Occhiolism One

I

My high arrived within mere minutes, earlier than expected like Grandpa coming to visit. This high was my own, a trip booked for one with the lone ticket stamped in my name, transportation in courtesy of Psilocybin, destination unknown. I’m no adult, but I’m certainly no child, but the mushroom is much older and much wiser, therefore, I am a student of the mushroom. Upon feeling the effects from the approximately two grams I ground up and mixed into a glass of lemonade I laid in bed to better brace myself for the ember of sensation fueling itself into a large flame. Plunging deeper into my mattress I felt splashes of a colorful euphoria that trickled through each nerve ending, melting like snowflakes against my warm-blooded skin. Turning to the same side I do every night I gazed over the same mundane view of my chair and bookcase, which had suddenly been transcended into what appeared to me as a landscape of mountainous caverns made up of the woven fabrics from the coat and pillowcase that inhabited the chair. The lamp above my bookcase that was a sympathetic two steps from my bedside now appeared a narrowly long street length away, my only thought was “Who the hell is gonna drive me down the road so I can turn off this damned light?”. Focusing my vision as well as my attention on the enigmatic highlands that resided in my bedroom, I began to wonder where these paths alongside the cliff edge go, and the kind of life among them. This wasn’t a walk one could get up and make with their two feet, this is one you have to make lying down and submitting your mind. As I conceptualize this vast environment beside me my attention is taken away by a stronger wave guided over my body, crashing me deeper into the bed like a rogue wave ragdolling a surfer into its salty body. I am overcome with a feeling of fragmenting vibration of particles starting their journey atop my scalp and raining down me anatomically, I’m then presented with an idea, not one conjured up on my own but one that was placed in my mind by an inner-outer source (the mushrooms), this concept feels so matter of fact, that this feeling working its way down my body has a name, a distinctly familiar name. By luck of the draw, my first guess has an agreeable sense of corroboration, ‘Empathy’, I visualize the word in my mind's eye and it’s been pre-assigned a purplish hue, the feeling is even further and more intensely pushed down my body from the top of my head like white water down the river it follows the more I say it to myself. “Empathy makes you feel good” was my instant summation, immediately upon arriving at this, I saw a poster on my wall with amazing artwork nonetheless, but deep in the chaotic concept lay a knife, and for once in my barbaric mind I thought “why would anyone want to be violent, ever?”. I begin to dwell on the mistakes I’ve made and the people I’ve wronged over time and feel deep regret, but through the mushroom's rational word of influence on my thoughts, I understand we are not entirely defined by these acts. There are irredeemable acts committed by those who are less than human, such as rape or premeditated murder, and child or elder abuse, along with any form of domestic violence, but those of us who are guilty of committing the lesser evil of sins, that everyday burdens have undoubtedly made habitual as both a society and an individual, fear our damnation the most because it is the empathetic, remorseful human who suffers at the hand of their own minds morality. The capability of feeling empathy, guilt, and remorse has kept few safe from the ethically cannibalistic, or even more revealing of our human nature, kept those around us safe from the nauseating result of not being burdened with these feelings ourselves. Life is not gifted with erasers, but we do get plenty of blank pages.

II

Since meditating I have realized the ties between our physical self and our astral self are severable, those who have felt it understand the sensation of encapsulation in one's physical self where we realize something more, something esoteric and enigmatic lies beneath and within, containing what at least seems to be the answer to our existence, or at least part of it. Just as there are those of us who arrive at this conclusion through transcendental enlightenment, there are those who feel imprisoned and are burdened with carrying the mindset of one who is in such an environment until they can unseemingly escape the fence unbeknownst to the guard towers. In regards to my spiritual enlightenment, the mushrooms only validated these feelings. Laying in bed I could feel the otherness within me rising to the surface only to be constricted by my physical self and its temporal culprit my ego. If a psychedelic trip is in fact an insightful glimpse into the epitome of existence, such as understanding the meaning of our life, the actual lesson that comes will precede the events taking place in the now, just as the revelations made during a psychedelic enlightenment are applied to everyday mind the following now. Therefore if life is a trip, death is its reconciliation. Days before this I was in the bath as I often am because I find it tranquil, lying on my back I felt my inner self being pulled through the top of my chest as if there were a magnetic force lifting me from the porcelain shower floor. I was convinced if my body wasn’t withholding this force I would be able to roam freely through space while my physical self remained in the bath in deep unconsciousness. This same feeling flooded my mind not long after the psilocin did the same, I could leave this body, this anchor, and be free of the encumbrances of my withered physical self or the limitations applied to us by the governing laws of gravity. What if we are a sort of sentient gas from the Big Bang that found dormant shelter inside a prehistoric and animalistic creature, only to be triggered by the consumption of the compound Psilocybin which led to the evolution of mankind? Using our strategically evolved bodies to traverse our forged planet’s terrain, and now as we have taken a steep climb toward Artificial Intelligence are we reaching the peak of our evolution to upload our consciousness to an upgraded life form? It doesn’t hurt to ask, Terence Mckenna may certainly have had much to say on the matter. Is the mushroom making a desperate attempt to stand me up? To pull my energy upward and put me on a forward momentum moving path to where I need to be, because as Gandalf The Grey once said to Bilbo Baggins “The world is not in your books and maps, it's out there”. As a twenty-something-year-old who has yet to see the world I claim to know so much about, the mushroom wouldn’t be out of line to advise me to be more authentically in it, how could one settle for such a small slice of the world blessed upon them by all the same. We shouldn’t. May I just escape into the world of fantasy as long as I fail to roam freely in the world in front of me, for if my imagination collaborates it can take my mind to more destinations this universe has to offer me, especially with my dysfunctional financial status.

III

I think to myself, “Why can’t I feel like this all the time?” while being in the mushroom’s warm embrace. We are able to capture the feeling of grief or trauma in a bottle and sip from it throughout our lives behind weighted black curtains, why shouldn’t we be able to capture the mindset of pure empathy, transcendental spirituality, or any one of the mushroom's many insights? We can it’s just a lot more fucking difficult, our minds are hardwired to remind us of the things that hurt us so we can stay away, meanwhile not allowing us to easily capture the full significance of what makes us ‘more’. Parents can look at their children and have a physical representation of what makes them happy, something they love so much it scares them to death. Maybe those of us who are armies of one should treat our minds like our children, coach through the mistakes, keep them well-fed and well-rested, and always allow time for play. I’ve suffered my share of acid revelations that have the power to steer you clear of your current path and en route to a more purposeful one, at least that’s often the impression. If in the case of the mushroom, we are children, then most of us don’t listen anyway. However, with an acid high, I always felt like my intrusive thoughts became more evident, louder, and even more intrusive. I once heard an acid high be described as “Experiencing one thousand years of thought in one single instance”, it took me years to understand the non-literal meaning of that, probably because I first heard it experimenting with drugs in my teens when my mind was focused on matters other than what the phrases I heard and perceived as personal to me even meant. This quote is quite possibly an ill-defined take on what it attempts to convey, but essentially it’s eluding to the overstretched sense of time you are possessed with during an acid high, allowing you to conceptualize each thought for what feels like hours as well as the equivalent to weeks of thoroughly researched information flowing freely through your now active unconscious mind. When you are greeted with such a mental overload whether the scenarios taking turns rehearsing in your head are imaginary or memories, there is a strong chance you will feel overwhelmed. As one becomes overwhelmed during the bumpy backroad of inner consciousness that is the backend of an acid peak, we start to rationalize these thoughts coming in so rapidly. They are your thoughts, products of your own mind, but the acid is that quirky, obsessive-compulsive friend who comes and digs through your cluttered mess for you, and even though you told them the one specific thing you wanted to be found they keep presenting you with all sorts of random objects, some that may embarrass you, some that scare you, some that you wish were never found or even some that make you laugh, that remind you of old times and gift you with nostalgia. And they don’t leave for hours, in fact, they stay the night and they can never go to sleep when you want to, to add to it they’ve been inside your mind so they know everything there is to know about you, so much so that they are teaching you things about yourself you had no idea of, things you may not have wanted to know but also things that you deserve to know. Now how does this experience with LSD compare to the mushrooms? I feel the mushroom was not presenting any intrusive thoughts like its potent cousin, the thoughts conjured up from the mushroom were welcomed, invited even. Any thoughts I had that did feel the least bit intrusive felt authentically my own, almost like the mushroom doesn’t want to be a noisy guest in my mind's home, but it would certainly admire any attention I paid it. The intrusive thoughts I did have at my own manifestation were all rationalized by, not me this time, but the mushroom. As they came and went, this time at a much slower pace, whereas acid rapidly presents its concepts onto you like rain is deployed onto the earth, the mushroom gracefully brushes its teachings against your mind like an ocean wave against the shore, returning to its vast body, though leaving its mark on the surface. My conclusion on capturing that mindset the mushroom graces you with? Take some sand home from your trip to the beach.