Category Archives: Communication

Communication, Creativity, Fun, Happiness

Being Playful

3 Comments

You want to go swing on the swings?
How about hang on the monkey bars?
No, then perhaps a nice game of four square will do the trick?

If you’re above the age of twelve these sound like ludicrous invitations. Yet the feeling that they can awaken within you – that feeling is anything but ludicrous. It is one of the great joys of living. I’m talking of course, about being playful.

In response to such a statement, some people might say, “what are you, ten years old?” By that they would mean that such things are childish. And the implication is that childish things have no place in the adult world where people get things done. Look no further than this bible quote:

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” – Corinthians 13:11

I agree that people should not shove each other, that they should share, and that they should not make messes that they don’t clean up. Playing, though, is something completely different. While playing is something you do as a child, it is not childish in the negative sense. In fact, playing is something that allows you to regain the innocence of childhood that so many people desperately seek. As odd as it sounds, playing can immensely increase your quality of life.

So now you’ve probably picked up some jacks and called your best friends to come over. While that’s all well and good (but slightly weird really) I’m not encouraging you to just engage in the act of playing, I’m encouraging you to become more playful in general.

What does that mean?

Like many things you want to change in your life, you would best be served by changing yourself first. Or a better way to look at it is, finding that part of yourself that already exists. So instead of thinking in terms of finding discrete external events in which you can engage in the act of playing, thinking of awakening that quality of playfulness itself.

This way you can be playful without needing external stimulus to do so. And this way you can be playful as often as you want in any situation. Really, being playful is beneficial in almost any situation. Perhaps not at a funeral, or when you’re being given a ticket by a police officer. Maybe not if you’re holding your friend as he dies on the battlefield. These are extreme examples, but I use them to show that more often than not you aren’t experiencing extenuating circumstances like this. But if there were a way for me to just take a reading of the subjective experience of the emotions in your brain while you were just going through normal parts of your life, I might think you were going through some grave circumstances. As the Joker would say, “Why so serious?” Playfulness allows you to regain the perspective that, all in all, things are pretty good in your life and on planet earth.

What is playfulness?

It is a quality of perceiving everything that happens in a way that is playful.

That doesn’t really say much does it?

If you were to dissect playfulness, what would be its core components? Put it another way, think of someone you know who is playful. What qualities does this person exhibit? What qualities do you exhibit when you find yourself in a silly mood?

What comes to mind for me is a lightness of heart, a feeling of engagement, and certain kind of connection. Perhaps even a certain exuberance. Think of a cat, chasing a string. Whether or not the cat knows its playing is up for debate, but the fact is that a cat acts very differently when a string is moving across their field of vision. A cat at rest might be laying down, grooming itself, sniffing around, or meowing incessantly. A cat at play however is bounding across the room, running into things, leaping and pawing, all after that elusive string. A cat puts the whole of their being into play. If the quality of seriousness is defined by how much of your attention is fixed on the object that you want to find you serious, playing is as serious as it gets.

Whether or not you identify yourself with cat-like attributes (I resoundingly do), the fact is you have a number of psychological and physiological changes that come when you shift into playing. They aren’t as pronounced to you as as an excited cat, but to the rest of the world they are. Playfulness is one of the key qualities that makes a person intensely magnetic. Because we all, at heart, want to be playful all the time. Adults envy children for their ability to see the world with such wonder. But this way of seeing the world is simply a devalued perspective in the larger societal messages we receive. It’s not actually impossible to regain, like some long lost friend. Yet many people think it is, because they are taught to believe it.

This is paradoxical, because while we’re taught to be serious and make something of ourselves, when we play we’re rewarded with better connections, more friends, and a much more positive and engaged outlook on life. If you consider the difference between these two ways of being, the serious way sounds insane.

So, when playing, you view things as less serious than you otherwise might, but you also engage more of your brain when interacting with the environment and in doing so, develop a much richer connection to whatever you’re playing with.

Myths of being playful

People will not respect you if you play too much.

This is completely untrue. When people want to be respected, they focus on developing confidence. But confidence by itself borders on arrogance which telegraphs to everyone an extreme lack of confidence. Have you ever heard someone say “that person is compensating for something”? While the saying refers to them having a shorter than average disco stick, the implication is that having this would cause them to have a dearth of confidence. Confidence itself is good, but what is it that confidence allows you to do?

Not be so serious.

When you’re confident a situation is going to go your way, you relax. And you might think that this was the exact cause and effect between these two events. The reality may be that the very act of relaxing causes the situation to go the way you want it to. Relaxing is just one of the many things that happens when you start being playful.

So a person who is in complete control exhibits many of the characteristics of a playful person. They are relaxed, less serious, less rigidly focused. And if you think of someone like this, what sort of feeling do you have towards them? For me, I have immense respect for people who shoulders immense burdens and stress and yet treats those situations with levity. A person who can remain playful even if things aren’t going their way. That’s the kind of person I want to be around if the world ever goes in to nuclear apocalypse. I don’t want to be around a bunch of glum uninteresting people who just want to survive. In fact, what are we doing this surviving stuff for, if not to enjoy life?

The point is that being playful generates all of the things that a person who feels powerless might like to feel. Things like confidence, respect, joy, connection, etc. And because so few people remember to be playful or forget it entirely, you stand out much more than the most authoritarian dictator. A person who can play has a foundation of a true leader.

You will lose control of your life if you don’t treat things seriously.

This is also not true. Think of when you’re actually playing something. I know it might have been a while, but can you remember a time you royally failed at whatever you were trying to do? Maybe you completely threw the basketball over the hoop. Maybe you drove that golf ball into a nearby house. What was going through your mind before this happened? I’m willing to bet it was something like “ok I’ve just got to focus here.” Something a serious parent might tell you. Then you froze up and failed to execute the thing the way you wanted to.

Contrast this with a time where you felt effortlessly good at something, the much coveted zone. What were you thinking about in that moment? Many people in this flow claim to not be thinking at all, but express more of a state of total experience of the now. This is a very attractive state to be in and it causes you to loosen up, be dynamic, think of ways of doing things you might not otherwise consider, and do this all at rapid pace and with perfect rhythm. Playing with your life in every way can make this phenomenon extend to anywhere. Is there anywhere in your life you think you might benefit from being more playful?

If you’re too playful you’ll lose focus.

First of all, that’s wrong. Second of all, this is really just fear of lack of control all over again. Third of all, what sort of focus are you talking about? The strained focus of which I’m speaking is one where you concentrate really hard on solving a problem or taking care of a situation. This only uses your conscious mind and takes up all of its available RAM. Playing, however, is much more deeply ingrained in evolutionary biology. People have played for centuries before they had to do their taxes. While its not good in many situations to default to a more primitive brain, the fact is that playing actually increases your focus. Not just the intensity of your focus but the amount that you’re able to focus on at once. So instead of laser focusing, you are focusing as the sun does on the earth. You are taking in far more stimulus at once when your’e loose and playful and you open up to more creative solutions to every problem. Playing engages you in a dynamic relationship with your environment. Living then, can become a dance.

How do you become more playful?

I said before that you should focus not on playing but on being playful. But how do you get there?

As loose as it feels to do, being playful does involve a structure. It involves either a goal, roleplaying, friendly competition, misdirection, or a combination of all of these things. Lets take the example something people do all the time to abstract the pattern that can then be applied universally.

What is the difference between running back and forth across a field repeatedly and playing ultimate frisbee? Well there’s a frisbee yes. So what is the difference between running back and forth and throwing a frisbee and playing ultimate frisbee? I find the latter far more engaging because there is a goal and rules. Being playful in conversation is very similar. When you make it like a game – how can I make this person laugh? How can we connect? How can I get them to experience positive emotions? How can I learn more about them? Now there is a goal. Now you can play in the field of conversation with the goal of getting to know them. Now it’s not about you at all. It’s about the act of playing and the quality of being playful. That is an end in itself.

Playfulness doesn’t just manifest as a game, but as a fun way of pretending your intentions are different than they are. One of the things i like to do to lighten up an interaction is to playfully misdirect someone. You may remember a time when you felt made fun of or made to feel gullible and found that negative. The difference here is your intention. The good intention to have is that you simply want to have fun. The bad intention to have is that you want to get something – particularly validation for your brilliant sense of humor or something like that. A person who feels hurt because you went too far is not going to indulge your ego.

If you can’t conceive of making this shift, you might have to first engage in playful activities in order to awaken that part of your brain again. This is always a good thing. You can’t play enough in your life. So, start playing. What do you love to do? For me it’s ultimate frisbee. Go wild, but now your opportunity is to recognize when you are playing and observe that quality independently of your activity. That quality is part of you and can be accessed at any time.

Then you can move on to engaging with people you already like to engage with in a more playful way. Ask yourself, “How can I make this interaction more playful?” “How can I playfully jab them or playfully misdirect them for humourous effect?” Playing with people is a two way street. If someone senses that you are playing, they should play back. If they don’t play back, then it’s nothing about you. Remember, society stopped encouraging everyone to have recess a long time ago.

When you do engage someone in a playful way, often times it lights them up, as it would a cat with a string. Now you’re off to the races. The content of what you’re doing doesn’t matter, but playing allows you to open up a connection with the other person that goes beyond words. This is useful in every aspect of life, from the most mundane to the most romantic. With people you know though, it’s a safe activity. You don’t have to worry about going too far. Someone you already have a lasting relationship with will forgive you. Especially if playing is not your modus operandi, people will allow you to do so since its an attractive quality. They may even, gasp, like being around you more.

The final step is to play with people you don’t know. The thing is, when people play, they usually only play with someone who has a common ground or someone they know really well. So when they do play, they assume that they must know this person really well. Playing is a way to connect with people effectively and quickly. It is used by all the best communicators as a way to not just break the ice, but to melt it.

You can then consciously access this way of being any time you want, using anchoring and NLP. If you don’t know how to do that or if you’re still too afraid, a good way to transition from playing with just your friends to everyone is to engage a playful group of people you already know in the context of a larger social situation, like a party or a bar. That way the vibe will be already playful and you’ll have backup if your invitations to play do not go as planned. As it was in the schoolyard, some people just don’t want to play.

At some point, you will realize that playing can be an entire lifestyle. It’s not just that you play, it’s that you move through the world in that mindset. I guarantee doing this alone will make a positive impact on your social life, your work, and your passions. You may find things that you used to think were drudgery taking on a different quality altogether. You may find you’re invited to more social engagements because people just love being around your kind of energy. You may find yourself less stressed out more of the time.

Or you may not. But there’s only one way to find out.

Many people have compared life to a game. If that is true, how often do you spend playing it?

Communication, Spirituality

Quantum Physics, Your Friends, and the Truth

2 Comments

Quantum physics seems a lot like magic. It’s easy to use as a crutch to explain almost anything, and almost impossible to explain how it works. How did I lose my darn keys? Oh, quantum physics. What is quantum physics? Ha, that’s like asking what is nothing? Though, quantum particles quite possibly could contain much smaller units of measurement (as I’ve speculated about in Breath is Your Guide), for the purposes of language and conscious understanding a quantum is irreducible. It’s the matter-energy equivalent of a prime number.

As I’ve already stated, it’s almost impossible to explain, so I’m not going to venture to try right now, but I do want to use quantum physics to show just how interdimensional our reality is, how it unifies many opposing theories, and how you can better understand your friends.

Big Brother is Watching…Sort of

The perplexing nature of quantum physics is based on one simple (and scientifically proven) fact. By observing something, the observer changes that thing. In Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox, merely by observing his parents, changed their entire reality, which became the basis of the rest of the plot.

The end result of this line of thought is that everything is constantly changing in the entire universe, because there is nothing in the universe that is either not observed or not the object of observation. This is a rather outstanding claim, and if you can prove to me any different, then I will change this article, cite your proof, and credit you with being far smarter than me.

But even if I tried to disprove myself with something like black holes, the logic still remains sound.  A black hole is something that bends matter and time, so you could argue that it exists outside the observable universe and that anything observed about it immediately disappears into a singular point in space, or that this being the case, it’s impossible to observe it at all. And I would agree with you. That you can’t observe it with your eyes. But certainly you’ve thought about it, perhaps seen pictures representing it. Your consciousness has extended to it.

And even if you’ve been hiding under a rock and somehow got a computer and the internet in there, something else in the universe has to have considered a black hole existing, and therefore observed it.

Even if before quantum physics existed in human thought a meteor destroyed the earth rendering all known sentient beings dead and devoid of observational ability, at some point a sun must have extended light throughout space to reach the black hole, and thus interacted with it, and thus changed it.

So this means that all of consciousness in the universe is constantly interacting with itself, and never at rest. And since everything is constant flux, then there is infinite possibility to create anything.

In a Rut?

At the most sub-atomic levels, quantum particles can disappear, reappear, or exist in multiple places at once. But what does it matter if don’t have any money or my relationships with my friends’ suck? I’ve never personally seen someone create something out of thin air. So why is it when I try to apply The Law of Attraction it doesn’t work but it works for others? If love is the basis for the universe, why is it that people who are evil can become successful? If we can create anything, then why don’t we?

The root question here is that If reality is so malleable then why does it seem so constant?

A Shared Hallucination

Humans need to categorize and generalize things. It’s simply how we survive and how our brain works. This process is the foundation for how we remember things. For example “that’s not a good bar” vs “three times out of four I haven’t enjoyed the experience of going to this bar for unrelated reasons so though there exists a good probability that I will not enjoy it this time but also a very good probability that I will.” This idea extends to the foundation of language, thought, observation of the world, learning, and even terrible things like racism. As we get older, we tend to smooth over inconsistencies in life to keep consistent beliefs about reality, especially if those beliefs are tied to our identity.

Cool psychological insight huh? But it extends to our ability as creators as well. Though we may feel like it traps us, there is a fundamental need for consciousness to have a medium with which to communicate with and explore itself (besides oneness). If you tried talking to me, and I tried communicating using only movements from my eyes, we would not have consistent or understandable communication. This is a funny example of lack of solid medium, but what if I needed something like water, and I’d been paralyzed from a fall, only able to use my eyes?

Our senses, for the most part, form this shared medium of communication. Of course if we’re standing in the same room, we can see each other, hear our words, maybe touch each other’s skin. And for the most part, language allows us to consistently describe the sensations in mutually understandable words and concepts.

But how am I to really know what the sensation of being you is like? Certainly we have similar characteristics, but this is only my perception according to my senses. If I were to live with your brain for a day, would red still look like red, would trees still look like trees, would touch feel anything like touch as I know it? We can’t ever be certain, but to compensate for this fundamental lack of true knowledge of being the other, we meet halfway. We develop forms of communications, forms of organization like time, space, day, and night, smiles and frowns, societies and rituals. We do this because we must to survive, and it’s in alignment with the ultimate goal of pure consciousness: to fully explore itself.

Reality seems so constant because we create it to seem that way from the very depths of our being. We love gravity, solidity, pain, and limitation, because it allows us to experience the world together. But all it really is, is an illusion. An illusion that we put so much investment into, that it becomes real.

One Creator or Many?

If I create my own reality, then how do other people play into it? This is where the train usually derails. Of course all of this makes sense. And you may even believe in the idea that you are consciousness creating the world as a dreamer creates a dream and lives in it. Or you may believe if you sin, you’ll go to hell. Or you may not believe in a higher power at all. Here is the true reality. All realities are true.

How can this be? Because every one of us is a creator, right? And every one of us has infinite creative potential, right? It’s not like there is a limited supply of manifesting power and it’s divided between all humans like rolling dice for stats in an RPG. So then if I’m creating the belief that I can create my reality, this is true. And if you’re creating the belief that you take the hand you’re dealt and you have no power, than this is true simultaneously.

How can it be one way and a different way at the same time? Quantum physics. It’s not a crutch. By observing something it changes. We are all different observer-creators. We all have exactly the same power to create our reality – infinite. And that’s why he says “she started it” and she says “he started it” and they’re both right.

Each of us lives in our own reality that we shape by interacting with quantum particles. Each of us lives in a different dimension. We don’t think this because we choose not to. We choose to experience a shared medium for expressing ourselves. Why are there so few traffic accidents when there are so many cars? Why do some see a rainbow when others don’t? Why can an innocent person be proven guilty? Why is the Chinese word for crisis also the word for opportunity? Why does the Law of Attraction work for some and not for others?

We are dancing in and out of each others’ quantum realities all the time in the greatest creative whirlpool of imagination that we’ve ever experienced. If you have really taken this to heart, consider this: Go for your dreams. Or listen for your truth. Because all of us are right. All of us have a piece of the truth.

Communication, Creativity, Fun, Spirituality

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love LSD

4 Comments

I’ve always had an affinity for LSD. It’s by far my favorite of hallucinogenic drugs, mostly for its feeling of temporary enlightenment. I think of it as sort of a Chance Card that advances you directly to the Park Place of spirituality. Where the fountains shimmer and the pillows are oh so fluffy. The only con is you may end up not passing go and going directly to jail or mortgaging your brain.

Luckily I have only used these tools for good, and thus even bad trips have been incredible learning experiences. Instead of a Zen Koan, Buddha should have just dropped a couple tabs on those disciples.

General Effects

LSD’s universal effects are a temporary altered state of greater interconnectedness and a feeling of great clarity. The visuals are the most immediately noticeable effect. The best way to describe them is a fractalization of reality. The longer one focuses on an image in their vision, the more complex that image becomes. The image keeps on breaking up into to more and more pieces and the idea keeps being more connective, eventually connecting to all things. Depending on how much acid one takes, vision becomes fluid and merges with consciousness. In fact, fractilazation happens in consciousness exactly parallel to its happening in sight. This will result in a phenomenon like the following:

I see a tree. Immediately the form of the tree starts shifting, barely discernable at first. “Maybe it’s just the wind… “ Then it continues shifting, possibly becoming more expansive in my vision, or possibly feeling like it’s composed of a million pieces and a verdant whole at the same time (parallel and paradoxical ideas are par for the course in an acid trip) At the same time thoughts about the tree might flow like, “Wow, that tree is more amazing right now.” “Trees are fantastic and they cover the Earth.” “It’s almost like the Earth is giving love to the sky with the trees.” “This tree has a soul and I can feel it.” At this point I might feel the physical warmth of the tree, especially if I touch it. I might feel my hand merging with the tree and see the world in slow motion. I might see visions of the ancient world where vegetation ruled. “Trees are consciousness just like me, but they exist in a different time dimensions.” “Maybe other people exist in different time dimensions…” and so on.

All of this is happening without great effort. This is also based on the fact that I have a predisposition to love trees. Your trip would be obviously different, but expansion in vision, clarity, awareness, and your consciousness would be a dominant theme.

The Journey

Once expansion in both realms of vision and thought reaches a critical mass, then the lines between them begin to blur. You start to not know if you’re seeing what you’re thinking or if you’re thinking what you’re seeing. Reality becomes a wondrous feedback loop where every new thought is inspiration and every new vision is enchanting. Similar to the idea of the intelligent field supported by quantum physics, reality becomes malleable moment to moment. But the shift is no longer smoothed over by your conscious mind – the building blocks of our universe seem to lay naked in all their glory.

This feedback loop is intensified and made more glorious with other people. Acid synchronizes minds of those who take it together, where they feel into each other and often talk for long periods of time about the same thing just for the sheer joy of talking about it. Often times simply uttering a word opens a vision and a shared hallucination where they cocreate imaginary worlds and see them with great acuity. This phenomenon is easier in the dark, where pesky reality doesn’t get in the way.

Music too, offers the a similar portal into imagination while at the same time the world exists as music manifested. Everything seems completely perfect, a wondrous multi-dimensional symphony of creation, light, and sound. This is simply a personal observation, but I believe that since we are all one, we all have the capacity to go where I’ve described whether through connectedness or loss of identity, or both.

This pertains to my theory on why some people have bad trips, because they are afraid of the parts of themselves that come out and simultaneously afraid of losing themselves. They are afraid to experience their psyche when projected externally and see the world where they are truly part of the world, as a wave is part of an ocean. When peaking the line between our conscious interpretation of reality and reality itself becomes blurred and easily resembles Alan’ Watts view of the universe. You can see how this could create a nightmare as well as a dreamworld. Yet, this is closest to the state of oneness that I’ve achieved for an extended period of time, and that is the goal of most spiritual quests.

For those of you thinking “Whoa this might be too intense.” Never fear. The very nature of our mind to continue moving across different lines of thinking often leads us back to solid, unchanging reality. This gives the feeling that all of the incredibly mind-bending effects come in waves, when the actual phenomenon is similar to focusing on something in the background with your eyes, thus blurring the foreground and vice versa. The background is sober reality and the foreground is LSD reality in this example. It just happens more gradually, in a span of minutes. Personally, I’ve never felt like I’ve lost myself or had my judgement compromised. There was never a fear of jumping off a cliff because I believed I could fly. This isn’t PCP.

The Journey as Destination

I’ve always had trouble grappling with the idea that we should enjoy the journey of life. I spend so much time not seeing the whole picture, being confused, aggravated, and lost that it’s easy for me to wish to experience oneness all the time. LSD results in a feeling where you’ve already arrived. There is nothing to do except that which brings you utter joy and most things do. Everything is perfect, everything makes perfect sense, and you find yourself laughing at all the little inconsistencies in life.

You see time as you would see the Earth from a plane. The sheer beauty of it is overwhelming. Everything pulses with life and you think what a magnificent being you are to be having this experience. The entire puzzle is revealed, as though life was a hurricane and you finally reached the eye. It’s at this time where the greatest insights may come to you. Where you may deepen a personal relationship with someone, find out things about yourself that were there the whole time but you overlooked them, or receive an answer to a question that prior to this confounded you.

Lynn Grabhorn, in “Excuse me Your Life is Waiting” claims that all we have to do is feel the emotion of having the thing that we desire and it will come to us by universal law. Manifestation is furthermore strengthened by the feeling that our life is complete exactly the way it is. Paradoxically, this allows us to be open to receiving new things.

I’ve always had trouble feeling what it would be like to have something that I don’t have or accept my imperfect reality bereft of objects and emotional states that I desire, but LSD bridges that gap. LSD allows me to be simultaneously completely content with everything I am and everything that has happened in my life, and opens me to a whole new world of experience. It is this state that is widely talked about among practicers of the Law of Attraction and I believe this state of oneness and openness is the precursor to fundamental change in mindset, perspective, and even one’s fortune in life.

The Downside

The two main problems with acid (other than it being illegal and notoriously hard to find) are its temporary effects and it’s forcing of expansive consciousness even when one may not be ready.

I have always used acid as an aid for spiritual understanding. Thus I have used it at crucial points on my journey to investigate the nature of the universe. Lessons I have learned include the vastness of our universe, the incredible force of friendship, the value of self-worth, and even the need for patience and to let life unfold exactly as it will. Before this I was attempting to race ahead of life like someone who attempts to fly beyond the curve of the Earth while it recedes just as fast. I believe that the good of LSD comes when it is used for good, and that it may be detrimental if used for the wrong reasons. I’ve tried it in a host of non spiritual ways from going to the DMV, a job interview, or laying brick. This is as useful as getting drunk and trying to do Calculus.

The main problem, however, is for those who benefit. For those who seek lasting change, this will not grant them that. This will grant them a temporary opportunity to see what enlightenment could be like. The enlightening feelings are deep core sensations. The thoughts that spring out are like plants growing out of the richest dirt. While tripping, it feels like you’ve always known the knowledge that you suddenly have, and that you always will have access to this way of being once it’s over. Though I’ve taken acid quite a few times, I always trick myself into believing this is the end of my journey. Now it all makes sense and life will be a perfect unfolding of my glorious discovery.

This is not what happens. Acid has a slow comedown, so the effect is very subtle at first. But eventually all of these sensations become more dull, and you find yourself reaching for realizations that came like breathing before. The effect is similar to what I imagine Jim Carrey experiences in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” as his memories of a loved one are slowly erased. It’s like your memory of your connection to your higher self and the source of abundance is slowly erased as hard reality sets in. Eventually your spiritual experience becomes nothing more than a shadow on your thoughts. Your new understanding may stick with you throughout the night, but eventually all will seem back to normal. You find yourself thinking, “force of friendship? self worth? I could have read that in a self help book. What was I on?” But like those who’ve claimed to have heard god speak to them, this experience was real. It really happened.

The only trace that it did happen are the occasional acid flashbacks I experience. These aren’t nearly as crazy or all-encompassing as other experiences I’ve heard about, but they are quite fun. Most often they happen when I look in a mirror, and my face will distort and change shape. I even might look like different people by focusing on different parts of my face. It’s only happened once where this happened while I was looking at someone else. These flashbacks seem to be encouraged by drinking, smoking pot, or both. It’s often when my mind is in some kind of altered state. Usually I think something to the effect of “Woohoo! Free acid!”

It’s not quite addiction, but I’ve found myself at times wanting to return to that Garden of Eden of consciousness.  Wanting to live where I had access to that kind of perspective, like I had the view of one who flies over the land at their leisure and sees only the good, where the sun streaks across the waves in the ocean that gently ebb upon sparkling sands that sweep up against mocha cliffs crowned by great fields of wheat colored grass. In short, where everything is just as it should be.

And maybe it’s a shortcut to where we’re all going, like we’re in line at Space Mountain at Disneyland and we see the rollercoaster through the glass but the wait to get on is still an hour. But like that analogy “real life” seems so empty in comparison. More than anything, LSD has further stoked my burning desire to be in this state all the time without drugs. It’s not an opium high, or a drunken buzz, or a heady bake, or even a coke-addled hyper reality. It’s what true beingness is. It stops cold the treadmill of our stark “do do do” mindset and bursts the walls around us to the world beyond. It’s the “Power of Now” in pill form. I’m fairly convinced that world peace is possible with enough LSD.

But it’s a crutch. It’s a consciousness steroid. Great for a snapshot in time. But for the long haul, I’ll just have to go to the gym of spiritual development.