Something Awaits On The Other Side Of Meditation

Something I glimpsed on psychedelics.

Michael Papas
4 min readNov 25, 2020
Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

The state of higher consciousness achieved on psychedelics can be accessed through meditation.

It was a meditation like any other. Before bed, I settled down to watch my breath for 10 minutes.

I wasn’t feeling tranquil. There were two days to Boards— entrance exams for attorneys — and I wasn’t sleeping well. My mind was busy— thoughts babbling unabetted. And I didn’t really feel like watching that circus.

Still, a practice is a practice. So I closed my eyes and began to breathe. Soon, something remarkable happened.

The first few minutes were fitful. I couldn’t silence my thoughts, even with Jim Dethmer’s 4 x 4 breaths technique. They weren’t cooperating. So eventually, I stopped wrestling and let them prattle.

Suddenly I remembered a remark Yuval Noah Harari made in a recent chat with Tim Ferris about Vipassana meditation. The trick is not to focus on breathing — it’s to watch the breath like an external observer.

So I began to watch. And little changed for some minutes.

But then, something happened that’s difficult to describe.

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Michael Papas

Insights from neuroscience, non-dual mindfulness, and psychedelics to upgrade your awareness. For gigs or just to chat, get me at michaelpwriting@gmail.com.