I would say that it is about loss of control. Those who consciously participate in this loss of what seems safe to them increase the likelihood that they will find what happens to them on drugs less frightening. But the highest of all disciplines, I would say, is to accept a loss of control even when it is unintentional and unpremeditated. The fear of dying or going crazy in an experience is the greatest fear people can have. Not really being in control of your bodily functions and what your mind does can turn into something you didn't expect (on both sides, the frightening and the non frightening).

It is precisely this unexpectedness, the surprisingness of it, that makes such an experience a kind of maturity test for me. I think that the many literatures and films about it express the journeys people have made to explore their minds. If there were no risk involved, it would never reach the dimensions that we, unless we have entered that space ourselves, can begin to see. I think the borderline experiences that people seek are valuable. For me personally, my drug experiences were such that I treated them with a certain respect, and although I hadn't really had anything spiritual in mind, i.e. taking LSD or Psylos hadn't been intended to give me an esoteric enlightenment, it was then that it transported just that. The unintentionality granted me what I neither wanted nor did not want.

Under the influence of drugs, I felt life in a way I never had before. Probably the most impressive thing for me was that the distortion of perception and the disturbed sense of reality did not seem like a distortion or a disturbance, but rather like an (unfamiliar) alternative. Not very different from, for example, putting on infra-red glasses and then suddenly being able to see in the dark. But without knowing what infra-red glasses would even be.

Part of my mind found this experience hilarious. Never have I felt a similar amusement, a fun in being human, like after eating mushrooms. I will never forget this indescribable funniness of the moment, this cosmic laughter inside me. It did something to me for which I am deeply grateful. The very fact that this existence, this planet, was able to create an interaction between me and mushrooms, that my chemistry with the substances of another life form led to such a reaction, still amazes me and I find something deeply astonishing about it at all, a wonder that cannot be described.

That's why I'm often a bit annoyed by the matter-of-factness with which, for example, the gazettes say "the body's reaction is nothing but a biochemical reaction", as if that were a piece of cake. As if one had to get out of the habit of wondering about something. As if we had everything under control.

Don't get me wrong, a maturity test has to be experienced by the one going through it either in a field of the many who have ritualised such a test with prior knowledge and experience, goodwill but also determination, or else, as in my case (and probably in the vast majority of a modern society), the first time is a conscious decision made by a clear mind. For example, if someone gave me a trip now, I would know that I had been drugged. I would still not find it okay, but I would know that the trip would pass again. As I was already on a bad trip and I really wished it would pass as it was quite scary. Yet, part of me was not really in fear of death or madness. It was like in the fairy tale with Hansel and Gretel, where I knew the breadcrumbs would bring me back to the path and I wouldn't get lost.

It is therefore remarkable that you experienced your trip where you knew neither the dose nor the drug. And where apparently there was no one benevolent to get you and your husband through that night. But you survived and you now had an excellent story to tell :)

I really like to talk about those experiences, lol. Stating the obvious.

the evening kinda fell apart in terms of being on the same page emotionally, mentally, and intellectually - as they were off on their own mission

I hear you. Yes, that happens for sure. That's why the people who take drugs want everyone "in".