This article contains summarized excerpts of my subjective nonfiction story “Remember to Bounce!” – which tells of my experience at Sonic Bloom Festival 2012. SolPurpose.com is publishing the entire story in six parts, starting here. An asterisk (*) indicates that the name has been changed to protect someone’s privacy.
My experience at Sonic Bloom Festival 2012 really began with the ride up to Georgetown, Colorado, in the Front Range directly west of Denver. I carpooled on Thursday, June 21, with my friend Greg*, a fellow representative of the Evolver Network, and Jonathan Zap, a writer and philosopher whose work I had read on Reality Sandwich. Greg and I shared our perceptions of how Catholicism had affected us while growing up, and this segued into a discussion of belief systems.
Jonathan talked about the idea – or the myth, as he put it – that you can create your own reality, in light of his own philosophy of dynamic paradoxicalism. He said this myth might help someone at a music festival, but not so much if, for instance, you had been a Jew in Warsaw when the Nazis invaded Poland. Jonathan struck me as a no B.S. kind of guy, and I liked his ideas. He seemed completely at peace with the realization that “the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth.”
The idea of shaping your own reality is one of the most controversial topics I’ve encountered since entering this counter culture scene – but it would play an important role in my time at Sonic Bloom. Around that same time I found the psychological concept of the “locus of control.” People with an internal locus of control perceive themselves to be in command of their own lives and their well-being, while people with an external locus perceive that control to be outside of themselves. Throughout most of my life, I’ve been stuck with an external locus, suffering under whatever circumstances presented themselves to me.
Greg and I set up the Evolver station on the south end of the main bridge across the river – what would turn out to be a central hub on the festival grounds. The hope in representing Evolver was to get people involved with our “spore” back in the Front Range, or to inspire them to create their own. Then the idea was to network and connect different sustainability projects and transformative groups, to grow the communities of the future from within the current failing system – or at they put it, “Building community for the new planetary culture.”
We had a rough plan of balancing this promotional duty with intense psychedelic exploration. I was midway through a season of heavy experimentation – what you might call a delayed rebellion against my conservative upbringing. We saw my new friend Dosha* within moments of entering the festival grounds. When she heard of our plans, she told us she brought 5-HTP – which reportedly helps synthesize more serotonin, the neurotransmitter temporarily depleted by psychedelics like LSD or MDMA. I later saw online reports that describe it as an over-the-counter anti-depressant.
I had never tried LSD before that month, even though I eagerly (and fearfully) wondered about it for over a decade. This would be my second experiment with the famed molecule (the first time was only two weeks prior). I consumed two hits of blotter acid, and Greg ate three. Some will chuckle at any attempt to capture the psychedelic experience in words, yet I have valiantly attempted in my story. In short, the music and the lights splintered my mind, and I thought I could feel the acid tearing a hole in my insides. I told Greg about this and he said, “It is! That’s what it’s supposed to do.” Greg had extensive experience with LSD, claiming to have “dosed” more than 100 times in his life.
Greg and I had parallel experiences in which we evoked other people from our lives. In my case, Greg kept taking on the appearance of my uncle and grandfather, but an animated amalgam of both people. And since I had on a green hula skirt and pink boa, among other strange apparel, Greg said I reminded him of a gypsy woman he knows. The acid seemed to be activating some unconscious archetypal pattern in our psyches and projecting it onto the other person present.
The evening (or aeon?) unfolded into a chaotic, amorphous mess. For the first time in my embodied experience, I had the sense not only of the self observing the self in a single loop (i.e., basic self-reflection) – but of the self observing the self observing the self in infinite loops. I could call this enlightening, but also very alarming.
On Friday morning, I sought out Dosha for her 5-HTP. I took two capsules, and it did seem to make me feel more emotionally and existentially balanced. I suddenly had a direct sense of the way simple biochemistry can amplify or dampen my waves of emotions.
Friday afternoon saw the arrival of our other three campmates, and we planned for an epic night together. Up to that point in my life, I had experimented mainly with psilocybin mushrooms. I still held onto the idea that mushrooms should be used for purposes that were more ceremonial than recreational, and preferably in a quiet natural spot, maximizing both intention (setting a goal of personal growth and increased awareness) and integration (making efforts to work the insights permanently into your ordinary mindset, embodied experience, and self-identification).
However, the first time I took mushrooms was at Lollapalooza Music Festival, amidst at least 150,000 people crowded into an urban park in downtown Chicago – an experience I’d describe as positively life-changing. So clearly my standards were not totally decided, and my company didn’t seem to share my concerns. All five of us took mushrooms (2-4 grams each) and molly (the powdered form of MDMA, about two “pinkies” each). Greg and Phil* (another campmate) also took some acid that someone gave them. They said that “the universe delivered it” to them, so they didn’t believe they had a choice in the matter (see: external locus of control).
But this wasn’t to be a group experience, as I had imagined during our collective planning. As soon as we walked over to the main stage area, the group dispersed. Instead of becoming lonely or disappointed, I began to feel content with my individual journey and all the twists and turns – both in the moment (because, in my opinion, the psychedelic experience is a microcosm for all of existence) and in my life more broadly.
As the drugs took effect, I became extremely outgoing and friendly, whereas I’m primarily a reserved person and tend to experience my introversion as imprisonment. I kept in mind my ongoing goal of being more verbally expressive with people. I complimented strangers for their tattoos, their clothes, and their hair, thinking how – just like me – many people are probably less self-confident than they appear, and need confirmation that what they’re doing is appreciated and worthwhile.
When I expressed to an acquaintance named Felicity* that it was nice to be able to totally check out from “real life,” she corrected me by saying that this was real life, and that I was checking in! I smiled, nodded, and told her she had a good point. Now these seem like two profound but conflicting truths, as Jonathan had suggested was possible on our Thursday commute.
Ordinary social interactions became too difficult to sustain around the point when I noticed that my sense of time was totally distorted. Throughout the night I’d find someone, lose them, and magically find them again. With Greg I sensed that all efforts at planning were impossible, not just because our executive functions were dampened, but because Greg said he wanted nothing but totally spontaneous action. The theme of his night was to just let things happen unintentionally. In fact, it seemed that he got angry when I discussed what we might do next, or how we’d “find the others” (one of Evolver’s slogans). Clearly I had a lot of trouble getting out of my measured, linear, problem-solving state of mind – even under the influence of powerful drugs. But it’s interesting that temporarily externalizing one’s own self-control in this crowd seemed not only acceptable, but even very cool.
Our conversation turned to this night being a lesson in improv acting, since I felt like I was in an interactive stage play. Greg – who had plenty of experience with acting – said that’s exactly what life is; it’s a great improv show happening all the time, and it just goes on and on. And if I were to define “improv” in my own words, I’d say it’s about following what compels you to act without letting inhibition and hesitation block that action.
Greg remained determined to promote Evolver, despite his altered state. Yet what was Evolver’s purpose again? Something about grassroots organizing… or sustainable communities… but I couldn’t remember exactly. It seems we were operating under an unspoken paradox – trying to recruit people to an organization, in a crowd that places high value on the tenets of independence and self-reliance.
Most important during this time was that I didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought about me. Normally I can feel that tension in my body, as though I’ll be struck down for a wrong move. That night the fear was totally gone. How would I grab some of that brazen confidence and integrate it into my regular experience? I was still concerned about my effect on others, so I would apologize if I bumped into someone or thought I detracted from another’s experience. Greg told me not to apologize, but I was really fixated on how to achieve the most freedom of action and expression while not harming or bothering others too much.
Within me I observed the blend of substances in full effect – the oozing splendor of psilocybin, the effulgent bliss of MDMA, the familiar rush of caffeine, and the soothing tingle of cannabis. (I had some instant coffee back at camp, and I smoke pot regularly.) I could feel the trillions of cells in my body all bubbling and dancing, each one drooling with ecstasy.
Gradually I didn’t feel as disturbed when my campmates would suddenly disappear. And on a larger scale, I felt less sadness over losing track of people I’ve loved, whether friends or lovers. That night I had the convincing feeling that I’ll find the ones I need exactly when it’s supposed to happen. Or as someone (maybe me) put it that weekend, “We’ll pick up the thread later.” I started to gain a new perspective on the delicate dance we’re doing all the time. We bounce back and forth in semi-circles and sudden star patterns; we don’t march in straight lines. We sometimes brush against people, we sometimes collide… and yet other times we find ourselves spinning in solitude.
On Saturday afternoon I spent the most consistent amount of time at the Evolver booth. We did our best to make conversation with people walking down the path. Many individuals at the festival ordinarily would have been very interested in the Evolver Network, but getting anyone in this magical fairyland to think about worldly issues was quite a tricky task. My enthusiasm was probably muddled by a secret worry that our Evolver booth was a bit amateur. I was also in too dreamy of a state – too intent on studying the people around me. I could see the party fatigue on their faces, and I heard evidence of daring psychonautics slip from their mouths as they passed by.
It might seem strange that people partied hard at a festival billing itself as an event about “raising consciousness” – but Sonic Bloom was without a doubt one of the hippest parties in the world. And with only a few thousand people present, it was also extremely exclusive. The whole scene felt a bit like a space station on some alien planet – yet the I-70 highway was right there the whole time. Clearly part of the intention was to integrate the gritty aspects of civilization with the farthest reaches of the cosmos.
The wild ride ensued as darkness fell on Saturday evening. Everything became such a swirl, where before I just saw straight lines and boxes. Only swirls of perception and whirrs of embodied perception happen at such a rapid vibration of existence. This festival felt like a hyperactive bee hive, compared to the slow ooze of “real life” and “normal states of consciousness.” How would I find any sense of balance or constancy in such an ever-changing lifescape? It suddenly seemed better to approach life like a surfer than a construction worker – to flow with the aqueous surface below my feet rather than impose a structure in opposition to the qualities of nature.
It’s strange that the word “adventure” didn’t enter my notes about the festival until Saturday night. I heard people use that term constantly throughout the weekend. Each time more than one person set out to do anything, they were likely to say something like, “Let’s go on an adventure,” or afterwards, “We just had ourselves a little adventure.” Often this entailed something as simple as dipping our feet in the creek that flowed through the festival grounds. Festival organizers tried to restrict access for safety and legal reasons, but by Sunday afternoon they basically gave up. This creek had a spiritual quality about it – which is to say that it was intimately connected to the spirit of the festival. To attempt to keep people out of it was a characteristically Western imperialistic move that was bound to fail.
I found myself knee-deep in the creek on Sunday afternoon, after another acquaintance named Barclay* shared his hash oil vaporizer and sourdough pot cookies with my campmates. He explained that the vape – containing hash oil that he himself had extracted with CO2 – was a method of ingesting the most THC in the quickest time possible. On this occasion he was also carrying a gallon-sized plastic bag of homemade cannabis sourdough cookies. I ate some of the broken cookie pieces, thinking that and the hash oil would soothe my yucky, exhausted feeling from such a rough weekend. In my journal I could only describe what occurred as an “oppressive high.” In my body I felt a crushing sensation, as though I had a heavy weight on me.
Before this completely passed, I entered the visionary art tent with my campmate Sidney* to view the offerings. Some of the paintings made my mind feel broken, recalling my acid trip on Thursday night. I had to really watch my movements because of my THC dizziness. I was afraid that I might run into a painting or break something, and make a fool out of myself, or worse – face ejection from the festival. Actually a part of me wanted to knock the paintings down, stomp on them, and tear them to shreds, because at the time I felt that these artists had been given a level of undue prestige at the festival.
In short, I was jealous – and I can admit that now. But it was also about the traditional hierarchy of power upon which the festival operated. How were people supposed to “transform” if they remained subjected to the exact same stifling social role they had always occupied? By “stifling role,” I mean that of a consumer of entertainment content. I know these audio and visual artists were working really hard to hold space for all this to happen – but this situation was far more complicated, I felt, than anyone was acknowledging.
My campmates shared heartfelt goodbyes with some neighbors on Monday morning. For their relatively young age, they impressed me with their innate wisdom. One 17-year-old spoke about how once you turn 18, you can’t let anyone tell you what to do with your own life. With a laugh I said, “I wish someone had told me that when I turned 18.” It’s so bizarre to think how differently my life might have gone up to this point if I had actually disregarded the opinions, mandates, etc., of powerful people in my life instead of just donning a rebellious, snarky attitude.
I saw Dosha again while packing up the Evolver booth on Monday morning, which provided a symbolic punctuation mark to my Sonic Bloom experience. She was sorting recycling, compost, and landfill materials as part of her “green team” volunteer duties. We hugged and talked about plans for linking our social/creative/activist groups in the Front Range in the future – which, for a variety of reasons, we never did.
Greg, Jonathan, and I piled into my car and drove away. I dropped off Greg and then Jonathan, and returned home to find an extremely overcrowded small house and a bleak outlook on the week ahead. What a blunt re-entry into consensual reality.
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It took me almost another year to really gain some certainty of perspective on the issues in the atmosphere at Sonic Bloom 2012. As for the idea that “you create your own reality,” I think Jonathan was right to call it a myth, in the sense that it is very connected to personal and cultural beliefs. Yes, attitude clearly matters when it comes to the quality of our experience in life, and I’ve become much more adaptable and resilient than I used to be. But repressing feelings of sadness, anger, and heartbreak results in those energies exploding somewhere else in the human world in the form of violence, pollution, warfare, or the like.
Somehow this is tied up with the idea of “intentionality” – a much-noted concept at a transformative festival like Sonic Bloom. People in my sphere were gripping hard to the idea that most (or all) human action could be made intentional and conscious, implying the ability to solve our individual and societal problems. Looking back on my time at Sonic Bloom, though, I see so much that happened unintentionally, accidentally, or unconsciously – and this seems more aligned with life as a whole. Any attempt to explain human existence – or the subjective experience of being alive – in phenomenological terms of what happened and how we perceived it, will turn out to be much (or infinitely) more complicated than these reductionist concepts. But the simplicity lends itself to popularity, and those with more extroverted characteristics are easier to trust and follow. In other words, I felt that much of the talk about “intentional” or “conscious” activity consisted of social and “spiritual” posturing.
Drawing conclusions about psychedelics is one of the most difficult parts. In the summer of 2012, I still believed that psychedelics could only create a temporary effect in a person. From my few mushroom experiments undertaken before then, I had started to look at the insights gained as trail markers that I could then work toward by using other methods when in a more ordinary state of consciousness. But acid is a different beast altogether, and especially my trip on Thursday at Sonic Bloom seemed to cause rift in my core that never fully repaired. Of course, some of those words put a negative spin on it – whereas looking back it’s clear that the rift did me much more good than harm. If I were to label where the rupture actually occurred, I’d point to an unconscious or secondary aspect of my Self that was causing my repeated sensation of imprisonment.
All this goes to say that psychedelics do serve a useful purpose in human civilization. In my opinion they are not sufficient in themselves; I also required social and professional recognition and belonging, as well as specific training for processing individual and group blockages. When it comes to sacred substances, intention and integration do seem to be necessary aspects of their ongoing utility. Furthermore, it’s hard to imagine that a festival like this would be as transformative after the first time, unless I continued giving careful attention to meditative activities like journaling or drawing during the experience, and telling my own story (even to myself) to complete the integration once enough time had passed. Still, at the end of it all, I find myself buzzing with the spirit of adventure, of venturing to be a bit irresponsible, of daringly ingesting illegal but extremely exhilarating psycho-somatic-activating substances in a setting that is inherently alien and uncontrollable. In other words, I had one of the most remarkable times of my life.
After writing my story, I found an organization called Festival Earth that aims to shift from an over-emphasis on “peak experiences” to a concerted effort at turning words and ideas into actual manifested change in the world. This is merely one example of a new flowering based on the growing realization that our ideals and our actual accomplishments are not always aligned. Now I see clearly my own duty. My choice to treat myself to such extraordinary adventures is only justified if I use my ongoing personal empowerment to create lasting improvements in the world, especially in the functionality of human communities. But the grueling process of individuation must start first – and even throughout the rest of 2012 I found myself without the adequate resources (inner or outer), and in too severe a state of psycho-spiritual turbulence, to fulfill such a duty. But that was then, and this is now. A fresh chapter in my life is beginning. Writing this story helped me get in touch with a new version of myself that cannot be reduced to dualistic concepts… a person who can befriend all the conflicting parts within himself… a person totally comfortable with admitting the truth in paradox. Already I find that my chronic sensations of imprisonment and carrying weight have been matched (or even overpowered) by the increasingly liberating sensations of lightness and buoyancy, to the point that I often feel like I’m bouncing through life, whether or not I remember to do so.
