True Hallucinations
What an incredible trip I had last night! As I laid down to sleep, I had an image of an old Paramahansa Yogananda sitting under a shady tree. I gave a silent prayer for a particularly vivid dream, hopefully a lucid dream conversation with Yoganandaji himself. Though my specific request wasn't granted, the more general one was. I awoke at 5am, very alert and clear. After drinking some water, I lay back in bed and fell into an extraordinary series of visions.
- I'm with many of my friends, Mario, Genery, Allen, Nicole, Lianna and others. Some of us eat psilocybe cubensis mushrooms but it seems like I am the only one who experiences any effects. We are outside in a sunny wooded area when reality begins to transform in profound ways. As the changes occur, I remain supremely calm with no fear, and I describe what I am seeing in detail to my friends, every step of the way. We are standing near a large rock in which a large passage opens up suddenly. Now I see a small stream flowing swiftly into the rock as if it had always been there. From out of the passage come multi-colored insects which land on my body. I distinctly remember a ruby red and emerald green pair sitting on my arm as I describe them to my amused friends. To them, all this is hallucination, though to me it is absolutely real. Then the whole scene transforms and I am inside a cave with an young Indian man. He is distressed and says he must put his baby sister into the underground river in order to escape across the India/Pakistan border. If he does not, men will kill her. I ask how long she will have to be underwater and he says 5 minutes. I beg him not to do it because that's too long for her to hold her breath. He is desperate and puts her into the stream. I run out of the cave and find myself on a boat, traveling serenely down a wide river. I think I'm in Egypt on the Nile, and I am talking to Lianna, telling her my vision. We also talk about some old memories but I don't recall what. After this, there are many multi-colored transformations of my reality. I don't remember all the changes but towards the end of the dream, I suddenly find myself indoors in the hallway of Porter College at UC Santa Cruz. By now, the reality changes have happened so swiftly and convincingly that I don't know which one is the real one where I am with my friends and which is hallucination. I go into a dorm room and sit down, trying to figure out how to get back to reality. The people with me seem to be in a very depressed mood and I don't understand why. My girlfriend, Genery, seems to be angry at me that I am tripping on shrooms at such a bad time. I don't understand and when I ask for explanation, I'm told that Mario and his girlfriend Chela were just killed in a car accident. Strangely, I'm not bothered by this because I realize that this must not be reality. I go out into the hall and lie down on the floor against the wall. Someone makes a comment about the "adjacent room" and this triggers a thought in my brain that I am in a parallel universe and simply need to go next door to get back to my home reality. I begin to laugh at my situation and the simplicity of my predicament. I laugh myself right back into the true reality, back with my friends outside. I ask and they say they've been following the whole ride with me, listening as I talk to imaginary people and visit imaginary worlds. Their talk starts me laughing again until I realize that even this is not the true reality. I awaken in my bed. My body is in the yogic tree pose (Vrksasana) with both my palms over my heart.