[LSD 230μg] Re-visiting a childhood trauma and integrating the experience

On 7/29, I dropped for my second solo trip. I'm relatively inexperienced but, since this trip, I have been reading everything I can on the topic of psychedelics, from Polland’s book that is helping to bring psychedelics mainstream to Faidman’s classic The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide.

Anyway, what I really want to share is my re-experience of a childhood trauma. Keep in mind this was no mere recollection, this was a true, visceral experience. First of all, I was blindfolded in my bed listening to Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix when I suddenly found myself in my childhood home and bedroom. I remembered the mantra “keep going, let go, keep calm,” or at least some variation of that. So, that’s what I did, I began to explore my childhood home, only it was like walking through molasses, every step was an extreme mental effort. I found myself outside of my parents’ bedroom’s shut door when, all of a sudden, my father was the only image in my mind. He was illuminated, almost as if a spotlight was emanating from within him. Then, shit, piss, and god knows what else was being hurled from behind me, splattering all across his motionless image. Except for his eyes. His eyes were alive. Then, suddenly, I was my younger self, around seven-years-old, right after my father left my family. I was weeping uncontrollably, calling for him. I felt as I felt then. The emotions became too much for me and I took off the blindfold and did not revisit the experience.

This experience consumed my thoughts for several weeks after it happened. I did not know what to make of it. It was extreme in every sense of the term. I knew the importance of integrating the experience, so I kept chewing on it, trying desperately to do so without judgement. 

A few days ago, on 8/14, I was reading Dr. Hawkins’ Letting Go when I realized why my unconcious thrust that experience into my conscious. I read the sentence “I already know everything I need to know.” Suddenly, an epiphany. I remembered being a young kid and fixated on the idea that all the knowledge in the world was inside of the mind, it just needed to be unlocked and/or discovered. I then thought, “Shit, I was a clever little bastard.” Then, the true epiphany, I realized that I AM the kid that I re-experienced. That is a part of my Self, just like the present me is part of my Self. 

My ego did what it could to protect me from the traumatic experience of losing my father and my brother, and so it took that raw emotion, that experience of loss, and shoved it deep into the abyss so that I could focus on my own survival. I brought about this deeply-repressed traumatic experience to the present for its integration into my present Self. 

Now, since this experience, I can think of that kid as me. And, I can even imagine everything that that kid, or me, can be proud of. I can integrate that traumatic experience in a way that conveys strength and perseverance. This has been like a sigh of relief, a breath of Alpine air, a wash of peace and comfort, perhaps the ego re-integrating a long lost part of it. Whatever you want to call it, it may be one of the most important experiences that I’ve ever had.