Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
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Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
Have you listened to the first episode of the Alchemy Podcast? If not, then you definitely should. It features Harry Chamas, a much respected deep freediver, who shared a funny story with us, amongst others. Do you know what magic mushrooms are? If not, Google the term. If yes, imagine freediving while under their influence. How would it feel? Here's what Harry told us (needless to say, we strongly suggest you avoid such experiences).
In the past, I’ve been fun diving on the reef, and even spearfishing, on psychedelics. Never on the line though. I wouldn't say you need to freedive even to do it. But I mean, one of the best experiences of my life was freediving on mushrooms. It's like, it just heightened all of my senses. I had just my Speedo on and just the feeling of moving through the water, the water moving over the whole body… But then also at the same time, there were three of us and one of the guys was not having a very good time at all. And then the two of us were in the water. Like, "man, you gotta come in, this is amazing". Then when he came in, it was like, he got out after like in less than a minute. He didn't like it at all, you know? And he was a freediver as well, but he just wasn't having a very good time on the trip.
It's not something I recommend everybody does, but you know, as you can probably tell if you've listened to this podcast I've got a very high level of self-control. So I know I can put myself in certain situations. I've done mushrooms before, I've done psychedelics before. I'm at the point where I know I can't f**k up. I'm not the guy that tries to fly out the top storey of a building. You know, I'm not gonna forget that I need to breathe and just freedive forever. It's just a different way to experience this thing in an altered state.
I think I learned my lessons the hard way. I've earned my badges. And then I realized that actually, the best possible experience that you could have is to not think about anything. And now normally if I'm on psychedelics, I'll spend some of the time meditating. Just sitting and maybe doing some pranayama and meditating. And even during the rest of the time, I'm trying to do active meditation the whole time. There's a very tangible reward for not being in your head the whole time.