The more I read these stories, the more thankful I am for my one and (so far) only trip. It was the most real and the most beautiful experience I've ever had.

(Obviously I'm incapable of describing the trip in comprehensible terms, but I'll try anyway. 1) It was like waking up in the womb of creation and being wordlessly greeted by an all-enveloping female presence. 2) This 'goddess' "spoke" to me from within and revealed some simple truths I could remember and carry with me after the trip was finished. Super basic stuff like "just breathe", "let go", "you are loved", "you are never, ever alone", etc. But communicated in a powerful, fundamental way, through the very core of my being. 3)Then, I remembered that I was God. That everything is God. That I, and we all, are That which Is. "Am"ness. Something between being and non-being, but much more than either.)

Anyway that was all well and good. But near the end of the trip - even in the midst of this divine ecstasy - I started to remember shitty aspects of my life. The guilt I carry inside - the sheer weight of it - came flooding back.

And just like that, in the blink of an eye, the trip changed. The colours abruptly shifted from soothing greens, blues, and golden hues, to ominous red, purple and black. Heaven became hell. I was plunging into the abyss.

All of a sudden, I got this terrifying feeling - an indescribably lonely sensation: a certainty that there was no one who could help me. I was alone, doing this to myself. And only I could extricate myself from this hell. I fought and struggled, but that just made it worse. I've never been so genuinely terrified. It was abject existential horror.

But somehow, in the midst of all this darkness, something pierced through. That divine female presence I talked about earlier? She helped me. She "told" me to focus on my breath. She "spoke" to me, and suddenly I knew what I had to do: just let go. Just let go. Let go.

I let it all wash over me, and very soon, I was back in "heaven" (the rapturous Oneness).