Without Drugs!

We can do it without drugs. I think one thing that a lot of people can get caught up in with altered states of consciousness is that they come from the use of drugs. I can’t say that I do not fall into this habit myself. Most of my writings about altered states are all the drug influenced experiences with altered states that I’ve had. One thing that I haven’t written too much about is the altered states that I have experienced while I’m sober. One of the last thing that I wrote and posted (The best thing I ever did was let go!!) someone requested that I talk a little about the non-chemically influenced states. So that’s what I’m going to do.

The first unexplainable thing that I have had happen to me when I wasn’t under the influence was a long time ago. It was actually way before I stuck my nose into a lot of occult studies and when I was in a Materialistic Scientific reality tunnel. I was fifteen and I was hanging out at this girl’s house with her and her friend and my friend that I had come with was passed out drunk on the bathroom floor. We were all pretty bored and just talking and trying to come up with things to do. One of the girls suggested that we make an Ouija board from scratch and use it. So we cut up some cardboard and wrote all the correct things on it, well mainly she did. We put a salt pentagram on the floor under it and pricked all of our fingers and put the drop of blood. We lit candles all over the room on all different sides. Basically we jumped through a lot of hoops that I believed at the time were going to be for nothing. The time came and all three of us were seated around the board in a circle we placed all our hands on the compass and began to spin it around in circles on the board. After about a minute of doing this it suddenly sprung into action and started to move towards letters and spell something out. All of us, in disbelief thinking that one of us was moving it argued with each other for a little bit, just refusing to believe it. So eventually we did the only thing our fifteen year old minds could do to prove that it wasn’t us; we one by one removed our hands from the compass and it continued to move. We couldn’t believe it; it was still moving and spelling even without our hands! That night we used it for a little while, talking to various “spirits”. Eventually it came to its climax. We were allegedly talking to a spirit that was murdered in the house next door. We had come to a point where we were asking it different things; seeing if it wanted us to do them for it. After a few questions and the repeated answer “no” we asked what it was that it wanted us to do. And it started moving the compass into action swirling around the board only to eventually spell out the word “DIE” simultaneously with the largest candle, on the other side of the room, falling over and going out. We all got up and ran out of the room, only to burn the Ouija board later in the night. After that night I went the next ten years of my life without experiencing anything I felt unexplainable. I continued going through life with a Materialistic Scientific point of view. Just because I had experienced something that I couldn’t explain I wasn’t ready to believe in anything I couldn’t “prove”.

The next time that I had an experience that was unexplainable through “normal” methods, while I was sober was about a month after my reality shattering LSD experience. I had just been starting off with my meditation practices and I really didn’t know what I should expect and almost a year later I still don’t. I was lying in my bed and in the “death posture”, which is just being completely still; when suddenly I had found myself floating out of my body. As I slowly progressed further and further up to the ceiling at the center of my room I was looking back down at myself. I floated there for a few moments and just started to take in the view of my room from the vantage point of my ceiling. Noticing every little detail from the clothes on the floor to the cups on the window ceil. When suddenly there was another “me”, standing next to my death postured body, also looking down at myself. I remember asking him who he was. The response I got was “I’m part of you; I’m with you all the time. I’m here to help you.” I then asked him how I could know that he wasn’t just a figment of my imagination, that I wasn’t just thinking him into existence. I wanted some sort of “proof” that he was something separate from my material body. So I asked him to tell me what time a specific one of my six clocks said and where my lizard was in his terrarium? He quickly answered “12:47” and pointed to where my lizard was. I then opened my eyes in a hurry only to find that it was 12:47 and that my lizard was in the designated position. Only a week into my meditation practices this was a little bit of a surprise. I had not expected such a profound experience so early on into it.

Next I will cover an experience that I had had in a dream. I was dating this girl and I knew something was wrong the second I woke up. I knew that something was going to go wrong this night. We had plans to hang out that night after she spent some time with her friends. Everything was going normal and according to plan until about 11:00pm. She had suddenly and seemingly for no reason stopped responding to my text messages and phone calls and that was that. I didn’t hear from her the rest of the night. I just wondered what was happening and was frustrated that I seemingly knew the entire day that was something was going to happen and that it still bothered me when it did. So I went home and I fell asleep. I found myself consciously aware in my dream which due to practice had become a normal event of my dream life. I was standing in a sphere with another “me” once again like in my meditation state previously gone over. In this dark sphere it had blue sparks that were constantly erupting all around me. The other me was standing at a control panel in the center. He explained to me that all the blue sparks were what I could be consciously aware of at any given time, but I could only be consciously aware of one of those sparks at a time. This was the interconnected web of my reality that at least to some extent my subconscious mind was in constant contact with. So being that the night had gone how it had gone I told “myself” that I would like to be consciously aware of what had happened with that girl, aware of her. Then with the flip of a switch on the control panel I woke up lying in bed. I thought about how weird of a dream that was and then started to write it down in my dream journal. Before I could even finish writing it down my journal my phone began to ring and it was the girl that I wanted to be consciously aware of. It was 3:30 in the morning I might add. I answered and asked her what had happened but she just responded with something that I couldn’t quite understand, from her just woke up drunken stupor and she hung up. Being a little shaken up from this and the oddity of it I somehow had managed to fall back asleep; only to have the experience repeated at 4:30 in the morning. It was the exact same dream! Talking to the other me, him flipping the switch, me waking up to the phone ringing two minutes later. This happened one more time that night at 6:30 in the morning all resulting in no answers just someone in a haze having just woken up from being passed out drunk. I didn’t talk to that girl again for a week and a half after those strange phone calls.

So that is just a short recap of three experiences that seemed to be out of the ordinary or “altered states” that weren’t drug inspired. I have had many more of these difficult to explain experience’s since them. They are just a few examples, the most prominent in my mind. But as time goes on “strange” experiences seem to be slipping more and more into my day to day life. Now one thing that I don’t wish to do is come across as being anti-drugs, I actually think that they are a valuable tool and teacher. It’s like when someone goes to school to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer…..etc. When you go to school for any of those professions or any others you study previous cases in your field. So the comparison I am making here is that if your “field” of study is altered states it helps to have experience with them. I believe that anything that you have experienced in your past you have the power to experience in the present. I think memory is one of the greatest gifts ever granted. If you can remember something you can reexperience it. I think this is primarily where drugs come in handy; I think it is easier to experience altered states if you have a memory of them. For instance I have developed a talent of invoking the world that I experience under the influence of LSD. Whenever I step back think about it and remember what it was like when I was in that state of mind, I can start to experience it presently. This isn’t limited to the LSD reality tunnel either. Practicing meditation, lucid dreaming or Tantric sex all introduce you to altered states that you may have not previously experienced, along with many other things. With practice, all of those states become more attainable. I guess what I’m getting at here is, no, drugs aren’t necessary but they do help. They can open your “doors of perception” (as Aldous Huxley would put it) to whole new worlds. I think they do wonders in showing the fragile nature of what we call “reality” and how easily it can be changed. I feel as time passes and I practice more altered states and have more unexplainable experiences my world becomes much more unpredictable and interesting. Your memory is something that you can practice with as well. When you think about things try to remember more about it than just the sight or the sound. Try to remember all five senses of the experience. Your mind has the power by itself to change your reality just as much as any drug or dream does and I think that is a hard thing to explain to someone that has had very little experience with altered states. Our minds are just giant filing cabinets and everything we smell, look at, touch, hear or taste gets put into a different file. If you can manage to break through your own internal dialogue and start to change your method of filing then you will find the world around you will also start to change. I think it gets to a point where there are no more “altered” states or “consensus” reality; there are just “states” and it can no longer be categorized. Because you have witnessed the frailty of what we call consensus reality first hand. Now I wake up in the morning with no idea what is going to happen that day and excited for the possibilities that await me and the new experiences of different states to be had. I know I am a much happier person because of that.