The Destabilizing Effects of Psychedelics & The Mind Bending World of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

How Netflix's Bandersnatch (2018) gave me flashbacks to my LSD-induced psychosis

Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch came out in 2018, however, I have been off of Netflix for many years. I viewed this film a few days ago, it’s 2024, and this was the first interactive film I have, well, interacted with.

If you’re unfamiliar with the film, it immersively explores free will, timelessness, time travel, matrix-related conspiracy theories, simulation theory, parallel realities, multiple timelines, multi-dimensionality, and death. Spoiler alert: I will reveal possible endings and major plot points. If you’d like to experience this film I suggest you pause the read here and return after you have interacted with it.

Coincidentally, the above are all concepts that have in some way, at the least tangentially, popped up during my psychedelic ceremonies. Some of which have led me into dangerous, void-like, or deluded mental terrains. I will be sharing some of my extremely discomforting experiences with mushrooms and LSD to review the not-so-glamorous effects of mind-bending substances. It goes without saying, but, a trigger warning is due for this post.

The viewer was given a or b choices to control Stefan (our MC) to find a path to one of the five main endings of the movie— I ended on a path where Stefan discovered that he was living on a Netflix movie set (quite immersive if you ask me).

Throughout the film Stefan became aware of what his reality was about— he discovered files in his father’s safe that revealed how his whole life was an experiment and his traumas were essentially fed to him for entertainment. His life was an experiment, and he was not under his own control: the viewer (us: humans watching Netflix) was controlling his choices. His reality was revealed to be synonymous with the reality of Bandersnatch, a book he became obsessed with recreating into a forced-choice video game. There were symbols and clues within his reality that revealed this truth to him, however, everyone else besides Colin (the renowned game programmer, Stefan’s idol and friend) acted as if he was deluded, mentally ill, and in need of his therapist.

It made sense that Colin, as a renowned game creator, was in on the “everything is code” model of reality. It also made sense that Colin was the one who gave Stefan LSD. When compared to The Matrix Colin is to Morpheus (the illusive knowledgeable figure) as Stefan is to Neo (the one waking up). These movies have a large difference: the tint of delusion peppered throughout Bandersnatch and the inclusion of the viewer in the experience is a lot more destabilizing than the more straightforward message of The Matrix. I found The Matrix to embody an illuminating quality while Bandersnatch to embody the feel of a deluded reality breakdown. And trust me, speaking from experience, I had more than one of those “deluded reality breakdowns,” and they feel starkly different than the illuminatory experiences psychedelics can offer. They hold the experiencer at the edge of horror; Stefan is in and out of a state of existential horror throughout the film; I know that state all too well.

The scene with LSD, where things get iffy…

There is a scene in the film where Colin gives Stefan the choice to take a tab of LSD, reminiscent of the infamous red-pill, blue-pill scene. The introduction of psychedelics to an already mind-bending film hit home for me a bit too closely.

Here’s the scene if you’d like to view it:

The portrayal of Colin exploring free will, time, and parallel realities felt accurate to how associations arise and concepts connect in altered states. Kudos to the Black Mirror writers, 95% sure they wrote some of this plot on acid themselves, or at least had experience with the substance.

The depictions of realizations within the altered state were done exceptionally well. For example, it made complete acid-brain sense for Colin to conclude that if he jumps off the balcony it won’t matter because he would respawn in another reality anyway. What felt most distressing about this scene was that Colin’s remarks were peppered with tints of truth. His model of reality didn’t seem all that far out. Before you dismiss me, consider the following…

Tints of truth/ somewhat plausible concepts mentioned:

• Parallel realities all affecting each other

• The existence of self within multiple realities

• “Time is a construct”

• Changing the past through present decisions

• “It’s the spirit out there that’s connected to our world that decides what we do and we just have to go along for the ride”

• “The government monitors people”

• The sentiment that messages are hidden in games or movies

Speaking for myself here, I find most of these to carry bits of truth. Therefore, it is plenty more disconcerting for this scene to end with one of the boys jumping off a balcony.

Colin explains reality to Stefan with the game Pac-Man:

“P.A.C —Program And Control. He’s program and control man. The whole thing is a metphor. He thinks he’s got free will but really, he’s trapped in a maze, in a system, all he can do is consume. He’s pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head. And even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze, what happens? He comes right back in the other side.

It’s a fucking nightmare world, and the worst thing is it’s real and we live in it.

It’s all code, if you listen closely you can hear the numbers.

Something got very twisted along the way, but what was it?

Colin suggests one of them jumps off the balcony to prove his Pac-Man theory.

Stefan rationally responds with: “You die”

Colin counters: “It wouldn’t matter because there are other timelines, Stefan. How many times have you watched Pacman die? Doesn’t bother him. He just tries again.”

What went wrong was Colin insinuating that due to the existence of other timelines, death doesn’t matter because his life is just on one timeline. He said: “How one path ends is immaterial. It’s how our decisions along that path affect the whole that matters.” Colin didn’t account for the materiality of death. The logic doesn’t add up: How one path ends is immaterial, yet the decision of death is material. The decision to wholeheartedly choose life matters a whole lot in whatever timeline you are in— you don’t just get to go back to a checkpoint like in a game. It does not seem plausible that death on one timeline grants you access to another version of yourself in the same body.

Whatever your musings may be, my conclusion is that those tints of truth all converged under a tint of delusion that overtook their trip.

And jumping off a building on acid? Never seen anyone do it in person but that series of events is a commonality, and it happened to a friend of an acquaintance of mine. I never had the inclination to jump off a building while on psychoactives but I did have other thoughts: One time while taking mushrooms on my own, I began pondering multidimensionality— the different dimensions of existence. My thoughts went to pondering death, I was in a bliss state pondering death, imagining what it would be like to shoot myself in the head and float into the “other dimension,” to experience myself as pure consciousness unbound of a body. I am very glad a gun was not accessible to me at the time, the “other dimension” felt compelling.

Similarly, Colin appeared to be in a rather ecstatic state of mind when he proposed one of them jump off the balcony; psychedelics can make deadly ideas sound innocent, good even, I’ve experienced this state of mind firsthand. So no matter how controlled you think you are on psychedelics, don’t underestimate their unpredictability and the need to establish safety before plunging in.

Really would not recommend watching this movie under the influence of any psychoactive substance.

Psychedelics: A No Going Back Zone

The exploration of reality itself, especially by being a psychonaut is largely a no going back kind of a road. Reality begins to get deconstructed and the mind fights to reconstruct in whatever manner matches a feeling of stability. The mind refuses to surrender and seeks to control because it believes that it will die without control; que ego death experiences. Irritations and delusions of the mind begin to pull on the individual and they can often manifest in whatever contorted form works best for the personality; the mind contorts reality for reality to fit into its story. The mind cannot make sense of the whole thing (it is not programmed to be able to do so at the level of the human brain) and decides to take over. Here you get people thinking they are God, and God alone, the omnipotent.

In the acid scene, Colin became convinced he was living in a video game, and by jumping off the balcony, Colin would prove his theory. Colin believed that he had no free will and that outside forces were controlling him, deciding to jump off a balcony to one’s death reinstates to the mind that it is in control.

Flashbacks To My LSD-Induced Psychosis & The Nature of Symbolism

Bandersnatch portrayed an eerily similar state of mind to the one of my LSD-induced psychosis. It is a unique state of mind where delusion is accepted as reality, and in my case, worlds upon worlds filled with terror that I was desperately trying to escape. Sounding a bit like Colin’s Pac-Man metaphor, eh?

It’s a state that is incredibly mental and unstructured, one that easily falls prey to terror and spirals into the worst realities one can imagine.

Total discomfort and unease disease the mind, clouding one’s judgment from truly seeing what is happening.

Not just during the acid scene, but throughout the film, Stefan’s reality is deconstructing. This is akin to the effect of psychedelics, but then his reality begins constructing itself based on exaggerated mental models.

Why does one go into psychosis?

My trip started out ego-based as I wanted to take way more acid than was recommended to prove that I could “go deep.” It was not a trip that felt good to go on, rather, it felt that I was forcing myself. It is incredibly important to approach psychedelics ceremonially, wholeheartedly, and consciously, or else you run the risk of riding deep corners of the mind without support. Or worse, living them out (or at least feeling like you are living them out).

“Beware of unearned wisdom” — Carl Jung

Jung saw psychedelics as a means for the subconscious to reveal itself at the risk of the conscious mind not being able to handle all the uprising.

Reality Destabilization

In the film, Stefan became consumed by existentially torturous mental states, his person was experiencing deep philosophical contemplation without a sense of ground to his reality.

Psychedelics can be immensely ungrounding: your default mode network gets broken down so that you are not attached to your patterned earthly way of being. The subconscious has a chance to rise: symbolism overlays reality. Interpreting the symbolism as reality is often a highway to the danger zone.

Symbols are carriers of information, but to think that they are the entirety of reality is akin to subscribing to an illusion. Any symbol is not the entirety of reality; there can be a symbol to represent the entirety of reality much like a symbol can represent the earth or an organization but the symbol is not the earth or organization, it is a symbol. The symbol is not the pure reality, it is a representation of it.

Psychosis can occur when the symbols are taken for reality. During my LSD experience, I felt like I was transported and trapped in other realities, but really, they were just representations that my mind could not deduce as different from reality. When the mind is destabilized, it is prone to adopt symbols for realities.

Among the many worlds I entered, there was one in which I was deluded into believing I was transported into a junkie house and dying due to an overdose. The apartment looked like a junkie apartment, literally trashier and dirtier than it actually was. I saw my own death, and most significantly, I felt my own death within that reality… the sadness of wasted potential.

All thoughts that entered my mind immediately overlayed reality: the people around me morphed faces and outfits, it looked so convincing. And the thoughts entering my mind? Well, they were not pleasant, nor did they feel like they were coming from me, you know, like regular thoughts do. Remember how I mentioned that Stefan’s decisions were being controlled by a Netflix viewer? Well, it felt like a demon was playing around with the input of my mind.

No matter the realm I entered: that junkie scene, on the way to being sex trafficked, or facing a holocaust officer—I had the sense that something was trying to trick me and take away what was most precious to me: my life force. May I highlight: these were not merely visual hallucinations but felt sense processes.

“He will fall into error, however in thinking that the images he perceives and the experiences he undergoes are the direct and personal dealing of God with his soul, instead of realizing that they are stages on the Path”

— Dion Fortune (1984)” The Mystical Qabalah,” p.153

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There are many stories of people seeing the face of God or hearing him speak to them. The faces that are seen and the voices heard are not God itself, how could it be? God is irreducible to a single face or voice— these are the representations of God. People will go on to say “I have seen the face of God!” then draw it and make claims. It would be foolish to believe this— this is how God communicated with a specific person, however, it is not the ultimate reality of what God is.

Dion Fortune, a trusted occultist in my books, says these are stages along the Path; these are symbols that are accessible to the person at certain points in their journey to communicate what is needed in developing their relationship with the Creator and Creation. Dion warns against taking an image as the Truth. Appearances are symbolic, to take them as the whole of reality is an illusionary take.

With all that said, may you remain grounded within your awareness and see clearly within the world of Maya (The Illusion).

“Do you believe in an invisible reality behind appearances?”

—Dion Fortune (2003). “Moon Magic,” p.109