Need your opinions. First time letting my experience out. 🙏

First, let me share a back story into myself. I’m in my early 20s now, male, and ever since I was a kid, I felt deeply interested in meditation and exploring the self and reality.

I naturally got interested in metaphysics, philosophical topics and spirituality. I felt a deep urge to explore what I am capable of, what am I good at, what my purpose is, and to self-actualize myself to the fullest extent. Basically, to live life to the fullest. I wanted to find the absolute truth about everything, the self and the reality around me. I was insanely curious about various things, and generally a very open person. Also, I felt different from the rest of my peers and friends. I felt like I felt and thought deeply than others, I, now, as I introspect, figure that I was very sensitive, I felt as though I could feel what others were feeling around me. I felt my brain worked very fast, which was sometimes difficult to catch.

Also, I felt overwhelmed and my attention felt scattered and I felt very lost. It were confusing experiences at that age. I would spend my time in school and classes day-dreaming and thinking a lot of “why’s”. I also think that I felt anxiety though I didn’t get it diagnosed due to lack of awareness, also considering the age, that could be pre-teen to teen. So, all of these things, I suspect kept on piling up into my unconscious.

Forward to 3 - 3.5 years ago, I believe I went through something very intense and painful, in which all these unconscious content purged into the conscious, which produced depersonalization, a feeling of shifting of sense of self/ a broken sense of self, and anxiety, plus a lot of the sensations that I talked about. It took 6 months to realize what was happening, after which, it started to make sense of what exactly was happening and tried to label the process. Throughout those 6 months, and afterwards, I felt extra sensitivity, a mind that was moving insanely fast, that was racing 24x7, It was IMPOSSIBLE to focus on anything, making it extremely difficult to make sense what was going on in the mind, the bodily sensations of concentrated pressure and muscle tension, heightened awareness, but I had the willpower to move forward as It felt that something greater was happening, because, as this “process” started, I experienced visions and insights which provided clarity regarding the questions that I had growing up, for example, what I could be, what I need to focus on, what skills I need to sharpen etc. Though later, as I went on the internet with my symptoms, I heavily related with this phenomenon that I came across called “Dark Night of the Soul”, which to describe, was defined as an incredibly painful period of purification in a person’s spiritual journey.

To give more context on what happened, During the time I was going through what I described above, the only thing that I practiced that kept me going was practicing open monitoring awareness, I practiced being aware of everything that my mind had put attention to, and was going on in my system. Following it, I experienced periods of intense clarity, insights, calmness, tranquillity that kept on growing with awareness with each purge of negative and heavy emotions, questions, pressure-like sensations all over my face and body. Importantly, I had also noticed my creativity spiking. I had found myself creative in ways I had not known. I had found that I was a great writer, reader and computer programmer, I would notice my energy expressing in ways that I always wanted to. As I felt I had a lot of it, even as I was growing up. I felt more intelligent, I felt I had more “space” to think and I was able to find out quickly what was true and what was false quickly.

I felt that an old sense of self which was not confident, isolated, self-loathing was dying and a new one, that was confident, had a positive outlook, wise, intelligent was replacing it. This kept on growing and growing and I felt 1.5-2 years going through all of this, very unstable state, in which I, as I recall now felt extreme high-s and extreme low-s, after all these kept happening for 2 years. The states of clarity would ALWAYS give me will power to get through the negative states that would follow, but, it was all going on like a pendulum, being very intense. During these time, I also would drink 1/4th a bottle of vodka, as an experiment to deal with what was happening, and, it mostly would make me relaxed and would help me in processing things, though I never drank before this, only had very light drinks 1-2 times before. This would put a thought in my mind that substance could be helpful. Then, one day, as all of this was happening, I decided to have Cannabis Edibles, which was a high dose according to my friends, for the first time in my life. The trip kicked in resulting in the worst nightmare-like state I encountered, much worse than ever before in which I felt extremely dissociated and literally out of my body, I felt concentrated pressure surrounding my body. This state lasted for 30 mins, after which I, along with the help of my friends was able to calm me down. Following the horror, was the most pleasant state that I’ve ever found myself in. I felt that my mind worked at a thousand thoughts per seconds and I was well aware of what was going through my mind. (Of course, the effect of the substance) In this altered state, I felt that all of the issues that were left to be solved, found their way to the conscious, and I had solution, insights, visions striking my mind. I had felt that I encountered every question and every answer that I could during the trip. During the trip, I came across this insight, that the solution to all your doubts and problems is this: At all times, be a complete, non judge-mental witness of your mind, that is your thoughts, emotions and sensations, then, what’s going to happen is that what is false will disappear and what is truth, will remain. This provided a framework in my life, a mindset that I was looking for, something that would provide me with meaning and truth, at all times. As, I was deeply seeking for deeper truths about life, very intensely. Wanted to figure out what EXACTLY do I need to do in my life, and how to spend my day to day energy, consciously, which would lead to what I REALLY want with my and my life.

The experience seemed psychedelic and incredibly healing. It had ended the negative states that I was going through and put me in a state in which I was identifying what is it that I am labelling as “negative” and “positive” it kind of exposed me to my ego and provided a breakthrough. I suspect, the trip allowed a significant ego dissolution. I had, during the trip experienced states in which I felt connected to the universe, and felt as though everything is one. I remember experiencing myself as a “nothing”, eternally present.

Following the trip, for 2-3 days, I felt enormous clarity as though I was aware of all the thoughts and emotions without identifying with them. I had, in those 2-3 days, experienced states in which I had felt time completely dissolved and felt completely grounded in the present which came and went in waves.

After these 2-3 days, I think I experienced a “crash”, and felt extremely tired and fatigued the following days, I had experienced that I had now lost my heightened awareness and the ability to look at thoughts and feelings, but I felt relaxed, content and light headed, to the extent I had never experienced in my life. In a sense, I started experiencing “normal”, grounded, free of the mind chattering and racing thoughts. Felt more open with people than ever before, felt more “me” than ever.

It’s 1.5 years to the date that I had the first cannabis trip that I described above to today. I felt these 1.5 were more or less like a break, with minimal focus on spirituality, and continuing my studies that had stopped and my social life, and living a “normal” routine specific life. Though, in the beginning, right after it, I was distressed with making sense of what has happened, as a lot had happened at once and I was looking at the world with entirely new eyes, unable to identify and relate with the person I was months ago.

This lead to more marijuana use in the beginning, but it never took me to the state where I was when I first had the edible. This lead to constant use whenever I was down, but I eventually quit it. Using it not more than 10-15 times.

Now, gradually, I have started to practice awareness and meditation, with focusing on the breath, as only open monitoring didn’t seemed to work as my mind is not purging out content rapidly as before.

It took a lot of courage to get this all out here, also thank you, if you’ve read all of my story. I just want, here, your opinions on whatever that I have said happened to me, Could things be pathological rather than spiritual? What’s your take here? This is the first time I’m telling someone, completely, whatever that I have said above, I have been called delusional, and whatnot by doctors, friends, etc Thanking you again, for reading it all.