillating lines in what looked like an underwater temple. A pink and green, multi-limbed, snake-like goddess danced in front of an expanding blue light. The colours had the same vibrant quality as flowers do on a sunny day.
I then sensed a familiar presence leaving me, like a smothering mask was removed, drifting away into the corners like a shadow. I even witnessed it flee in my peripheral vision, its long claws and tendrils trailing behind it. A peculiar emotion surfaced; like love and sorrow at the same time. I felt the impulse to cry, and I followed it. I felt so good and free after crying for a few minutes. I felt human, beyond human. I then revisited a lost memory of myself- 6 years old wandering through the tall grass in my neighbourhood on a steep hilltop. I felt the same magic and wonder as I was catching caterpillars in their wide variety of colours, patterns and hairstyles and building homes for them out of sticks, leaves and flowers in a jar. I thought: “What had happened to me since then?” I saw a series of flashbacks; of conflict and forgiveness. I cried again and I felt appreciative of the opportunity to dissolve this distortion and witness something so pure.
I opened my eyes, looked at the plants by my windowsill every day and felt a sense of recognition–I can’t explain how I could possibly recognise a plant as it has no face but it felt like I had unexpectedly ran into a good friend I haven’t seen in a long time. I could also breathe fully without this heavy sensation deep inside my chest.
I sat back down, took 2 more drags on the pipe to clear it and was not expecting much more, but when I lifted my eyes, I found myself in a completely different room. It wasn’t trippy; I was in a completely different place with different objects in the room. What looked like Hebrew script was written on the floor. The room was ancient, yet retro and had a bizarre high-definition cartoonish quality- like a Dali painting. The candles I had lit sung as they burnt with vitality, powering up the room. I was amazed to find myself in this place and to not feel fucked up in any way at all, I felt great! Usually I would get vibrant geometric closed eye visuals, but was surprised to see more of a standby screen of turquoise bubbles drifting through space. I opened them again and I was still in the strange room. The presence of natural deities could be felt. I laughed and thanked them and realised I was sat in awe and delight to the point I hadn’t even considered getting up and exploring this strange dimension. Then a ghostly feline creature with blindingly bright spots calmly entered and sat to the side of the room. I was in a magical place, it was nothing like anything I have experienced before and it was humbling that something so profound could happen so unexpectedly. I have felt much better since, like I can see with new eyes.
This stuff is medicine for your soul. Not a drug any more than food is a drug; it is pure nature. One day I hope to articulate things of such beauty for others to understand and I hope that more people come to this alien technology for help. However, do not underestimate its power because you don’t get to choose where you go and we are all at such different places in our lives. Wait for it to come to you and when you’re ready and do it purposefully. That was a small dose I took!
Psychedelics make you more a projector of information and not just an absorber. Your perspective is illuminated from the inside out and it is shown to you symbolically. Your mind manifests around you: ‘psyche-delic’ literally means ‘mind-manifesting.’ The things you see are not to be dismissed as senseless hallucinations or delirium but as symbols from the subconscious, or perhaps, even beyond. If you are afraid of psychedelics, you are afraid of your own mind- a mind that is meant to be serving you! These substances would be so beneficial to therapy if only given the chance to be further studied and understood.
It’s a shame that these are considered drugs on par with controlled substances such as heroin or cocaine. I come from a very anti-drug family as my sister, because of heroin, took her own life in jail and it’s unfair to picture the drug that destroyed her in the same frame as the ones that helped me. It is so foolish to fear something with the potential power to heal a corrupted society as great a threat as ones that further weaken it, and it’s absurd that alcohol, anti-depressants and cigarettes are legal just to help everyone cope with the shit they are faced with every day. Psychedelics could help people come to terms with the pain and grief they have pushed deep down inside themselves by bringing the truth out, allowing it to flow free and uninterrupted and to wake you back up to the enchanted world and the power we possess. They are alchemical tools. With the help of psychedelics we can experience what is beyond or behind our mentally-constructed reality and develop a broader and more colourful perspective of our universe and place within it. I take the risk of sounding totally mad when I talk about this to the masses who know nothing about any of it (but for what it’s worth, I do feel I possess a clear, inquisitive and rational mind, and have always excelled in academia). Remember, how things seem to you is not the way the world really is, just your perceptions of it. Suffering of any kind is a response created by you and it needs to be recognised before you can be free of the aggravated struggle to hide, numb or obliterate yourself. Connected to this freedom is personal sovereignty and absolute self-accountability in sustaining it; is that what we are really avoiding?
I will leave you with a quote from Nikola Tesla that I wish for you to take on board: “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
 |  |
| 92% | 7% |
