Comedian Shane Mauss and Zendo Project’s Ryan Beauregard on psychedelic-induced psychosis. “It was really easy once I got past the big video game, ‘Truman Show’ feeling, to get to a place of, ‘oh, that was all in my head. I was crazy.’”
“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”
This aphorism has become almost a cliche in the psychedelic community. Joseph Campbell said it first, and today it echoes in conversations about psychonauts who went too far. We accept as fact that some are mystics, some are psychotics. You never know which you are until you’ve swam out past the breakers, out of your depth, with no floor beneath your feet.