What the fuck is going on ?
Jes Brinch 1994
Ever since my early teens I have felt a great need to question reality and the one who is perceiving it, to find out what the fuck is going on. It is my point of view that reality should not be explained, but perceived directly, because otherwise all that is perceived is a image of reality, and not reality itself. Thus a "true" perception of reality must be direct and non-conceptual.
Therefore I have been experimenting with techniques to reach a non-conceptual state of mind. I've done this when I felt like it, for the last ten years, without any regularity at all. The method is to sit down and relax, and try to let the mind reach its natural state, by leaving everything as it is. This line of thought is in no way original, but can be found in diverse cultures and religious traditions at different times and places.
From time to time I have read a lot of comparisons between meditational experiences and psychedelic experiences induced by such drugs as LSD. This is obvious from a historical point of view, since both serious practise of meditational techniques, LSD and psychedelic philosophy was introduced in the west by the same hippies during the sixties. LSD has influenced their view of meditation, and vice versa. Therefore it was evident for me to investigate into the matter myself, to find out whether there was something valuable to get from LSD or not. Since I have always wanted to find out what reality in fact is, beneath all imprinted realities, explanations and analyses, with as few prejudices as possible, why not try LSD ? And so I did.
I have taken reasonable doses at four instances, i.e. doses large enough to give hallucinations, intensified sound-impressions, and strange, bizarre and at times interesting ways to think. All in all I had some amusing experiences, and by and large a positive opinion on the drug, though I never had any spiritual realisations on LSD. I had a feeling that the drug distorted not only the senses and all experiences, but also any possibility of comprehension and understanding of these experiences. Another problem was that the LSD-experiences was impossible to connect to everyday consciousness, because of the mind's fucked-up state during the trip. But my view of these matters was soon to change.
When I took my fifth trip I was slightly hungover, which was a really bad idea, since LSD strengthens the experience of physical indisposition out of all proportion. But the trip was well planned with a good friend, and we both wished to take the drug, since we had an idea of trying to write some text together under the influence of LSD. But it did not work out that way.
I was strongly intoxicated, stronger than ever before, and P. stated that he was not affected at all, even though we took the same dose. This is probably because he had a larger dose two days before. The result was that we had to cancel the show and give up the idea of getting anything done whatsoever, since I was in a state of total schizophrenia and fear. I then had to call B, an undrugged outsider, to help me come down .
After the drug effect had worn off a bit I tried to go to bed and get some sleep, which was impossible, since the drug had an effect like speed, which it probably also contained. In this semi-drugged state I wrote the following text, which describe the way I felt during the worst part of the trip:
I was frightened and lost control. I felt like a mute that had to ask for help. Who had to communicate by tapping, and other weird signals, while I was in doubt about what was going on. I needed somebody from outside to help me down. Somebody who could remind me how to relax, and let go. I thought I had gone insane, and could not gather anything to a coherent whole.
I had lost my sense of time and thought after 3 hours that I had been on LSD in 3 weeks, and was permanently damaged.
At the same time it was really humiliating to need help.
Humiliating to admit to myself that I was in deep shit. 12 hours in a schizophrenic hell, unable to find a way out. It was impossible to stop it (the trip). I tried, but I could not. I was totally desperate, and I had to admit it. I did not exactly think it was funny. I was very scared. It was like having fever as a kid, or riding a merry-go-round too fast, too long.
The only difference was that I was unable to escape the merry-go-round. And nothing could help me. No god, or Buddha, record player, thought, water faucet, situation, belief, vibration. There was no way out. I became extremely tired of rainbowcolored crystal visions in a excessively cosmic and evil annoying liquid reality.
Having calmed down a little, I started to compare my state of mind then with the state that I had experienced during regular and not particularly successful meditation. I could do this by reading a log that I had been keeping on my meditational experiences. And I must admit that there was a big difference. To read the things that I had written down, was like reading writings by another person, living in a unattainable state of ordinary calm, with potential for transcendence in a natural unforced way. On LSD I saw my mind and reality as through a weird distorted lens. A record of a simple experience as .
Short informal practise. Let the mind be as it is. Quite successful in letting the thoughts be. A little restless though. Have to leave soon, but I am going to continue as long as possible.
seemed as the greatest and totally unattainable state of happiness to my confused mind. I wrote down a few reflections on thinking and experiencing under influence of LSD :
LSD-realisations is nothing but a line of typical "ask the answer" paradoxes, as for instance : I have discovered what I have always wanted to discover. And that is : What the fuck is going on ?
It's like trying to measure a tape measure made of rubber with a tape measure made of rubber (i.e. with another tape measure).
My conclusion was :
Everything, all systems, regards, opinions, explanations, analyses, interpretations, descriptions and realities are nonsense. Nonsense on top of nonsense, to cover up the fact that nobody knows what is going on. Then it is written down and made into a system, to make it seem more realistic.
I had a suspicion that :
Everything that is happening in my mind is clean and pure babble.
If anything good at all came from that trip, it was the joy of returning to a more firm reality, where everything wasn't liquid, and did not crawl with unanswered existential questions. I began to understand the famous statement : "Zen is to cut firewood and fetch water".