Author's Notes:
I've placed my conclusions first before delving into the experience. Feel free to skip using the index.
(T) indicates psychedelic experience.
Index:
Trip Notes:
Date: 24 Jan 2023
Time start: roughly 18:30
Substance: LSD
Dosage: 100mg
Location: Indoors/Home
Egoless Mastery
When you are a visual artist, you are taught to visualize 3-dimensional objects as polygons constructed by 2-dimensional planes. And those 2-dimensional planes are of course constructed by 1-dimensional lines and dots.
Other fundamentals of visual art consists of composition, perspective, and values of darkness and light. Your style and mastery over the medium of visual art is determined by how well you understand these fundamentals, thus understand how they can be manipulated to bring out certain desired qualities.
During this latest psychedelic experience (24 Jan 2023), these fundamentals that I have intensively studied and understood over the years seemingly merged into one singular idea: that aesthetic beauty is mathematical, and one can use learned formulations to compose images that reads as beautiful to the human brain.
A commonly known example is the Golden Ratio for art composition.
But there are also other concepts, such as, qualities of the states of matter determine how one approaches in drawing them.
As an example: cloth and sand dunes are drawn the same way as water. The flow of cloth (a solid matter) is remarkably similar to the flow of liquids. Sand, despite being solid matter, begins to react like matter in a liquid state when enough air/space exists between each grain of sand.
When you are familiar with the art fundamentals, this line of observation is somewhat second nature. This is also a type of thinking familiar to those who work with and program 3D models in computer graphics.
Individual preferences is tied to an individual's perception of reality, of course, but reality in itself is beautiful in innumerable ways. Although, nowadays with the progress of AI - this concept is made familiar to the public albeit perceived in a more negative light: Pretty pictures can be artificially generated.
It's really easy to do so via a computer. In fact, you don't even need to look at regular AI images - fractal structures and mathematical models have been generated visually through computer simulations for quite some time now.
As someone who has taken years to practice and hone my artistic skills - this idea that beauty is intrinsically mathematical was an extremely useful concept to have embedded within myself. I say "embedded" because once the seed has been planted with psychedelics, it continues to flourish and grow.
***
To the average artist, there is another deeper layer to be discovered: Purpose.
On the surface level, to be a creative brings forth lots of anxiety surrounding finances, your parents' disapproval, and self-expression. There is plenty of ego involved in the world of artists as well. But the masters of their craft, as I've observed, are humbled by not only their failures (which have led to their success), but the act of creation itself.
Once you begin to overcome the How of art-making, you begin to stumble into the territories of the Why. And this is where who you are determines what you create.
For the religious and spiritual, you begin to see yourself as a conduit of ideas - rather than the sole generator of those ideas. Many artists, such as David Lynch, talk about ideas as fragments of information that they have to "catch" through being in the right state of mind rather than conjure.
Which is why he is an avid advocate of Transcendental Meditation. This "catching of ideas" is also something author Elizabeth Gilbert has spoken about in this TED talk:
For the more scientifically minded, there is this idea in physics of quantum information.
It cannot be generated, neither can it be destroyed. To overgeneralize it: if our brains are computers absorbing and processing information, anything we create out of the information cannot be original. Just as AI creates out of data that was fed to it, we humans create out of what information has been processed by our brains.
What differentiates us from AI is what we create can of course be flavored by our interpretations and perceived experiences (they are not original, rather they are personal), and our approach to the execution of the idea can be different from the norm or is a revolutionary addition to past examples but it cannot be wholly original. For nothing is.
So art is not just a technical skill, which can be taught to a machine - it is an expression of an individual's philosophy and their perception of reality. Hence, ego is not necessarily a "bad" thing - it is simply a lens used to perceive a version of reality. But ego can get in the way of creativity, which is why in order to improve in your abilities as an artist - you must overcome the obstacles placed by it.
Essentially, once you loosen the ties between your ability to create and your ego, you can explore various ideas that was originally blocked by the ego's sensitivity.
Our brains receives and filters out numerous pieces of information everyday, only a fraction of it ever surfaces into conscious thought. Once you widen the filter, only then more processed information can come up to the surface.
This is where psychedelics come in. Now let's get to the fun stuff.
Painted Planes
In January 2023, I was still very much sensitive to burnout, as my body had been running on empty for the past several years. I was extremely malnourished and slept through most of the day, only to gain a few energized hours where I could work.
I wanted to impress my lover/business associate. We researched a few potential ways for me to earn a steady income through being an artist. I was too overwhelmed at the idea of a business, and thought perhaps it was better to sell pieces via gallery exhibitions instead.
The idea we came up with was Painted Planes, due to my past experience with selling military-themed artwork online and doing commissions of military aircraft specifically. I won't get into the business details as it's quite boring.
And yes, I know - strange to be a person who adores psychedelics and yet still finds instruments of war fascinating. My adoration for aircraft came from a past relationship I had. Creating a gift was the cheapest way to woo my then-person so I drew them as displays of my love. As I delved into aircraft art, I found the designs of aircraft to be elegant expressions of engineering; wondrous and awe-inspiring.
My artwork later garnered attention from my friends online. They commissioned me and that was how I began my freelance business creating military-themed artwork back in 2021.
***
Sasha gave me two sugar cubes, each with 100mg of LSD.
I was excited to see what will come out of it. I missed creating art and I was happy to get back into it again.
I had a theme in mind: aircraft and seascapes or dramatic sceneries. Once I reached home from Sasha's, I cleared my living room carpet, prepared food and water, and wiped the dust off my colored pencils and watercolors.
I began the experiment with non-LSD art, with the theme in mind. I did my best, taking time to consider each pencil stroke. My actions were deliberate and slightly restricted - I didn't want to mess it up.
It began to rain outside, my cats retreated indoors. Okay, it was time. I played Mozart.
As the symphony played, I breathed deeply to place myself into a meditative state. Then I popped the sugar cube, crunched it till it was gooey slush in my mouth, swallowed, and waited.
I yawned, knowing I'll have to wait a full hour (or twenty minutes) to have it take effect. So I decided, why not do a few more pieces as I wait?
So I continued. Without realizing, the next few sketches already had a psychedelic influence. I became more bold in my color choices. Green, purples, bright colors! I wanted all the bright colors! The fun colors!
But the Hour hadn't even arrived yet... how could the LSD have taken into effect so quickly? I was oblivious to these questions, being deeply absorbed in the art-making. Until I began to giggle.
"My ego is melting," I typed to my friends in Discord.
Five-to-ten minutes per sketch became two-to-four minutes became two-to-one. Before I knew it, I was frantically scribbling out these sketches as if I was a merely an instrument of creativity. A conduit. A printer with feelings.
The 25th symphony began, and the "structures" started to appear in the sketches.
The Structures...
These strange skyscrapers/bridges echoed my first vision of the swirling spires during my first trip. I don't actually know why they wanted to exist, or what they represented. Perhaps they were futuristic cities or transportation systems. An image of the future, akin to the sleek, airbrushed sci-fi art of the 60s-80s.
With a bit more experience in psychedelics, I now begin to refer to these structures as parts of the "construction lines" of reality.
Quitting Art
Despite the very successful "brainstorming" session, I still had a lot more work to do. I had to turn these 15-20 sketches into large 40" x 40" oil paintings for a gallery exhibition, which was a daunting task considering I was not constantly fueled by acid magic.
Throughout the early period of 2023, I was able to create these paintings based off the sketches, but I inevitably fell into a burnout state once again. I needed to quit and give up the exhibition idea (at that moment in time). I just wasn't ready to create art professionally again. So, I decided to get my resume sorted and go into marketing.
These are the finished oil paintings, which hang as home decor in my apartment:
After about 120 applications, 6 interviews, I landed a job as a "Creative Executive" in a marketing agency. The salary was the highest I've ever earned, the job was easy compared to freelance and being self-employed in general. In other words, it didn't strain me like it did with creating art. I was a stellar employee, and came home to my boyfriend who'd jump from the couch like a Golden Retriever and greeted me lovingly every weekday evening. My stories, my ambitions, my doubts took a back seat till then.
I still suffered from dissociative symptoms due to PTSD, and was actively meditating to bring myself back into a state of mindfulness. Whenever I got frustrated over my job, I started into the laptop camera and meditated for a full minute. But the idea of this trip lingered: I am a conduit of ideas - a printer with feelings.
And at that point in time, like many others, this printer just refused to work properly.