Taking of the Soma
After some deliberation, I found a company in the US that would sell dried Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, and decided to discover for myself just what my mind was capable of dreaming up under the right circumstances.
I took 15 grams, and simmered it in a pot on my stove at medium heat for about 45 minutes. Once it was ready, I sat in my living room with some paper and a writing pad nearby, dimmed the lights and left the TV and radio off, then drank the concoction. It took me about 15 minutes to get it all down, it was very disgusting stuff. Next I`ll transcribe what I wrote down:
7pm
-Finished the tea, sitting on couch looking at my plants.
Thought about lighting some candles but decided not too, just gunna meditate here
8pm
-Stomach feels a bit odd, but feel normal
8:30pm
-Stomach feels better. Feel clammy/sweaty
little tired.
9pm
-feel very drowsy, very relaxed
9:35pm (Writing starts becoming quite messy)
-Time feels wierd, can`t explain. Seems to jump forward in flashes. Looking at the clock, then feel a flash or something and it`s a few minutes later?
(It was strange looking back on that entry, because time would play a big role in my experience later)
10pm
-Feel stuttery shifty, jumpy almost fell to sleep everythings flashy and falling apart. Hard to focus concentrate. Flashing
I only made one more entry, but in between I had an experience that I recall like yesterday.
I blacked out and woke to realize I was laying on my bed in my room. My heart was pounding and these flashes, which is all I can use to describe them, were shooting through me everytime I took a breath. I could hear myself saying I was dying. I started panicking and fighting the flashes, twisting and turning on the top covers of my bed.
Someone called my name from the hallway, I looked instinctively and saw nobody, but said "hello?"
"James" it said. And I`m totally stiff with fear as I ask "who are you?"
"Relax" the voice said, "you have to relax". I remember asking again who it was, but got no answer. I was still looking down the hallway, and said out loud again, "I`m dying"....."hello?" To my surprise the voice said "Yes, you are dying, but no one ever dies James, you need to relax and listen". I realized the voice was in my head then, and looked at the cieling instead.
So here I am having a conversation with somebody, something, but the way he talked was very soothing, like a mother calming and cooing to a child. After some more dialog where I claimed I was dying, I was f**king dying!, he got me calmed down to where I wasn`t completely ridgid with fear anymore, and told me what would happen when I die. He (It was a man`s voice) told me that yes I was dying, but that no one ever dies, that no one in fact has ever died before. "life never ends" He explained that at the instant of my death I would start a new life, only my new life would be in another place where time ran in reverse, and it would still be me, only there, I lived my life completely in the reverse. He then told me that he was merely a guide, one of a great many, to ease me through the transition into death and the life beyond. He said it would be difficult to make the transition, it always was, and that most likely I would die several times before adjusting to it. The problem was with my mind, with getting it to function properly in reverse, it was not easy he said, but I must remain calm. He also told me that sudden death was the hardest to rebound from, since a guide could only then appear at that instant. He told me I was lucky to have the opportunity to speak with him beforehand, and that knowing what would happen would make it easier. From what he was saying, it was as if my mind had to be stopped, and ran in reverse, like an old diesel truck engine could do if you stalled it and rolled backwards in gear. He spoke to me and allayed my fears, until I was ready to face death, and wasn`t the least bit afraid of what was to happen.
Then he mentioned my heart, which was still pounding in my ears. He told me that I now had 40 beats left until what he called the transition.
I got a little worried again that it was happening so fast, but he again soothed me, and we counted it down.
Until, 5,4,3,2..
1! and everything went black and fuzzy, I couldn`t even think, I couldn`t even draw a breath. my mind was nothing but pulses and flashes and noise. Then when I thought I could bear it no more I was on my bed again and the voice was telling me I had failed the transition!
He commanded me to remain calm, and I did calm down, I was calm already actually. He started the countdown again and the same experience happened again, Black and fuzzy with bright white flashes and pulses, and back again to the countdown. This time I had a flash of rationality, realizing for the first time since waking up on my bed, that I had drank theAmanita Muscaria tea, and that this hallucination was the effect of the tea. I realized I had had enough, thank-you, and sprang from my bed and out into the kitchen, where I paced around the room, reeling from the experience I had just had. I found my self repeating over and over what my guide had said. "No one ever dies, No one ever dies Life never ends, life never ends"
I went in to the living room and got my pen and paper, I didn`t write the time down, by then it meant nothing to me. I wrote one final entry, that looked like a 4 year old`s scribbles, it was so badly spelled had I not remembered in vivid detail my meeting with my death guide I wouldn`t have been able to figure out what it was I was trying to write. It was this:
No one ever dies Life never ends.
After that I laid down on the couch and woke up there in the morning, surprisingly with out any after effects or ill feelings what so ever. I actually had a good breakfast and went to the gym to work out while I digested the nights events.
The conclusions are built on these ideas.
-I had never thought or pondered a life that would end and run backwards. It seems possible that it may have been the subject of some book or movie, but try as I might, the closest I could get is some reading I had done about philosophy/theology dealing with the possibility of multiple universes. I don`t recall ever hearing the idea of one that had time running in reverse, let alone that we would enter it old, live our lives backwards and die again at the moment of conception, only to live our lives the same way all over again, then go backwards, once again in a perpetual loop.
-Who was this I was talking too? No one was there with me, he identified himself as my guide. Why was it so vivid? I conversed with him, he answered my questions, showed concern for me, and told me he was "one of a great many". It was as if he actually existed and had his own personality. Of course I thought he might be God at first, but what he said fit no religion I know of, and of course, there were other guides.
It was a crazy experience, I basically induced madness for a period of time, and witnessed first hand what my mind could achieve, what tricks it could play one me. It is possible that upon hearing that this drug often caused hallucinatory trips concerning death, that my subconscious conjured up this story for my amusement. Of course the results of this experiment were nothing more than my imagination unfettered, bring the dream world into my thoughts, or some such explanation.
Do we enter into a backwards universe when we die?
Is there really guides who help us into the backwards universe?
I tell you in those moments, I truly believed it, and just lay there waiting for death, but of course it`s utter nonsense!
But of course I can`t just say the inventors of religion were all stoned right? That`s too easy and naive of me.
Next we`ll look into the practice of fasting, and how starvation affects the human mind.
Stay tuned...