What’s Found in the Light is Hidden in the Dark

An observation in altered consciousness

What you’re about to read was borne of that hazy mental state between sobriety and its absence. I’ve cleaned the writing up and expanded the point to help guide sober people through the murky thought process that altered states of consciousness create.

This essay is built around an observation that came to me when I thought the whoa man, that’s deep mental mode a certain mushroom provides had worn off. My mistake. If you pay close attention to anything and try to understand its function—its language, maybe—what you find won’t wear off in 24 hours.

I’m not afraid to think outside the bounds of the factual and literal now. I’ve escaped the grey world that a literal outlook imprisons you within.

When I could only see the world literally, I was smug, naive, and thought the bible was a stupid fossil that offered nothing but suffering. A mild emotional breakdown, the courage to see how I caused it, and the myth-curious perspective of thinkers like Nietzsche and Jung freed me from my restrictive rationality.

That freedom is what allowed me to see the following story in nothing more than a bright stadium light shining up into the night sky.

Portrait de la comédienne Marie-Anne de Châteauneuf, 1712. (Detail). Nicolas de Largillierre.

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