First experience

[Aviatho]

Thank you for letting me share this.  It has taken me about a week to gather my thoughts about my first Bufo experience.  I’m not a writer, but it has been very therapeutic for me to write this all down. Even though the initial terror is still fresh in my mind, I find that writing it down softened it.  I am grateful for this experience and hope to do it again someday.The SingularityI thought I was experienced.  I thought it was going to be simply another journey, one of many over the past four years. I did my research on Bufo and read many trip reports. I remember thinking how strange some of them were.  Why were these people writing such nonsense? I thought perhaps they had little experience with psychedelics, maybe they just couldn’t comprehend the experience very well.  Maybe they just weren’t ready for it. I thought I knew how to accept and surrender. I still have much to learn, but felt somewhat experienced. I felt I was ready for this. In less than a second after I inhaled the vapor, I realized I was wrong.The ceremony was beautiful.  Held in a safe, peaceful location with loving support from the facilitators. Although I thought I knew, I really had no idea what was coming.  During the ceremony, I inhaled deeply and held it in as my facilitator counted down.  10,9, 8 … I saw faint, mandala-like patterns in the air above me, then everything suddenly became cloudy and white. I felt overcome.  Then a sound, like a droning, vibrating hum grew and I collapsed.  I was probably gently lowered onto pillows by my facilitators, but have no memory of that.  There was no outside world. The humming grew into a hurricane-like roar. This all happened in a nanosecond - everything became white, like the static snow in televisions when there is no channel.  Everything was instantly overcome and swallowed by the massive, roaring, white hurricane force chaos. The roar grew louder, ripping everything apart and the hurricane devoured everything, all reality, including me. I don’t know if I actually did, but I felt as if my head was thrown back, my eyes opened wide in existential fear, I screamed in terror and was anhilated by the unstoppable fury.  I felt my mind being scrambled and instinctively tried to escape.  But there was no escape.  It was as if I had been ripped from Earth into the unforgiving center of the Sun. It erased all trace of me from existence. The last thing I remember was my head lowered in utter despair, thinking, “there is nothing…”…and I disappeared.  There was nothing.I don’t remember what happened during the nothing.  There was just nothing.  No me.  Nothing. Total, black emptiness of deep space.  I had no sense of how much time had passed.  At some point, I felt that I was somewhere in uncharted outer space.  Beyond the beyond. There were distant stars and unrecognizable galaxies.  It felt like I was deep in some far, unknown corner of an unknown universe. Not “I”, but I was the empty space. For some reason, I felt mathematical symbols underlying the vast emptiness. I felt a slight sadness because somewhere, on one of the tiny planets in this far, unknown corner of an unknown universe, was a tiny fragment of the old version of reality, maybe a fragment of the old “me”.  The fragment was confused, like a glitch in the matrix of this endless universe of black space. I felt compassion for it. How would it ever be found so far out here in the nothingness?  All alone.  I didn’t know, but I would find it somehow. Love is the way.It felt as if all the wires from my mind to its power source had been unplugged, ripped out.  The wires were eventually reconnected.  From the nothingness, there was a brief moment of intense confusion as the wires were plugged back in and my mind came back online, then peace and quiet settled over me. I gradually realized that I was lying on a soft cloud of pillows, resting comfortably.  Arms outstretched, relaxed.  What had started as a whisper blowing on my face had instantly turned into a hurricane like fury that blew me out of myself but I had landed slowly, gently on a cloud of pillows.  I felt calm, peaceful and serene.  I don’t know why, but I remember whispering “thank you, thank you”.  I remember smiling and giggling, amazed at the power of the experience. I made it through and was alive!  An overwhelming experience.  This was not a psychedelic drug, this was something more.  I laughed to myself and thought, “Humans aren’t ready for this…what was I thinking?”.  How silly I was to have thought that I was ready for this I laid in the cloud of soft pillows as my body and mind slowly reconstituted.  I could hear gentle music, the sun was setting, my guides were sitting silently around me, protecting the space and supporting me in spirit.  I asked for a little more as I felt that I gotten close to something that I needed to reach/release, but was not quite there.  Not much changed with that, so I was content to lay on my little cloud of pillows in my peaceful serenity.  Amazed at what had happened.  It was so far beyond anything I could have imagined, I wouldn’t be able to describe it.  Going into the experience, I felt as if my mind was a whiteboard covered in black scribbles.  Afterwards, I felt that the whiteboard of my mind had been wiped clean. While reading the various trip reports, I kept seeing a strange word, “non-dual”.  I skimmed over it, not understanding what it meant.  “It’s not even a word”, I thought.  It’s spiritual, new-age, mumbo jumbo that some people like to use.  I am embarrassed to have now learned that “non-dual” is one of the most important words to describe this experience. Since this experience, I’ve thought a lot about that word and what it means.  If I understand it correctly, our day to day lives are dual - there is “me” and then everything outside of “me”.  Two things - dual.  In “non-dual”, there is only one. There is no me and there is no outside of me.  I like the word “singularity”.  I’m probably not using it correctly, but it sounds right.  There is only one - all is one. I think I have a lot more to learn before I truly understand this concept.Although I’m still processing everything, I am thinking that the initial, terrifying part of the experience was necessary for the rest of it to happen.  The “self” (or ego or whatever you want to call it), faced with imminent “death”, likely reacts desperately and violently to do anything possible to escape it. Its fear and terror likely explode through conciousness until it is dissolved.  Luckily, this seemed to be a very quick process that cleared the way for the non-dual to happen.  About one week after the ceremony, an acquaintance suggested that I look at the fear differently. The fear is the body or self trying to protect me.  In other words, it is an expression of love by the body for me. If I do this experience again, I think that this understanding will help me to gain more from it.  I’m still trying to figure out what it all means.  I feel like something’s different in me, but I’m not sure what it is.  I continue to recall additional bits and pieces as time passes. Although the beginning was terrifying, I feel drawn to do the experience again in the future.  Perhaps now that I have an inkling of what to expect, I could go further.  Anyway, I plan to show more love and kindness to others and myself and I hope this experience helps with that in some way.

[Handshake]

Thanks for sharing this powerful experience here with us.

Have you considered reaching out to a therapist to help with the integration process?

Even if that is not something you’d want to do, I hope you’re able to take good care of yourself and practice grounding as much as possible and take the space you need to be present with yourself.

Wishing you all the best,
HV