On Rumination and Psychedelics

Life is precious, so it’s too bad that we spend more or less a third of it fast asleep. Worse than that, we skip out on a lot of the remaining time by ruminating about what might have been or will be, and it’s sad to think about how much energy goes into these do-over fantasies where I – now at last the star of the show – relitigate the battles of the past and finally put my opponents to the sword with my devastating, if imaginary, replies. Futile, yes. Except so much of this is driven by a sense of injustice and a desire to defend the most sensitive and wronged parts of ourselves, as we mourn over heartbreaks, stifled urges, and unfulfilled desires. Should we just let injustice reign and submit to the things that have wronged us? Not only that, maybe these re-runs prepare us with scripts us for the next time someone puts us down or wrongs us in some way.

 The reply to this? The repeated slaying of old ghosts brings no real comfort and dries no tears. And as for preparing for the future, repeated re-runs actually make a poor prediction for the what may happen next, not least because our opponents have not read the straw man scripts we have inwardly assigned them. Rumination seems instead to mire us more deeply in the mindset of the past, of the child covered with shame and choking with rage, of the adult momentarily lost in humiliation. As a repair job, it’s like putting pretty wallpaper over a fissure in the wall. Time rushes on, the wounds of the past stay fresh, and we stay lost in our sad or angry dreams. It is on us to choose between the echoes and shadows of the past and the substantial food of now – the delights of our perceptions, of simple things like the shape of a plant or the sun on a window, of our relationships, our inner states. There is something to be grasped if we can wake up and get a hold of it, in just the same way as the message of the psychedelic experience is that joy is all around us.

 It may be our personal tragedy is that we stay so disengaged with our “one wild and precious life,” designing the bounds of our resentments and regrets instead. Or maybe – this is no tragedy at all, and dealing with our shadowy preoccupations is a job we can take up with relish. We are far from alone in our ruminations, it is a culture-wide thing. Any given morning, how many people on the train to work are actually there on the train, rather than lost in their struggling thoughts? Is the train ride home any different? The grey cloud that hangs over us all can only be dispelled by all of us; so I should not expect to be mentally outside the maelstrom I was born into, and what I do for me, in fact I do for everybody in one massive communal growing up effort.

 And where exactly is the exit ramp to rumination? When, as in meditation, you look at the part of yourself that is mired in old conflicts or prepping for new ones, think of that “me” who is watching. Call it the observing self if you will, but maybe I can get to know – or rather, more deeply become – that calm person. I hope that over time my center of gravity will move from my obsessive ruminators to this more chill guy. He doesn’t just notice the ruminating ones, he also follows their energy, as energy, not arguing or judging but doing what you would expect an observing self to do —he looks at what’s happening. Speaking of do-overs, I need to repeatedly, over and over again, take his stance and watch my funny old selves as they enact their eternal internal doomscrolling. When I can be a little less on guard, I will bathe in the sound-bath of my senses, slip into the simple joys of the moment. It is the all-day everyday trip, where I can make the wish, “let me be present,” and just as in psychedelics, then give over my wishes to the medicine inside me.