Preface
Like many of you, I’ve found myself pondering some big questions: What is life, really? What is consciousness? What happens when we sleep? Is there a God? Is humanity truly alone in the universe? Can medical science fully explain our bodies and minds? And why is it that some people seem happy while so many others struggle?
It’s fascinating how so many mythologies, despite being separated by geography and culture, share common ideas about karma, rebirth, gods, the soul, and concepts of heaven and hell.
At some point, most of us encounter something that either strengthens or shakes our beliefs about life and the afterlife. Some people claim to have seen aliens, others swear they’ve seen ghosts or even glimpsed God. Yet collectively, we’re still searching. Some think we’re living in a matrix, while others lean toward pure nihilism.
One question that resonates with many of us is this:
Are we human beings having a spiritual experience, or spiritual beings having a human experience?
A few years ago, I learned about “Psilocybin” in “Magic Mushrooms”—a natural substance known for altering consciousness and offering potentially life-changing perspectives. And it’s not the only one. There are others, like DMT and Ayahuasca, which are stories for another day.
I’ve gone on this journey twice so far, and I can say for certain that there is so much we humans cannot comprehend. Before I share the exact experiences and understanding, we need to set some base. After the experience, I felt compelled to write it, I do not know why. Like many, I don’t remember everything, but I can’t shake the essence and impact of these experiences. I’ll try my best to put it into words.
If this article doesn’t resonate with you, feel free to pass it along to someone who might connect with it. And if you’ve had similar experiences or find yourself leaning into this perspective, reach out—I’d love to connect. Kindly note I am just sharing experiences and thoughts.
Let’s Start by Shaking Our Concept of Reality
There isn’t one single, universal reality. The reality we know is just our reality, shaped by the senses we’re equipped with: touch, sight, taste, hearing, and smell. And when we can’t perceive something with our senses, we’re quick to dismiss it. But does that mean it’s not there?
Different Perceptions of Reality Across Species
Our material science has proven the following:
- Dogs and Hearing
- Dogs hear a far wider range of frequencies than humans, detecting sounds from 40 Hz to 60,000 Hz (compared to 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz for us). They can pick up sounds from four times farther away, hearing things that are completely beyond our perception.
- Bats and Echolocation
- Bats “see” in the dark by using echolocation. They emit high-frequency sounds and interpret the returning echoes to create a mental map of their surroundings, a kind of night vision impossible for human sight.
- Bees and Ultraviolet Vision
- Bees can see ultraviolet light, invisible to us. Many flowers have ultraviolet patterns that guide bees to nectar, acting as landing strips that only bees can perceive.
- Snakes and Infrared Sensing
- Some snakes, like pit vipers, detect infrared radiation (heat) from warm-blooded animals. This allows them to find prey even in total darkness.
- Birds and Magnetic Fields
- Birds, like pigeons, detect Earth’s magnetic field, which helps them migrate. This sense, known as magnetoreception, is something we simply don’t possess.
- Sharks and Electroreception
- Sharks have electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini that let them sense electrical fields generated by other living creatures, helping them find prey hidden under sand.
- Elephants and Infrasound Communication
- Elephants communicate with low-frequency sounds (infrasound) that travel long distances, often below human hearing thresholds. So, much of their communication happens beyond our awareness.
These examples show that each species experiences its own unique “reality,” shaped by its specialized senses and capabilities.
This begs the question: what is reality, really?
If reading this has you feeling uncomfortable, or you’re feeling skeptical, maybe this isn’t for you. But if you’re open-minded or curious, there’s a lot more to explore.
My Psilocybin Experiences
- You, a Living Being, Are Not Just One Entity, You Are Two
- There are possibly many worlds and alternate forms of life, far superior than we imagine
- It is possible to experience alternate realities
- Miracles are possibilities beyond our understanding of nature
- We will never understand the true essence of life; it is too complex for our tiny brains
Duality - The Core of These Experiences
Different cultures throughout history have recognized a sense of duality within humans. Here are ten examples of this concept. Explore a few or all of them.
- Body and Soul (Physical vs. Spiritual)
- Philosophy & Religion: Many traditions, like Christianity and Hinduism, describe us as having a physical body and an immortal soul. The body interacts with the material world, while the soul connects us to the divine.
- Conscious and Subconscious Mind
- Psychology: Freud’s concept of the conscious mind (rational, aware) and the subconscious mind (instinctual, hidden) suggests that our thoughts and motivations are shaped by deeper, often unseen desires and experiences.
- Higher Self and Ego
- Spirituality & New Age Thought: The ego is our everyday identity, shaped by material concerns, while the higher self represents a wiser, more compassionate version, connected to universal consciousness.
- The Rider and the Elephant
- Behavioral Psychology: Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of the rider (the rational self) guiding an elephant (the emotional self), who often has its own agenda.
- Yang and Yin (Active vs. Passive)
- Chinese Philosophy: Yang represents active, assertive qualities, while yin represents passive, receptive ones. Both are essential forces that balance each other.
- Logical Mind and Emotional Heart
- Western Culture: People often feel torn between the mind (logic, reason) and the heart (emotions, intuition). The mind aims for rational outcomes, while the heart follows its own logic.
- Skeptic and Believer
- Science vs. Faith: Humanity’s quest to balance rational inquiry with spiritual belief reflects our struggle between skepticism and faith.
- The Good Wolf and the Bad Wolf
- Native American Parable: This story describes a battle between a good wolf (kindness, love) and a bad wolf (anger, envy). The wolf that “wins” is the one we choose to feed.
- The Actor and the Observer
- Eastern Mysticism: Many traditions see an actor who participates in life and an observer who watches. Realizing the observer within is key to enlightenment.
- The Apollonian and Dionysian
- Greek Philosophy (Nietzsche): Nietzsche describes the Apollonian (rational) and Dionysian (passionate) aspects of humanity. Apollo represents order; Dionysus, emotion.
Across mythologies, we see ideas that the soul has purpose, undergoes trials, and transcends life and death. Whether in the form of reincarnation, moral judgment, or a final divine union, these beliefs converge on the idea that the soul is not only eternal but deeply meaningful, providing humans with a profound connection to both the physical and spiritual dimensions of existence. Keep in mind, these mythologies evolved separately, each with its own beliefs, timeline, and geography. Is there truth in here? I do not know. I want to express my understanding of my own experiences.
Do You Know?
Many cultures and ancient myths believe our physical entity is the vessel for our internal entity, and physical senses limit us to our experiences. The laws of physics we believe in are true and they work within the world we live in. But who is to say it is the complete picture? The science we know today is limited to “Material Science” which surrounds us.
Hypothetically, just hypothetically, imagine if there is a plant (not a synthetic drug made in a lab with material-medical science laws, but a 100% natural plant). You eat the plant and you are given a few more senses for some time. A few cultures believe those plants to be gateways to heaven, vines of the soul, or perhaps a “video call” to beings from the soul world, which only your soul can experience. Your physical body will hibernate within that duration and your soul will take over, thus letting it experience and utilize its senses. Now let your imagination grow and think—different plants may exist right now on our planet and they may open different senses for you to experience different aspects of the realm of possibility, which is infinite if you take a pause and think about it.
Subjective Experiences
Yes, we all are different and our interpretation of our experiences is also different. Mine could be purely subjective. That’s why it is very hard to understand and believe what is a real experience and what is imagination. A few have written books, others have written stories, and some have made movies. When we do not understand them, we label them as fantasies or mythology and move on.
Collective Experiences
Many humans have had experiences in some form and they have tried to share them with society. There are so many coincidences and similarities between the stories of these experiences that it is impossible to discard them as coincidences. The law of large numbers is at play here. Out of many shared experiences, one common denominator is the experience of duality. They remember it vividly and clearly, like a digital game—unforgettable encounters and experiences which are very hard to explain with our current vocabulary. Some are clever enough to express it through art.
Movie Soul
Have you seen the movie “Soul” from Disney or “Avatar: The Last Airbender” on Netflix? I urge you to watch if you haven’t. Both share the essence of souls and the spirit world. The concept in “Soul” is that souls emerge from the soul world and their job is to become the internal entity of a physical human form. We will refer to concepts from this movie throughout this article. The movie is meant for entertainment, yet it has many interpretations. One interpretation I experienced firsthand was that “Souls” have characteristics, and they influence who you become in life.
My Experiences & Understanding
First Experience: Floating World
With Psilocybin, I experienced both sides—the internal and external. It convinced me about the duality. Some call it detachment from self. I don’t know how to label it. You can think of it as body and soul, or think of it as a physical entity alongside an internal one. In my first experience, I literally visited another world. The catch: I saw everything with closed eyes (Yes, with closed eyes) and music was driving the experience. It was as clear as it can get.
As mentioned before, different plants may offer different senses. In this case, I felt as if I had been given a sense of vision and true presence in another world, floating above us in the sky. It wasn’t geometric shapes and colors, as many have claimed to see; it was a living world full of colors. It was similar to our own planet but enriched with colorful beings, massive mammals, beings like Gods that many cultures worship. The closest explanation would be a dream you see during deep sleep, but this time you have control over the dream. You’re aware of it happening in real-time and you can open your eyes to stop, but you don’t want to.
The actual feeling is hard to put into words. The closest explanation would be that every time I closed my eyes and gave up my body to the music and the plant senses, my soul/internal-being reached this floating world above us and it felt like reaching home. It felt like my soul had been trapped in my body for a long time and was happy, like a baby feeling safe and free. It was pure joy which I had not experienced so far in life. I’m not even sure the words are justifying enough.
Second Experience: Mother Nature Healing
My second experience was absolutely different. There was a gap of a year between both experiences. This time, I did not have a vision of anything. Before the experience, I was going through something disturbing and subconsciously I had been asking my soul for healing. When the plant took over this time, I could feel a very powerful entity around me, though I have no recollection of its appearance whatsoever. The closest explanation is what many people say about alien visits and some sort of operation. However, in this case, it was a positive “operation.” I felt that an entity—which I kept thinking of as “Mother Nature” during the experience—visited me and cleaned my body. I felt as if something was gently brushing away dust from my internal body parts with a feather. It wasn’t painful, nor was it exactly pleasurable. It whispered in my ears, “I have given you the gift of life, and you are supposed to take care of this body and your soul.”
I don’t have much recollection of everything I could witness, but the message was about duality. You, the physical body, have a responsibility toward both of us. It felt as if it was telling me about good and bad, that I am supposed to choose good over bad and that the world is full of bad traps. It warned me not to fall into the world’s “satanic” structure. Keep in mind that I’m not very religious, and I had not thought about this before. I’ll explain this whole concept below. When I woke up, I felt truly cleansed. I felt a lightness in my body, not the sickness I’d felt three hours earlier, and a sense of optimism which is hard to describe. After the experience, I felt that while we may be small in the grand scheme of things, we are not insignificant.
But How Could There Be Such Different Experiences?
It felt like the plant senses, when combined with your physical body senses, could take you to another world. That’s why many people enjoy MDMA at parties while many doctors call it the “Drug of Pain.” In the Brazilian Amazon, shamans say you should ask the plant beforehand, and it will open the gateway to the right soul world. There’s a myth that says the soul world left these plants on Earth so we could reach them.
Final Thoughts & Understanding
Returning to the movie “Soul,” it was a close experience. It made me realize at that moment that a soul is inside your body and has its own senses, experiences, and purpose. After the experiences, I was left with some understanding of what we already know in some shape or form. The following topics naturally came to mind as I recalled the experiences and wrote this piece:
Senses
We know well the physical senses—touch, sight, taste, etc. The internal senses are there too, but we haven’t mastered them yet.
What if I told you that some of our internal senses are similar to the physical ones? They can “see,” they can “think,” they can “experience.”
Just as your physical body needs food, social interaction, and entertainment, your soul needs water, oxygen, and sleep to survive. Your physical body needs exercise and good nutrition to thrive, and in the same way, your soul needs something to thrive. This brings me to the next topic.
Calling, Purpose & Gut-Feeling
Imagine that the soul you’re given is artistic, thus pushing you towards art. We tend to label this as a “calling.” What if I told you that this is simply a characteristic of the internal being within you? We even have a concept for this: “Nature vs. Nurture”. There is always a nature part (our internal being’s characteristics), but our nurture, which is a lottery for the internal being, influences the outcome. What if I told you that you’re destined to do what your soul is made for, but the physical world will influence it greatly, and vice versa? A few people, whom we call “underdogs,” tend to become something despite the odds. Could it be that these people are listening to their soul?
Does It Mean Your Soul Must Have a Purpose?
This was complex to comprehend. My understanding was slightly different. I felt that the purpose of the soul and body is intertwined. Sometimes, it’s okay for the soul not to have a defined purpose, and it’s okay for you not to figure it out. But during that time, the purpose of your body is to stay healthy, physically and emotionally, which leads to soul health, or what we call mental health. Some souls are here to serve a healthy family life, some are here to serve humanity, some to invent, and some to simply enjoy. No matter what, you must not feel disconnected.
Mental Health, Chatter & Punishment
When physical body choices and soul choices are not aligned, you feel sick—mentally sick, as we call it. Our medical science is limited to what it can see, making it “Material-Medical-Science.” It’s succeeding in fixing the body, and there’s a possibility we may become “amortal” with time. But when it comes to mental health, my realization was enlightening. I hadn’t thought about mental health in this way before. It whispered to me that mental illnesses stem from a disconnect between the soul and the body. Just as your physical body has needs, so does your soul. But when your choices harm your physical body and shorten its duration, the soul screams—the chatter you hear inside your head that drives you mad is your soul guiding you. However, medical science, when addressing mental disorders, often suppresses these voices by numbing the hardware—your brain. This is why, in the long run, many people struggle with sleep issues, or symptoms return once they stop medication. I don’t know how much truth there is in this, but I have experienced it firsthand, and I find some weight in it.
Nature and Nurture
It is highly likely that nature (your soul) has something to pursue to thrive, and our nurture impacts this, either helping us reach the destination or becoming a hindrance. If we can follow the path, it might lead to the next step in the journey of the soul, though I’m not aware of what that step may be. It could be that Earth is a playground, and heaven and hell exist here themselves.
Heaven, Hell & Kindergarten
During my experience, a deep reasoning came to mind which suggested that heaven and hell exist here on Earth. Heaven is when your soul is aligned with your physical body, and the place of your birth can be considered heaven or hell for your soul. It’s likely that developed countries are heaven in some sense, while struggling countries are hell. An idea popped up: Is Earth a kindergarten for the soul to reach high school, which would have its own heaven and hell? Food for thought.
Recycling & Aliens
Many mythologies believe in the recycling of the soul, and during my first experience of visiting another world, something was whispering the same. If your soul is ready, it will go to the next level. Some of us think in terms of aliens. What if you’re an alien in preparation to be reborn in that form?
Moksha
Moksha is believed to be liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. I felt the possibility of it being true, though I don’t recall much on these lines.
Material World Is Designed by Physical Entities
This was another strange realization during that window, and I felt part of it. A voice whispered that our physical world is designed to keep us busy and occupied, thus preventing our souls from even attempting to complete their tasks. Purposefully, we’ve built this material world full of distractions—money, material goods, substances like cigarettes and alcohol—that are all designed to keep your soul stuck. A lot of mythologies attribute this to the influence of Satan, which seemed plausible during the experience. For a day or two afterward, I felt inclined to keep the body as pure as possible before falling back into the worldly order.
Closing Thoughts
In the end, maybe the real essence of life isn’t about finding clear answers but about staying curious and open to the mysteries that shape our journey. Each of us has our own blend of experiences, our own perspective, and maybe even our own internal calling.
So, are we simply physical beings navigating a material world, or is there an internal force pushing us to seek something beyond the ordinary?
Take a moment to listen—whether it’s the sounds around you, your own thoughts, or the silence beneath it all. Perhaps, in that quiet space, lies the connection between the physical and the unseen, the tangible and the infinite.
What if the harmony we’re seeking has been here all along, waiting for us to notice it?
The essence of life is to find harmony between your physical self and your internal self.
