March 12, 2022
On an otherwise normal Wednesday, Alice took five grams of Psilocybe cubensis, otherwise known as magic mushrooms, hoping to knock herself off the map for a couple hours and emerge with a Revelation that would, once and for all, fix her life. Sure enough, her identity and ego went straight off the edge of the flat Earth, and after climbing up all the turtles that lead back to out, she found that one true secret that would irreparably change her life, going to bed plotting the things she would change the next morning. The next morning, her head was still whirling with various ideas and schemes on how to give the world this Revelation, but alas, she had work, and still wanting to afford her rent, she set those thoughts aside for another few hours. The next day the same, and the next, until she couldn’t quite remember what the Revelation ever was in the first place.
Oftentimes, those who claim to have had some sort of lifechanging experience still return to baseline – though there are exceptions – and they remain there. This goes for pleasurable experiences – psychedelics, some sort of self-discovery, etc., but thankfully also occurs for bad experiences; for all but the worst traumas, the experiencer will return to baseline, though it may take time. A blinding exception in this is for repeated experiences, such as those who take heroic doses multiple times a month, or alternately experience frequent trauma; these tend to be cases which take longer, or never reach the baseline they were at before.
This phenomenon appears a lot like spaced repetition learning. Therein lies a possible mechanism to keep this state of Revelation for those who choose to do so. However, just because somebody can do something does not mean it is a good idea. Not all psychedelic observation tracks within the real world (though I do believe a lot does!) and trying to apply this without discernment may be harmful.
On February 27, 2022, I thought it would be a great idea to create some sort of content - writing, art, coding, etc. - every day of the next month. Luckily, the alliteration worked out. This should be the twelfth post in the series.