true hallucinations.htm - Shroomery

true hallucinations.htm
on a stage, part of a dramatic contrivance. Dennis had said that if the experiment were successful the mushroom would be obliterated. The low
temperature phenomena would explode the cellular material and what would be left would be a standing wave, a violet ring of light the size of
the mushroom cap. That would be the holding mode of the lens, or the philosopher's stone, or whatever it was. Then someone would take
command of it—whose DNA it was, they would be it. It would be as if one had given birth to one's own soul, one's own DNA exteriorized as
a kind of living fluid made of language. It would be a mind that could be seen and held in one's hand. Indestructible. It would be a miniature
universe, a monad, a part of space and time that magically has all of space and time condensed in it, including one's own mind, a map of the
cosmos so real that it somehow is the cosmos, that was the rabbit he hoped to pull out of his hat that morning.
Dennis leaned toward the still whole mushroom standing on the raised experiment area.
"Look!"
As I followed his gaze, he raised his arm and across the fully expanded cap of the mushroom fell the shadow of his ruana. Clearly, but only for
a moment, as the shadow bisected the glowing mushroom cap, I saw not a mature mushroom but a planet, the earth, lustrous and alive, blue
and tan and dazzling white.
"It is our world." Dennis's voice was full of unfathomable emotions. I could only nod. I did not understand, but I saw it clearly, although my
vision was only a thing of the moment.
"We have succeeded." Dennis proclaimed.
"I don't understand," and I did not. "Let's walk to the pasture. I need to think."
Ev was exhausted by the night's activities and probably glad to have us leave her in the hut with the encroaching dawn promising some sort of
new day. As we let ourselves down the log ladder to the ground, I was struck by the scene of utter confusion our activities had left behind
during the last frantic hours of brewing. Our huge fire was now only white ashes. The waste from the ayahuasca-making was piled beside it,
looking like a mound of beached seaweed. Everything was strewn about. We walked through all this, shaking the stiffness out of our bodies
and stopping at the small stream that crossed the path to splash water in our faces.
We had not spoken. It was Dennis who broke the silence.
"You are wondering if we succeeded?"
"Yes. What happened? You're riding herd on this effect, so what is going on?"
"Well, I am not sure how, but I know we have succeeded. Let me try to understand this."
Though the mushrooms and ayahuasca of the night before seemed to have worn off, my own mind was racing with questions. As we walked
along, Dennis would make occasional comments that were, it burst over me, answers to things I was thinking but not articulating. I stopped in
my tracks. I clearly formed a question in my mind. Dennis, head bent beside me, began to answer without waiting for me to speak my thought
aloud. I was dumbfounded. Was this it then? I asked. Had he somehow acquired telepathic powers? No, he replied, there was more to it than
that.
According to Dennis, the bonding of the harmine into his DNA had given him immediate access to an enormous, cybernetically stored fund of
information. And this information was freely available to anyone in the world who looked into their mind and prefaced their question with the
word "Dennis." The absurdity of the second half of this proposition struck me as utterly too much. But naturally, at his insistence, I made the
test. I picked up a small plant growing at my feet, closed my eyes and asked:
"Dennis, what is the name of this plant?"
Immediately and without any effort of my own that I was aware of, a scientific name, now forgotten, popped into my head. I tried the same
thing again with a different plant and to my amazement
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