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

Follow me on Twitter @AWorldOutOfMind



Friday, July 10, 2015

Another Kind Of Distance

Recently:

Sitting in silent meditation, 100X. I'm playing around with what feels like a field around my body, a field that I can feel as if it were a part of me. I move it to the left and to the right, feeling it move, feeling it like an extension of my will. Then suddenly I feel myself, sitting there, suddenly shrink down to microscopic proportions, and seep through the floor of the room into an identical but far smaller version of my room. So there I am, having just filtered down through the ceiling, sitting there, and it happened again. Once again I shrank down, seemed to filter through the bed and floor as if it were a permeable membrane, and wound up where I started, sitting on my bed in my room, wife asleep by my side. Then again, it happened. And again.

I seemed to shrink, again and again, and seep down through the material plane I was in and fall into a far smaller, identical one!

Of course, each new plane of reality, while immeasurably smaller than the preceding one, was completely normal to me once I entered it, because I was so much smaller too.

It's an amazing feeling, to feel your whole body shrink suddenly down to microbe size or less, over and over, four or five times. I never experienced that before.

So that was interesting.

This brings us to last night.

Once again, sitting on the bed cross-legged. Reality around me morphs into an extension of my head, seeming to be all a part of my head, or passing through my head. I see reality in a confused daze of reality-chunks, pieces of the surrounding room arranged seemingly at random around me, physically touching my eyes and head. One such chunk was the size of my whole cheek, touching my cheek, blended with it somehow. Confusing.

In this state of *blending* with my surroundings, a common state for me while meditating on salvia, I get the clearest sense of my reality not being outside my head and body at all, but instead all in my head, or rather all in my mind, *including* my head and body. Of it all being a mirage, a figment of my imagination, even down to my physical body.

As this state started to abate, and I became more aware and lucid, I could feel my body as usual in its seated position on the bed. I had not moved. My normal sense of kinesthesia returned, my body-sense became clear again. But what's this? I feel my body seated on the bed in my room, but I also feel many other bodies, many others of my body, all seated on the bed, all in *almost* the same identical posture but not quite. They all differ slightly, some very slightly. So once again, I sense a "cloud of me's" or many "me's" all seated in the same location.

I was sitting in one place, many times over. Not all identical sitting postures, but very similar. It should be noted that I could also clearly sense this, that all these bodies of mine were not in perfectly identical postures. I could "see" (in my mind) where others differed. One positioned slightly to the left, another with part of my right arm not in the same exact place, and so on. None differed greatly, but all differed at least slightly.

I have been in this state many times in the past. It's even rather comfortable for me now. This time was different though. This time I could also very clearly sense the distance between each of my bodies.

I could clearly feel the distance between my many bodies that were all sitting in the same physical location.

Think about that for a minute.

This sense of distance was incredibly clear. Think of holding your arms apart with your eyes closed. You can clearly sense the distance between your two hands, even if you cannot tell it's exact length in centimeters or inches. There's no mistake that your hands are well apart, you can clearly feel that even with your eyes shut.

This was the same degree of certainty.

So I'm sitting there in many, many bodies, all in the same almost identical physical location in my bedroom on my bed, but I'm sensing the distance between each body. It wasn't a long distance... perhaps a couple of feet. However, and this is key, this "distance" wasn't in my normal three-dimensional world. It was not a distance in any spatial direction that I had access to. In my normal 3-D world, this distance was in a "hidden" direction, as real as anything I could point to, but not really *in* my regular world. I could not point in the direction that I sensed the distance, for that direction did not exist.

It was another kind of distance, in a hidden direction. I could feel it so clearly; it was not to the left or to the right or up or down or to the front or the rear. It was a distance to "elsewhere" that had no direction.

This is not a concept that lends itself well to our languages, but I experienced, clear as day, the distance between the planes of my own multi-plane or multiversal existence.

And I did so with all the clarity that you're experiencing now, reading this.

This is why I love salvia divinorum.

18 comments:

  1. The shrinking is very familiar, I experienced something similar back when I attempted to astral project. I have read somewhere that Salvia can induce astral projection type experiences. I definitely resonate with the blending with the surroundings which is common with Salvia.

    I recall once the feeling of being many in one location, the many however were not different versions of myself instead they were every single human being that were alive.

    Have you ever seen beings or entities with Salvia?

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  2. Only a terrifying male figure I dubbed "the Demiurge"
    http://salviaspace.blogspot.com/2013/08/i-recently-ran-across-writings-of-one.html

    I do hear conversations all the time in the background, nothing noteworthy though

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  3. When I'm in "multi-mind" state I am a "cloud of me's" all at the same time. What I'm trying to get across is, I cannot find the "real me" in the crowd. They all are the real me.
    Last night I managed to briefly experience only two of me, one looking forwards and the other looking (apparently) upwards at an angle to my right. But both were looking forward, there was a whole other of my rooms angled up to my right that the other me was looking at. Both of me were looking straight ahead at the wall of my room, but there were two of my rooms at the same time, and two of me at the same time, both equally me.

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  4. Hello St. Brian,

    I came across your blog last week while trying to find some other Salvia forums than the only one I've used so far - the dmt-nexus sub-forum.

    I posted a comment in an older blog post of yours, but now that you have something very recent, I thought I'd update my comment slightly and post here.

    I've now had a chance to read through all of your blog posts (but not all of the comments). I really like the way you approach working with Salvia, the meditations you use, the alchemy, etc. - and have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts :-)

    My smoking frequency has dropped quite a bit over the last few years, but when I do have an opportunity I typically smoke high extracts. Similar to your experience over time - at this point I just put in more than I can smoke in one inhale, and take as big of a hit as I can. This usually gets me to a medium level. I have also done some crude quidding but don't have leaves available frequently - I'm assuming navigation would be a bit easier in that space and hope to explore that way at some point in the future.

    Of late I have especially been trying to find information about how shamans or anyone else who has tried might be able to go into the Salvia world and bring back useful 'personal growth' type of information. For example - what is at the root of a particular addiction? What is at the root of my wife's anxiety? Etc. Have you worked at navigating toward that type of personal information?

    My most common experience currently is one where I back away from the window panes of my eyes and I sense many parts of what I assume is myself or my 'awareness aggregate' talking or narrating the experience while meditating. In this space, it seems that I should be able to gather information that I've forgotten or that is down in my sub-conscious this way, but I haven't been very successful yet. I feel like the narrating is done by myself but through character voices. Maybe family voices...hard to tell...but it *seems* like there could be a plethora of good, personal information there if I could figure out how to interact with it.

    After being encouraged by your 'low dose experiments', I experimented over the weekend with low doses, eyes opened, in front of a mirror, and it was very enjoyable. I think I'll continue with that for a while. I was able to practice that subtle change of perception when going from the standard conciousness that is 'inside' my head, to a larger expanded consciousness just outside of my head, and back several times. Very enjoyable. I plan on trying out some of the things you have experienced over time...(seeing through body parts or an eye mask, manipulating the energy in the ether, etc.)

    Since this is somewhat off-topic and an 'introductory' post, I'll stop here and just ask for a response regarding going in to try to obtain specific personal information. My 'will' has never been strong enough to get the information or connection I'm looking for when in that space perhaps.

    Oh - and also - I wonder if you have any recent experience purchasing from ArenaEthnobotanicals? I last ordered from SalviaMonster.com a few years ago and their stuff is fine, but I'd like to try a different vendor for variety. It's hard to figure out who is making good extracts currently...

    It's nice to 'virtually' meet you, Brian :-)

    Chris

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  5. Very glad you wrote. I was just on y way to bed but I'll get back to you tomorrow on all this. Good to hear from you!

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  6. Hello Brian. Just out of interest, were ALL bodies in the "cloud" almost in the same posture, or did you sense any bodies much further out in that distance...which were say walking down the street, or driving a car etc/ If they were ALL nearby, what do you think limited their behavior in possibility space?

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  7. All the ones within my perception, say within ten "apparent feet" or so, were in similar posture, but I got the sense farthest away were less like me, could be wrong. None too different, but maybe they'd be a lot farther away in apparent distance.
    It's like there's a correlation between apparent distance from me and similarity to me.

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  8. Hello St. Brian,
    -Hi!

    I came across your blog last week while trying to find some other Salvia forums than the only one I've used so far - the dmt-nexus sub-forum.

    I posted a comment in an older blog post of yours, but now that you have something very recent, I thought I'd update my comment slightly and post here.

    I've now had a chance to read through all of your blog posts (but not all of the comments). I really like the way you approach working with Salvia, the meditations you use, the alchemy, etc. - and have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts :-)
    -Thank you very much. Wow, all my posts. You are dedicated!


    My smoking frequency has dropped quite a bit over the last few years, but when I do have an opportunity I typically smoke high extracts. Similar to your experience over time - at this point I just put in more than I can smoke in one inhale, and take as big of a hit as I can. This usually gets me to a medium level. I have also done some crude quidding but don't have leaves available frequently - I'm assuming navigation would be a bit easier in that space and hope to explore that way at some point in the future.
    -I don't quid often enough, it's a really interesting state for me, less powerful than extract smoking, takes over a half hour of having a mouthfull of gross plant matter, but it's a gentle distortion of the mind that is great for meditation and it lasts many times longer than the smoking does.


    Of late I have especially been trying to find information about how shamans or anyone else who has tried might be able to go into the Salvia world and bring back useful 'personal growth' type of information. For example - what is at the root of a particular addiction? What is at the root of my wife's anxiety? Etc. Have you worked at navigating toward that type of personal information?

    ReplyDelete
  9. -Yes, on similar. There's no easy answer, all mental problems and addictions seem to be (to me) a feedback cycle gone awry. We battle within ourselves between belief and unbelief, between fear and happiness, between pain and pleasure, and in these encounters we often are trapped by our own beliefs, fears, and pains, seeking their opposites but our wills are not strong enough to break out of the cycle.

    So I want to stop doing X, but I fear I cannot, I fear being without it, I fear the lack of it in my life, my desire to stop is simply not strong-willed enough to break out of my addiction cycle.
    It's all about the will. Rudolph Steiner, a theosophist, suggested exercises of personal willpower that are incredibly difficult, really painfully difficult. Example would be something like, take a box of lentils, scatter them across kitchen floor. Now relax, and make sure you remain totally utterly calm and unhurried as you carefully pick them up one by one between thumb and forefinger, carefully placing them back in their box... take all night, no rush...
    You see the difficulty.
    So no magic answers, but the wife and I did quit smoking last Feb, cold turkey. We both had a bad flu and I decided that since we couldn't smoke cigarettes for several days, I would stop altogether. Truth be told, I anticipated eventually having a flu (law of averages, we all get them) at some point that would stop me smoking for a few days and had programmed myself to use that to never smoke again, and it worked, and the pressure of me doing it made my wife do it too. No miracles here, though.
    I will add that clear intentions beforehand help with "guiding you to the right place" in salvia space. So I use ritual. Any ritual that is significant to you. I like sigils. You write your desire/intention/desired result down in sentence form, then overlap the letters of the sentence one over the other, skipping repeated letters, to form an abstract shape. Then you focus on the shape while you start your adventure. Things like that. I've used a candle of appropriate color, etched intention on side with point of a dagger, burn it during the night of the meditation. You're trying to establish a SIGNIFICANCE in you mind that will remain with you during the time you're in salvia space, so you'll focus on it *then.*


    ReplyDelete
  10. My most common experience currently is one where I back away from the window panes of my eyes and I sense many parts of what I assume is myself or my 'awareness aggregate' talking or narrating the experience while meditating. In this space, it seems that I should be able to gather information that I've forgotten or that is down in my sub-conscious this way, but I haven't been very successful yet. I feel like the narrating is done by myself but through character voices. Maybe family voices...hard to tell...but it *seems* like there could be a plethora of good, personal information there if I could figure out how to interact with it.
    -I get the same thing, many voices, conversations, but lately I've realized that, at least in my case, they were my own verbal memories, of conversations I'd had and so forth, things I'd said or had heard said, just constantly playing very faintly in my background. SD allows such an inner calm that we can hear them, but they're always there, I think.


    After being encouraged by your 'low dose experiments', I experimented over the weekend with low doses, eyes opened, in front of a mirror, and it was very enjoyable. I think I'll continue with that for a while. I was able to practice that subtle change of perception when going from the standard conciousness that is 'inside' my head, to a larger expanded consciousness just outside of my head, and back several times. Very enjoyable. I plan on trying out some of the things you have experienced over time...(seeing through body parts or an eye mask, manipulating the energy in the ether, etc.)
    -Cool

    Since this is somewhat off-topic and an 'introductory' post, I'll stop here and just ask for a response regarding going in to try to obtain specific personal information. My 'will' has never been strong enough to get the information or connection I'm looking for when in that space perhaps.
    -It gets better with time; it's a very chaotic experience even at low doses sometimes, with powerful amnesia going on at all levels. Hard to bring back a thought. You have to program yourself to react to something worthwhile by ending the experience, breaking out of salvia space, and carrying it back with you, and it's a freaking battle. When I see something that is weird I often (not always) say to myself "hold on, is this worth remembering?" If it is, I bring myself back to regular consciousness, ascending through levels of amnesia, forcing myself to remain focused on it so as not to lose it... it's not an easy thing.

    Oh - and also - I wonder if you have any recent experience purchasing from ArenaEthnobotanicals? I last ordered from SalviaMonster.com a few years ago and their stuff is fine, but I'd like to try a different vendor for variety. It's hard to figure out who is making good extracts currently...
    -Actually I'm looking for a new vendor now myself.

    It's nice to 'virtually' meet you, Brian :-)

    Chris
    -You too, Chris! Write anytime! Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you.
    Brian

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  11. I want to add something that the last conversation reminded me of.

    Beliefs. Beliefs are everything, but they can be awful. Police your beliefs! They rule you if you let them. All insanity is a belief gone awry, gained power from fear and resistance.

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  12. Heya,
    i think you are right about beliefs.
    This seems to go much further than we can even imagine.
    Brian you have seen it - but can you really believe there is "nothingness, empyness, shunyata"? :D
    How can "nothing" become aware in the first place? Think about it...
    Maybe the reason why we have to believe that we are a human body in a human world is to get "aware of oneself" as a beeing in causality in the first place.
    Nothing cannot become aware of nothing...how could that be? There is a lack of causality and everything when there is "nothing". If there really is "nothing-emptyness-shunyata"(a question of believing?) how is emergence out to this point where you are reading this text possible? Or emergence out to the point where you discovered once -> there is nothing but me?!?
    What are "you" if you are "a thing" who has seen "no other/emptyness"?
    The seer cannot be seen, the knower cannot be known ...

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    Replies
    1. What makes you think something came from nothing? What I'm seeing is, there is no such thing as "something." All reality is nothingness playing with itself, so to speak. Ahem.

      I'm intrigued with the idea of a mathematical universe a la Max Tegmark's book. I've been meditating on it, with salvia of course, and now when I examine my own stream of consciousness it's apparent that it is very possibly a stream of mathematical calculations and progressions always in progress. Words are a kind of math. Even bad math counts as math, so even the most wrong ideas are still math.
      If everything is math, then we are too. Of we are too, then our thoughts are too. Our consciousnesses.

      What I'm saying, and I've said it before, is that at this level, in this dreamlike state we're all in, consciousness is a kind of mathematics, and math is consciousness.

      This isn't very newagey and Chopra-oid, I know.

      This is where I'm at now.

      The question is, in absolute nothingness, which is pretty much inconceivable to us as a concept, but in absolute nothingness, can it be that the only thing that exists is math?

      Put another way, can math NOT exist? Perhaps no. Perhaps it must exist, by nature. Pretty weird, huh?

      Once math exists, a form of nothingness in and of itself, then all the myriad things, can be formed. From Math. Which is nothingness. And so are we. So we don't see it that way.

      Delete
    2. Look at probability. Flip a coin, it's a 50-50 chance heads or tails. Why?
      In a multiverse, when you flip it, you do not merely create one universe where it's "heads" and one that is "tails." You create an infinite number of universes. However, in that infinity, there are very close to 50% heads and 50% tails universes. Hence, as you flip it, and your consciousness splits with it, an equal number of your consciousnesses sees heads or tails. That is because in the infinity of new universes, there are 50% heads universes and 50% tail universes. Hence all probability is, is a description of the ratios of whatever different kinds of universes comprise the infinite number of new universes created, based on the physical characteristics of the objects involved in the interaction.
      Math!

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  13. Hi Brian,

    Thank you for your responses!

    I wonder if you (or anyone else who follows your blog) might also be able to comment on a current online vendor to purchase extracts from that has good quality material and is easy to order from? I last bought from SalviaMonster.com two years ago, but would like to try someone different. In addition to high extracts, I'm interested in finding some full-sized leaves (rather than crushed leaves). ArenaEthnobotanicals appear to have an organic, standardized 50x, are located domestically (I think), and take Visa. I would appreciate any feedback anyone could offer!

    Chris

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  14. I am due to purchase more soon, and I'm going to try someplace new for a change. SalviaMonster was less than satisfactory the last time. So maybe I'll be the one taking your suggestion, lol.

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  15. Well, new post is up, but if you wish to leave any further replies here and continue any of this I'll be sure to check back.

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    Replies
    1. Great information & experiences here.
      Really enjoyed going through it all.
      Thanks~JJ

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