This is A WORLD OUT OF MIND, my Online Journal where I explore Consciousness and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by the intentional alteration of my own belief structures, using Salvia Divinorum and additional self-altering meditational techniques drawn from Western Ceremonial Magic.

I always attempt to adhere to the scientific method as much as possible in my explorations, and while I often speak of these experiences as if I knew they were Truth, I always consider the alternative, that it is merely self-deception on my part, and think accordingly. Thus I maintain two parallel world views at once, one aspirational and one a safe fallback into standard materialism.

The more I journey into salviaspace, the more I think the former worldview is the correct one, but there is no objective way to prove that to the world, so I'll let you, the reader, decide for yourselves.

-Saint Brian the Godless

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Monday, June 10, 2013

A View Through My Own Hand

THREE NIGHTS AGO: The green glow was suffusing the room and I decided to try to awaken my wife on purpose. (Sometimes it just happens when the glow touches her) So I concentrated on her waking up, on establishing that connection, and *felt* something happening. At that time the green glow seemed to swirl in her direction. She started to awaken, making a few small sounds and stirring in her sleep. At that point I decided to test this further by intentionally stopping, and taking my attention away from her. She dropped back off to sleep again. Waiting about thirty seconds so as to be sure she was asleep as before, I then started to concentrate on waking her up again. At that point the green glow obligingly swirled in her direction yet again, and she immediately woke up fully, and we talked about it. She's very gracious to be my lab rat like that, don't you think? LAST NIGHT: Last night was another profound experience, different from any before. In short, this is what happened: I felt the salvia taking me over, saw the greenish glow suffuse the room, then of course it caused my wife to stir in her sleep as always, but I'm used to that now so I didn't stop there to wonder about that again. The room seemed to be divided by barely-perceptible planes that I could feel going through my body and I soon felt that I was a plural consciousness (again) and the room was many rooms all superimposed. I played around with this for a while, getting a feel for it, and then it occured to me that perhaps if my body was in multiple planes of existence at once and so was the room, I might be able to perceive a difference between my physical body in one plane and the room in another one, if different planes of reality were being perceived simultaneously like it felt that they were. Reasoning that since moving my hand is something rather common for me, and so it would be likely that it might be in another position in another plane of reality, I thought that I might be able to hold my hand up and perceive both the plane where I was holding it up and another one where I was not holding it up, at the same time. So I attempted to do this. I remember that it was very difficult, something akin to tuning my brain to two "stations" at once, but I managed to accomplish it, and then something happened that was a first, something absolutely unprecidented in my life, something that I could not have ever imagined happening to me. I saw through my own hand! That's right, you read that correctly. I held my hand up in front of my face, and with some concentration and "fine tuning" of my own mind (hard to describe, that) I clearly saw the room around me through it. I focused on a square air filter about two feet on a side with a front grill in the corner of the room about four feet away from me. I closed my left eye (to eliminate unconcious "cheating" by the other eye possibly seeing around my hand) and using only my right eye, I still saw a clear image of the air filter and the corner of the room near it *through* my own hand. Not believing this was real at first (who would?!) and thinking it was perhaps just an afterimage on my retina that I was perceiving, I moved my head around while still blocking my view of the air filter with my hand, looking at various angles, all with the hand in front of the eye, and still throughout all this I could see the air filter through my hand, sitting there steady and motionless in the corner as if the hand weren't blocking my view of it. I removed the hand and it was precisely where I could *see* it before I took the hand away... I did this several times to be sure, combining it with movement of my head (and hand) to shift perspective, but no, whenever I removed the hand, no movement, no jump in position (of the *actual* air filter and room) that would have indicated that the image was solely in my mind and not reflecting an actual view of the room. The air filter was right where it appeared to be through my hand, every single time that I took it away. I noted that while I clearly *saw* the air filter through my hand, it was not *seen* in normal light. Instead I *saw* it in that familiar lambent green light that comes into my vision whenever I take SD. But I saw it clearly, very sharp, even though it was a dim vision and not bright and vivid. So basically, consider my mind blown... UPDATE 11 JUNE: I just wanted to add, for those in doubt of my sanity, that I don't *actually* know what all this means, if anything. I mean, I did see through my own hand, and that was very convincing, but all of this may still be simply hallucinations on an order that I didn't expect existed with any drug. I don't know why my wife always wakes up; I know that it isn't noise because I am very aware in these moments and conscious of being very still, and also we always have an air conditioner running in the background (white noise) and she sleeps very soundly. However, lest ye be fearful that my mind is in the slow process of snapping like a twig, rest assured that it is not. I am still very sane. I am always of two minds concerning these "experiments" of mine, literally. One half of me always holds fast to scientific realism, because if all of this is a mirage then I want to have something to fall back on when it falls apart, and also as an anchor to consensual reality so that I do not stray too far out into the hinterlands of my own delusion. However it must be said that so far, while I have sustained no harm, I can't seem to see any way in which these experiences of mine do not have some objective reality, considering how often my wife, or my dog, or even my son's cat, are apparently affected by what by all rights should be just a guy sitting silently in a room having hallucinations. I feel that a certain amount of belief is necessary in order to fully explore these experiences, so I literally have partitioned my mind, allowing a measure of belief to creep in, but always with a 'proviso' that it's a temporary condition, and always with "one foot in the waters of reality."

13 comments:

  1. Is the green like a green wash over everything? Have you tried anymore looking through your hand? Have you tried to verify it using another person?

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  2. The green is just as if there was a green LED inside my head behind my eyes, and it also seems to come out into the room from the walls or just appear in space in front of me. It's a light, slightly bluish, green glow.
    Funny thing, I was just last night reading a book about Shamanism (The Way of the Shaman, by Michael Harner) and it speaks of just such a thing, a light in the head. Supposedly other shamans can see it too if they're also in their 'altered state.' And I'd never read that anywhere before. In the very next paragraph the book said that such a thing allowed the shaman to "see into dark places *or even to see through solid objects.*"

    It's hard to verify it with someone else since I'm not even sure that I can replicate it. I will definitely try again, and again for that matter. I remember that it was a difficult state to attain, requiring a very delicate balance, like tuning my mind into it like a radio. I had to use just the right amount of focus; too little and I'd lose it, too much and it would go away. Like tuning into a very weak radio station. Using only your feet. (lol)

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    1. A way it could be verified is another person put an object where you had to be looking through your hand to see it. I find it fascinating that you found this experience in a book by others. Wonder if they were using some drug or if some other way to experience this.

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  3. It looks like a glowing green mist that moves slowly and swirls around me. I'm starting to think of it as a special kind of "sight." I've thought of it as "ghostsight." Not terribly original, but that's what popped into my head.

    It always starts in my head though, behind the eyes, sometimes so strong it blurs my (actual) vision.

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  4. Another common thing that happens to me is I see what I've come to call "the primal blackness."

    The night before last I saw it. Imagine me sitting there in bed, upright, and looking around the room, and it's just like the reality around me is fractured, with cracks in it everywhere, and leaking out of the cracks is pure blackness, the absence of all light. You can't see through it, either. It's like solid black slow-moving flames sometimes, or unmoving pseudopods at other times. It's just like reality is fracturing, coming apart, and the "outer darkness" is leaking in through the cracks.

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    1. "It's just like reality is fracturing, coming apart, and the "outer darkness" is leaking in through the cracks."

      -I just typed that, and I remembered that another thing I read in that book last night was something an old shaman said to the author about some "beings" that the author had seen in one of his first experiences on a shamanic journey, who told him that they were the masters of the earth. The old shaman said "Oh, they always say that, but they're just masters of the outer darkness."
      At the time, I couldn't relate, but now that I think of it, maybe I can.

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  5. That time, night before last, one such rigid pseudopod of it extended from the headboard at my immediate right, between me and my wife, into the room about two feet or more. I could not see my wife through it. It was three-dimensional, like frozen smoke, only totally black and opaque. It just stayed there for quite a while. (There were also many others all around the room, but this one was the closest to me, hence easiest to examine.)
    It was almost like the room was a tank filled with water in a larger tank of black crude oil, and it just cracked all over the place letting the black oil in in clouds, but they were frozen in place.

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  6. Could you write this as poetry or a song? If it was put into either and bounced off others the reaction they had would be interesting. If it hit an unconscious nerve, viola common denominator.

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    1. I'm more concerned with understanding this stuff at this point.

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  7. A way it could be verified is another person put an object where you had to be looking through your hand to see it. I find it fascinating that you found this experience in a book by others. Wonder if they were using some drug or if some other way to experience this.
    --------------
    They were using Datura, another drug, but some shamans work with just a drum, no drugs, and they also see these things, or similar.

    I've thought of having my wife put something unfamiliar to me behind something, but I want to get better at this first.

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  8. I had the good fortune years ago to meet a Sufi master. He worked with drums, said it took him 18 years to be able to put a person into a certain space. He first used exercise to get the persons mind stopped then the drums. Why I suggest a poem is to check if you are able to touch something inside another person at an unconscious level which would indicate you are into something real solid. I think I understand your caution in giving all of this validity, and I agree with caution. Highly interesting though. I am trying to get a correlation from a philosophical view point.

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  9. I might give a poem a shot at some point. Interesting idea.

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