Did anyone else have a prolonged Dionysian experience?
I'm curious if anyone here has had an experience like this.
Some context first.
I grew up in a pretty extreme Calvinist household. If you're not familiar, it's a branch of Christianity that puts a huge emphasis on human depravity, sin, divine judgment, and the idea that only a predetermined few are saved. As a kid I internalized this constant feeling that I was always being watched and judged, even in my own thoughts. Looking back I think it split me from myself in a weird way. I was always observing myself instead of just... existing.
I'm also in the middle of my Saturn Return, if that's relevant. A couple weeks before this happened I had a huge falling out with my dad over religion and what I see as the religious abuse I grew up with. It brought up a LOT of stuff I'd buried.
The day this happened wasn't planned at all lol. It was a work night. I got home around 6:30 and tried DMT for the first time. Honestly it scared the absolute shit out of me. My first thought was that I was being possessed.
Then its like something took over me. My girlfriend and I ended up having probably the most emotionally intense, visceral sex we've ever had, then almost immediately after I found myself dropping 350ug of acid. Looking back it felt strangely compulsive. Like I wasn't really deciding to do it, I was just... doing it. Which makes even less sense because I had to be up for work at 8 the next morning.
While I was peaking The End by The Doors came on.
This is where it gets hard to explain.
It felt like I was seeing this father/son split that wasn't just my own. Like the same pattern was repeating everywhere. My relationship with my dad, fathers and sons in general, authority and rebellion, even the basic split between self and world. It all felt like different expressions of the same thing. I know that probably sounds kind of out there but it's the closest I can get to describing it.
At first I thought I was somehow connecting with Jim Morrison. For the next couple weeks I'd get choked up just hearing his voice, and I caught myself unconsciously picking up some of his mannerisms.
Then at some point trying to research and figure out what the fuck was going on I realized... it wasn't Jim Morrison, but whatever Jim Morrison himself was riding.
The closest name I have for it is Dionysus. Or maybe the Dionysian archetype if you want to put it in Jungian terms. I don't mean I think I was literally possessed by the Greek god. It was more like my whole personality got reorganized around that pattern for a while.
The really weird part is that it lasted for weeks after the trip. I felt more embodied, way more emotional, more creative, more instinctive. Like I'd spent years living almost entirely in my head and suddenly got dropped back into my body.
Has anyone here had anything remotely similar? Doesn't have to involve psychedelics. Whether you see Dionysus as a god, an archetype, or something else entirely, I'd genuinely love to hear how you made sense of it because I'm still trying to process the whole thing.
Posted Jul 30, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC