Bangkok. Intuition, Acceptance and the Flow.
October 21
Went to bed around 10:30 PM. While lying down, I visualised my council of sub-personalities. Tried to work through sensations in my stomach — anxiety or just tension, feelings that have accompanied me for most of my life. I let this entity know that I accepted it. Consulted with my gods; they cautiously welcomed it. Initially, the sub-personality appeared as something fluffy, but the image quickly vanished. It’s representation began changing rapidly, one after another. I let it go. In a while felt intense energy rising. Higher and higher…
Continued reading Stanislav Grof’s The Stormy Search for the Self, a book about personal crises and metaphysics.
In around half an hour, At 11:07 PM, Kevin Owocki from Gitcoin wrote. He invited me to participate in a panel at Devcon in Bangkok. A coincidence one should not ignore. I didn’t hesitate a bit.
I didn’t participate in the panel in the long run, but my Bangkok journey became one of my life’s gems. Many synchronicities (hard-to-believe coincidence) happened to me during this period… I’m omitting most of them! The following is a small part from my diary notes I consider worth sharing.
November 14, 2024. Bangkok.
Decentraliser arrived. First we visited the Wat Saket temple, then a climbing gym (yep), then the ETA dance club, which turned out to be kind of boring - just a small bar with a DJ behind the counter. We went to buy jelly bears…
Decentraliser explained dosages to me. A "standard" joint was 100mg. I never had a full one in my life (not a smoker at all). What we had in a bear is 666mg in total. I took about two-thirds.
In the shop. Chilling, talking, smoking, chewing. We discussed out-of-body experiences, mind-reading, meditation, the astral plane.
...How strange it all is — substances, meditation, holotropic breathing, rituals confronting death. Could all of these really lead to the same place? Buddha, shamans, tribes, monks and substance-users. How strange…
On a shopkeeper's recommendation, we headed to a club called Sugar. But the walk there became unsettling: sex workers, dealers, beggars, beggars with children, people drunk and high, bums, chaotic energy. We passed by a boy laying on the sidewalk near his mother. I felt as I’m turning on a wrong route. Arriving at the club didn’t make things better. I suggested turning back.
We took a tuk-tuk back to ETA again (that first “boring” club). A woman with a baby on her shoulder came up to our tuk-tuk, but we ignored her totally. I caught the young tuk-tuk driver’s eye. It seemed to me, he started revving the engine unnecessarily and driving faster overall. The seat beneath us got hot (engine beneath it).
Was he warning the area that stingy people were passing through? I wondered if tuk-tuk drivers and roadside beggars might be in cahoots — or at least knew each other and sympathized with one another. Or maybe that young woman with the baby was truly in need? Maybe she is the driver’s girl… I gave the driver a 20-baht tip. Felt like I had bought off this area and finally took the right path. I thanked the Universe for that.
We got back to ETA. Turns out, the club had a second floor! It was just as minimal as the first. Three or four people there. But the music and lighting were incredible! Two DJs were playing together (!) at the same console—a girl and a guy. The girl was tall and slim, dancing so gracefully. The light behind her. A fog machine. It really hit me.
Went to the restroom. It took me just 2-5 minutes. By the time I returned, the music had already ended. Downstairs, another DJ had taken over behind the bar. The music was a bit faster. Decentraliser said it was 108 beats per minute, real rave music.
108 is a sacred number in Buddhism. A day earlier in Bangkok I placed a coin in each of the 108 bronze bowls at the Wat Pho temple. It is also customary to walk around Buddhist stupas 108 times. I walked around several such stupas, but only once around each one. I kneeled Buddha in every major temple I visited.
Slowly, I got into this music too, too. Started dancing with my eyes closed again… There was barely any light show here, but I was seeing so much more. I remembered a painting of Buddha from the MOCA museum and started focusing on it. I concentrated on Buddha’s third eye and imagined the rays glowing from it beginning to move. The image quickly became sharp and stable.
Doubts crept in. I’m under a substance. In Bangkok. Somewhere very far from my hotel. My backpack with all my money, passport, and phone is in an unguarded locker that doesn’t even lock. I kept standing with my eyes closed, dancing. The other paintings in the museum began to come to life. But doubts continued to interfere.
Who is my friend? He flew to Bangkok for just one day to meet me. He paid for the taxi, the club entrance, and the drinks. Is he a tempter or a teacher? He seems so detached from me. He talks at a distance, laughs somewhat tensely. No, he’s just French! Fidgeting like a drug addict. Talks a lot about drugs, mushrooms. He asked me in such detail about my transcendental experiences during meditation and lucid dreams. Maybe he was just figuring out what substance would suit me best and at what dose.
A teacher! He’s here to give me a safe experience. He’ll take care of me. I’ll send him a mental message, asking him to look after me, to let him know I accept his teaching and protection.
It worked. I felt safe. I kept dancing with my eyes closed. The images became even more stable, alive, vibrant, and abstract. These were not only paintings now but all sorts of personal experiences represented in light, color and music…
The destruction of the solid, dark, sharp, frightening, stagnant. Transformation into light, color, flowers, flow, movement, rhythm. Breaking dams, demolishing towers, turning sludge and slime into pure water and foam. Smashing black monoliths into pixels and watching them dissolve. Release of pure, powerful energy!
The music shaped the narrative: technology, scientific discoveries, the past and the future, sorrow, joy, my wife, desires, friends, travel, art! And the narrative shaped the music too! I knew in advance what theme would come next, and the music adapted. I knew when the end and the epilogue would arrive. The music adjusted for that too. The resolution and the epilogue arrived as expected. Music and visions stopped.
16.11.24, midnight (UTC+3)
Stayed at my brother’s in law apartment in Moscow. Yan (his name) had a lucid dream for the first time on the very night I was tripping in Bangkok. He also had a dream in his childhood, he told me, about an explosion in a mall in Izhevks (my hometown) - a used-to-be mall where drones are produced now.
17.11.24 06:57 AM (UTC+4)
As I learned from the news an unmanned aerial vehicle attacked a drone factory in Izhevsk (just 6 hours after I was told about the dream). Same day I landed at 11:20 AM in Izhevsk.
My journey to Bangkok started in some metaphysical place. During my whole Bangkok journey I relied fully on intuition and allowed things to flow as naturally as possible. I consider the “bears” to be the culmination (and maybe purpose) of this journey. With other things still to discover.
There were several clear messages, that I received (from interpersonal infinitely wise space). One of them was a clear and repeated message that I should fly from Moscow to Izhevsk by plane instead of taking the train. I saw a vision of the train derailing. I listened and flew by plane. Thankfully, no train derailed. So, I conclude, there was another reason to take the plane. Maybe I simply needed to meet Yan. Maybe I just need to follow his advice and write to Elon Musk about my SOS project.
Anyway intuition told me to write this article and mention everyone I feel like mentioning. Thank you all to be in my Bangkok flow … and welcome to its continuation.
