The Profile
Nationality: Indian
Lives in: India
Age when taken psychedelic: 23
Occupation: Cinematographer
Psychedelic of choice: LSD
Place of 'ceremony': India
What was your intention?
Overall, I have taken LSD 10 times. First time I took it I didn’t have any intention. I was just curious. My friend promised me that there is something beyond the everyday experience we have here and I trusted him.
After that, I had intentions during some trips, e.g. I had a craft in my filmmaking, but some sort of art was missing, or I was missing inspiration. I wanted to improve that.
Why did you take it?
I was curious, I was looking for creativity during some trips but most of the time, I and a group of trusted friends did it for self-improvement.
This circle of friends made a difference in the experience of taking LSD. We have no problem being vulnerable towards each other. We would never mind if one called out the other one. Let’s say we are talking about something uncomfortable and one starts putting up boundaries, the other one calls them out.
We all acknowledge that all of us are selfish. If I feel bored at the weekend and I call my friend to meet up, both of us are aware that I’m calling him because I’m bored and that we are basically driven by selfish motives – we are OK with that.
Having taken a psychedelic with people like that definitely added to the experience.
What were you most afraid of?
I got a bit concerned by the idea of ‘ego death’.
After the psychedelic phase, all of my friends are now in the yoga phase practicing Kriya Yoga. Based on the understanding we have, when people talk about ‘ego death’, it is something that’s actually very tough when you are already present in your body: you have boundaries and it is impossible to be in the body without identity. So, when people say they experienced ‘ego death’, it is possible they had it for a few moments but staying in that phase continuously is not possible. So, when someone says “my ego is dead” it is possibly presented in a more complex form, which can be more dangerous.
In yogic circles there is a concept of samadhi – it means getting buried, that you are losing the body but your consciousness remains. The process is complete then.
What did you most look forward to?
As a side effect, increasing my creativity but mostly to improve myself.
I was also hoping to get a lot of knowledge. A lot of my friends are pretty intellectual, and we have many discussions about ego, personality, etc. I was attracted by attaining more knowledge.
What was the hardest bit about the experience?
At one point, I had a feeling I was losing touch and I worried it was going to be like that forever. It was a feeling of losing control.
Another time, I understood there was nothing new coming from the experience. It’s like the same thing is repeating, as if the book is over and I keep on reading the same book again. It was disappointing – maybe I expected a lot more from it and that didn’t happen.
The whole group of my friends are now in yoga. They moved to an ashram and quit filmmaking. I’m the only one pursuing it now. I get a feeling that I overinterpret things. It’s like having a car but with a jet engine: I would over complexify simple things.
Another hard thing about realising that what we are able to perceive is limited. There is a brilliant theory in neural networking – the modelling of how our brain works. The video called “The Art of Neural Networking” by Mike Tyka is a good example that illustrates this process. It shows a neural network that has a memory of animals, which is also how it perceives the reality. Some people who are not familiar with the yogic studies don’t realise that karma actually means memory and think of it as some kind of a to and fro thing: you do bad, you get bad in return. Karma actually means memory. So, if you have a bad memory, you may have a tendency to see bad things through the bad experiences you have had. Memory is the basis for all our behaviour. It impacts our perception. This neural network from the video that had a memory of animals was given noise and what it was able to see, were animals, which were not in the noise itself. So, if our brains work the same way, it does mean we only perceive what is in our memory.
Let’s say there’s a phone in front of me and that people already know a phone exists and then my mind perceives the phone. But that is not true. We are projecting the concept or the definition of the phone out. Going along with that thread, because I had certain tendencies and biases in me, while on acid, I could only see what was coming at me through those things. It’s like you are in a bubble and then there is a small hole where you will look through and everything that it outside of the bubble will only come into the dark hole. So, I felt very limited.
I did a Personality Psychology course in college and I wanted to look at the memory subject though different aspects. When you go to a Psychiatrist, they will ask you for any trauma you may have had – it’s very basic.
There is also a logarithmic rule that says if you are 2 years’ old, then 1 year of your life is 50% of your life. If you are 25 years’ old, then it’s just 4% of your life. So, it feels like life is getting faster. If you have 1 barrier when you are 2 years old, that has a lot more effect than when you have it in your 20s. That is why our childhood is particularly important and that’s where we draw our memory from.
There is a view on memory through religious scriptures, yoga, psychedelics, neural networks etc. I wanted to bring this under one umbrella and make a film getting experts on the topic. I’ve done some research on that but I don’t have enough resources to be able to carry out the project yet. When I have the distribution channels and the users who can handle those kinds of things, then I will start getting into it.
What was the best bit about the experience?
The experience of self.
I also got a lot of knowledge and insight but there is a saying that I follow: what fat is to muscle; experience is to knowledge. I got a lot of knowledge – now I care about the experience.
What did you get from it?
One big thing is that I am convinced that this everyday reality is a small part of our existence.
If I approach this subject through yoga, it would take a lot of time. Psychedelics are like a sneak peek. Existentially, we may be on the 3rd floor – psychedelics took me to the 6th floor and dropped me back on the 2nd floor. So, to at least come back to my normal, I have to walk and then walk further as I know there are more floors. I used to think the 3rd floor was the highest one. Now, I know it’s not true.
How did it impact your life?
My lifestyle changed a lot. I went to one of the most prestigious colleges in India. That could give me access to corporate or start-up opportunities, but I changed my life completely. I don’t care about that enough.
My parents were worried at first, but they changed their mind after I gave them LSD. All of my friends who took LSD and I grew from this a lot. It is a wonderful experience, so I felt it was a responsibility to offer this experience to my parents because whatever I am is thanks to my parents who sacrificed themselves for me. I explained how it worked to them and they agreed to take it.
I gave my dad ¾ of a dose and my mum a half of it. My dad is pretty grounded, so I trusted him. My mum is a little emotional and I and my dad are not equipped to handle her, so she got a smaller dose. It didn’t work as much for my mum. I woke them up at 4am to watch the sunrise but my mum fell asleep. It affected my dad a lot though. We had a big house and while we are pretty well-off, to maintain that big house, my dad had to work a bit harder. After that experience, we realised we didn’t need the bigger houses and we sold it and got a smaller one together with an easier life. As a family we are much better now.
I also feel like my parents understand me better now. When I told them I wanted to go away and do yoga, they were very sceptical. They didn’t know what it was about. They worried someone manipulated me and that this is what it is, there is nothing more than this. I suggested they should try yoga but it’s a very long process.
With LSD, I explained to my dad that there was a possibility of bad trips happening – he understood that. We went to a resort with 3 small farmhouses. My dad asked to close all the gates and we ended up having the whole garden for ourselves. While on LSD, we could read faces a lot better. My father was saying “I know what you are thinking by looking at you.” That’s when the bonding increased.
What did you struggle with after?
A few things:
1 – The experience didn’t last and had a feeling of not being natural. I had to use it another agent to have it. Most of my struggle was to get to that experience but without using another agent.
2 – I missed the feeling of being grounded.
3 – I may be destroying my possibility of experiencing things through my conversations and overthinking. I think I’m intellectually pretty strong but that also prevented me from experiencing things. I have a lot of knowledge and have a lot to say about various topics but even in the yogic circles or with my friends, we sometimes stop the conversation abruptly as we realise we are engaging in intellectual masturbation. It can be a destructive process talking about these things. Let’s say I told you about seeing things through memory – if you had got that epiphany on your own, it would have been a strong experience for you. Because I told you about it, if you stumble upon that in your life, you now remember it because I told you this – so, I’m actually spoiling that experience and taken it from your perception and put it into memory.
What improved?
Family relations – we bonded over the experience.
My emotional part definitely improved. I am more vulnerable now. I can also sense emotions in other people better. My clarity also improved.
What do you need to work on?
I’m still integrating LSD – it changed me a lot as a person.
I’m now doing yoga as a life-long process. There are 4 main branches:
Kriya – where you need a master that works with the energies
Karma – based on actions, mostly you performing actions without expecting any results
Bhakti – based on devotion and driven through emotions
Jnana – path of knowledge (our intellect should be extremely sharp to pursue it). The analogy we are given here is that our intellect is like a knife. The sharper the knife, the better it cuts and dissects things. The problem arises when things like identity or ego stick to you – if something sticks to the knife, it gets dull. If you think you have a good intellect, go for this yoga.
What would be your advice if you were to do it again?
What happened was a brilliant process and nothing went wrong. I can’t think of anything I would have done differently.
Vamshi is an excellent example of someone who has used psychedelics for self exploration. He was already familiar with various psychological and spiritual concepts and his mind couldn't get enough of more information. He was devouring knowledge and psychedelics seemed like such a great resource to get more of it too. However, he also realised there are limits to using intellect to solve the philosophical and existential problems life throws at us. He knew he was overthinking and as a result not experiencing - something a lot of us can probably attest to as well.
Vamshi also admitted to having expectations when going into some of his psychedelic experiences - something many will warn against. It is a bit of a paradox though: taking a massive step leading to the expansion of consciousness but at the same time, not expecting anything. In my view, anyone really able to do that probably doesn't need to take psychedelics in the first place!
As Vamshi continues to integrate his LSD experience, he has turned to yoga - a practice that may be slower in some ways than psychedelics but certainly more grounding in many others. At least he doesn't have to convince his parents about the benefits of all these explorations. Sounds like they are fully on board! You know what to do when you want to explain it to yours - go exploring together. Apparently, it works!
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