Greetings, Cosmic Travelers!
Xucaen here, back with an exciting update for all my fellow chronic space fans! 🌌 I’ve just posted a new video on YouTube, and this one marks a shift in how I approached things. This time, I wrote a script beforehand (fancy, right?), recorded my narration, and chose a series of images to set the mood. I even dove into the art of editing (someone else’s) music , experimenting with different sounds until I finally settled on the final track.
In full transparency, the script started as a brain dump of my thoughts and feelings, which I handed over to ChatGPT for a bit of organizational magic. From there, I gave it several rounds of polish in Microsoft Word until it felt just right. Shoutout to Pixabay as well, where I found a treasure trove of royalty-free music, videos, and more, created by incredibly generous artists. Seriously, they were instrumental (pun intended) in bringing this project to life quickly!
I think it turned out pretty well, though I definitely need more practice in the video-making realm. But hey, I’m learning fast and already working on my next one! 🎥
And that’s where you come in. As I dive into writing, I’d love to hear from you! What topics would you like to see me explore next? Drop your ideas in the comments below—I can’t wait to see where this cosmic journey takes us!
And now without further ado, here’s my video and transcript. So light up and get ready to experience, Experiment 420.1!
Stay lit,
Xucaen
Experiment 420.1 – Tomorrow Never Knows
Transcript
The numbers refer to the place in the song that prompted the reaction.
I’m listening to "Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles, playing it on Spotify. as I smoke a bowl of OVM mixed with Gogurtz. It's like a psychedelic experience without the LSD (or the DEA agents knocking on my door). This song was groundbreaking for how it was recorded. The Beatles used samples and layered tracks in a way that was still new at the time. That type of experimentation set the foundation for so much music that followed.
The lyrics are based on the book *The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead* by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner. The whole song makes so much more sense now.
0:00 – 0:08. The sitar's introduction is captivating. Ringo's drumming creates a hypnotic rhythm.
0:11 - 0:20“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.” The opening lyric sets the mood. There’s something about the way Lennon stretches “dying” into three syllables.
0:26 – 0:31 “Surrender to the void” is a tough concept to grasp. I think of it as Your faith is in the hands of a higher power, God or the universe, and you just let go.
0:33 – 0:36 When Lennon sings, "it is shining," I experience a cosmic connection.
0:39 – 0:41 I’m really digging the horn sounds, or whatever they are. The whole vibe is incredibly psychedelic, and I’m grooving to the beat. The weed I smoked is definitely enhancing the experience.
0:48 – 0:51 It is being. I feel this.
0:56 – 1:04 And then the solo hits me like a wall of 4 dimensional color.
1:08 – 1:22 I’ve heard rumors the guitar is the “Taxman” solo played backwards. Wikipedia says George Harrison recorded the solo and played that backwards -I don’t know which is true.
1:26 – 1:36“That love it all that love is everyone it is knowing”. To me this is the central message of this song love encompasses everything.
2:00 -2:03 “But Listen to the color of your dreams,” The seagull sounds are epic – I read that’s Paul’s voice sped up and looped..
2:08 – 2:10 "‘It is not living’ feels like a warning, reminding us that our goals and aspirations have turned unhealthy, leaving us unsure of how to truly live.
2:13 - 2:43 I've always interpreted the song as a reflection on mortality & the universe's eternal nature. The song fades out just as our lives do, and life goes on in a seemingly endless cycle from beginning to end.
As we journey through spacetime, we leave behind traces of energy that continue to exist, expanding alongside the universe into eternity. The love and energy we put into the universe exists forever.