Hello everyone!

I am new to the forum, but have known about the site for some time. I had an initial 'awakening' experience a few months ago, which led me to the forum after several weeks of vigorous searching. During this time I had a lot of work to do, including my master degree thesis (MSc), so slowly slipped back into normal stable 'consensus reality'. To some extent I forgot the experience...

I am here now because I could really do with some advice. I smoked a small amount of weed very recently and began discussing my previous experience, which caused me to 're-awaken', once again. I was delighted! It seems that I can maintain this state for several hours, or even days, long after any psychedelic has worn off. I slept 3 hours in two nights and was still in the state. It seems to go back to normal after I sleep. When I am in this altered state I experience the following:

- no attachment to material possessions whatsoever
- a feeling of 'just wanting to help'
- time slowing down (it would be more accurate to say I can think more per unit of time)
- greater control over my surroundings
- positive emotional state, calmness, no real anxiety
- extremely fluid speech and writing
- an ability to remember things easier
- a feeling of seeing the 'bigger picture', connecting the dots, so to speak
- ability to know just what to say to help people and make them feel better (it's just I can read them better somehow, or the depth of analysis is increased)
- freedom from habits
- better able to look after myself
- more 'objective' somehow

(just to be clear, all of this occurs while I am walking around talking to people, interacting with the world, i.e., not in meditation)

The first time I went into this state (on acid) I felt extremely ungrounded, as though there was 'nowhere to go back to', like there was nothing familiar. It felt like I didn't know what to think or feel, yet I could remember everything and I knew exactly who I was and what I was doing (experimenting with illegal drugs and analysing my consciousness!). I had a greater sense that everyone else was in a different reality (more than just the usual intellectual understanding of this). Then I felt anxious, so found someone familiar to sit with and speak to, while I figured it out. There were no 'hallucinations', I was perceiving everything accurately, I just felt completely different. No visual, auditory, proprioceptive, distortions, etc, - there were initially some mild ones but these soon disappeared and I felt the new state was 'stable' in some sense.

I described my life as feeling small and far away. I felt somehow 'expanded', and with that detached from my life. The best way I could describe it would be to say that I saw my life as a 1D line, and what had just occurred as a deviation from that line, that I could not possibly have imagined until it did.

With this state seems to come all of the above 'abilities' I listed. This has occurred twice now. Both times it is the same. It is almost as though someone has turned the reality-perception knob up, along with my 'general intelligence'. I do however want to emphasise the feeling of compassion I experience. So much so, that I feel I want to exist only to help others. Among other things I came up with the phrase "with expansion comes compassion" to explain this to myself. When in the state, I tend to feel and think things like "I shall eat this in order to boost my cognitive ability so I can help more effectively", or "I will eat this so I live, so I can help others". I am a lot more conscious of what I am doing somehow.

Although I have only experienced this state twice, and have 'fallen' back to normality both times, I have retained the feeling of 'just wanting to help'. It's more difficult in my normal state, but my intentions remain the same. But I just feel as though I have to help myself before I can help others, or at least I can help others more efficiently if I help myself first to get back to this state. Nonetheless, even now, writing this message, I feel motivated only by the possibility of helping others.

Additionally, I feel as though others need to experience this in order to be more empathic; that it can help. Perhaps, in order to solve the current ecological problems we face. I know this sounds quite strange, but I feel so strongly that this could help if properly utilised and understood, that I would give my life for it. I just don't know where to go from here...

I have several questions, if it's okay:

1) Is there a 'state' or phenomena you know of that has as its symptoms all of what I have listed above? If so, what is this called?

2) What kind of technique/drug/technology might help me get back there (relatively safely)?

3) Is there a 'next stage' or level of awakening, where I would 'know' more, that would need fresh conceptualisation? What's next(?) in other words...
(this would make more sense if there are discreet stages, rather than some kind of continuum )

4) Is this pseudoscientific talk (I have heard on several websites, in books) of 'visiting other physical realities' and 'remote viewing' nonsense or real in some sense? I was thinking it's just the subconscious providing dream-like visions (hallucinations, in other words), but I am now wondering if these are actually ontological. I don't want to go mad!

If anyone could answer any of these I would greatly greatly appreciate it!

Thank youu!

Dear What's-your-name?

Your message reads all-too-familiar.

The description matches certain periods during my life. Some of these where LSD trips, the others I called "Euphoria." I'm convinced they can't last long because they require a lot of energy.

Your description matches a specific stage that meditators go through, called "the arising and passing away." According to the literature, if such a state is develops far enough, and it likely it will if you keep meditating, or taking psychedelics. This will eventually lead to the next stage in the process, which is called "the dark night of the soul". This is also an "awakening," of sorts, which is described in the exact opposite way. I'm convinced that this happened to me; characteristic features of my daily life include:
- Complete lack of satisfaction, but desperate search for it in "sensations," clinging to addictions, going back to old addictions
- Hate and reactivity, alternating boredom and anger,
- horrible anxiety and despair,
- speech impairment, worsening of memory, feeling of stupidity, obsessive thinking (no big picture)
- almost complete castration of social skills, displeasure and sometimes even panic at being with others, being prone to misunderstanding, being misunderstood, forming harsh judgments, zero charisma
- difficulty even with trivial mundane stuff (I remember taking hours in the supermarket for not being able to decide what to buy)
- The list continues...

I know it's scary. Some people don't get it this bad, some people get it worse. I remember a shinzen young video where one of his students reports recurrent visions of being torn apart by wolves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUryO_vJT1o).

I have a few words of advice from the depths of the shithole.
1. A better phrase would be "after expansion comes contraction," "after the flight, the fall," "after the ultimate experience, the ultimate disappointment." Check out the film "Teorema," directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

2. I would not advice going deep into insight territory / investigation into your own consciousness until (a) your concentration skills are very developed, and (b) you have the time and opportunity to attain stream entry (this should take maybe a month-long or three-months-long meditation retreat).

3. This also goes for LSD trips. If you're at the point that you trip just by smoking a joint then I conjecture that the process is pretty advanced. In my current condition I am Very sensitive to weed. I smoked a few puffs the other day and... I tripped harder than many LSD trips I've had before (but not harder than the trip that triggered the "dark night"; it wasn't a "bad trip," by the way).

4. If, however, you are determined to push forward (optimism is typical), I would recommend you to use these moments of heightened intelligence (such as your LSD trips) and sensitivity to discover, if you haven't already, the amazing world of art. In cinema, try and watch good film (Tarkovsk, Pasolini, Fassbinder, ...) ; in music, dive deep into free jazz improv (John Zorn, Fred Frith, Peter Brotzmann,...); or read literature classics, or go get aesthetically immersed in the great painters. I can share what happened to me: I found that what I used to call old-fashioned, pseudo-intelectual, and pretentious, is in fact an epic legacy of monumental beauty. For me this has been a good companion in these lonesome times.

5. Don't make the mistake of thinking that my experience must be something completely different, that what you're going through "can only lead to good things," or whatever. Again: every item your "list" describing these altered states is very familiar.

6. Following this advice should spare you a lot of pain and inconvenience. Heck, if you just finished your MSc, then don't embark on a PhD or big-responsability-job-that-you-can't-quit without either attaining to stream entry, or making a sworn decision not to indulge into these states until you can attain stream entry. Again, concentration practice is probably OK. To give you some idea, I have just taken a sick leave off my PhD because the symptoms where so unbearable that I simply couldn't continue.

7. Read Daniel Ingram's "Mastering the core teachings of the Buddha". Read his detailed descriptions of the "arrising and passing away," which is a specific stage that meditators go through. Sounds exactly like an acid trip, doesn't it? Now read the "dark night of the soul."


Of course, I'm not saying that you shouldn't get involved in meditation or anything like that. I am personally fascinated with the subject, so much that I'm going to take my sick leave from my PhD to do insight meditation. Also it predicts that this "dark night" stage eventually ends. However it might spare you a lot of pain if you make sure the dark night does not f*ck up your normal life.

Bruno