Psychonautica
Back in the days of lax law enforcement and youthful immortality, I fancied myself a bit of a psychonaut. I idolized the old acid-heads of the 60s, firmly believed in the visionary intensity and prophetic wisdom of poets like Rimbaud and Blake, and supported organizations like MAPS and Erowid. I still have a dog-eared copy of Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception” somewhere around here.
Some suggest that our brains create our reality. We have an evolution-approved paradigm that keeps us sane and procreating. The electric meat in our skulls acts a bit like a reduction valve, limiting the depth and breadth of perception for the sake of survival. I've always been fascinated by the prospect of not just opening that valve a bit more, but bypassing it altogether. To know. To see (for lack of a better word) things as they really are.
I’ve also wondered if our brains are more like antennas. What if it isn’t creating a shared vision of reality, but rather, tuning into this particular realm of experience. Receiving, rather than creating. Like a frequency on an old radio, when dialed in just right everything comes through loud and clear.
In between stations? Static and chaos. But how many channels might there be? What if another nudge to the left or right on the dial tunes in to a reality unfathomably different than this one? Every culture has something like a shaman, a mystic who transcends the mundane. Perhaps they are just people who can change the channel.
I miss the heedlessness of yesteryear. I had a terrible trip that ended my explorations. That’s worthy of its own post. But still, I sometimes find myself wondering what’s just behind the veil. It’s possible I’m forever barred from finding out in this life.