Hyperspace & Happenstance

Praise be Man is a spacey, dreamy, dirty, distorted, angelic, hypnotic, post-metal masterpiece by the aptly named American band, Russian Circles.

To understand the meaning of this song in my life, you need to know this: I wholeheartedly believe that everything is happenstance.

Happenstance is neither fate nor luck

Here's a quote from the 2009 Jaco Van Dormael flick, Mr. Nobody, that beautifully captures my belief:

Each of these lives is the right one! Every path is the right path. Everything could have been anything else, and it would have just as much meaning.

Everything that is, was, and will be could take any other form - life can unfold in any way whatsoever, and we will always project meaning onto the path that leads us to where we are now.

I don't think our monkey brains can, without rigorous mental exercise, comprehend macro-scale patterns and ramifications in time beyond the next and the past hour. It's only in retrospect, years down the line, that we can see the forest for the trees. Our human mind can speculate and project through time, but our monkey brains live in the details of here and now.

I can go deeper into happenstance and chaotic order, but this isn't where I'll do so (be notified when I do).

Scene 1: How Russian Circles found me

Happenstance led me to Budapest in July 2017.

Feeling lonely one night, I took some beer I can't remember the name of to brood by the Danube River. Not five minutes after picking a bench, I was approached by a young man (whose name I also can't remember) with a joint and vodka.

He doesn't like drinking alone and asked to sit with me - maybe he just sensed my mood. Despite our vastly different backgrounds, we immediately uncover common ground: we love beer, metal, and getting away from home.

He introduced me to Russian Circles that night. Happenstance put us together and, while I haven't seen or heard from him since then, our encounter lives on in several playlists.

It took me about a year to complete Russian Circle's discography and fall in love with Praise be Man. The stoner-friendly sound leaves me feeling peaceful and goosebumpy every time I listen to it, no matter how many times I hear it. From the first play, I knew how this song would fit into my life as an auditory sedative (the perfect quality for a song accompanying any trip to a different state of consciousness).

Scene 2: How DMT found me

If you don't know, briefly, DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a substance found in much of organic life, including our brains. It creates strong psychedelic effects, open and closed eye visuals, a distorted sense of time, and a profound sense of understanding. It's a wholly immersive experience.

Now back to the story.

My Dad worked with a man in the '80s (let's call him L). He introduced us sometime in 2015.

In January 2020, L and I brought some friends and associates together over beer and pizza for no other reason than expanding our minds and having a laugh. We discuss the philosophy, sociology, legality, and business of psychedelics.

One of the guys L invited had, like me, been only a glimmer in his father's eye in the '80s – let's call him Q. At some point, the conversation shifts to DMT. Q pulls out a vial of crystallized DMT, and I immediately lose focus on everything except that tiny glass bottle.

Q and I step out for a cigarette. I share that I've wanted to try the substance for years and ask if he would sell me the vial. Q gifts it to me without a thought, saying that money would taint the experience. Happenstance strikes again.

How Praise be Man came to mean so much to me

I held on to that vial for a couple weeks before feeling ready to partake. My friend (let's call him F) offers to trip sit and make sure I don't burn or break anything.

It was a rainy Saturday in late January. My parents left the house to spend the day out of the city (I didn't know this when making plans with F; happenstance). The timing is perfect. I relax into my bean bag chair and take deep breathes to prepare my lungs for mild abuse. I ready my mind, clearing it of any negativity, assumptions, expectations, hangups, and other such bullshit that might compromise my trip to hyperspace.

F sits in the rolling chair to my right. I prep him with all the info he'll need in the coming minutes. I crack the window just a little, light some incense, and show F how to use the small TV perched on the corner of my desk. Again, the song always puts me at peace, and if I start freaking out in another dimension, that's the song I know has the power to save me from a bad trip and enhance a positive trip.

I strike the lighter and hold it a few inches below the pipe's bowl to melt and vaporize the substance without burning it. I starting inhaling the smoke and, literal seconds later, lay lines appear, crisscrossing F's face, my arms, the room, and all of reality. The immediacy of the effect startles me, so I hand F the pipe. Being the responsible human and good friend that he is, he takes the handoff as a sign that I won't smoke more. He was wrong, but he made the right call.

I lean back - the experience consumes my awareness before it crescendos. I forget that I'm awake and can only describe what I see, hear, and feel as a higher-order reality poking through the façade of our sensory world.

Awe washes over my semi-lucid mind as I marvel at the geometric light show. F instinctually plays Praise be Man – always the right call - even though I gave no signs of distress. The bass hits 2:45 into the song and, despite not consciously knowing that F hit play, I feel the same goosebumpy peace I'd become so familiar with over the years.

But now, with my altered perception of reality, I feel a new layer atop the usual mellow peace of distorted, droning bass and ghostly guitar: I sense completion. I feel as if a loop of intellectualization I'd been reliving had finally closed. My mind relaxes, allowing me to feel the experience instead of trying (and failing) to make sense of it, as I'd done with most experiences in my life.

The transcript

My hyper-active mind wanted to transcribe any ideas from the trip that may not make sense back in normal sober reality. Given that DMT's message was to feel more and think less, that idea didn't pan out as I hoped. Instead, I was gifted something much better:

Oh my god. Wow. Oh my god.

Oh my god. There are no words... It's so beautiful.

My god. Yeah, wow. Oh my god. It's like... Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah, I'll probably keep saying that for a little while. Oh my god. It feels like gold dust slipping through my fingers.

Wow. I haven't even looked at my body, oh my god. It's still coming in waves.

How long was I out? [F:] Six minutes.

Fuck. I can't even... Oh my god.

Wow. WOW.

Oh my god.

In retrospect

Now, Praise be Man maintains its peace-inducing qualities. The song's infusion with my experience of hyperspace reminds me every day of the happenstance that runs the universe and the role we play in its unfolding, with and without intention.

We can never be sure of any experience's meaning while it's happening. Full appreciation of a moment's significance only comes in retrospect, years later, by looking back to trace occurrences that, at the time seem random and arbitrary.

Every event - from quitting the job that kept me at home, to brooding in Budapest instead of sleeping, to going out for pizza and beer - had to line up exactly as they did for me to tell you this story now. I couldn't see any of these connections as I was living them. But now that I see them, it's impossible not to smile at the infinite happenstance that brings us to where we are now.

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