Program Notes
Follow Lorenzo on Patreon.com
https://www.patreon.com/lorenzohagerty
Guest speakers: Various
https://www.meetup.com/PsyAtlanta/Date this lecture was recorded: May 17, 2017
Today’s Salon2 podcast features a few psychedelic stories from a wonderful hot night in Atlanta. Thanks to Moshe Jacobson for making the night happen.
Psychedelic Atlanta’s Meetup Group
Download a free copy of Lorenzo’s latest book
The Chronicles of Lorenzo - Volume 1
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon
00:00:23 ►
2.0.
00:00:24 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:00:29 ►
And before I turn the microphone over to Lex Pelger, who will introduce today’s program,
00:00:38 ►
I want to first take a trip down memory lane for our fellow salonners who either have been with us here in the salon for a long time, or who have actually listened to most of these podcasts starting way back in the beginning.
00:00:44 ►
to most of these podcasts starting way back in the beginning.
00:00:49 ►
Anyhow, it was back in 2007, 11 years ago,
00:00:53 ►
when I first began exchanging stories in this podcast with a group of other podcasters,
00:00:56 ►
namely KMO, We’re Ninja, Lefty, Xandor, and The Dope Fiend.
00:01:01 ►
And during those years, The Dope Fiend, through his Dopecast, hosted an event
00:01:06 ►
in Amsterdam for a couple of years that he called Dope Stock. And if you’re a long-time listener
00:01:12 ►
here in the salon, you most likely will remember some of the live podcasts that came from those
00:01:17 ►
gatherings. Now, one of the characters from the last Dope Stock was a young man named Travis,
00:01:23 ►
who traveled there from Germany. Well,
00:01:26 ►
it seems that Travis has now moved to New Zealand. And guess what? Last Monday night,
00:01:32 ►
he joined me and several of my writing supporters from Patreon during what was his Tuesday lunch
00:01:38 ►
break in New Zealand. Well, I passed this news on to the Dope Fiend the other day, and he tells me that he remembers Travis very well.
00:01:47 ►
And if there are any other former Dope Stalkers out there, I’d sure like to hear from you, as, well, I’m sure Travis would as well.
00:01:55 ►
I’m telling you this because on the first Monday of each month, these Zoom conferences are open to anyone who wants to join us.
00:02:02 ►
are open to anyone who wants to join us.
00:02:04 ►
And I’ll see if I can convince Travis to be sure to join us on the 7th of May
00:02:07 ►
for our next All Salon Zoom conference.
00:02:10 ►
So be sure to check the program notes
00:02:12 ►
at psychedelicsalon.com on Monday, May 7th.
00:02:16 ►
And that program is going to be posted that morning.
00:02:20 ►
And in the program notes,
00:02:21 ►
I’ll include the login instructions for you to join us.
00:02:24 ►
And I hope to see you there.
00:02:27 ►
So now here is Lex Pelger, who will introduce today’s program.
00:02:37 ►
I’m Lex Pelger, and this is the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:02:43 ►
I’ll never forget the storytelling night
00:02:46 ►
in Atlanta.
00:02:47 ►
Something about the beautiful community space
00:02:49 ►
and the people showed up to share
00:02:51 ►
and the vibe of the evening made it very special.
00:02:54 ►
As you can hear,
00:02:56 ►
the honesty of the first story
00:02:57 ►
set the stage for the night.
00:02:59 ►
Now, if you don’t have a psychedelic group
00:03:01 ►
in your community, start one.
00:03:03 ►
As Moshe shares in his story, he created the meetup group,
00:03:07 ►
and then the wonderful connections flowed from there.
00:03:10 ►
So go on out and find the others.
00:03:30 ►
So I’ll tell about my most special time with mushrooms.
00:03:33 ►
And we got some really good mushrooms from our friend. And we had both, my boyfriend and I, had planned to do them separately because we had always done them together.
00:03:48 ►
planned to do them separately because we had always done them together and it’s been fun and interesting but also really hard to kind of get into your own head and really focus on yourself
00:03:55 ►
and things that you have to deal with and it’s always been kind of an anxious time for me just
00:04:02 ►
dealing with issues with my family. My parents got separated and I
00:04:07 ►
kind of took the root of all of that, but they’re back together. So it’s great.
00:04:12 ►
So I knew that I really need to take some time just for me to focus on myself and be by myself
00:04:19 ►
and work through these things. And it ended up being really, really beneficial. So I kind of took the whole day as like a ceremony and took care of myself
00:04:30 ►
and went and kind of like did the whole sauna thing and ate really healthy
00:04:35 ►
and just rested so that I could be clear-headed for the rest of the night.
00:04:41 ►
And so I went into my bedroom and ate the mushrooms and just kind of like lit some sage and got the space really ready.
00:04:51 ►
Although that might just be like something in my head, but it worked.
00:04:54 ►
So it was really nice.
00:04:58 ►
But I just laid there and it was dark.
00:05:09 ►
laid there and it was dark and it was the first time I feel like I’d ever really experienced the mushrooms working as maybe they were intended. So anyway, I had this vision of being at my favorite place in the world, which is this music festival in
00:05:27 ►
Pittsburgh called Shaquari Hills. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it’s wonderful. It’s
00:05:33 ►
a family festival. It’s people of all ages just coming together and being themselves and and a place of 100% true acceptance and love.
00:05:47 ►
And so anyway, I was there, and I could feel some of these negative thoughts that I had been dealing with come up.
00:06:11 ►
up, but they came up in a way that was just like very slow. And I was able to accept the,
00:06:16 ►
what I called the white or the elephant in the room, which is something that I always dealt with when being on mushrooms. And it was always like really kind of like fast paced
00:06:23 ►
thoughts and really anxious. but at this point I
00:06:27 ►
could just think through everything really slowly and come out of it from a place of love and not
00:06:33 ►
like oh all these negative memories this is horrible flooding over me like I need to move
00:06:40 ►
on to the next thing I actually sat with it it. And, um, then this woman, almost
00:06:48 ►
like a grandmother came to me and took my hand and showed me the sky and said, look
00:06:56 ►
at this, all this beauty around you. Although you’ve experienced all this anxiety and these really horrible things like sorry I’m really like
00:07:08 ►
sensitive but um just there’s so much more beauty and although these bad things have
00:07:14 ►
happened in your life you can work through them and um you know do the work that you need to do, but see that there’s more, um, to life.
00:07:30 ►
Um, so that was really wonderful. I was super happy and, um, oh my gosh.
00:07:41 ►
I’m sorry.
00:07:54 ►
So then I would just kind of like laugh and be really happy that, okay, I had seen these things and I’m at the other side of it.
00:07:59 ►
Like I just went through all of this therapy pretty much in like 10 minutes.
00:08:02 ►
And I was just so happy.
00:08:06 ►
And then I would move on to the next thing that had bothered me in my life. And she would take my hand and there were all these people working and she would say,
00:08:14 ►
look at all these people who are here to help you. And they’re working on this in your head
00:08:20 ►
and you’re not alone. And it’s okay to feel this way, but God, shit, this
00:08:30 ►
is crazy. Um, it’s, it’s all okay. You’re not by yourself and just like, it’s cool.
00:08:40 ►
You can feel all this bad shit and it’s not going to ever stop, but you can get past it.
00:08:49 ►
And we’re here to help you. And there are other people here to help you. And it was just like
00:08:53 ►
the first realization that I had that I don’t have to live with this anxiety and I don’t have to be
00:08:59 ►
the people pleaser. I don’t have to like all of these things I put on myself and I don’t think
00:09:08 ►
I could have, it would have taken me a long time to go through therapy and like get over this and
00:09:13 ►
realize that I put all of this stuff on me. But anyway, basically, um, I was just shown that there’s healing that can be accomplished.
00:09:34 ►
And it’s okay to feel like shit sometimes for the stuff that’s happened in your life.
00:09:39 ►
And you don’t have to take responsibility for all of it.
00:09:44 ►
And that there is beauty.
00:09:53 ►
Sorry, I’m like laughing.
00:09:55 ►
It’s so awkward.
00:09:58 ►
And that, you know, these are tools.
00:10:02 ►
And they’re to be respected.
00:10:04 ►
And there is a time and a place for them,
00:10:06 ►
and they’re so powerful and so helpful, and more people need them,
00:10:15 ►
and more people need to know that you aren’t a druggie for using these things,
00:10:24 ►
You aren’t a druggie for using these things.
00:10:30 ►
And the whole stereotype and the stigma needs to be gone from it.
00:10:33 ►
So that’s why I’m sharing.
00:10:36 ►
And I didn’t realize I was going to cry.
00:10:39 ►
But thank you for listening.
00:10:53 ►
I appreciate it, and I’m sorry if that was all I wanted to say. First story is how I got into psychedelics, and that was through shamanism.
00:11:00 ►
I was taking a shamanism course at a place called Phoenix and Dragon here in Atlanta.
00:11:06 ►
And the teacher was wonderful.
00:11:10 ►
I learned about intuition and I learned about trusting intuition.
00:11:13 ►
And that’s something that I’ve been developing as I use psychedelics.
00:11:17 ►
And after that course, I started listening to some Terence McKenna because he was into shamanism too, you know.
00:11:26 ►
And I learned from Terence McKenna that you can talk to the plants.
00:11:32 ►
You can actually learn from plants.
00:11:35 ►
And I didn’t really know much at the time, but I met a girl at the time who later went on to become
00:11:47 ►
my girlfriend but the first day that we hung out we actually took psychedelics and at that time it
00:11:53 ►
was actually before i listened to any terence mckenna and i didn’t know what to expect and so
00:11:57 ►
i uh we we took psychedelics together and it was the most mind-boggling experience ever. I think we took
00:12:05 ►
two hits of, we don’t even know what it was. We think it was maybe a 2C, 2CI or something like
00:12:14 ►
that. But yeah, it was, it was incredible. And I saw, I saw into infinity and I saw God and,
00:12:22 ►
and time just stopped.
00:12:27 ►
And I forgot even where I was.
00:12:28 ►
It was such an out-of-body experience.
00:12:31 ►
And it lasted all day.
00:12:37 ►
And we actually spontaneously just got naked.
00:12:39 ►
And we were walking around the house naked.
00:12:41 ►
And just to be naked.
00:12:47 ►
Because it was such a vulnerable experience that we um we decided like that was cool sure like i had never done anything like that with anybody before i’d never gotten
00:12:52 ►
naked just with somebody i just met um and uh it was just it was just so different so different and
00:13:00 ►
ever since that point we started doing doing psychedelics together as a kind of monthly by monthly thing.
00:13:09 ►
And we would love to go walk around the city while tripping.
00:13:13 ►
And it was a great experience.
00:13:15 ►
And I never really had a difficult time with it.
00:13:19 ►
And we found that while we were taking psychedelics together, we were able to communicate in a way that we were not able to communicate before. And psychedelics actually taught me what it was
00:13:31 ►
to communicate with an open heart and to really connect with somebody on that level. And I
00:13:38 ►
realized that we were unable to do that without the use of psychedelics. And it ended up turning out that we had to break up because we had differences that could only be reconciled while we were on psychedelics.
00:13:55 ►
And I said, this is not healthy.
00:13:56 ►
I need to break this habit of using psychedelics as a crutch.
00:14:03 ►
So after that relationship ended, I started this meetup group,
00:14:08 ►
PsyAtlanta. And I, because I was listening to the psychedelic salon podcast, actually.
00:14:16 ►
And I heard somebody from the Psychedelic Society of San Francisco talk about that organization.
00:14:22 ►
And I said, that’s really cool. I want to start something like that in Atlanta.
00:14:25 ►
Or actually, I wanted to see if there was something like that in Atlanta.
00:14:28 ►
Well, of course there wasn’t.
00:14:30 ►
And I started it.
00:14:31 ►
So it’s been really cool because now we’re over 400 members.
00:14:38 ►
And I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet all these different people who use psychedelics.
00:14:46 ►
enjoyed getting to meet all these different people who use psychedelics. And I’ve started to realize that there’s actually a pattern that I can see in psychedelic people. I can
00:14:54 ►
walk up to somebody and I can say, is this person a psychedelic person, yes or no? And
00:14:59 ►
I feel like I’m usually pretty accurate now. It’s amazing. It’s amazing what psychedelics
00:15:04 ►
will do to you.
00:15:17 ►
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
00:15:21 ►
Yeah, all the stories that I heard was very touching.
00:15:24 ►
And that completely could connect with your emotion
00:15:26 ►
because
00:15:28 ►
it is so profound what
00:15:30 ►
psychedelic, the experience it gives you
00:15:32 ►
this body
00:15:34 ►
this flesh and body
00:15:37 ►
couldn’t contain it
00:15:38 ►
so it has to let it out and that’s why emotion
00:15:40 ►
kicks out because
00:15:42 ►
like the video said
00:15:44 ►
putting word to our experience
00:15:46 ►
is a shitty way of communicating.
00:15:49 ►
You just can’t.
00:15:51 ►
You know, she tried her best,
00:15:53 ►
but I’m sure we get like a fraction
00:15:54 ►
of what she’s talking about.
00:15:56 ►
So I never drank, never smoked.
00:16:01 ►
I was a good boy,
00:16:03 ►
never had any experience with anything.
00:16:07 ►
I was a
00:16:07 ►
workaholic. I went to
00:16:10 ►
school, you know, straight and narrow.
00:16:12 ►
I got married,
00:16:14 ►
I have kids, wonderful life.
00:16:16 ►
Everything that people would ask for.
00:16:18 ►
I have wonderful kids,
00:16:20 ►
wonderful marriage, wonderful
00:16:22 ►
business. Everything just perfect.
00:16:24 ►
I got bored out of my mind.
00:16:27 ►
To a point, no, this is not funny when you live through it, to a point where I was asking,
00:16:34 ►
what is the point of living?
00:16:38 ►
I mean, I hate getting up in the morning.
00:16:41 ►
Not that I was lacking anything.
00:16:43 ►
We weren’t rich, but we had everything we need
00:16:45 ►
if I wanted to travel I can get on a plane
00:16:47 ►
go anywhere in the world
00:16:48 ►
buy anything we want
00:16:50 ►
we don’t necessarily want very expensive stuff
00:16:53 ►
but you know what I mean right
00:16:54 ►
we are content
00:16:54 ►
so
00:16:58 ►
it got to a point where
00:17:00 ►
I was really bored out of my mind
00:17:02 ►
and I couldn’t communicate that with anybody
00:17:03 ►
so I was asking a question of my mind and I couldn’t communicate that with anybody. So I was asking a question of, you know, what is the point of living?
00:17:09 ►
And I was flipping through Amazon Prime and this person in some documentary mentioned the word ayahuasca.
00:17:17 ►
I misspelled it and looked for it on Google.
00:17:22 ►
And then finally found out what it was.
00:17:24 ►
30 minutes from
00:17:25 ►
that video I was in Peru in Amazon forest going through the whole experience
00:17:31 ►
they had a set of I think five to seven ceremonies that when I the center I went
00:17:35 ►
to it was five ceremonies in 10 or 12 days. It was magical. Once I finished that
00:17:42 ►
I was introduced from a friend that I met at the ayahuasca ceremony,
00:17:47 ►
who lives in Canada, to come out and I had a mushroom experience, which I never, never had before.
00:17:56 ►
And it was amazing.
00:18:07 ►
It was like meeting God face to face
00:18:08 ►
it was a carb lunch
00:18:12 ►
I could ask anything and I would get an answer
00:18:14 ►
I could see my body
00:18:16 ►
and I’m walking around
00:18:19 ►
I’m not sleeping or anything
00:18:20 ►
it was during daytime
00:18:21 ►
but I could also see
00:18:23 ►
the other part of my body. I could
00:18:26 ►
see my spirit and my body. And I was walking around. And when I see the spirit, me, without
00:18:35 ►
flesh and blood, it is so humble, free of ego, just serenity, so peaceful so I was
00:18:46 ►
communicating with God and I’ll just share
00:18:48 ►
one of the things that
00:18:50 ►
I experienced
00:18:52 ►
we have a lot of questions that if God was here
00:18:54 ►
we would ask him a lot of questions
00:18:55 ►
so I said God I can’t understand what a year is
00:18:58 ►
what a week is
00:18:59 ►
I can’t understand what a year is
00:19:01 ►
I can’t understand what a 10 year is
00:19:03 ►
what is eternity?
00:19:05 ►
we’re supposed to live in eternity.
00:19:07 ►
The minute I asked that, the whole sky just wide opened.
00:19:10 ►
And there was like a big symphony music that keeps playing this calm music.
00:19:15 ►
But the music would go on for days, months, years, eternity.
00:19:23 ►
It keeps going and going and going.
00:19:25 ►
In the middle of that, this big grand piano just showed up.
00:19:30 ►
The keyboard on the piano is the size of my head.
00:19:32 ►
And as a part of the symphony, somebody is playing the piano.
00:19:37 ►
The minute that person touches the keyboard, everything shut down.
00:19:42 ►
And he told me that our life on this earth compared to eternity
00:19:47 ►
is that one key stroke compared to eternity. He put things in perspective the way I understood it.
00:19:55 ►
What it did to me was it flipped him around that life is truly a gift.
00:20:14 ►
And we are not supposed to squander it.
00:20:16 ►
By worrying,
00:20:19 ►
doing evil stuff,
00:20:21 ►
thinking wrong things,
00:20:23 ►
it is a life.
00:20:24 ►
And guess what? This life, God gave it to you. It is a life. And guess what?
00:20:25 ►
This life,
00:20:26 ►
God gave it to you.
00:20:28 ►
It is not your panties.
00:20:30 ►
It is yours.
00:20:31 ►
It is yours to decide.
00:20:33 ►
Just like Aliyah said,
00:20:34 ►
she said,
00:20:35 ►
screw what mom says,
00:20:36 ►
screw what everybody says.
00:20:37 ►
This is ours.
00:20:39 ►
Now you are given this gift,
00:20:40 ►
what are you going to do with it?
00:20:44 ►
It is yours.
00:20:45 ►
It is not your community. It’s not
00:20:47 ►
your friends. It’s not your parents.
00:20:49 ►
This is yours.
00:20:53 ►
What you choose with it is up to you.
00:20:55 ►
But you can’t blame anybody else.
00:21:00 ►
So, this was
00:21:02 ►
amazing.
00:21:03 ►
So I’m going to buy some items and become a mushroom farmer soon.
00:21:18 ►
My first trip was when I was 17 actually and I was doing it just for fun.
00:21:23 ►
It was with LSD.
00:21:26 ►
I was with one of my friends from high school.
00:21:29 ►
And we basically
00:21:30 ►
took it in my living room, and
00:21:32 ►
I didn’t plan it out at all.
00:21:34 ►
I just took it, just
00:21:35 ►
to see what would happen.
00:21:37 ►
And I saw
00:21:39 ►
colors get brighter. I was laughing
00:21:42 ►
for no reason. My friend was laughing at me
00:21:44 ►
because I was laughing for absolutely no reason.
00:21:47 ►
And it was a good trip up until he left me in my house because he had to go.
00:21:57 ►
I was like, okay, I should be fine.
00:21:59 ►
But then as society teaches us, psychedelics make you crazy.
00:22:03 ►
That’s what my parents would always tell me.
00:22:06 ►
And that’s when I started to think.
00:22:08 ►
And I got worried, more worried.
00:22:09 ►
You know.
00:22:12 ►
Because of that,
00:22:14 ►
I actually told my mom
00:22:16 ►
that I had
00:22:18 ►
taken LSD. But I wasn’t
00:22:20 ►
to the point where I told her
00:22:22 ►
that I took it. I told her
00:22:23 ►
a friend gave me a brownie.
00:22:29 ►
And basically, it was, I felt my ego being stripped away because she was kind of sad.
00:22:42 ►
She was crying and stuff.
00:22:43 ►
And my mom had scleroderma
00:22:46 ►
and
00:22:46 ►
I started crying with her too
00:22:49 ►
because
00:22:51 ►
it stripped away that ego part of me, that
00:22:53 ►
part of me that
00:22:54 ►
makes me not want, well,
00:22:58 ►
forces me not to
00:22:59 ►
cry. They teach men that
00:23:01 ►
we’re not supposed to cry, but
00:23:03 ►
it helps me get out those emotions
00:23:06 ►
that I needed to basically that’s my story This is the story of my recent first experience with ayahuasca.
00:23:29 ►
Oh, you did?
00:23:30 ►
I did.
00:23:31 ►
I recently, and this is after four years of using psychedelics,
00:23:37 ►
always in relatively low doses.
00:23:39 ►
I’ve never used more than 200 micrograms of LSD,
00:23:43 ►
and I’ve never used more than about three grams
00:23:46 ►
of mushrooms, and that was at the extreme. And so I had no idea what to expect. After
00:23:52 ►
four years of this, I knew that it was going to be more intense. So I went with an open
00:24:00 ►
mind, and the ayahuasca experience, it taught me a lot about what it means to actually heal
00:24:07 ►
with a psychedelic, because until then, I had been using them, and I’d been learning
00:24:14 ►
some lessons, but I didn’t feel quite the profound effect that I felt with ayahuasca.
00:24:27 ►
profound effect that I felt with ayahuasca. And it’s not only, what I learned after using ayahuasca is there’s not only the ayahuasca that’s different, it’s the ceremony around
00:24:33 ►
it. And it went to show me how important it is to have a meaningful ritual around the use of psychedelics,
00:24:53 ►
and an open, safe space in which to express whatever the psychedelics are giving you at that time,
00:24:57 ►
whatever they’re showing you, to let out whatever it is.
00:25:04 ►
And so my first night with ayahuasca, I was nervous because I didn’t want to throw up. I felt that throwing up was like, A, it was gross.
00:25:10 ►
And B, I felt like I was above throwing up.
00:25:13 ►
I didn’t need to throw up.
00:25:14 ►
Everybody else here, you know, they’re like average people.
00:25:18 ►
I’m better than that.
00:25:19 ►
I don’t need to throw up.
00:25:20 ►
So that night I didn’t throw up and I felt very proud of myself. And the next
00:25:28 ►
day I woke up with this horrible headache and I said, well, what’s going on? This is
00:25:34 ►
supposed to be healing me, not giving me a headache. And so I got a worse and worse headache
00:25:42 ►
and I became nauseated and I ended up throwing up in the middle of the next day.
00:25:48 ►
That was my purge that I needed to have the previous day.
00:25:51 ►
What I learned from that, I went into the second night with that on my mind.
00:25:57 ►
The second night, I actually drank the correct amount of water, which actually was over four liters in five hours,
00:26:04 ►
and probably five liters, threw up nonstop.
00:26:10 ►
Because I was allowing myself to do that, to express, to be,
00:26:18 ►
to let that stuff out in front of everybody.
00:26:20 ►
Because until then, I had been trying to control myself, you know,
00:26:25 ►
like, I need to be, I need to be composed, you know, I’ve, I’ve always been, I’ve always
00:26:31 ►
been, it’s always been part of my personality to be kind of the composed one. That doesn’t
00:26:38 ►
mean I don’t get silly at times, but it also means that I’m, I have this part of my ego that needs me to be in control of the situation,
00:26:47 ►
in control of my surroundings, and in control of my body.
00:26:53 ►
And when I learned that that’s what I was doing in my life,
00:26:58 ►
and that’s why I was getting headaches, that’s why I was clenching my jaw,
00:27:01 ►
That’s why I was getting headaches.
00:27:04 ►
That’s why I was clenching my jaw.
00:27:11 ►
It was all about this pressure inside of me to be this certain way.
00:27:19 ►
And when I finally, on my second night of ayahuasca, I let that stuff out, I felt so liberated. I felt like I just need to honor myself.
00:27:24 ►
I just need to honor whatever comes up.
00:27:26 ►
And in fact, since that time, since my ayahuasca trip,
00:27:31 ►
I’ve only actually tripped one other time, for which Leo was present actually.
00:27:36 ►
And it actually turned into a psychedelic trip.
00:27:40 ►
I mean, an ayahuasca trip.
00:27:44 ►
After the end of the… I took it and went to a concert,
00:27:49 ►
and after the end of the concert, when I got home, it became an ordeal. That’s the best
00:27:54 ►
way I can describe ayahuasca for me, is an ordeal. And this LSD trip, even though it
00:28:03 ►
was only one hit of LSD, it became one of the most intense ordeals that I had been through.
00:28:10 ►
And I felt like I needed to throw up. I didn’t end up throwing up, but it was, I wailed, I sobbed.
00:28:17 ►
It was ridiculous. Well, I wouldn’t use that word. It was extreme. It was extreme. And I haven’t used psychedelics
00:28:32 ►
anymore since then. That was only a month ago. But I think that my future use of psychedelics,
00:28:38 ►
now that I’ve taken ayahuasca, is actually going to be a lot different now. It’s going
00:28:43 ►
to be a lot more focused around,
00:28:48 ►
I’m actually going to try to do this by myself in a dark room or with somebody I trust, a facilitator.
00:28:53 ►
Because even though it was such an ordeal,
00:28:56 ►
such a difficult process,
00:28:59 ►
and I can’t tell you, I can’t say that this is
00:29:02 ►
the measurable effect that it’s had on me. Even so,
00:29:06 ►
I feel like I’m a better person
00:29:07 ►
from it. I feel like going through that
00:29:10 ►
makes me a better person.
00:29:13 ►
And so
00:29:13 ►
I’ll continue to use them.
00:29:31 ►
This was one of my mushroom trips that I took with my friend David.
00:29:36 ►
Well, it was on a Sunday.
00:29:37 ►
It was kind of random.
00:29:38 ►
He was like,
00:29:39 ►
yo, my boy got mushrooms.
00:29:41 ►
You know what I’m saying?
00:29:41 ►
We’ve been kind of looking for some
00:29:42 ►
and we talk about psychedelics
00:29:44 ►
and stuff like that.
00:29:44 ►
He’s more of a LSD user. I like mushrooms, you know what I’m saying? We’ve been kind of looking for some, and we talk about psychedelics and stuff like that. He’s more of an LSD user.
00:29:46 ►
I like mushrooms, stuff like that.
00:29:48 ►
So we end up going to his
00:29:50 ►
friend’s house. We get the mushrooms.
00:29:52 ►
I get like, I think a quarter or
00:29:54 ►
eight or something like that.
00:29:55 ►
And we decided to go trip at a park.
00:29:57 ►
We didn’t take the whole thing, but
00:29:59 ►
it was still probably about
00:30:01 ►
two grams of mushrooms.
00:30:05 ►
So I’m nervous.
00:30:06 ►
We’re up here setting our intention.
00:30:07 ►
We’re on this park bench.
00:30:08 ►
We’re up here saying a prayer and all that stuff.
00:30:11 ►
Trying to get all the good vibes in and shit like that.
00:30:15 ►
So we take the mushrooms and we’re just chilling.
00:30:17 ►
We’re chilling.
00:30:18 ►
We’re waiting for them to kick in.
00:30:19 ►
So while we’re waiting, we smoke this joint that I have or whatever.
00:30:22 ►
So we smoke half a joint.
00:30:24 ►
We’re still waiting. We’re still waiting.
00:30:25 ►
We’re still waiting.
00:30:25 ►
We’re walking around the park.
00:30:26 ►
There’s a lake around the park and stuff like that.
00:30:29 ►
So the mushrooms kick in.
00:30:32 ►
And you know, well, for me, when the mushrooms kick in,
00:30:34 ►
I always feel like it’s this sensation that it starts.
00:30:38 ►
It’s like some type of thing.
00:30:42 ►
You go into the trance or something like that.
00:30:44 ►
But it feels like a sigh.
00:30:46 ►
And I’m like, oh, shit, I’m here.
00:30:47 ►
And I’m like, bro, did you feel that?
00:30:49 ►
And shit like that.
00:30:50 ►
So he’s like, no.
00:30:52 ►
And I already told him previously.
00:30:53 ►
I’m like, bro, if I’m tripping with you and I just want to walk off by myself, let me walk off.
00:30:58 ►
Because, you know, I could be going through my own stuff, you know what I’m saying?
00:31:01 ►
And it’s probably the best thing to do.
00:31:03 ►
So I start walking up.
00:31:04 ►
He’s like, hold on, hold on.
00:31:04 ►
Wait, wait, wait, wait wait what’s going on
00:31:06 ►
I’m like bro I just started
00:31:08 ►
I just arrived
00:31:10 ►
so you know when it happens
00:31:13 ►
your freaking vision goes HD
00:31:14 ►
and like
00:31:16 ►
your vision goes widescreen
00:31:18 ►
it’s like bro I see the world
00:31:20 ►
so I’m just looking at these trees
00:31:22 ►
they’re swinging stuff
00:31:23 ►
stuff like that, freaking.
00:31:26 ►
So we’re walking around the park.
00:31:27 ►
His trip starts soon after.
00:31:29 ►
He takes some more mushrooms. I’m like, bro,
00:31:32 ►
you taller than me, bigger than me.
00:31:34 ►
That’s all you. I’m going to just stay right here.
00:31:36 ►
So we’re walking around the park
00:31:38 ►
and I’m just asking him questions.
00:31:40 ►
And I ask him a question
00:31:42 ►
like, well, David,
00:31:43 ►
why are we scared of each other?
00:31:45 ►
and I think he thought
00:31:46 ►
I was asking him specifically
00:31:49 ►
literally me and him
00:31:50 ►
why are we afraid of each other?
00:31:52 ►
and I think he kind of answered it
00:31:54 ►
he was like we’re not
00:31:55 ►
and I was like well
00:31:56 ►
I was kind of speaking like
00:31:58 ►
why is the world afraid of each other?
00:32:00 ►
why are we scared of each other?
00:32:02 ►
and stuff like that
00:32:02 ►
but I think he still really answered my question. Like, we’re not.
00:32:06 ►
We just have our
00:32:07 ►
differences and we’re scared to express
00:32:09 ►
ourselves sometimes and stuff like that.
00:32:11 ►
So we’re walking, we’re walking.
00:32:14 ►
He goes to the bathroom eventually.
00:32:16 ►
I’m freaking, I’m all about
00:32:17 ►
yoga and shit. You know what I’m saying? I’m not
00:32:19 ►
chocolate and stuff like that. So I take
00:32:21 ►
off my shoes. I want to ground myself
00:32:24 ►
for, you know,
00:32:26 ►
like you do when you’re doing the grass. You ground yourself and stuff like that. So I take off my shoes. I want to ground myself. You know? Like you do when you’re doing the grass.
00:32:28 ►
You ground yourself and stuff like that. So I’m in the
00:32:30 ►
grass. I’m looking at
00:32:31 ►
my feet and stuff. And I start
00:32:34 ►
having this realization like, bro, we always talk
00:32:36 ►
about heaven and this, that, and the third.
00:32:37 ►
And I’m like, bro, this is heaven.
00:32:40 ►
And I’ve been here before. I have been
00:32:42 ►
on earth before. And I think
00:32:44 ►
we all have in past lives and stuff like that. And I’m like, I’m sure I’ve been here before. I have been on earth before. And I think we all have, like, in past lives and stuff like that.
00:32:46 ►
And I’m like, I’m sure I’ve been here before and stuff like that.
00:32:50 ►
So I’m like, bro, what if earth is heaven?
00:32:52 ►
Because, I mean, when we go out, we feel we’re like spirits or something like that.
00:32:56 ►
But, like, you can really create and you can really have what you want in life, bro.
00:33:01 ►
You just have to have that.
00:33:03 ►
You have to be vibrating the right way.
00:33:06 ►
I’ll say it like that. So, like,
00:33:08 ►
I’m just going through all these things, like, bro, this is
00:33:10 ►
heaven, and I’ve been here before and having all these
00:33:12 ►
realizations. So we’re
00:33:14 ►
walking around the park some more and daggone.
00:33:17 ►
We end up
00:33:18 ►
coming to this, like, it’s like
00:33:20 ►
the middle of a park, but it’s like this
00:33:21 ►
square, just square
00:33:24 ►
cement thing, basically in the middle of the park but it’s like this square just square cement thing basically in the
00:33:25 ►
middle of the park so i’m sitting here dancing and doing ballet like i’m just happy and just
00:33:31 ►
free up and we’re listening to music and stuff and he starts playing some music that starts like
00:33:37 ►
bugging like it starts giving me a bad trip and it’s that fight or flight motion a fight or flight
00:33:42 ►
i guess that’s how tansy mckinnon it. But it’s real and it’s like, bro,
00:33:46 ►
my trip started going bad. I was like,
00:33:48 ►
yo, I have to calm myself down or whatever.
00:33:50 ►
So I just lay down
00:33:52 ►
and I’m laying down beside
00:33:54 ►
David, man, and I’m looking at the sky
00:33:56 ►
and we’re just cloud watching. That’s the best shit
00:33:58 ►
to do on mushroom.
00:33:59 ►
I promise to God.
00:34:01 ►
I promise to God, man. So I’m looking up
00:34:04 ►
and I close my eyes. I promise to God. So I’m looking up, and I close my eyes.
00:34:07 ►
But I’m still having visions of, like, clouds and stuff.
00:34:11 ►
And I see the clouds start morphing into eyes.
00:34:14 ►
I call them ancestor eyes.
00:34:17 ►
But, like, that starts happening.
00:34:21 ►
And I feel like I’m coming.
00:34:23 ►
I had an outer body experience,body experience but I wasn’t like flying
00:34:26 ►
and stuff like that my eyes were just closed and I still felt like I could see you like as if my
00:34:32 ►
eyes were open I guess that’s the third eye so that happened again after that we’re kind of coming
00:34:40 ►
down and I’m like bro I’m about to go explore.
00:34:45 ►
And during the whole trip, David would say stuff.
00:34:49 ►
And I’d be thinking the same thing.
00:34:51 ►
But I’d be too scared to say it.
00:34:52 ►
But I’m having that telekinesis thing that you can sometimes have when you do mushrooms together.
00:34:58 ►
I’m having that shit.
00:34:59 ►
I’m like, bro, I’m not psychic.
00:35:01 ►
I’m not psychic.
00:35:02 ►
But I guess we just synchronize like that.
00:35:06 ►
So that goes on and freaking eventually I’m like, man, I want to go explore.
00:35:10 ►
I just want to go walk around because I feel safe now.
00:35:12 ►
I’m cool.
00:35:14 ►
And I go off and we’re still linked together in our minds.
00:35:18 ►
And I’m like, you know, we were calling each other because we’re away from each other now in this part.
00:35:23 ►
And we’re like, yo, we just want to, I just noticed that we just want to make sure each other is safe.
00:35:28 ►
We’re like, go do whatever you want, just make sure you’re safe.
00:35:31 ►
And I think that’s kind of how the world is in the sense of our parents.
00:35:34 ►
I got some type of understanding and insight from that.
00:35:40 ►
And then, what else?
00:35:42 ►
What is the last part?
00:35:45 ►
Oh, the final part.
00:35:47 ►
So we’re sitting here.
00:35:49 ►
We go over here by some other park, some other park apart.
00:35:53 ►
And we’re just talking and stuff like that.
00:35:56 ►
And we start walking.
00:35:58 ►
And I’m just looking around.
00:36:00 ►
And I’m like, bro, this is the perfect trip.
00:36:04 ►
Like, I’m happy, to the point where
00:36:06 ►
I didn’t want, I was like
00:36:07 ►
I’ll never feel this way again
00:36:10 ►
when I go down, when I come down
00:36:12 ►
I’ll never feel like that
00:36:13 ►
I understood that God is really love
00:36:15 ►
and that shit connects us all
00:36:17 ►
I started getting sad, because I was like, bruh
00:36:19 ►
I’ll never feel this without a psychedelic
00:36:22 ►
or just sober
00:36:24 ►
Justin, you know what I’m saying?
00:36:25 ►
Like that.
00:36:26 ►
So I started getting sad.
00:36:27 ►
But I don’t get too sad.
00:36:28 ►
I look around.
00:36:29 ►
I’m like, bro, I want to hold his hand.
00:36:33 ►
I want to hold his hand.
00:36:34 ►
I don’t think it was anything sexual.
00:36:36 ►
It was just like, bro, I want to hold his hand.
00:36:38 ►
Like, gee, shit.
00:36:39 ►
I want to hold his hand.
00:36:40 ►
I don’t know why.
00:36:40 ►
I think it’s to let him know that everything is all right.
00:36:45 ►
And kind of signify that and stuff like that. I don’t know why. I think it’s to let them know that everything’s all right. And kind of signify that and stuff like that.
00:36:46 ►
I don’t know, bro.
00:36:48 ►
I started thinking, I’m like, bro, he going to think this, that, and the third if I hold his hand.
00:36:54 ►
And all these other people are standing apart.
00:36:57 ►
But that’s cool because I noticed that shit, though.
00:37:00 ►
I was like, that’s our problem, bro.
00:37:02 ►
We’re so concerned with what everyone else thinks.
00:37:04 ►
And we sit there and go against ourselves all the time, bro.
00:37:08 ►
So I ended up holding his hand.
00:37:09 ►
I think he thought it was hella weird at first.
00:37:11 ►
But I was like, grab it.
00:37:13 ►
So he was like, grab it.
00:37:15 ►
He was like, bro.
00:37:16 ►
He was like, oh, okay.
00:37:20 ►
And then I think we were over here.
00:37:22 ►
By this time, we were like at this other bench that was facing the lake.
00:37:25 ►
And I was like, man, we were listening to some song that was going off or something.
00:37:28 ►
I was like, this is just great, man.
00:37:31 ►
Great trip.
00:37:32 ►
And then I was having deja vus and stuff like that.
00:37:35 ►
But that’s about it.
00:37:37 ►
So that was one of my favorite shows.
00:37:38 ►
Thank you. So we’d gotten, it was the same kind of mushrooms that she was on.
00:37:54 ►
She was talking about hers, but it was a different batch.
00:37:58 ►
Do you guys know the Outer Banks of North Carolina?
00:38:00 ►
Are you guys familiar?
00:38:01 ►
So we were up there, and it’s essentially just like a strip of sand in the ocean.
00:38:06 ►
There’s water on both sides of it, and it’s only a few hundred yards wide where we were.
00:38:12 ►
And so we took them.
00:38:13 ►
We were sitting there on the way up, and I was just kind of reclining with my eyes closed,
00:38:20 ►
and I started communicating with the mushrooms you know whatever it is
00:38:25 ►
that you’re communicating with started talking to it started kind of getting
00:38:33 ►
into a zone that I’d never been in before and then I just told it that I
00:38:38 ►
loved it and that me and it were the same thing. I was just like, I love you. And whatever you are, we’re the same thing.
00:38:46 ►
And when I said that to it, it came into my body and I went somewhere totally different.
00:38:54 ►
It was just like a blank white space with birds and clocks and all kinds of whatever you could imagine there.
00:39:02 ►
I’d never been there before.
00:39:03 ►
I’d always sort of seen my surroundings and been where I was when I was tripping,
00:39:08 ►
so this was brand new to me.
00:39:11 ►
Enjoyed that space for a bit, eventually snapped out of it,
00:39:15 ►
and then we walked out to the beach and just smoked a couple joints on the beach.
00:39:22 ►
Above us it was totally clear, so we could just see the stars above us and then out over the ocean
00:39:26 ►
there was a thunderstorm going on so just lightning bolts out over the ocean clouds lighting up
00:39:32 ►
so you know that’s cool just to look at when you’re sober but you know the context of the trip
00:39:38 ►
is kind of what makes it you know you were in nature in a park. That had a big influence.
00:39:45 ►
You know, everybody sort of mentioned their setting.
00:39:47 ►
That’s huge.
00:39:49 ►
I’ve never felt more connected to the universe than I did out there.
00:39:53 ►
And also, you know, after that, I’ve never felt more insignificant than sitting on a beach,
00:40:01 ►
looking at the stars, looking at the ocean.
00:40:04 ►
Outer space doesn’t care about you if the ocean doesn’t care about you.
00:40:07 ►
It was a completely ego-less moment, I guess you would say.
00:40:14 ►
And all the other crazy things that I’ve experienced on mushrooms,
00:40:18 ►
like making friends with a dragonfly or holding the space-time continuum in my hand
00:40:24 ►
and manipulating it
00:40:26 ►
and looking at it and actually understanding the concept, which I don’t anymore.
00:40:32 ►
I always look at a trip like a mini-life.
00:40:37 ►
It’s got the birth, which is when you come up,
00:40:40 ►
and it’s got everything you go through during it,
00:40:43 ►
and then coming down is like the death
00:40:45 ►
and it’s its own journey
00:40:46 ►
and you learn new lessons from each one
00:40:49 ►
but everyone is heavily influenced by
00:40:52 ►
who you’re with, what your surroundings look like,
00:40:55 ►
you know, the vibes that you’re encountering.
00:40:58 ►
You’re really sensitive to that.
00:41:00 ►
Like when I told it I loved it,
00:41:02 ►
that’s when it allowed me to see everything that it
00:41:06 ►
allowed me to see when you asked it the question that you asked that’s when it showed you the piano
00:41:12 ►
and everything right that it showed you know these are our thoughts the things we encounter
00:41:17 ►
the vibes we encounter the people we encounter they’re all i, affecting us just as profoundly all the time. We’re just not as sensitive to it as we are when we’re tripping.
00:41:28 ►
So the root of what I’ve gotten out of psychedelics has just been all of these things that we encounter are affecting us, are affecting our happiness.
00:41:37 ►
That’s going to go on to affect the people we encounter’s happiness.
00:41:42 ►
We always want to set our trips up to be nice. We want like sage and
00:41:47 ►
comfortable spaces and nature or whatever, you know, we’ve intended the trip to be like.
00:41:53 ►
And I think the more people that do psychedelics, the more people will realize how all of these
00:41:59 ►
things are affecting us in such profound ways all the time and maybe as intentional as we are about
00:42:05 ►
our trips be just as intentional
00:42:08 ►
about life in general
00:42:09 ►
and the whole thing
00:42:11 ►
will just sort of organically improve
00:42:14 ►
itself.