i want to share with you my first
psychedelic experience which was insane
this is not a recommendation for or
against psychedelics i'm sharing this
uniquely for educational purposes and to
share what i've learned
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i wanted to make this because it feels a
little bit like we're at something of a
tipping point in public perception of
psychedelics more and more information
is coming out that offers potentially
massive health benefits psychedelics are
obviously not to be taken lightly
they're not toys before i dive into my
own experience which i'll leave a time
stamp too down below i just want to say
that i've always been very curious about
the metaphysical i really love the quote
by pierre de la de salva which goes we
are not human beings having a spiritual
experience we are spiritual beings
having a human experience that feels
like it captures a big piece of my
worldview and i think about perception a
lot our perception shapes our view of
the world and
that in turn shapes our experience of
the world we go through life rushing
from task to task trying to bend the
universe to our own agenda and that's
just not how life works not at least in
my opinion as long as we don't fully
understand what consciousness is
the infinite beauty of
life and i'm saying that completely
sober right now
a big motivator of mine on this earth is
to experience as much of what it means
to be human as possible and so it kind
of felt like it was only a matter of
time before i would do this i think it's
really important to add really quick
that taking psychedelics of any kind
doesn't come without risk and so it's
very important to be mindful of that
the experience
this took place last year in the
netherlands when i was staying at a
friend's place who i'm going to keep
anonymous basically that friend offered
to trip sit for me they offered to
stay in a different room in the
apartment while i tripped so that i
could feel safe just in case anything
would happen i originally had no
intentions of taking psychedelics
whatsoever while in the netherlands but
this opportunity sort of presented
itself and it felt right and so i went
for it i knew for sure that i didn't
want to do this in a more public setting
like in a festival or something like
that what i took are known as magic
truffles it's sort of like the cousin of
magic mushrooms they are legal to buy in
the netherlands there are stores that
sell them all over the place and i
bought a little bag of 15 grams the main
difference is the way they're grown
versus mushrooms either way they contain
the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybin
which is what makes you trip so the day
of the trip i didn't eat very much
because they recommend that you don't
you kind of do this on an empty stomach
so you don't eat very much and i took it
like right in the early afternoon i ate
10 of the 15 grams which is like not a
heroic dose or anything but it's like a
full amount definitely enough to feel
the effects and the way i consumed it
was a portion of it i just kind of like
chewed up and ate and another portion of
it i put in hot water uh like chopped it
up put it in hot water and drink it as
like a tea my friend took a micro dose
that they later said they didn't even
really feel but the idea was to sort of
be on the same wavelength as me the
truffles in my opinion tasted gross and
they took a while to take effect it was
at least 30 or 40 minutes before i
started to feel something so while i was
waiting very nervously i just chatted
with my friend and then i started to
feel weird like it started to hit me
30 or 40 minutes after i ate them i
could tell
something strange was going on like my
perception started to shift so i told my
friend i went to lie down on the couch
and they left me alone they went to
another room
rainbows and roller coasters
so i remember lying down
and every moment like the intensity
started to increase very quickly
when i would close my eyes this first
stage felt kind of like getting high on
wheat it was it was a body high this
warm vibrational energy all throughout
my body but it was more visual like
closing my eyes it felt like a colorful
roller coaster that was moving a little
bit too fast and when i would open my
eyes the ceiling and the walls around me
kind of felt like they were
waving slowly like warped kind of not
like jello but a little bit this was
intense and i actually started to feel
motion sick from it i didn't fully
realize it at the time but i was feeling
disoriented
and it felt like the way i describe it
now looking back it felt like my sense
of self was like under threat wasn't
like an ego death or anything like that
that didn't happen at any point
throughout this process
but
it felt like it was taking me a lot
longer to figure out who i was the
established database of ideas that i had
about myself felt temporarily less
accessible so this first stage
you know wasn't super enjoyable i
definitely was feeling disoriented and
at one point i really had to pee so i
got up
and kind of stumbled my way to the
bathroom the only way i can describe it
is that the aesthetic of everything in
that bathroom when i opened the door it
just looked like gringotts which is the
bank in harry potter that's run by
goblins like it had that kind of creepy
dark
vibe and considering i am the chosen one
well i guess i don't wear wire rimmed
glasses anymore so i don't know if i'm
the chosen one anymore but it felt
fitting i remember the toilet looking
kind of tiny and twisted and
there was this ominous feeling in the
whole room i was creeped out so i peed
as quickly as i could and then i
remember looking into the mirror into
like myself i was looking at myself and
it looked like there was some sort of
filter like a serpent filter
that had been placed over the mirror at
15 opacity and it made me look kind of
serpent
goblin-like like
slytherins okay maybe i belong to
slytherin not gryffindor
so i stumbled out of the bathroom and
back to the couch and at this point i
don't know how much time has gone by not
that much 20 30 minutes or 45 minutes
really it's hard to tell time time
passes differently but i was feeling
overwhelmed the intensity of this
experience was more powerful than i
would have liked it was full body and it
was also psychological like everything
and my perception so i'm starting to
freak out a little bit
and what we had done was i left my phone
with my friend and
they had left a few pieces of paper with
a pen on the table
and kind of as i came over the couch
i
decided to start writing
what i was feeling down
and for those of you that have followed
this channel like you know that's
extremely important for me
documentation is like oxygen for me it's
like medicine it's my way of making
sense of my experiences and everything
that i go through in life and i think
that was the key right there something
shifted and i sort of entered the next
stage of
this
trip
something about the truffles had blasted
off the barriers of my mind it felt like
and it felt like i was accessing this
greater knowledge
this sort of connectedness to
the universe or something and i was just
able to connect ideas and see them in a
way that i
can't usually just very freely it wasn't
like new ideas it was stuff that i would
i kept thinking to myself i know this i
knew this already it was more so that i
could just see it again very clearly and
so i remember
like frantically scribbling
arrows and writing everything down as it
was just blasting through my mind
because there were so many ideas
swirling around something about this
process helped me calm down i think what
was overwhelming to me was i was
experiencing all these things and afraid
of losing it like it was happening so
quickly and then
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wisping off
and something about the process of
putting
these ideas down on paper
helped me kind of relax into the
experience i kind of entered this
observer mode and it made me realize
that
i'm very attached to my ego i was scared
of losing it what the truffles had done
was bombarded my sense of self and made
it a lot looser like this is how i would
represent it okay my ego is usually like
this constricting me
like tightly the sense of self that i
have and what this had done was made it
all
a lot looser and so i had all of this
space to roam around
i felt that both in my ideas
and my perception of the world around me
and also in my body which was the most
interesting thing i remember thinking i
am breathing the deepest that i've
breathed
in years like i could take these big
inhalations and it felt like my entire
soul was pulling in air and i had all
these ideas about consciousness and
education and domestication and the way
we can form in society you know all the
typical things that you sort of
associate with a trip really but
it felt so incredibly exciting before i
knew it i had filled four full pages of
writing and ideas and connecting the
dots and once i had done that i kind of
dropped the pen and i was like in a
different space now i didn't feel like i
was on this rainbow roller coaster i
just felt euphoric and i started to feel
these sensations that i hadn't felt
since i was like seven years old you
know being in my parents living room
like the feeling of the light
the way i used to see the world without
the weight of responsibility expectation
preconceptions
cynicism there's just this openness and
again another manifestation i had in my
body was that i had these like
warm pulses of energy throughout my body
it felt kind of like muscle spasms i
would like clench muscles and it would
feel so good like i would just be doing
this and it felt like i had room again
in my body to express what my ego
usually doesn't allow the space for i
remember spending a lot of this portion
of the trip with my eyes closed because
there was so much going on that it
didn't feel like it made sense i wanted
this to be very internal and it was it
was definitely an exploration inwards
all of my anxiety melted away and it was
just filled with euphoria and light just
light pouring through me i just remember
seeing the light sort of pouring in
as it became like late afternoon a few
hours had already gone by
and thinking wow that is so beautiful
but you know i hear a lot of people talk
about their psychedelic trips
in a way that like an observation like
that they don't usually see the world
that way i do usually see the world that
way i am sort of blown away by beautiful
things the difference this time with
this trip was that i felt that it wasn't
just like a
wow that's so beautiful i could feel the
light kind of pouring through and i was
just sort of seeing my whole life in
this non-linear way
what sticks with me really is the
feeling of that experience you can't
really put in words at one point i sat
very dramatically cross-leggedly in
front of the light pouring in as if i
was some sort of enlightened monk i
remember feeling just powerful strong
like
all of the weight of my doubts and
worries were temporarily
kind of washed away i felt like
wow this is what i am without the weight
of my fears and worries weighing down on
me three and a half four hours into the
whole experience i started to come down
and it was a gradual process but i
remember feeling incredibly vulnerable
like i couldn't make eye contact with
anybody because it felt like they could
see right into my soul all of my
barriers were down i think this could
have easily been
a bad trip had i done it in an
environment that felt less safe to me
because it was so overwhelming in the
first portion
that if i was in public if i was at a
festival or something like that it would
have been way too much so i'm really
glad that i chose to do this in a quiet
space without my phone and sort of under
the supervision of a friend of mine just
in case now some of the biggest
takeaways i got from this experience
have to do with self-perception and
being a man actually believe it or not
manhood ended up being a major theme of
this trip and that kind of took me by
surprise because i didn't fully realize
how much i was seeking to figure out
what it means to be a man this whole
thing took me a long time to process
which is why i decided to wait an entire
year before making this video a big big
part of the trip centered around my
relationship with women and i'm going to
provide a little bit of context and
background
so that all of this kind of makes a
little bit more sense but basically
growing up all that i cared about really
was
creating things was exploring
self-expression i was an art student
i loved pottery
dance
theater
painting
music
like that is what i cared about on top
of it i uh i'm five six
and that makes me
several inches below the average height
of a man in north america and europe i
mentioned all this because for a long
time i felt
ugly
in the perception of women in the eyes
of women in the female gays and
somewhere along the way in the education
that i received from society i got this
idea in my head that what it means to be
a man is to be tall physically powerful
and unemotional this idea really haunted
me because it felt like i had to squash
what i was all the things were naturally
coming out of me i felt this constant
conflict between what i was and what i
felt like i should be and of course
underneath all of it really if i'm just
speaking in very honest terms i had this
fear that i was unlovable that i will be
rejected
and forgotten
and so during this trip what i saw very
very clearly and what really stuck with
me was that i was getting caught up on
this point one percent of what it means
to be a man and really what it means to
be a man is all of this there's so much
more depth to it but i was getting
caught up on this outer layer when i
close my eyes and kind of go inside
i feel a lot of masculinity i feel
solidity in that masculinity like i
could feel that energy naturally coming
out of me and that i was just getting
caught up in my head about these really
weird ideas that i had not based on
reality whatsoever i could see that
being a man
is
so much more than the things that i was
associating with it and that i have a
lot to offer as a man it just made me
realize that people don't see me for
what i am physically but rather the
energy of my ideas and actions it was a
shift that has only grown since then and
has really changed my relationship with
women and with myself ultimately above
all else i have never felt more
confident than i have this year it just
feels like there's this deep reservoir
of self-belief
in who i am and what i'm doing and what
i'm after and i don't say that in a
boastful way it's not like a i need to
crush other people to feel good about
myself
it's just a solidity that i feel
that i haven't
felt very much of in the past and of
course there's the memory of being
connected to this like bigger greater
sense of knowledge that i can't fully
describe
that i can't let go of
all of which to say i don't fully
understand this made me question why
these substances are illegal in so many
places most of the world really what
this felt like was
a continuation of the internal work that
i'm already doing a tool really there's
a brilliant parents mechanic quote that
comes to mind
psychedelics are illegal not because a
loving government is concerned that you
may jump out of a third story window
psychedelics are illegal because they
dissolve opinion structures and
culturally laid down models of behavior
and information processing they open you
up to the possibility that everything
you know is wrong
these are substances that can absolutely
be abused and we should be careful for
that and i think like anything
this can be
either a tool for
expanding your mind or a form of
escapism but i think that applies to
most things in life i don't really think
it has so much to do with the substance
itself but rather your relationship with
it and where you're at in life anyway
again that was just my experience i just
wanted to share this especially
considering
where we're at in the world right now
so i just wanted to thank the sponsor
for this video really quick which is
audible which is perfect because there's
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matter it's called how to change your
mind by michael pullen who i am a huge
fan of i've said it before and i
absolutely loved listening to this
audiobook honestly it was so enriching
to be able to deep dive into the world
of psychedelics learn about the history
and follow along in michael poland's
adventures through several different
substances audible is awesome what can i
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and thank you to all of you for watching
i'd love to hear your thoughts on
everything that i've said here if you
agree with me if you don't and why let's
make the comment section a place of
constructive conversation and yeah i'll
see you soon
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you