San Pedro Showed Me the Boy I Used to Be

I went looking for bliss. I found a boy I had forgotten.

I’m sitting on a boulder in the desert, wearing a cheap hat I bought at Target. I hate it. It makes me look like a bumbling old fisherman, but it keeps the sun off my face. The cord keeps it from blowing away in the cold wind.

The boulder field at Joshua Tree, where I spent most of the day.

I ask myself whether a thought is more profound if I think it louder. That’s a strange thing to wonder. Is the medicine taking effect, or am I just calling it strange because I want it to be?

I am on San Pedro, a psychedelic cactus medicine from South America. Wachuma is its Peruvian name. People call it Grandfather.

I have taken ayahuasca and mushrooms, but this is my first time trying San Pedro. Ayahuasca decides what you need to see and shows you, whether you are ready or not. At times on mushrooms, I would forget I had a body at all.

San Pedro is different. There are no open-eye visuals, no hallucinations. But when I close my eyes, something is waiting. And I can step out of it at any moment simply by opening them.

When I close my eyes, I am met by pure overwhelm. I used to think overwhelm needed a cause, but now I know it can be a state of its own. Choosing to stay in that overwhelm feels like surrender. I choose to stay under.

My phone is open to Google Docs. I planned to record everything, but there’s a problem.

Everything I’m experiencing, the bliss, the beauty, the overwhelm, is gigantic. It hits at a scale that doesn’t translate. To write anything down, I have to compress it into microscopic words.

Even when I decide what to write, I have to interrupt the experience to do it. I have to open my eyes, pull myself out of this state. That takes willpower I often don’t have.

I switch to video. No more swiping or autocorrect. But I still have to interrupt the bliss and find the words. I lose ideas anyway. At one point I think I’m recording for five minutes before I realize I only took a photo. I start recording for real.

Every time I open my eyes and look at myself on the screen, I’m struck by how little my face reflects what I’m experiencing inside. But what else could a camera capture besides an expression? Are there more things we can feel than we can show on our face?

Do I bask in the experience or document it? There’s always tension between those options. But I’m a storyteller, and I need to bring something back.

I have aphantasia. It means my mind’s eye is blind. On San Pedro, that changes. My inner world, normally dark, comes alive every time I close my eyes. Sometimes ridges and grooves, like raised engravings on a coin. Other times an orange background with animated stick figures and shapes, as if drawn with a black Sharpie.

The shapes I saw when I closed my eyes on San Pedro

Petroglyphs! That’s the word I’ve been looking for. I visited Petroglyph National Monument with my friend Tori in 2024, when we drove across the country to see the solar eclipse. They remind me of Aztec art. Maybe this is just what people see on psychedelics. Maybe that’s where the Aztecs got it from.

My gut feels enormous. I know it’s not. I once lost 65 pounds and I know what enormous actually feels like. But I’ve gained some of it back and I feel it right now. Is the temporary joy of eating garbage worth this?

Self-pity shows up. I look at my face on the camera and see an old man staring back at me. I spent decades as a video game developer, never terrible, but never great, and not aligned with my heart. What have I accomplished? Who am I to guide anyone?

The self-pity makes my nose drip. The cold biting wind makes it worse. Eventually I have to blow it out. I didn’t bring tissue. Some of it gets on my clothes.

My mind drifts.

I once had a chance at a relationship with Tori. I made mistakes, and that door closed. My heart used to hurt incredibly, and it took a powerful spiritual experience to learn to forgive myself and heal.

I am surprised my mind returns here. I’m certain I’ve grown and won’t make those mistakes again. But I keep going back to what could have been. Maybe I haven’t healed as much as I thought.

She remains one of my best friends. I wish she were here so I could share the beauty I see. But I am not experiencing just beauty. I sometimes feel sadness and cry. I want her here to comfort me, but it would be unfair to dump my raw emotions on her, to show up crying with snot on my jacket.

Bright neon colors flash inside my mind. I feel like Grandfather is pulling me back.

A spot on my back is tense. Is something in there? There’s a type of therapy where you think of yourself as made up of different parts, and that tension and trauma can live in the body. I call out to my parts. I tell them they are safe. That I love them. That I will protect them. My back relaxes somewhat. Then one of my parts does emerge, just not the way I expected.

I sense that I’m meeting myself as a boy. I was incredibly shy as a boy. The thought of approaching a girl was unimaginably intimidating. I believed I would never have a girlfriend. Some guys have what it takes to attract girls. I didn’t. I thought I would die a virgin.

A fantasy formed in my mind. What if girls approached me? Actually, what if instead of just approaching me, they informed me I was their boyfriend? And maybe it went further, where they turned me into their sexual plaything. There would be no pressure on me, all decisions would be made by women, including when and how sex would happen.

This planted a seed that grew into my attraction to strong, dominant women. This became a major arc of my life, my exploration of kink.

I comfort my younger self. I tell him I love him, there’s nothing wrong with him, and everything turned out fine. He gets married, has a wonderful son, and has many wonderful relationships with beautiful women.

I’m not sure if this changes anything. I’m still attracted to the same type of woman. But maybe a part of me I didn’t know was hurt is now healed.

I stay in the rocks for a while longer, eyes closed. I wonder if there is more waiting for me in there. But I’m exhausted, and I have a sense the medicine may have peaked. And honestly, what could top this? I decide I’ve been given enough for one day. I head back to the cabin.

When I arrive I take a seat on the back deck, where someone is already sitting. I feel light and happy. We talk for a while. Or rather, I talk. He mostly just says yeah and mmm hmm.

Then I ask him about his experience. He replies, ‘I’m really high right now. I went back for a second cup.’ We both burst into laughter. I had assumed he was at the same stage of his journey as me. I try hard not to assume what’s going on in other people’s heads. I didn’t succeed. It makes me realize how easy it is to do that.

Eventually, we gather inside in a circle to share. Many people share their intense experiences, but one person’s experience is especially rough. He breaks down into tears. A friend puts his hands on him first. Then others join in. Then everyone. Someone begins to chant. Ohm. Ohm. Ohm.

Others continue to share. They don’t close circles here. They only get bigger. When the guide finally spoke, it was just to say we were done.

I stay inside for a while. It is warm. People are talking, laughing softly, connecting. There is an openness in the room that you rarely feel anywhere else. Everybody has been through something today. We all know it. The conversations are easy and deep at the same time. I feel comfortable in a way that is hard to explain. Not just relaxed. Settled.

It was one of the most profound days of my life. And then came day two. I went in looking for guidance on my future. The medicine took me somewhere else entirely.

The hat I hate. It makes me look like a bumbling old fisherman. It keeps the sun off my face.

This is also on YouTube if you prefer to watch.

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Go back a step: What Bribing a Cop Taught Me About Spiritual Growth
Take the next step: The Story My Father Told Me the Day Before He Died
See the journey unfold: Explore all steps of my journey