63 - A Trip Within A Trip (Danau Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia)

TUNE THY COSMIC FORK. NO, I MEAN TURN THYSELF INTO A COSMIC TUNING FORK. Or fork thyself into a cosmic tune. Ultra concentrate all the beauty you’ve ever experienced and blow it through your cosmic hole. Or not. Magic mushroom trips are like assholes, everybody has a different one. Similar-same but different. There’s connective thread, but the thread weaves its way through your specific filter of life history. And the intensity. Ohhhh, the goddamned intensity. It might overwhelm you in the best possible way… or the worst, by god. Blow back your hair. Blow your socks off. Whenever, wherever, we're meant to be together. I'll be there and you'll be near, and that's the deal my dear…

On my world trip, I took a little “trip”. And it was fucking glorious. Absolutely magnificent, kind sir… or ma’am. Drugs in Indonesia are a big fat no-no. Illegit. Too illegit to quit. Shrooms technically fall into this category, but no one seems to care. They are sold openly in Bali, the Gili Islands, and the Lake Toba region. It’s so blatant, I was sure they were legal, or at least not illegal. Nope. I guess it’s on the books, but the books are out of print. And that was fine with me.

What does “openly” really mean? More than one Toba restaurant had mushroom omelette on the menu. Ideal, as I love breakfast and tripping my balls off. A winning combo indeed, so gimme a “P” for paradise, eh gov’nah? Days elapsed before I took the plunge. I wanted to familiarize myself with the area and make sure shit was cool. A fucked-up stranger in a strange land was no beuno. When I felt reasonably confident I wouldn’t be arrested, strip-searched, or disfigured horribly from adulterated fungus, I went for it. Wonder Twin powers, activate!

Why? Why do this, ya dirty fucking hippie? Curiosity for one. This wasn’t my first ride on the Reading Rainbow, I had an idea about what to expect. (Assuming Indonesian mushrooms didn’t deviate from the norm substantially. They do not.) I’d had the pleasure seven or eight times over the years. Never a bad excursion. The worst was simply a non-experience, as in little or no effect. But when the shit did kick into high gear? Holy Toledo! It’s like going to the amusement park without the amusement park, and includes an expanded definition of “amusement.” The world is amusing. The everyday humdrum is amusing. All of it. Perplexing. Engaging. Funny as shit. Sad as sardines. Insightful as Inigo… Montoya. All of it. I’m guessing if personal demons surfaced, the opposite might be true. Thankfully, I’ve never had the displeasure of such, but it’s not unheard of, mind you.

Running ramshod across a private golf course with college miscreants was one thing. Going solo in Sumatraland? Well, that’s a horse of a different color. I was circumspect about the prospect of hallucinating without a safety net (i.e. fellow trippers) but curiosity overrode safety protocols. I was curious, curious to know how I’d perceive certain aspects of my being, as in my being on an open-ended travel bender across the globe with zero long-term plan or ambitions. What would I see through the prism of psilocybin? How would I perceive the journey? Negative? Positive? Neutral with a hint of indifference?

And then there was the girl. (Insert love interest cliché.) There’s always a girl. Not physically present but psychologically so. I desired shroom intuition on a romantic clusterfuck tangle. (Are there any other kind?) Our relationship began as one of convenience. (Not many ways to amuse yourself working twelve hours a day on an American military complex in Baghdad during the occupation.) Later, we both acknowledged genuine connection, but our lives kept us apart. (Um, that and the moderately tempestuous nature of our relationship.) We’d recently reconnected, though I soon discovered she was, drumroll please… married! I’ll spare y’all the banality of detail. I was stupid and a bit lonely if I admit the truth. More stupid than lonely? If I were a betting’ man…

Maybe a spin on the Yellow Brick Road could illuminate my path, I reasoned. Solutions. Untapped reservoirs of knowledge. Hidden doors. Unique perspectives. Or I’d puke, shit myself, laugh uncontrollably for hours, and pass the time staring at a rock. There was only one way to find out.

My lodge was lakeside. As the curtain of shroom began to fall, I ventured to the floating dock on Toba’s edge. Somewhat fortuitously, I had the dock to myself, or ourselves as it were. There was an eighteen-year-old American I’d befriended at the guesthouse. Though he didn’t partake in the psychedelic escapade, his curiosity mirrored mine. Always good to have a “sitter” on the magical mushroom carpet, so I invited him to hang around. Corrupting the youth, anyone?

BANG, ZOOM! To the moon, Alice! That about sums it up. Pupils dilated. Mind expanded. Bright, almost too bright. And this was with an overcast sky. Sensory overload, you could say, but it was a welcome deluge. You may, as I did, want to appreciate the hell out of everything—the sky, the clouds, the trees, chipped paint on a dock, back of your hand, Fraggle Rock, Smurfs, etc. The sun peaked through just enough to glimmer on subtle waves encouraged by a light wind.

Sparkles. Sparkles on the crest. The “real” world was now ethereal. Tentative. Dependent. Temporary. The water was less like water and more like a dark blue gel… unless I looked straight down off the dock. And then it became water again… almost. Ethereal. The world beneath the world’s surface. Soon, the water became luminescent, its surface almost glowing. A dream realm… but not the dream realm. There’s the “real” dream world, and then there’s the one we see on TV and in movies. A misty blur of overexposed light. That’s what I could see… kinda… or not. The fake “dreamality” if you will… and I know you will.

Fearing stimulus overload, I laid back on the deck to stare down the ceiling. This was the best possible mistake. I nearly exploded from the input. There was a digital quality to the heavens. Clouds were pixilated pulsations, breathing in and out with accumulating waves of intensity. I was forced to pull away, to sit up for a breather myself.

Intrinsic beauty. The things themselves for what they are and can be. The world is amazing, warts and all… and it’s right fucking there. All day, every day. Center stage. Front and center. My limited intersection with psychedelics has taught me this: Utility lies in their ability to highlight what’s already present… if you bother to look. So, look, ya son of a bitch! Visual aids for visual creatures. One of the quickest, most effective ways to cripple your default mode network and activate appreciate mode. No forty years of Zen training required. Novices welcome… with proper oversight, of course. Many routes lead to Rome (mediation, holotropic breathing, etc.), but no way to get there as fast. (As far as I know.) An express lane to concentrated, though limited, self-enlightenment.

The significance of the insignificant, or seemingly insignificant. It’s not about discovery but rediscovery. Remember when, as a child, everything amazed you? No? Well, there’s the problem. It’s all still there. Maybe the boring shit ain’t so boring… or maybe it is. Is. Isn’t.

Mushrooms not required. Batteries not included. None of this was new or revelatory for Christ’s sake… and ours. I’d felt this sentiment recently while skirting the cliffs of Ijen Plateau in East Java. It’s the same feeling you get when you try to fathom something remarkable and can’t quite find the words to describe what you’re seeing or how you’re feeling. Intensity skyrockets. Filters disengage. Psilocybin provides the magnification goggles. Perception amplifies. Et violà, mundane becomes magic. The awe, the grandeur was always there. All ya gotta do is look (really look), perceive, appreciate. As Ralph Emerson put it ever so poignantly, “If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare.”

Ridiculous? Maybe. It’s something that needs to be experienced to be understood. Ya just had to be there, maaan. And if you had been there, perhaps your “truth” would’ve differed markedly. How much did expectations play a part? Set and setting? How much relied on my personality? Psilocybin magnifies not just perception, but personality traits as well… good or bad.

How about a “for instance”? I had a hard time deciding where to focus and what to focus on. Everything intrigued me, mesmerizing my monkey brain. Sit here? Stand there? Run? Swim? Stare? Blow bubbles? Do an Irish jig? And that’s me… to a T. Restless and relentless existential angst. Thank you, sir, may I have another? Where should I go? And once I get there, how long should I stay? Should I be somewhere else, somewhere more amazing? So many possibilities, so little time. Only a fraction of the permutations at our disposal. Tortured, often frozen, by alternatives. Me to a T, ya see?

This didn’t drag me under, though I could feel the subtle tug of despair. To be there then. Right there. Right then. The world is not enough, nor the universe. I didn’t mind, so it didn’t matter. The very fact of existence, my existence, was too miraculous to let rational everyday concerns shit in my Cheerios. Plenty of time for shitting later. And shit I have… but not then. Not there.

Ain’t no Yin without Yang, Sally. Not all peaches and sunshine, Boss. I’ve never spiraled into sorrow under the influence of psilocybin, but the potential exists. See the moment. Be the moment. Highlight the true nature of your reality. Intrinsic beauty? Sure. And what about intrinsic ugliness? It’s there, is it not? The thing itself might be a turd pile, a turd pile you’ve been decorating with glitter and rose petals a la denial and delusion. As a child, the world didn’t just amaze you, it also pissed you the fuck off at times. Well, that’s all still there too, and there’s no guarantee all aspects of your perceived reality won’t snap to attention.

And yet, this “negative” might lead to a positive truth. My psychedelic drug jam is to eschew all the negative in favor of a glass half-full. Thus far, any spiral would almost have to be self-induced. Shrooms make me feel swell. It’s true, but maybe that’s not the point. Face yourself. Face your angels and your demons. Empty the glass? Fill the glass? Go whole hog with the shrooms? Yes, yes, and yes. This is where expert practitioners could help, and why entering the Upside Down sans shaman may invite disaster. “Disaster” might only be a few hours of psychological unpleasantness, but I wouldn’t wish that on myself, much less strangers. And for those in a precarious mental state at the outset? The consequences could be dire in theory, though this appears to be extremely rare.

And what about the girl? Well, I as stood dockside channeling the cosmos, I thought about the woman. At that moment, I would’ve given just about anything to have her there with me by my side on that dock gazing into the natural beauty that is being. Two for tea, tea for two, and all that shit. I found this conclusion statistically significant. I suppose I could’ve wished for anyone, but I chose her. What exactly that meant I couldn’t say at the time. And now? Wellllll…

Whatever I may or may not have felt regarding the dame and the extent of my “real” feelings was beside the point. Where did it send me? Downersville? Nope. Uppersville? Sure, but it wasn’t a direct flight. I realized the matter was, for the most part, out of my hands. Let my feelings be known and take reasonable measures to facilitate a reunion. Beyond that? Inshallah. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And that, in a nutshell, is what I discovered (or, again, shall I say rediscovered) on my little trippy-ass trip. The truth is there, but sometimes you need a little reminder, a nudge from a place of inner peace. That’s how I like to think of mushrooms—a psychedelic nudge.

And what about me, myself, and I? No job, no car, no clue, and so on? I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. Right then. Right there. The planet was my veritable oyster. Open map. Decide. That was my modus operandi. Truthfully, implementing “Operation: Go Where The Fuck You Want” was part of the dream. I was nearly seven months into my open-ended fandango. There was more to do. To see. To experience. I had shit in the hopper. The future? Don’t bother me with trifles.

I’d always wanted to travel without limits, without time constraints. I was doin’ it. Ill-advised motorcycle trip? I was doin’ it. I’ve never been good at tooting my horn, but I have to give myself a teensy bit of credit… toot. True, I wasn’t saving the whales or following in Mother Theresa’s footsteps, but it was something. I was an ambassador for my country and culture and every positive exchange was one in the win column for those “fucking Americans.” I was making friends and influencing people. And they were influencing me. I was helping local economies, no? On a small scale for sure, but every bit helps. Ain’t no tourist dollars without tourists.

Sure, a long-run, big-picture insight from Shroomsville would’ve been more than welcome, but I fear that section of cortex was on the fritz. (With the benefit of hindsight, I hypothesize squirrel DNA may have been baked into my genetic cake—a manufacturer’s defect, so to speak.) Bottom line: I felt good and feeling good was good enough. What does hindsight tell me? Let’s just say hindsight is a cruel mistress.

Was this hallucinatory dalliance a tad irresponsible? Yes and no. I assumed the locals were well-versed on the supply side—growth, cultivation, preparation, etc. I was optimistic legal consequences kept the quality control at an acceptable level. Dead tourists are bad for business, good for incarceration. Naive rationalization? Yupper, but not without some merit. I wasn’t a pioneer, just another wayward soul on the psilocybin superhighway. Also, I had a history with shrooms and knew even a negative trip would only last a few hours. Worst-case scenario? I’d retreat to my room and suck my thumb in the corner until shit wore off.

There’s a reason I’ve come back to mushrooms on occasion. The experience is not self-contained. The effects can, though not necessarily will, linger far beyond the immediate effective period. There’s a ripple effect, a residue that sticks to your ribs. You take the goggles off, but the vision remains, albeit at a much lower magnification. As I write this, feelings and sensations return, sensations I relive again and again as time progresses. Every existential pause to listen to a chirping bird or analyze a cloud pattern provides a mini-flashback. The imprint is always there, somewhere in a shady recess of my mind, waiting to burst forth at the slightest provocation. If mushrooms were only a diversion, I don’t think I could make repeated trips to La La Land. That’s not to say abuse is impossible or that it couldn’t lead to unhealthy escapism, but life itself carries risk, no? Fortune favors the bold, ‘kay?

Wild rantings of an unstable lunatic, you say? Could be. But alas… science. Science to the rescue! And not just any scientists. None other than Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins has been on the case for over twenty years and heads the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit. In 2006, JH commissioned a study on psilocybin’s beneficial effects, which included thirty-six test subjects. The results were overwhelmingly positive, and a follow-up survey found a majority of subjects continued to benefit from their experience fourteen months later. That was just the beginning. The research continues, and the therapeutic applications are expansive. (PTSD, depression, and addiction to name a few.) Take my word for it? Hardly. I encourage you to do your own research, starting with the links and articles referenced here. The potential is mind-boggling… literally. Open your mind… and then boggle that sumbitch.

Side effects, you say? Minimal. Physical addiction/dependence? Nope. Psychological dependence? Possible but unlikely. Risk of overdose? Zero. You might go to Jupiter’s third moon, but you’ll return… eventually. Any deaths caused directly through use? Nope. However, the danger isn’t nil. Touching the sky could be a problem if you’re on a twelfth-story balcony. And combined with other drugs or alcohol? All bets are off. Bad decisions might be your undoing, hence the need for “adult” (as in professional) supervision.

Now, here’s where my irresponsibility comes in. Lake Toba is not a controlled setting. Dosage? Who the fuck knows? Oversight by a qualified professional? Negative. (Unless you count an American teenager as a “qualified” professional.) Is it necessarily a good idea to go rogue? Negative. You have to trust the source. You have to trust your comrades in shrooms. You have to trust yourself and be honest about your potential to go off the rails psychologically. “What lies beneath” could definitely bite you in the arsehole. The dangers are real. No bullshit. Still, even a cursory study of side effects (long and short term) will lead anyone to conclude the usual dangers associated with other drugs (opiates for example) are absent. That being said, it’s not quite time to incorporate mushroom omelettes into our school lunch programs as a part of a well-balanced drug diet.