Otherworld - Episode 153: Down the Silver Strand Pt. 1

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Jake is a Navy veteran who sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) while operating a .50-caliber machine gun during his 10 years as a SWCC. The symptoms of the TBI were debilitating and impacted all areas of his life. As Jake’s condition continued to worsen over time, he began to believe the only way out of his pain might be ending it all, until his doctor introduced him to the ancient healing medicines of ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT. In a last-ditch effort, he traveled to Mexico to undergo the treatment. Find more information about the retreat at: The Mission Within Find free therapy tailored to Veterans at: The Headstrong Project Check out our Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For business inquiries contact: [e-mail] If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your story at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. The story about to hear comes from a man named Jake, who is a Navy Special Operations veteran, with an incredible story that is not only relevant to the themes of this show, but also sheds light on how ancient plant medicine is making major breakthroughs in Western medical science. Unfortunately, humans have been fighting wars long before recorded his history, and only recently have we begun to understand the hidden wounds that soldiers come back with and suffer from long after their time in the military, including PTSD, CTE,

and traumatic brain injuries. It seems like every day we learn more and more about how devastating and widespread these types of trauma-related disorders are, but also that it's much easier to get them than most people ever thought. And the worst part is, these are not at all limited to the military. PTSD is something that can impact anyone who has gone through intense trauma. Traumatic brain injuries and CTE are caused by concussions and especially impact athletes. We've been finding out more and more how many players in the NFL suffer from CTE.

And a recent study has shown that even playing youth football could cause brain damage, that leads to devastating consequences in adulthood. It's tragic to think that we're only just now discovering how severe and common these things are, especially when you think about how many individuals went completely untreated up until this point. But fortunately, we may have some treatments to give relief to people suffering from these disorders

thanks to emerging research in psychedelic and plant medicine. Even though these types of treatments are new to Western medicine, most of them have been used by shamans, healers, and medicine men for thousands of years in ceremonies that combine health, spirituality, and a bit of the supernatural. And even though the research into psychedelic medicine is a bit difficult because it's still primarily outlawed in the United States, the research and treatment that is being done

has been showing incredible results, And this episode is a story from someone who experienced it himself. Very recently, actually. It's a story that starts on Coronado Island at the very, very southern coast of California, and eventually ends on that same coast, just about 15 miles south across the border in Rosarito, Mexico. So I will let Jake take it from here and tell the story. himself. This episode is called Down the Silver Strand, Part 1, and you're listening to Otherworld. This is Bobby? Yeah, it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue with it.

I'm worried about all of a sudden. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. It's limbs were just wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. My name's Jake. I'm a pretty private person, so I'll probably keep most of my personal details to myself, but I will, you know, tell what's needed for the story. Despite being pretty private and keeping stuff to myself, everybody who I've told this story to has told me that, you know, it's something that I need to tell more people. It's been made apparent to me that there's new options out there for people struggling with mental health, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, addiction, and that stuff greatly helped me. So I want to, you know, tell that

story and help as many people as I can. And also, I just think it's a pretty good story. So I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, grew up a pretty normal childhood, a little, a little rough at the beginning, just, you know, socioeconomic things. But my parents have always been amazing. My family's always been amazing. So pretty great childhood, nothing to complain about. And then sometime around 17, I was kind of, I won't say lost, but just absolutely no direction. I started kind of looking at of the military, but I didn't want to just do anything, I guess, in particular, until I found, so I just decided that I wanted to do something really, really hard. I didn't know what it was, so I ended up signing up for special operations and got my contract, went out to selection,

made it through, went to the teams, and that was, you know, that was great. By all counts, I had a pretty lackluster career, no Hollywood deployments or anything. I got in after the global war on terrorism was over, but I still, you know, I did my deployments, I did my job, and just from the nature of that job, because of my expertise, I ended up with the TBI, a traumatic brain injury. So I was a Navy Swick. I went to, and it's not, you know, none of this is like classified or anything. It's more just personal preference.

My team was just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. And then, so our inherent job is being the best in the world at shooting heavy weapons, 50-cal machine guns, mini guns, 240s, everything like that. So the big guns that shoot a lot of rounds, and we're just finding out now, do a lot of damage. The average gun you're going to see in a movie is going to shoot a 5-5-6 round,

which is smaller than anything coming out of a mini-gun or a 50-cow. When you see, I guess, one of those massive sniper rifles in a movie is the best way I can explain it, and you can assume because of how big the rifle is that it's longer than the person shooting it, that's a 50-cow round, and that's what these machine guns are shooting hundreds of

every minute, multiple of them a second. The mini gun is shooting a round slightly smaller than that, but still a pretty massive round, and you're shooting 3,000 of those a minute. So 50 of those a second are coming out of that gun. Yeah, it's pretty, it's a pretty, like when you hold a 50-cow round, you feel like you're holding something pretty

crazy. You don't feel like you're holding a bullet. Like, there's heft to it. It's actually almost impossible to explain how loud they are. A minigone is so loud that if you're not wearing hair protection, it is going to ruin your hearing. We always we're hearing protection. Our communications,

the way that we communicated through radios and stuff have built in hearing protection. But if that would slip off while I was shooting, it was a wrap. Like it would ruin my hearing for at least the rest of the day.

And obviously, you know, that's taking a toll on me. Hearing was. So, yeah, I was a mini gunner. That was what I was, that was my expertise and that's what I worked on the whole time and putting all those rounds

through that gun definitely left a mark on my brain. And then besides that, you know, knocked out a few times, normal things that I guess come with any job in the military. So yeah, that's kind of the conditions I was put in. And they're trying to take care of guys. The teams are doing what they need to. But the new science is coming out that, you know, naturally doing that stuff isn't good for you.

Which it's, you know, we kind of always knew that. But now we're kind of proven that, unfortunately. So it's not just, it's not just what's actually happening to you. There's a new term for this overall condition called operator syndrome. which is super easy to look up now. They have medical journals and everything on it. And essentially, it's when you're putting your body under constant stress and having these things happen to your head at the same time,

it's taking a toll on every part of you. It's taking a toll on your hormones on the way your brain works. And it's doing a lot of bad things. And then guys end up with not just traumatic brain injuries, but other things that are hard to track. Like I said, trying to track the hormones, muscular skeletal injuries, like just everything throughout the body that's a cause of this stuff,

land in the blood. And it's just, you know, it's taking its whole long guys. I was about two weeks from getting out, and there was a static shoot. So teaching some younger guys how to operate the guns at a high level. And I wanted to go help teach it because, you know, I was getting out. I didn't have to go on that trip, and I chose to as a trainer. And I went up and I spent the whole week between

a mini gun and a 50 caliber machine gun training guys and I can just feel my head getting turned inside out. So I left the shooting line a couple of times and I would take my helmet off and I would shake my head and it was almost like I was shaking my brain back into place. I went through a whole bottle of Excedrin in one week and I threw up a couple times after coming off the line as well. And that's really

when it's set in that because I would leave from shooting before and be like, oh, I've got a headache or, oh, I feel dizzy or, you know, something like that. But that was the first time where I came off the line and I was like, holy shit. Like this is, I'm not supposed to feel like this. I can't speak for everybody, but I know that I got out, got ready for college, thought that, you know, I was going to live this great life. And then all of a sudden I had a headache every day.

I had a migraine every week. I had blurry vision. And again, I'm just one small example. But the jobs are absolutely necessary. And they're doing their best to take care of us. but there's inherent injuries that come with it. And we're trying to navigate and figure out how to get better. So I actually remember I was probably a year from getting out,

and I was walking on a bike path of my wife, and I felt something wrong in my head. And we went to sit down at lunch, and I'd never had a migraine before. So we went to sit down at lunch, and it wasn't just a normal headache. It was when it came on, it felt like something was just really weird in my head. And so we're at lunch, and about halfway through, I tell her, like, we've got to go. Like, I can't do anything happening right now. And she's like, what's wrong?

And I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea because that's never happened. So we walked on the bike path, went back to the house. I laid down and got introduced to what a migraine is. No light, no sound. I had a washcloth on my face that my wife got for me. And literally, like, any sensory that came in was excruciating. and the best way I can explain it is it's a heartbeat in your head,

but every time your heart beats, it hurts. So you get a second of relief, and then you get a second of this excruciating pain, and then that kind of just beats until you can get rid of it. That was when I knew something was wrong initially. Looking back, that's when it started. All the other symptoms started setting in probably in college. So I've always had ADHD, but it set in to where my ADHD by itself

became a legitimate disability. I couldn't focus on anything. I would have to leave class early. I started, actually at one point, started failing my classes because there was just no way that I could handle the workload that I was getting

in conjunction with the other things that were going on, which I started getting double vision. My vision became blurry. My mental health started taking a turn. Depression, anxiety came on. And then later down the line, I developed an actual switch because of it.

So I developed a physical twitch where I would shake my head multiple times a minute, which started taking its toll on my neck. I wasn't able to properly, you know, meet with people. Like I got to end up getting a great job after college that I love. But you can't really do a professional meeting while you're sitting there, you know, tweaking the whole time. So, yeah, I mean, these things just started setting in. Whatever you can think of going on the head started, you know, going on. They diagnosed me with more than I can count on my papers at the VA and the brain clinics that I went to.

but at the end of the day, it's all just a TBI to me. It's all under one umbrella. So they said that I had, you know, from normal concussions and stuff like that, people who play football, people who box, and then people who do our job, when you get concussions and you get knocked out, you're naturally going to have some issues. We're seeing that in the NFL with CTE, and the brain clinic that I went to was actually for us. It was for special operators and also ex-NFL players.

So that was great that we were there together. So that they, you know, they said that that's possible. but then also because of the inherent nature of our job, we have these low-grade blast waves that come out of the ammo. And every time a round goes off, and, you know, again, we're shooting way more of these than we can count. That wave is going through your brain, and it's doing some damage with every single round.

So when you're shooting tens of millions of those, that's just going to add up and add up and add up. But yeah, so that's kind of what they're figuring out now. That's kind of what the science is showing is that, you know, these rounds aren't just going off and disappearing. They're sending something out that goes through you and does some damage. I don't know how many people know this statistic. I don't know how famous is outside the military.

But the statistic has been for about a decade now that 22 veterans a day killed themselves. And that number is only going up. And I mean, that is beyond alarming. I mean, like the first time I heard that, I 100% thought that was wrong. I spent like a day researching to prove to myself that that was a real number because I just didn't believe it. and that's the number. So, I mean, I'm not shy about it at all because I'm proud of where I am now

and I want to share with everybody that there's a way out of that dark place. But I was bad for years, but the thing keeping me from doing the worst thing and hurting myself was that I never wanted to hurt my family. And I don't know when it was, I can't pinpoint it at the moment.

But my mind finally played the trick on me that my family would be better off without me. And I got pretty close to being a part of that statistic. I can't possibly emphasize that I thought about it every single day just because it gave me power over what I was experiencing. So, you know, I would drive into school and I remember coming over the hill and seeing the mountains as I drove down into campus

and, you know, seeing all this beauty and listening to my favorite music and then just, but just being in utter despair inside and simultaneously having a headache and simultaneously having my vision blurred and my neck hurting and my back hurting and all of this and even if you're not planning on doing it,

it just feels really, really nice to know that you're in control when you're in that spot. So yeah, I mean, I thought about it dozens of times a day because it gave me control. And I absolutely have the insight now and I know, you know, there's got to, you know, I know plenty of guys

who are going through it. And unfortunately, I've got to sit here and know that that's going through their head because it went through mine. And thank goodness the voice of reason came through at the last second and was like pretty much said, you know, your family, you will destroy your family if you do this. And that was enough for me to simultaneously make the decision that, first of all, I'm not doing this.

And second of all, you know, I got to, I'm not going to be this miserable burden. So I've got to pick myself up off the mat and I've got to get better. So I was in therapy and I mean, I had exhausted everything Western medicine had to offer at this point. I'm privileged enough to have good health care. I have VA health care. And then I also, from being in special operations, have access to foundations that most people don't have access to. And the only reason I'm saying that is because I was able to use everything Western medicine could give me. And not only did none of it work, I only got worse.

I tried an antidepressant and anti-anxiety, which were both absolutely terrible. Antidepressant I got off within a week because it just destroyed me. The anti-anxiety, they believe is what gave me the twitch. I tried restless leg medication, which did nothing. Sleep medication, which made me sleepwalk, so had to get off that. I tried traditional therapy, EMDR therapy, psychedelic-assisted therapy with psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms. Which that was the only thing that gave me any relief at all, and is kind of why I got pushed towards this,

is because that wasn't a lasting relief. But for the first time in years, I had a couple days where I didn't have a headache. I could sleep, and I felt okay. But I mean, on top of everything else, I already kind of mentioned it, but I went to a three-week outpatient clinic at a brain institute with the most amazing doctors in the world,

the most amazing people that I'm extremely grateful for, but I only got worse. Western medicine just wasn't answering the question So I was in therapy in Colorado where, you know, a lot of the psychedelic-assisted stuff is legal. And I had tried the psilocybin and felt a little bit better for a couple of days. And that kind of gave me some hope that there, you know, there is something out there that's going to help. And I was in therapy. And I got to a point where my doctor said, you know, you're not getting any better.

You're getting worse. You're in a really, really dangerous spot right now. So you need to go do something drastic, and she introduced me to Ibegain. And right now, there are a handful of retreats going on where you can legally do the substance ibogame and 5MEODMT, which is kind of a compliment to Ibegain. I prefer to call these things, you know, sacred medicine or medicine because drugs, the word drug gives it a stigma, and it is, I mean, these things are put here on this planet to heal us. Like, they're nothing short of a miracle.

So Ibegain is the alkaloid that is derived from the Iboga plant, which grows only in Gabon, Africa. So Ibrahimian was used by, I might butcher it, but I believe the Bowitty tribe, BW-I-T-I. They're from Gabon, and they used it for generations for their traditional purposes. So Ibegain puts you into something similar to a REM state. but where you're awake at the same time and cognizant and conscious. And so, yeah, that's where it's from and that's what they've used it for. I can't, you know, speak to their exact traditions or rituals, but you can, I mean, you can look it up right now. And Ohio State, University of Texas, and especially Stanford did the big one. They've all done, you know, multi-year studies on this.

And even in medicine, like even in Western medicine, looking at this, you know, from a, from an academic point of you, it's doing unbelievable things that, you know, seem impossible. They say that it's reopening neural pathways. It completely, it resets your receptors in your brain. So that's actually how, where I began started is it was being used to treat people with addiction because it completely resets your opioid receptors. So if you're addicted to heroin and instead of taking a year of the most horrific withdrawals that, you know, you can possibly go through, you go do this you go to Ibegain and you're cured in a day or two. That being said, the particular reason that I've, you know, I encourage people if anybody seeks this stuff out to go to reputable retreats,

Ibegain does come with health risks and you'll see that if you read the Stanford study. It affects the QT interval of the heart. So if you don't get pre-screened, if you don't have health oversight, it is possible to get hurt and people have died. from Ibogaine. The people who have passed, unfortunately, from what I understand, were doing it in settings where they had no health protocols whatsoever. The retreats that I'm talking about, that doesn't happen because you're getting screened beforehand for preexisting conditions, and then you have medical personnel there the entire time. I mean, when you're going, when you're going through your journey, you're literally hooked up to an EKG. So, you know,

they're not cutting any corners there. The actual journey itself, you'll hear during my story that mine was very different. But Ibegain is not supposed to be a pleasant experience. You're supposed to be faced with your worst traumas. You're supposed to purge, throw up throughout the night. Your body goes atactic. You're supposed to be pretty washed the next day. Like, supposed to have a pretty bad hangover for the whole day. They call it gray day. They call it the strongest psychedelic in the world. It's not something that, you know, people would do recreationally. It also lasts a long time. I think they say it lasts between eight and 16 hours. I've heard stories of it going much longer. So, I mean, this is something like when you take this stuff, you're in it.

You're not, you know, you're not coming out anytime soon. Yeah. So she tells me, you know, you've got to go do this. She pretty much told me that we can't do any more therapy until I go do this actually. Like she took care of me and we still at our meetings and stuff, but she literally told me, you know, we're not building on anything or fixing anything because you can't focus on anything except what's wrong with you right now. So she recommends it. I do the call and this is another point I want to bring out to the people, to the veterans and first responders and stuff that are going through it is I could have done this two years ago and been better all this time. And I got on the call. Everything sounded amazing. I signed up. And that typical, I don't know

how to put it, that typical attitude of somebody in the military is somebody else needs it more than I do. At least I know in the special operations community, that's how most of us feel. And that's what went through my mind is somebody needs this more than me, so I'm not going to do it. And I chose not to go for two years, which I won't call it a mistake because the retreat I ended up going on was I was supposed to meet the guys that were there. I was supposed to be with the providers that were there. And it came at a time in my life that was right. So it was supposed to happen that way. but if you go into this call and you think to yourself,

you know, somebody else needs this more than I do, you shut that voice off because it's lying to you. You need this, you deserve this, go do it and go get better. So yeah, I could have done it two years ago, ended up not doing it. And then finally, you know, when I talked about a couple minutes ago,

when I finally got to my darkest place, I made the decision that I have to go get better. I can't let this keep happening. So I got on the call, got my retreat scheduled, got the scholarship, and headed out there. So I went to Mexico on the Pacific coast, flew into San Diego,

went across the border, after multiple health screenings beforehand, and after six weeks of pre-integration work. And also by this point, I had spent about three months before the retreat, really getting into meditation and yoga. I started reading Eastern philosophy, Eastern religion,

you know, alternative psychology. I started kind of getting other views besides Western medicine. And so by the time I got down there, I was already in a better spiritual place than I had been in a long time already. And that's another thing, man, if anybody's going through it,

even if you don't believe in the teachings of meditation, like the Eastern philosophy, the chakras, the different states of consciousness, at the very least, you're taking 10 minutes a day to yourself, which we just don't get in this world anymore. And it made me, I'm not going to say that it fixed me, but it made me exponentially better. I was better after three months of,

meditation than I had been in the last five years. After the pre-screenings, we stop at a cardiology clinic in Tijuana and get checked again, get all kinds of heart tests and make sure that we're good to go and that there's not going to be any health risks. Get cleared, head down to the house. You get there. You've been fasting for 24 hours at this point. It's this beautiful mansion that is perfectly decorated and covered in art overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And the way that I describe it is it felt against nature to do anything negative in that home. So I couldn't have yelled at somebody or said something like terrible anymore than I could have jumped up and flown. It just the healing energy in that house exists and it's real.

And the retreat I went to as well because I wanted to give them a major shout out as the mission within. I got permission from them to give the shout out. And if you are a vet, a first responder, I can't recommend them enough. I mean, they, you know, nothing short of saved my life. So after we get set in, we spend a day there. We don't eat because you do have to fast before the medicine. There were six veterans total there, including myself. There were two guys that ran the retreat, a psychologist and then the ops lead.

And they're both, you know, very credentialed Western medicine guys. There was the Cornander. And then we had, we had chefs and tons of nurses rolling throughout the weekend to help us out. and every single person there was one of the best people that I've ever met. Again, I don't know if it's energy in the house or if they're finding these people somehow. But everybody there might as well be an angel on earth. I mean, the demeanor, the way that they treat you, the way that they talk to you, everything there was perfect.

Like even if I didn't do the medicine, that would have still been a helpful retreat because of how amazing it was. And yeah, the other guys that were there with me, they tell you that when you go so I got kind of nervous because they tell you that you're going to do you're going to do this in a group and I'm sitting there kind of

abrasive to that idea because I don't want to trip and go on a journey around strangers, that sounds terrible but they tell you that you're supposed to be there with who you're with and you're going to have a give and take from them and they're going to learn things from you that they didn't know they needed to know and vice versa

and that's exactly what happened. We spend the day there, I'll get to know each other, we do, you know, share circle and intro circle, and then that night around 8 p.m., it's time for the medicine. So we all get in a circle, and they give you the medicine, and it's in pill form. So you get these two pills, and it's based off your height, weight to make sure that it's the right dose for you, obviously. And they tell you, you know, say a prayer to, you know, your God. And then they also tell you to say a prayer to the medicine, because the providers and pretty much anyone who's done this, And there's going to be a lot of things I say through this that are going to sound insane.

But I'm telling you that I'm not going to say I know because I hate to say that. I don't know anything. But I'm going to tell you what I experienced and what I believe. So pretty much everybody that's done this stuff believes that the medicine is sentient. You can talk to it. You can ask it questions. You can ask it to turn up the intensity, turn down the intensity. It's not always going to listen, but you can ask.

And so I said, you know, I said my prayer to the medicine. I grabbed my pills. I wrapped up my hands. And I said, if tonight has to be a battle, you know, I trust you. Let it, you know, bring it on. Let it be that. But if you can come gently to me, please do, because I'm really sick of fighting. And so we stood up, went up a spiral staircase, got blessed with, they use Palisanto.

And I think White Sage is the other thing. But Palisanto is Peruvian Hollywood. And so they have a coroner there there. She's a female shaman who has spent decades learning this medicine in its native lands, that and the 5MEODMT. And she was the thing that put the whole experience over the top. She truly put, you know, spiritual is not even the word. Whatever's above spiritual, divine, you know, she put that on this experience.

So having her there was, you know, just brought it to that next level. And so they say a prayer. they bless you and you go and lay down in your bed. Once you get in your bed, you put on an eye mask. I began super weird. At least for me, I could lift my eye mask at any point and I was completely clear in the real world. No issues whatsoever, like not even drunk. Like no no blurriness, no just normal, the normal world. But then as soon as you pull your eye mask back down, you are somewhere else in the universe. And so you wear this eye mask. they give you these headphones with music playing

and it's this beautiful dreamscape music that I still actually use a lot when I meditate. They say that the point of the music is so that you don't get stuck in one spot so the medicine changes in tempo beat, like it changes to a whole new song every whatever song is, three to five minutes. And the intention is so that you don't get stuck in one place. If you are kind of getting stuck in your journey,

it'll push you into somewhere else. So all that, and then they hook you up with the medical stuff. So they put an EKG on you, They hook you up to a magnesium drip IV to, you know, alleviate your help out your heart while you're under. They check your blood pressure and they put a heart rate monitor on you. So you are all hooked up for this experience. So I lay down, nurse hooked me all up,

and pretty much immediately I fell asleep. And I wake up and there's no clocks in the room or any way to tell what time it is. But my internal clock is telling me it's been about three hours. So the medicine should be kicked in. Again, I think they said the average is between an hour to an hour and a half for it to kick in, but it shouldn't take any longer than three hours. And I'm sitting there after three hours and nothing's happened at all. And I take my mask off, I look up and everybody else is clearly going through it.

Some people are throwing up. Some people are going to the bathroom and their legs are shaking. So they're clearly, you know, like they're clearly. in the medicine. The legs are shaking because of a vexia. Like when you kind of, you start to lose control of your physical body. Everyone else is clearly in it and nothing's happening to me. And so I called the nurse over and I ask to go to the bathroom and he goes to help me up. And I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm good. So I jump right up and walk to the bathroom after I unhooked from the EKG, go to the bathroom. I even do like, I do like a little spin. I give myself like my own

DUI test. I'm like, you know, checking my dexterity on my fingers. And I, I want to walk back out and I look at the nurse and I give him this, I guess like John Cena hand signal. Like I wave my hand in front of my face and I just whisper, I'm like, nothing. And he's like, you don't feel anything? And I'm like, nothing at all. And so he lays me back down, hooks me back up and walks away for a second. And he comes back and he goes, he goes, do you want to bust dose? And I'm like, what is that? And he says that it's, uh, it's an extra dose to kind of bust you through to the other side. And I'm, you know, I'm very abrasive to this idea. because I'm like, okay, this is the strongest psychedelic known to man.

It can last for a day. And, you know, I'm already behind everybody else. And all of a sudden, I'm thinking of taking more and lasting. So the idea did not sound great to me. And so I told him, if nothing happens, I'm going to call you back over. And if I do, just bring the bus dose with you. If I don't call you back over, that means I'm in it and I'm good to go. And he says, okay.

So he leaves, sits back down. And there's always a nurse watching. So everybody's in the same room doing this at the same. same time, and there's always a nurse watching you. So he goes and sits back down, and I fall asleep again. And I wake up, and at this point, my internal clock is telling me it's been like six to seven hours. And as soon as I wake up, I realize that still nothing's happening. And I start to, I start to get really upset. At this point, I think I'm in the medicine. I think this is when it started, but I just didn't know it yet. I'm in complete blackness, and I'm just standing there. And all of

of a sudden all the bad voices that I had kind of already started to beat. So like I said, I really got into meditation and trying new things and getting back in touch with my spirituality about three months out from the retreat. And I had really started making some progress and had shut a lot of these bad things off. You know, the depression, the anxiety, the voices and the arguments that you get in your head. And I'm standing there in blackness and all of a sudden they all come back and they're louder than ever. they're just booming. And they start telling me everything that I didn't want to hear.

They start telling me that, you know, the medicine rejected you, the universe rejected you, you're worthless. And at that point, I turned to where the voices were coming from, and I just yelled as loud as I could. And I just yelled out of my said, we're fucking done. I was like, this is it. I beat you myself. I don't need the medicine. We're done with this.

And they shut off. They went quiet and they went away. And then I turned around the other way. and just into the darkness, I just yelled at the medicine. And I was like, if you're real, I need you to show me right now. Like, time's winding down. If you're real, it's now or never. And at that point, a silver stream of light came down,

and I got lifted up to, I don't know what to call it. Like, I don't know what to call it without sounding too woo-woo, but it was a different plane of existence. It was a different realm. Whatever it was was just completely somewhere else. So yeah, I get lifted up and I get brought to this place. And this is kind of the, I'm going to go through a lot of different places in this story. But the entire experience was in this same plane of existence.

And throughout a lot of this story, one of the big reasons I wanted to talk about this on this show is because there's these insane parallels between everybody doing the medicine and people doing the gateway tapes and different states of consciousness and out-of-body experiences. parallels are just so strange to me. And so the whole experience for me happened in this plane that was like it had this tint of gray and it was foggy. There was this persistent fog, which I've read about in a ton of, you know, people talking about astral projection. And then also I've heard many people who've done Ibegain say the same thing. And actually, if you watch the in waves and more documentary, they do an illustration of where

the guy is at. and in that illustration he's in this fog and i actually the first time i watched it i like hit my wife on the shoulder and i was like that's it i was like that's where i was like that's crazy so i get i get pulled up and i'm standing in front of this tribunal right away so like it's like a court there's like this 12-foot judge's desk that or judge's bench whatever it's called and it's in a horseshoe shave so you and it's like jet black like made of obsidian like the black is black. And I'm standing on a pedestal that's like three feet tall. So, you know, way below this thing in the middle. And there's 12 shadow figures presiding over me. And they're all looking down at me

like they're judging me. And I just stand there for like 10 minutes or what felt like 10 minutes. Time did not really exist. And I'm standing there and nothing happens. I don't know what to do. I'm not scared at all. That was the other thing. Like I didn't have. I didn't have a single negative emotion throughout this entire experience. I never felt threatened. I never felt scared. I just, I felt intuition, I guess.

And so I'm just standing there and all of a sudden I just blurt out, am I worthy? And they all simultaneously yell worthy. And I get transported to another place. And I'm still on the same plane, but I'm somewhere else. And so I'm standing in this like open area.

it's all black with the fog, and I can see stars and universes in the background, and there's a shadow figure standing in front of me, and he's jet black, staticky, and he kind of, like, has the universe in him. So there's, like, stars and galaxies in him as well. And he never says a word, but as soon as I looked at him,

my intuition told me that he was my spirit guide, which is another crazy one, because, you know, I've talked to a bunch of people who have had guides, and it's just, it's weird to me. You know, why are these guides popping up? And why are they always, like, kind of similar to, like, these shadow figures that are just guiding us through this?

Before you started, they told you that they told us to set intentions and questions. So intentions on what you want to work on. Because, again, this isn't some magic bullet that you just take and you're better. You have to fix yourself, but it allows you to fix yourself. So you go on with these intentions, and then you also go on with questions because, again, the medicine is supposed to be sentient. You're supposed to be able to talk to it. And so as soon as I knew he was my spirit guide, I started asking my questions that I had prepared.

So first I asked him, will I ever be able to truly love myself? Because that's a problem that I've always had. And he said you've already answered that. And they also tell you that, so some people don't even have an experience at first, which is crazy, right? Some people just wake up the next morning and are pissed. They're like, nothing happened. but then over the next couple days, weeks, even months, the answers and the experiences come to you.

To where the providers are literally like, if somebody says that, they're not even worried because they know that they know because they've seen it so many times that these people are going to get what they came for. So my spirit guide says you've already answered this. And it's cryptic, but I'm like, okay, well, maybe that's an answer. I'll get later.

So then I ask, what's next? So my entire life, I've had an accolade to chase a reason to do or to exist, I guess. Like, even when I wasn't, even when I didn't have an accolade to chase, I just decided that I was going to start like alpining. So I just started climbing mountains out west because I pulled myself that I needed to do something. And I had nothing at this point. I got the job I was wanted. I had the degrees, the best wife in the world. I had a brand new house. And so I asked what's next. And my spirit guide shows me my wife and I in a loving embrace, and then he shows me two children that, you know, only time's going to

sell, but I'm pretty positive they were my kids, because I have no possible way of knowing what a father's love feels like, and I am completely certain that these were my kids. I mean, I just, like, basked in their glory for a few minutes. I just stood there and stared at him and smiled. So it was one boy and one girl, and I'm not positive, but I think the girl was a little older. Besides that, the vision has gotten kind of blurry. It was shown to me in like, in like a purple haze almost. That was the other thing within this whole journey, purple was a very common color that kept coming up with a lot of this stuff. Yeah, so he showed me that in a haze, and I believe I saw my kids, and I'm really excited to figure out if that's correct, because that,

obviously by, you know, by the time I'm older, that will be something that I can verify or not. So that happens, and it's amazing and wonderful. And then I ask him, uh, Can I ever reconcile with my past and be okay with the things I've done? The special operations community is wonderful, and I owe it everything. But if you allow yourself to, you can let it become very, very toxic. You can let it turn you into that toxic, masculine thing that is just awful to everybody around you. And I let it do that to me for a couple years. You're going out to the bars all the time.

You're shooting big guns. You made it through something tough, and you're literally 12. 21 years old. You think you're hot shit and you're not, but it gets in your head and it lets you become a, it makes you become a bad person if you let it. And I certainly let that happen for a few years and it weighed on me a lot. And so I asked, you know, can I ever get around that? Can I ever forgive myself? And he told me, you've already answered that as well. And I started getting a little irritated because I'm like, okay, I really don't want this whole thing to be cryptic. And that's when he drew a door in the fog and he walked through it.

And so I want, again, everything's intuition. Like, when I say he says things, he's not saying them. I just hear them in my mind. So I walk up, or I follow him, and I walk through the door, and I'm back in the tribunal. And I'm standing behind the bench this time, and I see that all the shadow figures are me. And I had deemed myself worthy when I first got there.

and that answered the first two questions that I had asked and was a pretty profound moment for me. And it was kind of strange. As I got answers to these, I could almost feel like energy entering my body or chakras being unblocked or whatever you want to call it. But in that moment when I realized

I had already deemed myself worthy, I felt just this rush of energy that was, I mean, it was healing is what it was. And so next I ask him, so this was So they say that some people can talk to their ancestors, their dead relatives, stuff like that. And I didn't believe that, but I've always thought that if there's nothing to lose with something, why not just try it?

You know, like if nothing bad is going to happen, just give it a go. And so my grandpa passed when I was going through the worst of my TBI issues. He was my best friend growing up, but I was in such a bad place at the time that I didn't get to properly mourn him. and so I asked if I could talk to my grandpa and he said we can try and he put me in the cosmos by myself so I'm floating in the stars there's this super thick fog around me at this point

it was almost like it felt like we went to the edge of whatever this place was because the fog was so thick it was like we were going somewhere else that we couldn't quite get to it was a very unique feeling and I could feel all that and I'm floating there

I'm in this very thick fog and I hear Jake Jake, and I hear my grandpa's voice, and I start to feel really weird, and I'm just like, no, no way, that's no way. And he goes, that's my boy. And my entire life, whenever I would walk into my grandfather's house, he would say that from wherever he was in the house.

I would just hear that ring out. And I heard that, and I just lost it. I just, but ever, again, zero negative emotions. Like, every tear that fell was a happy tear. And I just bawled my eyes out. And again, this is all happening in my mind. mind, by the way, my physical body is just laying in bed. And so, like, it almost felt like at this point that the body and the journey was my main body. And my physical body was just this thing that

I guess was there. So anyways, I'm bawling my eyes out and I tell him I miss him. I tell him I love him and I tell him we're taking care of grandma. And I'm just so happy because I know my grandpa's somewhere and I know that I'm getting closure. And that finishes up, and when it does, I get transported again. And I go to somewhere else this time. So this time I'm looking at a, and also I guess it's important for the story, the whole time this is happening, I'm seeing my body in third person. So I'm in complete control.

I'm completely in that body, but I'm seeing it in third person from above a little bit. So the next place I see is this big, field with the softest green grass I've ever seen. And in the center of it, there's a pool of water about six inches deep with purple flowers all around it. And I'm laying in it face up with my eyes closed. And before I explain this next part, I have to explain one of my intentions. So I had read a lot of books going in. And one of the most profound ones was the king, warrior, magician, lover. and the book is essentially about how in today's world we don't our men don't access man psychology where you are strong and decisive and protective but you're also loving and caring and sensitive

and you can uplift those around you all we do in this society is build up on boy psychology so the worst parts of us the most toxic parts of our men we just build on that psychology and the book goes on to talk about how ancient civilizations had these rites of passage where a boy would would theoretically die, like hypothetically die, but quite literally in their sense. So the boy would die, whether the ritual was psychedelics, something with the tribe, war, whatever it may be, and the man would be born. And at that point, the boy could access man's psychology and the man, you know, was born and came to exist. And the book even went on to talk about,

it went on to specifically cite the military and be like, you know, the military is one of the worst abusers of this. They're not necessarily making men. They're building on the parts of boy psychology that are best to harness for war. And so a big intention of mine was that I wanted this to be my right of passage.

I wanted the boy to die and I wanted the man to be born. And so I see myself laying in this pool of water face up, but I don't have any connection to this body. Like, I can't control it. I can't understand what it's thinking. I'm completely disconnected from it. It's just like seeing any other body.

And then 12 shadow figures come into view, and they all go up to the pool of water, and they kneel beside it. And then finally, me and my spirit guide come into view, and this is the body that I'm connected to. I'm connected to this body. This is me. And I walk up to the pool of water with my spirit guide,

and again, this is all intuition. I immediately know that the me that's in the pool was the boy. So the boy died. He's dead. And now the man is being born. And hopefully I'm able to start accessing that psychology and being the best version of me for the people I love. And I kneel beside him and I just start bawling again.

I just start losing it. And I just started thanking him profusely. I thanked him for, you know, everything he's done for me, for the accolades, for the life we've lived, for the memories. where he left me in life. But then I end it, you know, I go, it's my turn. And when I stood up from that, that was another point when I was just overcome

with this energy, like something had changed in me. And then I stood up and I'll never forget this part. I stood up, I like, I had this new energy and I turned and I looked at my guide and I was like, all right, we got the serious stuff out of the way. Can we go have some fun? And he was like, yeah, come on. And so we left that place.

And we just started like running through the cosmos. Like I, this is where it sounds insane, but this is what happened in my journey, in my head, in that realm, whatever you want to believe. I'm running through the cosmos with my guide. And he punches the ground like a Superman punch. Like when, you know, when a superhero does their landing and their fist is in the ground, he does that. And an entire universe gets created. Like I watched an entire universe get made. And it was in that moment that like that was one of another form.

of energy, like, came through me and I felt it that that moment is why I don't believe any of this happened in my head, because whatever I witnessed was divine. Like, he was showing me what he can do and, you know, what exists out there. And I'm not naive enough to say I couldn't have made it up in my head, but in my belief that, um, that happened somewhere else. And then I asked him, I was like, why are you so kind? I was like, this is, I've heard the, I've heard the worst things about this. I've heard that this is supposed to be a horrible experience. I was preparing for this for months. Why are you so awesome? And he goes, well, you know, you, you meditated a bunch. You really got yourself in the right headspace for this. You're on good standing with the universe.

And, you know, you did everything you did to get here. And he goes, but also, you asked. He goes, nobody asked. You know, I said that prayer at the beginning that said, come gently if you can. And he literally said, nobody asks. So all of my, everybody who I've told to go do this, after I went, like all my veteran friends and stuff, I'm absolutely telling them that they need to ask for a gentle journey because I'm really curious how that's going to go. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Jake's story.

So, and again, zero negative energy the whole time. I don't feel like, and the only way I can explain it is zero negative energy in the sense of like even if you're having a good time, even if you're out with your friends and you're at your favorite place and everybody's happy, there's still like this, this like social hue on everything that's still like you have these implications, you have these things you can't say or do,

there was none of that. Like there was, every single thing was positive with him and that was happening within this journey. And I wrote three giant words on one of my note pages to describe him. I wrote kind, decisive, and benevolent. It was like we were old friends. Like he would like, he would like mess with me and stuff.

Like he would like make jokes and like jab at me. and like he would make fun of like my worst trauma and my worst like and my injuries and stuff because he knew all about it obviously and it was just it was just funny to me because like maybe that was part of the healing you know but he would like make a shitty joke about it but I would know that there was no the whole point of a joke is the intent right like you could tell you could tell a really bad joke but if there's no bad intent it's it's going to be funny but vice versa you could tell a chill joke but if you're saying it out of hate people you know they're going to know everything he said there was no negative energy behind it. He was actually jabbing at me like an old friend

and we were laughing together. And so yeah, a lot of the things that I asked and talked about were in that mind frame. You know, once I asked him that, my head just turned into an encyclopedia. Like just it felt like I was hooked up to the collective consciousness, the universal consciousness, whatever you want to call it. I was able to ask whatever I wanted. And so I just started asking questions to my spirit guide. I asked, you know, I asked so many questions. But I wrote down the most profound ones for this podcast specifically. So I asked them, what is my purpose?

You know, that was the first thing that came to my mind is, what am I doing here? What's my purpose? And he said, your soul and only purpose in this existence is to live. And that one I've carried with me and I've kept a lot since because I let my injuries keep me so locked up. and I let things going on in the world keep me locked up and what's going on with others and everything like that that I had forgotten to live for the better part of a decade, if not a decade or more.

And so that's a pretty profound one that I keep with me. And he also, again, this is insightful. So like I understand more than just the words when he's telling me these things. And the way that he said this existence, he was saying that there is more than this, but the reason you're on earth right now is to live. Like you're here to experience Earth,

so go do that. Then I asked what happens after we die. And this was a really funny one. So I was more scared for the DMT than the IBA game. I didn't really get to touch on the DMT yet. I'll do that when we get to that part of the story. But DMT, a lot of people say that, you know, it's amazing and beautiful and all this stuff.

But you have to actually die to get to that. Like you have to experience death. So you have to experience terror and horror and you actually have to feel what it's like to die. and then you can get there. So I was really scared for that. Like that sounds, you know, that sounds terrible. You're literally experiencing death.

And so I asked him what happens after I die? And he goes, I think that's a better question for the DMT tomorrow. And I told him, and I was like, I heard she kind of sucks. And that's another thing. I'll bring back with the DMT. I have no idea why I called her a she, but I knew in that moment that she was. And, you know, that'll come up later in the story.

But I said I heard she kind of sucks. and he goes, she does sometimes, but she's really excited to meet you. And when he said that, every nerve I had was gone. Like completely erased, no issues, just excitement. So then I asked him, this one was really intriguing to me. I asked him what, I was like, where do we come from? I was like, I need to know where did it all start? I was like, because I don't buy any of these answers.

I was like, even the Big Bang. I was like, you've had all these years to figure it out. And your best answer is it just started? And then I was like, and then before that, they say it's a hotball. of gas. Okay, well, what's before that? I was like, so what started? How did we get here? And he was like, there's some questions even I can't answer. And I was like, damn, that is not what I wanted to hear, but I respected it. And I'm not sure. That's actually one where I guess I didn't have the intuition now that I'm thinking about it. I don't know if he meant that he's not allowed

to answer it or if he didn't know as well. So then I asked, I asked, will my wife and I be together forever? And he said, if you both choose. And then I said in this life or the next, and he said both. So then after all that happened, I was sitting there, and my neck started to hurt. So I had a, I have a bad neck injury from when I was in. Most of my neck is scar tissue. I've had a procedure on it. And I was laying there, and my physical body just moved kind of normally, but my neck hurt. And I was like, I went, damn, that's still there.

Like, you know, that pain is still there. And he goes, of course it is. He said, this isn't, he literally said, the reason that I keep saying is this way is because he said it in my journey. He goes, of course it's still there. This isn't a magic bullet. Like this, you have to take care of yourself. And then he told me this isn't a fix-all. He said, this is an awakening.

It's your turn, you know, it's your turn to start a new life. And so he said that. And then he goes, as a matter of fact, I have some work to do that you can't be here for. So why don't you lift your mask and take a couple minutes? And this blows me away because I've heard this from multiple people who have done Ibegain. Like I heard it on another podcast. I don't know which one it was, but like so people who know about Ibegan might have heard it as well. But from podcasts and my friends and other people who have done it,

I've heard multiple people say their guides tell them that there has to be worked on that they can't be there for. And multiple people have also said that they've heard like actual like power tools or like gears in their head as if something is getting fixed. And so that's just crazy to me. So like I said before, if you pop up the mask, you're completely back in physical reality and you're not even like drunk or tipsy. like nothing's moving or swirling, like you're just back, you're normal.

And so I take my mask off and I'm just looking around the room at all the other guys and I'm just sitting there thinking, you know, I'm hoping they're getting what they need. And I just kind of sit there, enjoy the music, do my thing for a couple minutes. I go back in after a few minutes. I put my mask on and I think it's necessary for me to remind for this part, the music is supposed to be a part of the journey. The music is supposed to get you out of weird spaces, to transition you, and to just enhance the experience.

And so I go in, I put my mask back down and I'm immediately back in the journey. Like within a second. My physical body is secondary again and I'm back in this plane of existence. And I'm standing in a white room. So there's four walls, no door and no ceiling.

It's just infinite. It goes up forever. And on one side of the room is somewhere between like 50 and 100 people. It's a lot of people, and it's everybody I care about in this life. Like, friends, loved ones, my wife, like everybody I care about is in the room. And then me and my spirit guide are on the other side of the room. And the song switches.

And that's another reason, like, the setting that I was in knew that the song was going to switch for this, which is crazy to me. So I'm already in the room. This song is ending, and then a new song comes on. And the new song starts out with this. It's just like a kick drum. And it just goes, boom, boom, boom. And that's how it starts. And every hit of the kick drum in my journey, these walls are getting shaken and punched.

And there's stuff yelling on the outside of it. And it sounds like something's trying to get in. And I look at my God and I'm like, what is that? And he goes, those are the bad things. He's like, those are the bad parts of you. He says, you beat them. I caged them. Only you can let them back in.

He's like, they can be gone for the rest of your life. only you can let him back in. And, you know, obviously that was a pretty profound moment for me. And maybe that's what he was doing while I was gone. Maybe he was caging him up. I'm in the room. He tells me all that. And then we go out, we're back in the cosmos, and this is probably the craziest part. So I ask him, I'm like, I've already asked those questions.

My brain feels like an encyclopedia. And I'm like, dude, can I fly? And he's like, he goes, yeah. Like, he knew I was going to ask. ask it, like, everybody asks it. And he's like, where do you want to go? And I just thought immediately, like, I knew immediately that I wanted to go to Lake Garda. So Lake Garda and Italy is the most beautiful place I've been in my entire life. If you know Lake Como, it's a couple lakes over, and it's where the Italians go instead of Lake Como. And it just has these sheer cliffs that,

I don't know how tall they are. I'm terrible, terrible engaging height. But they look like they're a thousand feet tall to me. I mean, they're insanely, they come straight out of this lake, they're unbelievably high and jagged. And when I went, I would go and runs on my side of the lake, and I would see these paragliders jump, and I'd always wanted to do that. So I find myself on the cliff side of Lake Garda, and the whole time I was there, I drove up from the south side of the lake, which the town that you go through is Presqueira del Garda, I think, is like the main town.

And so I drive through that, and I get to Malchacine, which is the town that I stayed on. The entire time I was there, that's the only place I was. So I'm looking up at these cliffs. I never go to the cliffside. I never have any perspective from there in my actual physical life. But I'm standing there in my journey and I'm looking down and I see Malchicene perfectly. Like as I had seen it in my real life, but I'm seeing it from the other side. And I can't see the south side of the lake because it's too far away, which in real life, that's how it would have been from where I was standing. And then I looked to the north side of the lake where there's a town, again, might be wrong,

but I believe it's Lago Delgarda or something like that. And I hadn't been to that town. And I'm looking up there and I see things that I shouldn't be able to see or that I shouldn't know where there that I looked up later. After this whole thing was done, I got on Google Maps and checked it. And my view of the lake was exactly as it should have been, which I'm a big geography nerd. I'm a big map guy. Like, I'm not going to leave that part out of this.

Like, I just, maps are my tick, and I look at them all the time. So, you know, maybe you can say it's from that, but, like, I never Google Earthed this. I just looked at it on a, like, a topographical map. So, yeah, I'm standing on these cliffs, and I'm seeing everything I'm supposed to see in real life. And I verified that two days later after we got our phones back, because that's another thing. You don't have your phones during the retreat. And I just take a step off, and sure enough, I'm floating. And I just kind of fly around the lake for a second.

And again, this could all be in my head, but damned if it wasn't. real to me. So then I go back into the cosmos and I'm standing there with my guide and I know it's the end. Like I know he pulled me back and again intuition. I can feel that it's the end and I ask him how long are you going to be with me? And he says, I'll be with you for the next couple months. You can reach me through meditations. I won't be nearly as easy to reach but I'll also be there when you, you know, you're getting off the path a little bit and you need a kick in the right direction. And the crazy thing about this is that ibogaine metabolizes and the metabolite is called noribagane. And this metabolite stays in your system for a few months after you do the medicine.

So he said he would be with me for the next couple months, which is the same amount of time that the medicine is in my system. So that was pretty crazy. Which that's, that reminded me of one last question that I asked him, that I almost forgot. I asked him, so if you exist, you know, and I'm you as in this benevolent kind thing that's in front of me, then there must be evil ones of you, right? And he said, yes. He said, there's only a handful of ways to contact us, as in the good things. And he said four or five things, and it drives me crazy that I can't remember this part. I couldn't remember it in my notes, and I still can't remember it. But out of four or five things, I remember he said the medicine. So, you know, what I was doing and love were two things that he told me.

And then he goes, unfortunately, there's an infinite number of ways to contact the bad things. And that's why you were so messed up. And that's why your society's so messed up. And I almost asked him, you know, what can I do to fix that? Like, how can we get out of this hole we're in? And then I stopped myself because I was like, no, like, this is about me. Like, I need to get better first before, you know, you can go help other people. So didn't end up asking that question.

So, yeah, that happens. I asked him how long he'll be there. And I wake up. and I wake up and you're supposed to be. They tell you you're going to be hung over, you're going to be nauseous, you're not going to want to eat. And I wake up and I have me to call the nurse over. And I'm like, hey, dude, can I go downstairs?

There's that breakfast. He's like, no, no, I need to give you this IV. So it's called a banana bag. It's just a bunch of nutrients and vitamins to make sure that, you know, it helps you get back to full strength after your body goes through something so taxing. Because while I wasn't hung over, like you go through it. Like, I mean, this is not easy.

I'll say that again. Like, this is not a recreational thing. This, even when you have a good time, this is hard. And so I get this bag and it's taking forever. It's just, it's dripping so slow. You know, I'm watching it go into my arm and it's just not going fast enough. So I'm like, can I just go downstairs? And he's like, can you walk with your, you know, with your stand?

And I'm like, yeah. So I grabbed my stand and I go downstairs. And I asked for a full breakfast. And I ate my full breakfast. It was delicious. That was the first meal I had from the chef. And she's absolutely wonderful. And then later on that day, I decided I want to take a nap.

just nothing, nothing terrible, not hungover, not hurting, just was tired from not sleeping the night before. So I go upstairs, I lay down, and I get, this is another, this is another thing that, you know, I see tons of people talking about this with meditation, with out-of-body experiences, with Ibegain, and it's happened to me through all of those things. I am laying there, and there's this huge purple swirl. where my third eye should be.

And I said that the color purple kept coming up within my journey. Like I'm laying there, my eyes closed. Nothing else feels out of the ordinary. Like, I'm not still in the journey or anything, but it's like my third eye is completely open. It's just this massive, vibrant, violet swirl. And so I just remember that,

and I still get that through meditation sometimes, which is crazy. And I end up falling asleep. I had, I suffered with, like, just, I didn't sleep for years. Like, I did a sleep study and everything. I was not entering REM sleep for years. I genuinely just did not sleep.

So that, you know, clearly did not help with everything else going on. I actually, like, I got diagnosed with sleep apnea. Like, I'm in pretty good shape. There's, you know, no underlying conditions with that. But for some reason, a lot of veterans end up suffering from that. So sleep was something that had alluded me for years. and those six hours in that nap were the best I'd slept since I was a kid.

And I wake up and I feel completely refreshed. And I walk out to the balcony and I'm overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And this is where things got really profound for me. So I had gone through selection in Coronado off the coast of San Diego. And every day I would look at the Coronado Islands south towards Mexico. and I would look at them from the north point of view. And I'm standing on this balcony where I'm now looking at them from the south.

And it was so poetic to me that this seemed to be ending where it began. And for the first time in my life, I didn't have ADHD. That's the only way I can describe this feeling. For the first time in my entire life, I was able to focus on something. I wasn't silently counting my fingers. I wasn't clicking my teeth an equal number of times.

I wasn't planning something in a couple of days. My mind was just there, and it was beautiful. And I'm standing there, and then all of a sudden I get this immense sadness, but I was supposed to get that. The sadness comes over me, and I think I was mourning my past self, as well as my grandpa. But the thing was, for the first time in years, it wasn't depression, it wasn't despair, it was just sadness, which was really beautiful for me. And so I go back inside, I sit on the couch, and I decide I'm going to meditate for a second.

Nobody else is down there right at that point. It's pretty quiet. And so I sit there on the couch and I start taking my breaths. And these breaths are like I was born again. I mean, the most pristine, crisp breaths I've ever taken. And I'm breathing. And I start meditating a little bit. And I opened my eyes and I start admiring the art on the walls.

And I realized that for the first time in my life, I can admire art because my mind is racing. I'm not thinking about something else, and I can just sit here and admire this art. And I hear my guide for the first time out of the trip, or out of the journey. And he says, this is healing, brother. And he lets me know that, you know, what I'm experiencing is I'm healing, like, in that moment. And yeah, that was amazing. So I end up eating, you know, we all eat dinner.

It's wonderful. We all share our experiences with each other. Everybody's, you know, pretty taxed, but is already feeling better from their ailments and their injuries at this point. DMT, I'm going to be able to give a much better explanation of it when I get there. The Ivagan is like, they call it the grade A for a reason. A lot of dudes are pretty taxed. Like a lot of dudes are hungover and hurting.

You know, I wasn't immune to that. I wasn't like super hungover, but it still wasn't, you know, the best day ever. But yeah, so that day is kind of recovery day. We do share our journeys and our experiences and, you know, everybody talks. And some people have bad journeys. some people didn't have a journey at all, and then they got their answers later, which is, that's the thing.

You might go do this, and you might not get anything at all. We, like, actually, one, like, people come downstairs sometimes after the journey, and they go, nothing. Nothing happened. And the providers say that whenever people say that, they literally are just like,

they don't pay any attention because they know that in a couple hours, days, weeks, it's all going to come to you. And you're going to get all these answers and experiences, and that's exactly what happened. So it's a day after I began is a weird one. Everybody's tired, everybody's taxed, and everybody had different experiences. So that was dinner.

I go to bed and when I woke up the next day, I wake up and the first thought in my head, I felt so good and didn't have these issues for the first time in so long. I mean, we're talking almost 10 years at this point, right? From when it probably first started. And I'm five years from being diagnosed with it at this point. and for the first time I don't feel any of these problems. And I wake up and the first thought in my head is I get to feel like this every day. And then that's the day that we do the DMT.

Okay, Jake's journey is not over, but this episode is. This was such a long story that we had to split it up into two parts. In the second half of his story, Jake begins day two of his treatment. You could hear that right now in part two, which is out now. This episode has been called Down the Silver Strand, Part 1, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our producers are Theo Schaefer, Theo Krantz, Haley Pearson, and Nikki Kate Delgado.

Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal and North American. Our artwork is by Coldassack Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about the show. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you could become a patron at patreon.com slash Otherworld.

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