Last Monday I had one of the strangest experiences of my life. “Spiritual” is the best (and only) way I can describe it. Afterwards, I messaged a guy named Luke Eilers (also known as GoldJacketLuke), asking if I could describe it to him. I had never met Luke or spoken to him before; you’ll see why I did this later on.

He said sure, but to include everything, be detailed, and not to worry if it sounded completely crazy. I spent some time making my notes into something more legible, and ended up sending him a 3000+ word story.

He had some interesting comments, and among them was the suggestion that I post the message on here. So the following is the exact transcript of that message.

Quick background on me

I’m 21, from Canada, and just graduated university last April. About 3 weeks ago I moved to Chiang Mai in Thailand, in order to work on my eCommerce business and grow my blog, and to become part of the “digital nomad” community here.

Background to experience

A few days ago I did something which was huge for me, I approached a girl sober in the daytime, and did it direct saying, “Hey I thought you were cute and wanted to meet you etc.” and talked to her for a bit. This was in the gym that I go to here in Chiang Mai, which is in a hotel. I was going to get her number, but she said she was going to the same event as me that night. I figured I would see her there and so I didn’t bother. She was a white girl and doing internet money stuff as well, so I figured I’d run into her again anyway (the community here isn’t that big). Anyways I didn’t care so much about the actual girl, it was more that I had actually done the sober daytime approach. I have done plenty of picking up girls at night and used to rely on alcohol a lot so this was always a milestone in my head. It had been a major goal of mine for ages (like the last 2-3 years) and I think moving out here really helped me be able to do it.

Lead up to the experience

Yesterday I woke up very early (5am and only slept about 4 hours that night) and took modafinil (a nootropic usually prescribed for narcolepsy, it improves your focus and concentration but also keeps you awake for long hours) which is something I do sometimes when I want to have a really productive work day. I went to the coworking space like normal and did a bunch of work, then I went to the gym to work out like I normally would.

At the gym, I saw the same girl that I had approached the other day, and we were kind of looking at each other but pretending not to see each other lke people do sometimes. I knew I had to go up and talk to her again but I was pretty nervous and the modafinil actually made me more nervous than usual in social situations. I used to have really bad social anxiety and have gotten over a lot of it, but one downside of the modafinil is that it makes me more anxious around people; it makes me much more up in my head and it generally feels way harder to express myself to others.

So even though I was nervous I went up and talked to her again. It was a little awkward, but at the same time not really more than it normally would be in a situation like that. I also didn’t get her number again this time. I went off to do my workout and I was thinking “Ok I’m gonna go get my phone and then go ask her for her number”. So I went and got my phone from my bag and was going to ask her for her number, but then this guy came in and started spotting her and they were talking and stuff, I figured it might be her boyfriend or something. They left together pretty soon after and I didn’t end up getting her number, I was too scared to ask her with the guy there.

Here’s where the weird stuff starts:

I’m doing side lateral raises with the cable machine, and then suddenly something just hits me and I think “What am I doing?”, and I think about how I’m just raising my arm up and down and it suddenly seemed like the stupidest thing in the world. I suddenly felt a lot of contempt towards working out and lifting weights, which was really weird for me because working out has been my favourite hobby for the past like 5 years and it’s a huge part of my identity and self-image. I then had this line of questioning in my head, sort of Q&Aing myself: “Why am I doing this? To get bigger muscles. Why? To attract more girls? Why? (getting girls isn’t the whole reason for working out but it’s definitely part of it)” Then I thought: “Why do I want to sleep with more girls?” (Also a big part of my identity/self image)

And I thought about how this was just a product of my ego, and then I thought about the ego and how everything is one; how everyone is me and I am everyone. (I have taken LSD twice but only once had a strong trip, but I “saw” this same thing during the trip and this experience was like recalling it/remembering that it was the case again). I realized that I had forgotten this “truth” during the past few weeks or so, and I really came to feel it again in that moment. I spent a lot of time just thinking “What’s the point?” I then thought that this feeling of purposelessness might be some kind of depression brought about by the modafinil (like it was “muting” or suppressing my desires or something). Then I thought about writing down what I was thinking later (generally I write a lot of things down) but then I thought about how me writing it down would just be another product of the ego…

I then thought about this guy Mike Cernovich, he writes a site called Danger and Play (which you may have read) and how I sort of jump to him in my head when I’m looking for an example of someone with strength of character. I respect and admire the guy a lot and I (“I”) really think he has his shit together. He talks about ego death sometimes, he has taken DMT, he talks about how he doesn’t really care what people think of him (and his actions back that up) and he comes across as very secure in himself and I think he is. But in this moment I thought (or “knew”) “this guy’s ego is just as prominent (ie he is as egotistical as everyone else) and as fragile as everyone else’s” and I thought about how he is as hopeless as all of us (hopeless in the sense that we don’t really understand the universe or anything about the universe). I thought about how if he really “understood the universe” completely it would shatter and destroy him just like it would to anyone (because human beings can’t fathom the cosmos/universe and it would completely overwhelm us or make us go insane or something like that).

Then I thought about my own ego, and how strong it is, even though sometimes I think it’s not. I thought about this blog I write (freedomandfulfilment.com), and how I share some strong opinions on there and I think it’s all “right”, but really opinions are just made up (they are made up products of the ego, which itself is made up). This bothered me because that blog is a big part of my life right now (writing a personal development blog is another goal that I had wanted to do for a long time). I thought about how if it was somehow demonstrated to me by some cosmic or omnipotent force that it was all wrong and all my beliefs were wrong, that I would shatter and be destroyed.

Then I thought some more about how everything is a product of the ego, but the ego is all made up.

Then I thought about you, and how I might message you about this, and I thought about your Satori experience video. I was reminded of that because this was somewhat like that, in the sense that it was an altered state of consciousness, but it wasn’t so much the sense of love but more so the sense of being one with everything. Then I thought about how you say that everything is a dream and everyone is really me, and I looked at this Thai lady cleaning the floor and I saw that she was me, and this Thai trainer at the gym walked by and I thought “He’s me as well, even if he doesn’t know it”.

I then thought about getting embarrassed and the emotion of embarrassment more generally, and how it’s just a made up product of the ego as well, how it’s one ego reacting to other egos but none of it is actually real. I felt a sort of sense of freedom, like nothing matters because nothing’s real, so you can really do anything you want.

This was all while I was still in the gym, just sort of standing by the cable machine with all of this running through my head. It probably didn’t take more than 5 minutes for all those thoughts, and they just sort of came one after another. After that I sort of finished my workout, but was preoccupied with what I’d been thinking about/feeling, and working out still seemed kind of stupid and futile because of the thoughts I’d had. I went through the motions and then left the gym.

Continued in Modafinil, Ego Dissociation, and GoldJacketLuke: My Crazy Spiritual Experience (Part 2)