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- [00:13]
A
Welcome to Other World. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This is part two of down the Silver Strand. If you haven't heard the first part, you should definitely go back and start at the beginning. In part one, we met Jake, who. He was a Navy SWCC veteran who sustained a traumatic brain injury from heavy machine gun fire during his time in the military. This injury, also known as a tbi, had horrible daily symptoms that only got worse with time and pushed Jake to the point where he considered taking his own life. After exhausting every available doctor and resource at his disposal, Jake decided to travel to Mexico to undergo a treatment using ibogaine and 5 Meo DMT. These are two ancient sacred medicines with long ceremonial histories that are now being examined by Western researchers for their potential to treat a wide range of conditions. I know that part of the reason Jake wanted to share his own story on the show is is that treatments like these might be intimidating or completely unknown to the people who need it most. I think sharing this is important and also incredibly fascinating to hear such a vivid description of it. With that, let's get back into the second part of Jake's story. He has just woken up in Rosarito, Mexico after taking ibogaine and is about to begin his his day of DMT. This episode is called down the Silver Strand Part 2, and you're listening to Otherworld.
- [01:57]
B
Hello, is this Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science you can't argue with. I was worried about. All of a sudden it is up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm gonna die. Its limbs were just like, wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a Sam. I woke up the next day and the first thought that popped into my head was, I get to feel like this every day. Like, that's how good I felt. I woke up for the first time in years, I don't know how many, but years, and I wasn't tired, my neck didn't hurt, my head didn't hurt, and I just felt good. And, you know, I knew something had happened and something had worked already just because of the way I felt that morning. I hadn't felt like that with anything I'd tried over the past few years, know, trying to get some relief. And so that's how I started that day. We get ready to do the dmt. So we. We all get together in a circle and they kind of tell us all about it. So DMT is poison from the Bufo toad or the Sonoran Desert toad. They're all over the southwest, northern Mexico. And they dry this poison and. And you smoke it through what appeared to me to be like a very specialized pipe. It's unlike a pipe I've seen down there. You do 5 Meo DMT, which is the most concentrated version of it. It's the heaviest version of it, but it's also fleeting and it goes really fast. There are other types of DMT. For example, Ayahuasca is NN, DMT. And so down there you are doing the five MeO. And this medicine is unlike anything else. It only lasts 10 to 20 minutes when you take a hit. But it's time legitimately does not exist when you do this medicine. So the time really doesn't matter. You can take one hit. You can take, I think, up to five hits. It's up to you. Most people take two or three hits. And what they do here is they. They do what's called a handshake dose first, which I think is really awesome. So they do a lower dose so that you're kind of introduced to the other side and not just thrown into it. And that way you're able to experience a little better. Because, I mean, it's. To say it's overwhelming is to do it a disservice. There's not a word to describe it. You know, again, in my notebook I wrote, I cannot describe this, but, you know, I'll do the best I can. So we get in our circle and they do the same thing. They kind of try to explain it to us, but they're like, we can't explain it. You just have to experience this. And it's pretty intimidating. So there were some guys that were iffy about it, but ultimately they said they have never seen a single person upset that they did this. Every single person is happy that they did this medicine. They decide who's gonna go first, last. So the way you do this is you go individually and you go to this room they call the Bufo room. And it's this. It's this room that's all by itself. Nobody's allowed in there except when it's your turn. And it's extremely spiritual. Like, if the house is already spiritual, this room is a sacred place. I mean, you can feel it when you walk in there. Everything that's happened over the past few months, I don't know what I believe anymore. I'm really setting my own beliefs now, and I'm kind of chasing that and determining what I think of our existence in this world and, and all that. But if there are things out there, if things can get caught in this reality or whatever it is, that room has to be one of those places, because that room is just pure healing. I mean, that is where people's lives change for the better. It's indescribable. The person who goes in that room is not the person that's going to come out of that room. That's kind of what they give us and kind of what they tell us. And then they number us one through six. I was picked to go fifth. And if you go fifth or sixth, you're allowed to have a small breakfast because you're going to be, you know, be waiting a while, despite the fact that, you know, the hits don't take that long. Guys go in, you get set up, absolutely nobody's rushed. And then afterwards, you go out on the deck where there's. There's a plunge pool, there's a water feature. So you hear water moving, you're overlooking the ocean, the sun's out. That's where you take your notes and you do that as well. And nobody's rushed. Like the. Again, the vibe in the house, the energy in that house. Nobody in that house is rushing you. You're supposed to be selfish in this moment and take all the time you need. I go upstairs and wait for a while, and that was a moment where I was really proud of myself. I was actually really excited about that because I had had so many nerves coming up to that, and I was at peace all day. I just sat there and meditated, looked at the ocean, talked to the other guys I was waiting with, got to know them a lot better. And then when it was finally my time, I headed down. Before I left, I read a bunch of books, and I've already talked about one that was profound on me. And the other one that had a huge impact on me was it's called the Immortality Key, and it talks about the pagan continuity hypothesis, which is that early religions like Christianity had to take aspects of pagan religions to have followers, because otherwise they're not going to be able to appeal to these people in these places that they're trying to spread Christianity to. But what this book argues is it takes it a step further, and it argues that in ancient Greece, one of the popular religions at the time, the cult of Dionysus, was using a psychedelic sacrament. So they were using a, you know, a bread, a wine, whatever their sacrament was, and it had a psychedelic substance in it. And so early Christianity, how were they going to be able to compete if you know these people were literally experiencing God in the woods, you can't just tell somebody to come to church. That's not really an option. So the book goes on to argue that early Christianity used a psychedelic sacrament. So the blood of Christ, the wine that you would typically drink, actually had a psychedelic aspect to it. And with that, there are monasteries in Greece with a very old phrase written on them that says if you die before you die, you won't die when you die. And that phrase was probably the most impactful for me before this journey. To me, I interpret that as if you can have such a profound experience here on earth, most likely with psychedelics, because I'm not sure how else you're going to get this unless you're very advanced at meditation. But if you can have an experience on earth where you feel God and you experience the other side and the universe, then when you die, it's not going to be this scary, horrible thing. It's going to be like welcoming an old friend. So my last intention that I had not accomplished in ibogaine was that I wanted to die. I wanted to experience death. And so I headed down to the bufo room, walked in, and all the providers. I mean, this is as spiritual as it gets. So the Corindera, the shaman, is in there and she blesses you. Again, she does her prayer. Everybody's wearing, like, linen and cotton and clothes that are, you know, very from the earth. And they didn't tell us to bring those. But I was staying in San Diego the week after the journey, and so I had brought, like, a linen shirt and some stuff to go out in. So I actually had some clothes like that. So I did the same thing after seeing, you know, the way they were dressed. And so you walk into this room and there's these prayer curtains hanging from the ceiling. There's this angelic music playing, and there's this soft white mattress in the middle of the floor, and they welcome you in. There's a provider, there's a shaman. You sit down, they tell you to take as long as you need. And then when you're ready, just look at her and tell her you're ready. And so I tell her I'm ready. She puts the pipe up to my mouth, and you have to inhale for like 20 to 30 seconds. I mean, it's a. It's a pretty long inhale. But the smoke is unlike any smoke I've ever experienced. There's nothing to it. It has a slight, slight taste, but it's very easy to deeply inhale. And once you get it all the way in and you've. You've taken all the medicine, she puts your eye mask down, lays you back, and counts down from 10. And when she hits zero, you kind of blast off. That's. That's the best way to explain it, or that's how everybody else explains it. But the word I actually used was dissolve. It kind of feels like your physical body dissolves either way. It's a similar feeling. So for me, the handshake dose comes on, and my physical body is still present, but I'm completely wrapped in the universe. And the universe is, like, atomized. There's nothing around me. I'm not laying on a mattress. I'm just kind of like floating in the universe. And I'm completely wrapped in whatever the basis of the universe is. And that's where. I don't know. I've struggled in my life trying to figure out, like, what the nature of humans is. I've always wanted to believe we're good, but I've just. I've seen so much bad and the world these days and everything like that, and it's. It's gotten to me, and it's been hard to, you know, keep that opinion. But when I was wrapped in the universe and God and they showed me what they are, it was pure, unconditional love. Like, the basis of existence, the foundation of consciousness, is pure, unconditional love. And I wrote in big, giant letters in my notebook that you can't read about God, you cannot hear about God, and. And some guy on a podium cannot tell you about God. The only way you can know God is by feeling it. And that's what I experienced that day. Because I grew up going to church. I've explored other religions, and I never got within a mile of anything like this. And so I'm sitting there wrapped in it, and then all of a sudden, this fight breaks out in front of me. And I never felt in danger or anything, but I could just see my mind, how it was behaving. And they told us before we started that if you want a second hit, you need to. If you want a second, third, fourth hit, whatever it is, you need to make sure that it's you that wants and not your ego. Because you know this medicine is sentient as well. And if you abuse it, it will kick you out or show you something you don't want to see. And so I'm sitting there and this fight breaks out in front of me. It's me and my ego and they're arguing. They're not arguing about whether we should take the next hit or not. They're arguing about who gets to decide if we're going to take the next hit, which I thought was hilarious. And so I'm sitting there and I'm just kind of laughing at myself. I'm like, look at how ridiculous this is. And I. I kind of. So you do this hand signal. You don't. You don't say anything. You don't get up if you want the next hit. You just do this hand signal with your hands. You kind of like, you almost make a little heart with them. You put them together, bend your fingers and make this heart shape. And I just did that instinctively and took the next. The next hit. And I wrote in my book that I don't know who made that decision, but if it was my ego jokes on him because he killed himself, because that was like, that was the ego. Death was after that. It was a dissolution of that thing in your head that tells you you're not good enough and that you've always got to be chasing something. I take the next hit, and this one is a full dose, and I completely dissolve. Like my physical body no longer exists. Time doesn't exist, and I just completely become part of the universe. I atomize, and every molecule that is me is also part of the universe. And I became part of. I wasn't connected to the collective consciousness. I was a part of it. I'm sitting there experiencing that, and once again, just pure, unconditional love and feeling whatever God is and whatever the universe is. And I'm experiencing the universe and everything it has to offer what I believe is the base of God and consciousness and everything like that. And then all of a sudden, all the molecules start changing, including my own. Everything, just this energy shift goes through and everything turns into the love of my wife. So my wife was with me from the beginning. I actually met her when I was going through SWCC school, our selection out in Coronado. And she's been with me for 10 years. She's dealt with the deployments, she's dealt with the trips. She dealt with me not being the best person at the beginning of my time serving. And. And then she's dealt with this injury for the past, you know, at least five years. And that was a really hard thing to deal with. I mean, we went through it and looking back, most of it was my fault. And I just couldn't realize it because, again, I was completely consumed by my injuries. And she stuck out through all of it. And we're doing amazing now, but every molecule turned into her love. And I mean, I just, I wish everybody could experience that because that, like my wife, when I, like when I say she's my whole world or she's my everything, I mean that from the bottom of my heart because that's what I experienced that day. So then I start to come out of it as I'm coming back into my physical body. It feels like this cord gets pulled and I get ripped back into, you know, the collective consciousness. And this is where the intuition comes in again. Something just told me that there was one more thing for me to see before I was done with all this. Like this was the end of my journey with these medicines and this was the last thing it wanted me to see. I guess the only thing I saw with air quotes is like a gold kaleidoscope. But everything is feeling or a sense that we don't or like a way to feel that we can't necessarily experience in our physical bodies. And that's how this entire experience took place. So it pulls me back in and the energy changes again and this time it shows me. I wrote down divine femininity. Like it showed me what women are. So like, I grew up with all kinds of strong women in my life. I've always loved and respected the hell out of my grandma, my mom, my sister, my wife later in life, obviously. So I'm not sure why, you know, why it chose to show me this, but I'm eternally grateful it did. I love my place in the world. I love being a man, a protector. Like I like that. I enjoy it, but I can never experience what femininity or being a woman is because of that. And the universe pulled me back in and it showed me that. It showed me what the pure essence of bringing life into the world is. It showed me the power to uplift others. And again, I can never tell you why it showed me that, but I'm really, really happy it did. And that's when it got super weird to me that I instinctively knew to call the DMT a she in my ibogaine journey because obviously I had no idea this was going to happen. And then after I get done, that's another parallel that I find out that other people are having happen to them is they're encountering this thing that they describe as a divine femininity. So I don't know if that is the essence of DMT or if that's something else out there, but it was beautiful and it was amazing. That happens. And come back into my physical body and I just shoot up and I throw my mask off and I just start dying, laughing, and I just scream, how fucking stupid. Like, how stupid have I been for the past however many years? Like depression, anxiety, all this stuff when everything is perfect. Everything has always been perfect. Like everything in this world is exactly as it should be and it's going to work out. And the beauty around us is just taken for granted every single day. And I know that there's bias there because when you come out of this, I mean, your vision is like. It's like you're watching like an OLED TV in 4K. Like it's crystal clear. It's absolutely. All the colors are booming and vibrant and that your vision feels like you're. But it's not this high vision. Like it's not a vision where you're tripping and everything's swirling. It's just hyper real is the only way I can put it. So I come to it, I'm just already thinking, like, how stupid have I been? Like, this is ridiculous. And here's the other thing though, is there was no remorse, there was no regret. It was just hilarious to me and excitement to get to live the rest of my life with this knowledge. Then they hand you a bowl of fruit and they do this for everybody and they hand it to you and they know, like, they've done the medicine. So they know what you're tasting. But I mean, this might as well be ambrosia. Like, it's the nectar of the gods. When you taste this fruit after doing the dmt, it's the best thing you've ever tasted. Like, it almost ruins food for you. So I'm sitting there and I'm just. I eat a piece of fruit and I just die laughing. And then I eat a piece of fruit and I just die laughing. I do that for probably five to 10 minutes. And then I say I'm ready to get up and go outside and go to the deck where I take my notes. And so I go out there, I sit down, start taking my notes, and again, like, everything is crystal clear. So like my. My hearing, I can hear. I can hear every bird, I can hear every drop of water. I can hear the waves crashing at the beach, which is like super far away at this point. Which that part might have been made up in my head, to be honest, because I don't see how I could have heard those. It seems pretty impossible. But I heard him. Maybe it was association because I was looking at them, but in my head I heard them. So yeah, I mean, absolutely beautiful, wonderful experience. And then I went upstairs and everybody except for one other guy had gone. And this is one of the most important parts of the journey for me and it's why I'm doing a podcast despite, you know, not ever doing anything like this is because I, I looked at everybody up there and they were like, they were entirely new people. Like their smiles, the way that they were carrying themselves, the way that they were sitting there, just everything was, they were better. And I saw that and I just got the biggest smile on my face and thought, like, everybody needs to hear about this. Like as as many people that need this need to go because this is saving lives. It's changing lives. And yeah, that was, that was a super profound, important moment for me.
- [21:16]
A
Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Jake's story.
- [21:26]
B
Foreign.
- [21:33]
C
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- [22:46]
B
Now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:50]
C
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- [23:33]
B
The week after I went to San Diego and my wife came out and one of my best friends from when I was in, he had gone and done the ibogaine two or three weeks before I did, I think. And our plan was to just meet and hang out and, you know, live life. And so we spend the week together. It's great. I wanted to do this thing, I had this thing planned where I wanted to go with my friend to Coronado. I wanted to. Coronado's. Sorry. Coronado is an island off the coast of San Diego. It's the one that the big bridge goes to. And that's where Buds is for the seals and that's where Swixpool is for us. And so that's where I went through, you know, selection to, to, you know, make it to my community. And I wanted to go back there and just have this poetic ending where it all kind of ended where it started. And so I go out there and I get everything I wanted. I got, you know, we went to this burrito place that everybody goes to when you're, when you're there. We drove the Silver Strand. I even got to see the students running across, you know, in their helmets and stuff. I went to the Hotel Dell where I met my wife. Like everything and nothing happens. No emotion is invoked. And I'm not disappointed because at this point I'm high on life, but it just didn't happen. And so we go through the rest of the week and my friend leaves and it's my wife and I's last day there. And for our last meal, because we were leaving the next morning, so our last meal before we fly home. There was a place that was very, very special to me when I was there. It's called the Classic Malt Shop. It's in San Diego and It's like this 50s style diner owned by these two brothers who are just the best guys. And I would go there like probably four or five nights a week during selection, all the time. I mean, you're burning like 10,000 calories a day, so you can eat whatever you want. So I would go and just eat everything on the menu and me and my best friend would go there. As far as I recall, nobody from Selection would go there besides me or if I brought anyone. Like, I never saw anybody else there from Coronado because It's like a 20 to 25 minute drive and it is. Most people don't have a vehicle. I was lucky Enough to have my truck while I was out there. And so we would go there nonstop. It was kind of our safe space while you're going through hell, you're going through this really tough training. And it was our safe place. It's where we would go and kind of get away from it all, at least for an hour, and eat some good food. And when I left, when I graduated, I had my whole family come out there. I believe there was eight of us. And I brought him in. I go up to the counter, and I tell the owner who's, you know, he always runs a cash register. I said, man, I don't think you know what you've done for me. I appreciate it more than, you know, I did make it through, and it's time for me to go, but I appreciate everything. And he said, congratulations. We're proud of you. Thank you. And then he said, your meal's on the house today. And so that was amazing and a really important moment for me. So my wife and I go back there for the last meal before we fly out, and we pull up in our rental car. And normally, like, my whole life, I have had to, like, if I get somewhere and other people are kind of getting out of their car or parking, I want to get up and get into the restaurant so that we don't have to wait in line. And then once we get in, I have to, like, face the door because of the military stuff, like, just all this ridiculous stuff. And this time, I didn't do that. We just get there, and I'm chilling, and there's no rush. And so this family gets out in front of me, and this blew my mind. So I've had some synchronicity since the journey, and I completely understand confirmation bias, and I'm sure there's things that have happened to me since the journey that are me just confirming that bias. But there are a handful of things that I can't explain, and this is one of them. So we get in line, and the family that I didn't go in front of is this family of eight. And there's a guy standing in line, and he's super tan. His head's not shaved, but his hair has just started growing back. He's fit, but thin. And he has, like, these marks on him that I recognize that are from, like, pretty much just getting scratched to hell by seashells, like, from, like, the demo pits or what other, you know, you're doing during training. And my wife goes, I think he's going through. And I was like, no, I was like, I think he's graduating. And he walks up to the cash register and he says, and this is like 10 years, almost exactly from when I graduated. And he walks up to the cash register and tells the owner, I made it through, and thank you for everything, but I've got to go. And the owner says, we're proud of you. Congratulations, and your food's on the house today. And then he shakes his hand and I just, like, I went and sat in the booth with my wife and I teared up and I was like, first of all, there's no way that just happened. And second of all, that's everything I was supposed to get. Like, that is the emotional moment that I wanted to have in Coronado and just leave it all on the beach. But it's happening here in this booth, which is probably even better because this was my safe space. And so the medicine, the universe, whatever you want to call it, in my mind, it lined that up for me. And it made me have that moment where I was supposed to, because that was a very, very important moment for me that I think of a lot.
- [29:18]
A
I will say I know where these places are because I lived in San Diego for a little bit. The malt chop is not anywhere close to where the Navy trains. I was actually laughing to myself before knowing that you and your friends were driving so far from Coronado to get these milkshakes. Oh, yeah.
- [29:43]
B
No, you have to get over the bridge. You have to go through all that traffic.
- [29:46]
A
You have a horrible drive, passing, a.
- [29:49]
B
Lot of good food on the way. I would say, absolutely. But that's why we did it, is because we wanted to get as far away from that as we could. Right. We just wanted an hour to ourselves.
- [29:57]
A
That's actually pretty. Pretty wild that you saw this same exact situation unfold.
- [30:03]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the more important moments in my life, actually, I felt a lot of negative stuff that was left over get kind of pulled out of me in that moment. That was Rosarito, that was San Diego, and that was my journey. And so I come home and I've really. I've kept everything with me for the most part. So, like I said, the medicine's supposed to stay in your system for a few months. You don't really know when it's going to get out. They tell you that the only two things you like, you need to do a lot and you need to integrate still. And again, you have to work on yourself. But to keep yourself going well, you should do your best not to get back to your vices because you have about this three month window to build new habits that are going to stay. I mean your brain is completely reset. Like it resets your receptors for things. So like the first time I had coffee I was, I was in the truck with my wife and I was like, I think I picked up a coffee, I was like, I think it's been long enough, I can have a coffee. And it had reset my caffeine receptor to where it felt like I had never had coffee before. And I was driving and shaking and I like looked at her, I was like, I was like, this is a drug. Like we just got so used to it. But this is a drug, they tell you not to drink for three months for sure. They recommend six months because alcohol is the one thing, because it's fat soluble that will, it'll push out the metabolite a lot faster. So you're going to lose a lot of extra progress. And then don't smoke weed for a month because they don't know why. I find this extremely interesting. They don't know completely why yet, but apparently THC like connects to whatever residuals are left from the dmt. And so you can smoke weed within a month of doing DMT and have what they call reflash where you actually go back into a DMT journey, which I find insane and for me sounds awesome, but for people who didn't have as fun of that experience, probably not the best thing. So those are kind of the rules. When you go home. There's a six week integration where you have a call with your coach every day. And these are like very well trained psychologists who have had, they have experience with the medicine and they just make sure you're on the right path. And so I've taken it very, very seriously. I'm about three months removed right now and I've taken it about as seriously as I can. I've kept up with my meditation as much as possible. I've been doing yoga every morning as you know, trying to build a new habit and it's been awesome. I mean, I feel exponentially better. I mean I still, at the end of the day, if you do have a tbi, you still have a brain injury. I, I can't speak for it because I've only been, you know, I'm only three months out, but I feel exponentially better. I've had a handful of headaches since then, but I haven't had a single migraine. My focus is a lot better, my vision is better, my mental health is exponentially better. Like, I. I have days where I'm down now, but instead of it being this, like, horrible pit of despair that I can't dig out of, it's. Now I'm sad. Like, you know, this sucks, but it happens. So let's, you know, let's do this. Let's sit on the couch and watch a movie and let's be sad. I mean, I think that's the gist of it coming back. I can't. Again, I wish I could speak more to it, but I can't because I'm only three months out, right? Like, I'm just hitting the moment now where the medicine is technically supposed to be out of my body. But I can tell you that it's. It saved my life. And I'm in a place that I could not imagine being in three months ago. And I do know people who have done it longer, like, did it a long time ago, and they're still doing really well. The biggest thing about this that I've said a million times is it's not a magic bullet. You have to be willing to work on yourself. And I think the people who go back, who this doesn't really work for, and they're still in a bad place, they didn't take that part seriously. And that's not a knock on them at all. Sometimes you gotta be in the right spot in your life, and there have been people who have gone back to do it a second time. But if you do this stuff, you take it seriously and you work on yourself, I cannot imagine how it will. That's. And if you read the. I believe it's a Stanford study, they have some awesome statistics in there. Like, I'm not gonna paraphrase. Cause I can't say for sure. But I know that they have guys that are a year or more removed from the journey and they're doing really, really well. I can't speak to the physical part of the brain, like, the actual physics happening, or not physics, but the actual physical medicine happening in there, because we can't see that, obviously. But I can tell you that my headaches have decreased. I haven't had a migraine, so my neck was a horrible injury. I mean, I couldn't drive for more than probably 30 to 45 minutes because sitting up straight like that would make it hurt so bad. I would have to get out and move it around and do some stretching and stuff. And my neck has been much better. And then the rest of my physical injuries are still there for sure. Like, I've said with all of this, I'm just able to take care of myself now. So I'm able to do yoga, I'm able to do these things. I have really bad sciatica, for example, and when I was still in physical therapy, taught me these stretches that really, really helped. And not just, you know, physical therapy, but also yoga and all that obviously helps as well. But when you already have a migraine, when you're already severely depressed, when you've already got these other things going on, you can't get out of bed and do yoga and do these stretches that you know are going to help you and you know are going to alleviate these symptoms, but you just can't get out of bed and do them. So then your back starts hurting and then you're. And then it makes your leg hurt and then it makes you lose self confidence because you're. And this is actually, you asked me at the beginning of this what veterans go through or anybody with these issues, and this is a perfect example of it is. It's this, this horrible cascade, this horrible domino effect that can start with the constant headaches. But then the constant headache means you can't work out that day because you have a headache. And then when you can't work out that day, you start to feel insecure because you're not in good shape. And then because you're not working out and not in good shape, your body starts to break down on you. So for me, I have some knee injuries and some back injuries, but, but staying moving is what keeps them feeling okay. It's when I stop moving and stop exercising that those things get really bad. So the simplest thing as the chronic headache can start this insane cascade that just makes all these injuries flare up. So just having the opportunity to take care of myself has changed everything. For me, this has been the most important thing in the world. I mean, obviously my wedding day and if I have kids, one day we'll be up there, but I wouldn't get to be there for them or experience them the right way if I hadn't done this again. I tried everything else, so I really don't know what other option there was to get better. So for me, this has been the most important thing in the world. And I tell people that, you know, I say, if you're ever going to donate to anything, if you're ever at the point where you're financially doing well and you can donate, please donate to one of these retreats. The mission within Ambio. I know there's some others out there that I can't think of. But these places are saving lives. And, you know, the big reason, again, that I'm doing this is for the people out there that don't know about this. If you're a vet, a first responder, and you're just going through it right now, first and foremost, there's stuff that you probably don't know happened to you. I mean, like I said, so I was lucky. Being in the soft community allowed us to access to information we didn't have. So, like, we were one of the first people to start getting informations about the traumatic brain injuries that were coming from the weapons and stuff we were using. So, you know, one of my very good friends out in Colorado was a Marine, and he didn't even know what that was because they had never even given him the info. So, you know, it doesn't matter if you never went to. I mean, it doesn't matter if you didn't even deploy, if you trained your ass off and you spent a ton of time firing these rounds and doing these things. And now all of a sudden you find yourself depressed, anxious, you have headaches, you know, you have these mental issues, there probably is something wrong with you. You're not just. You're not just messed up, okay? You're not alone. You're not undeserving. You're not undeserving just because you didn't have the Hollywood deployment or you didn't win the medal or whatever it is. You're absolutely deserving. And you. You absolutely deserve to go get better and get the help that you need. And this is it. So, I mean, the first step is checking out. If that's something that's up with you. You know, if a traumatic brain injury is a thing, and if the answer is that's what it is and western medicine isn't doing it for you, then, you know, I can't recommend this any higher than I. It's. It's the number one thing that I. As soon as I. As soon as I came home, I just went to like 9 of my friends who I know were to going, and I was like, you have to go. You just have to go. Like, just. Just trust me. I know this sounds crazy. I know it sounds wild. Just go, yeah, man, it's. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. And I just. I. I hope. I hope people can get the help they need and I hope they can get better, because that place sucks. And like, the place that you go to when you're going through that really really sucks and this world is beautiful and there's a life to live and I hope people get to do that.
- [39:42]
A
Thank you so much to Jake for sharing his story and really best of luck to him as he continues the healing process. I really want to wish him the best for myself and the rest of the Otherworld team. I thought this was so fascinating to listen to, but also covers such an important and exciting topic since the beginning of Otherworld. I've always said that I really hope some of the things that are currently considered paranormal or supernatural by mainstream science might one day be studied, understood, and potentially create major breakthroughs for humanity. And although these sacred plant medicines and their use are absolutely not new, just a short time ago the idea of doing serious research into these plant medicines, at least in the Western world, would have been met with deep skepticism at best, if not overt hostility or laughter in the past. It's wonderful that this is slowly changing and it's very exciting to think of the possibilities the future might hold for anyone interested in learning more or seeking resources. Jake sent along a few that we will be including in the description of this episode. I think it goes without saying that if you are interested in this type of treatment, this is something that you should do under the supervision of a qualified individual in a controlled setting. And by qualified individual, I do not mean one of your friends. By controlled setting, I do not mean a futon in their living room. These are very powerful substances that should be treated with respect and taken seriously. And there are plenty of resources out there if you want to learn more. My final disclaimer is that if you are ever considering taking your own life for any reason, just know that there is always a way out, even if it seems like you've tried everything. Something I kept thinking about after hearing this story is Jake's description of looking up the coast after receiving this treatment and being able to see the very beach where he was trained and began his story. Just over the border, that area called the Silver Strand is such a unique, beautiful and sort of spooky place that really stuck with me, which is why I chose the title. Thank you once again to Jake. This episode has been called down the Silver Part two and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our producers are Theo Schaeffer, 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 Americans. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac 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 can become a patron@patreon.com Otherworld Our social media is Otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rees, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Eric Donnelly, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you can send us your stories at stories@otherworldpod.com.
- [43:52]
C
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