← Back to context

Comment by vmception

5 years ago

"ego death" is a common aspect of acid trips and the experience seems to come down to your willingness to relinquish control. this reads like what was described. if you were to look up that term you'll see others that will feature similar features - with or without pain, with or without worry.

not having a reliable way to know exactly what you took can amplify the anxiety, when your brain starts filling up with seratonin and whites everything out just like people on their deathbeds report, are you supposed to let go? when your sense of self has been obliterated and the next moment you are in the body of another mammal lost and confused in the forest for an entire lifetime before being transported back into your body and only a minute has gone by - but your trip is to last another 9 hours, should you fight it? Distinct neural networks in your mind that never communicate are now connected, vestigial components of the mind are now being expressed, are you being replaced in a firmware dump and flash?

a lot of people have a friend with them to guide them through an acid trip because trips can be steered with sounds and words, simple chimes, melodies.

would it have helped? very hard to say. but as the author wrote, the bad day and uncomfortable setting did not help. It is similar to a dream state (just radically more intense), where the things on your mind and also happening around you can affect the direction of your dreams.

4 comments

vmception

Reply
gavinray  5 years ago

Yeah, I think it entirely had to do with my inability to relinquish control and "just let go". Although in this context, that was literally what felt like the fight to survive, instead of "being chill". Ego death commonly is either the most horrendous or most nirvanic thing depending on how readily someone gives in.

> when your sense of self has been obliterated and the next moment you are in the body of another mammal lost and confused in the forest for an entire lifetime before being transported back into your body and only a minute has gone by - but your trip is to last another 9 hours, should you fight it?

There was a lot of this, during that out-of-body-period. I existed in multiple places/points in time at once as different people of various ages/genders/nationalities and then occasionally as animals, and lived entire simultaneous lifetimes. At one "time", in places + times A, B, C, D as different living things. Really does a number on your sense of self for a bit, heh.