prepared accordingly<\/a> for the session. I managed the anxiety of a turbulent come up by relaxing myself many times as I noticed myself getting anxious and tightening up, and directing my attention to my breathing. Around an hour in, as the lysergic waves really began to come on strong, I was lying down, looking up at the ceiling.<\/span><\/p>\nIn one moment, a monster appeared above me. It was hovering over me, looking down at me from the ceiling. I was looking directly at its face, and it was looking right back at me, right into my eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I was instinctively gripped by fear. My shoulders and rest of my body tightened up instantly as I stared in shock. The beast was of course not physically there, it was a manifestation of my fears, a representation of what scares me and had been avoided.<\/span><\/p>\nI held the monster\u2019s gaze, took a deep breath in, and with a long exhale, relaxed my body, letting tension go. As I did this, the monster dissolved into harmless patterns right before my eyes. The visual information was in fact the same – the rich ceiling patterns that made up the monsters face were still there – but they no longer appeared scary or even as a being to me. What changed wasn\u2019t the sensory information I was receiving, it was my perception of it. What made up the \u2018monster\u2019 was still there, I just saw it differently. I had a new perspective.<\/span><\/p>\nThere were a few other moments leading up to this confrontation where I noticed myself getting anxious and tightening up, and I consciously relaxed my body. I see these as like smaller hurdles that once passed, allowed me to get to the point of this confrontation. The dissolution was like a jumping off point, and after this I dropped deep into ineffable experience.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The journey was deep and had many chapters: there were visions of a past life, alternate realities, and repressed emotions burst up and were released though uncontrollable bouts of sobbing. In the most profound chapter, it was a transpersonal experience; \u2018I\u2019 disappeared, along with time, and experience just happened.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019ll share this story in more detail another time but for now I think its enough to say it was a significant experience that shifted something deep inside of me.\u00a0<\/span>The next day I felt lighter and clearer. I had more understanding and compassion. And my meditation practice was revived with a spark. I hadn\u2019t been this affected since those very first journeys – the ones that spurred me on to meditation. I<\/span>\u00a0didn’t become a holy and all-understanding being overnight, but I inched in that direction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nReflecting on the session afterwards, I saw how techniques that I\u2019d learnt in meditation helped me to relax, to let my guard down and open to the experience with lessened resistance. And this is why I recommend meditation to anyone considering a first psychedelic experience. Including you.<\/span><\/p>\nThanks for reading.<\/p>\n
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Psychedelics and meditation have both had a strong influence on my life and are somehow inextricably intertwined. I first got interested in meditation in the aftermath of primary experiences with LSD, and now meditation, in some way or another, informs every psychedelic session I take. There is dispute in the Buddhist community about the value […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,8,9,10],"tags":[41,67,73,120,128,129,135,161,205],"class_list":["post-5897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experience-reports","category-meditation","category-mindfulness","category-psychedelics","tag-buddhism","tag-drugs","tag-entheogen","tag-lsd","tag-meditate","tag-meditation","tag-mindfulness","tag-psychedelic","tag-trip"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Psychedelics and Meditation - How They've Informed Each Other On My Path - Maps of the Mind<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n