Friday morning I wake up, post-ibogaine euphoria painfully missing, replaced by a light-grade withdrawal restlessness and sensitivity. Upon waking, my goal for the day remains the same: no drugs at all, get through the day, and take an ibogaine booster dose at night as it is getting dark. Painfully, filled with deep, sharp remorse at my slip with the kratom that shattered my post-ibogaine glow and brought back the withdrawal I thought I'd never feel again, I make my way downstairs and into my office to start my work day. I am able to focus fine, in fact, the same as I have for the past three years, that is to say, everything is a bit painful to do but my mind works fine. Nothing special happens in the work day, but at some point Morninggloryseed logs onto instant messenger, and in a rush of emotion I message him, telling him I have something to tell him. I confess about the kratom and tell him he was right that I should have given myself more time after, and I wish I had been supervised for longer. I am nearly in tears I feel so emotional about this. He tells me to relax, it's okay, just don't take more. And do take more ibogaine. This makes me feel relieved since it's my plan anyway, I decided I am going to do it regardless of others' opinions because it feels right, but it makes me feel much better about it that my good friend has the same opinion. He tells me to just take 100mg and that will be plenty, so I decide to take about that much at first, but deep down I know that I will be taking the rest, which should be at least 300mg equivalent.
I pass the rest of the day slowly, painfully. I take my bag of kratom and, finally, throw it away by spreading it over the forest floor in a large area. I decide I will take the follow-up dose at 9pm. Ibogaine feels like it should be done at night, and even during the flood dose the nighttime was always much stronger than the daytime. It does work on dream consciousness so this makes sense. After work I clean my house some, get the kitchen spotless, clean up random messes. I watch some episodes of How I Met Your Mother to pass the time and relax, whiling away the hours before I can take more ibogaine.
The Boost
At long last, the hour has arrived. I open up my jar, and remove the TA extract. I weigh out 250mg of it, or roughly equivalent to 125mg of ibogaine, but of course with those all-important other alkaloids present as well. I stick it in my mouth and swallow, feeling the bitterness and letting it wash over me. The deed done, I decide to watch some How I Met Your Mother episodes while waiting for it to take effect. As I lay in bed, that familiar calm, smooth, comfortable feeling starts to come over me, and the desire to kick my legs subsides, some. At about 30 minutes in, I wave my arm and notice a very faint trailing. The episodes still seem pretty normal. At about 50 minutes in, there has been little progress and I still feel uncomfortable and mostly unchanged, so I make the decision to consume all of the rest of my ibogaine, which is roughly equivalent to 250mg, for a total of 350mg (there is a bit extra in the HCl packet).
I walk downstairs, noting that I have to be a little careful on the steps, and my walk feels slightly wobbly. I go to the freezer and get my drug jar, open it up, and remove the ibogaine packets. I am able to easily pour out the rest of the TA, about 250mg, and I pour it in my mouth and swallow. Then I open up the HCl packet, and pour out as much as possible, about 50mg, but the rest is sticking. So I grab a knife and start scraping, which recovers probably 30mg more which I immediately consume, but there is still a decent amount in the corners; this is also true for the TA. So, carefully, I cut the bags open so I can access all of the surfaces, and begin licking them clean. There is quite a lot of powder, and with so much prolonged contact with my tongue, I truly experience the bitterness of ibogaine for the first time. It's so sharp that my eyes start to tear up, though it still tastes like rootbark underneath. I finish up with both packets as fast as I can and open the refrigerator to retrieve some fruit juice. I swish it around in my mouth in an attempt to dislodge the bitterness, which only works somewhat. Then I throw away the mangled packets. Ingestion complete, I walk back upstairs, get in bed, and continue watching the show.
As the current episode ends, about 25 minutes after ingestion of the rest of the ibogaine, I take a break and take stock of my situation. I have been feeling a growing buzz, a physical buzzing sensation coupled with a massive body relaxation and pleasantness. As I wave my arm, multiple images of it materialize, inky black and radiant white arms curling together at different rates of speed and positions, following everywhere my real arm goes, trailing behind in long, moving trails. As I move my eyes back and forth, everything appears to crack and beams of brilliant white light pierce through reality's facade. Experimentally, I begin to turn my head back and forth rapidly, and I am rewarded with all sorts of visual phenomena, the beams of white light criss-crossing everywhere, along with clouds of smoke and clouds of tiny, pinpoint black dots that appear to follow each object as it moves across my vision, settling into it as my vision rests. These black clouds move in the manner that schools of fish and flocks of birds do, synchronized, forming beautiful organic ever-changing shapes.
Suddenly I realize I need to pee. I stand up; well now, this is interesting. It is at this point that I realize how truly intoxicated I am. The buzzing has continued to increase and by this point it feels like my body is vibrating with the power of the buzzing, but this is not uncomfortable at all. I realize that my balance is very off; as I take a few steps toward the door, I find myself walking in a different line than I intended, with great, wobbly steps. I catch myself on the dresser to avoid falling, as small clouds of black and white smoke, as real to me as anything else, float around my head and into the corners of the room, and clouds of black dots drift through the air to follow my movements, and my arms are constantly throwing off those white and black swirling doppelgangers. I get to the top of the stairs and the idea of actually using them seems unacceptably dangerous. My thoughts at this point are very rapid and functional, there isn't anything extraneous other than awe at the magnitude of the visuals I am experiencing. They are easily the most detailed, lifelike, and predictable visuals I have ever had (meaning they always behave the same way), and the most intense besides something like DMT that completely overtakes your vision. Behind the many impressive visuals displays, everything remains solid and unchanged. It is as if the visuals are separate but interacting with objects, or are perhaps something normally unseen.
I turn to walk into the upstairs bathroom, unwilling and perhaps unable to traverse stairs. The toilet is broken, but there is a sink, which I feel is a better alternative to tumbling down steep wooden steps, and I can wash it later, not that I ever really use it. The bathroom is darker than my bedroom, and as I stand at the sink trying to pee, the landscape around me alters drastically. Vines begin growing up the walls, and small animals scurry about, between my legs, by the door, on the edge of the tub behind me. From the vines to my right grows a large venus flytrap style carnivorous plant, but it doesn't alarm me in the slightest. In truth, ibogaine does not seem to inspire even a tiny bit of fear in me, it simply feels like a natural way to be, but different from normal... oh, so different. I look down to make sure I am aiming well, and I notice the black dots floating gently above my skin in grid patterns. As the urine moves closer and closer to emerging, I notice the black dots are growing excited and swarming my area, their velocity and dispersion growing ever more severe, until I begin urinating, at which point there is a burst of black dots and they all gather very closely to the stream and follow its path down, their energy so strong I can hear some sort of humming. Once I'm finished, I rinse the sink out well and as my arms move, I notice the black dots seem to focus on my shoulder, elbows, and fingers. It's almost as if they respond to heat. I find this incredibly fascinating and it occurs to me that the shamans may use these black dots in their practices. I believe ibogaine is very powerful medicine, perhaps the most powerful produced by the planet Earth.
Slowly, carefully, I traverse the pathway back to my bed. It's very close, but it takes a lot of focus to be able to get my body to walk there, and the darkness makes the house around me into a jungle. I collapse onto my bed and decide to watch one more episode of How I Met Your Mother. I turn it on. It is a very crazy and weird episode to begin with, and the ibogaine turns it much wackier. The characters seem to me rushing around and saying everything very abruptly. It is nearly impossible to follow the storyline, but it's still amusing to watch, because of how altered my experience of watching it is. The second half of the episode seems to repeating its scenes at various times. I do not know to this day whether it really was (as the show sometimes does) or if my experience of time had stopped being linear. I am deep into a mental spell by the end of the episode, throbbing with energy, everything in my vision seeming to want to explode with latent kinetic energy. The episode ends (finally) and I decide it's time to close my eyes.
As soon as my eyes close, the dream visions begin. For the first 20 or 30 minutes, all I see are scenes from the last 10 minutes of the episode I had just watched, executing at different levels of speed, in different configurations. But these visions are consuming, I can hear the sounds of the episode as clear as if the episode is actually playing now, but the sounds are altered by the tempo. Sometimes the scenes play at normal speeds, and sometimes they flash by very rapidly and all the voices raise an octave. And other times the scenes play very slowly, ambling along, the voices comically deep. For the first 10 minutes, this feels annoying, as I don't care to review the episode I just watched. I open my eyes several times to try to "reset", but it always picks back up where it left off when I re-close my eyes. After a while, I begin to get drawn into it, and I believe I am various characters in the scenes, a different one each time. The thoughts feel reflexive. Once the pattern of scenes begins, the whole sequence has to finish. When it starts, emerging from the blackness of my mind, I feel a strong energy spring to life within me, and that energy needs to be released, and as the sequence of scenes progresses, faster and faster, the energy moves and accelerates until the last scene hits in a sudden halt and the energy blasts away from me along with a sense of satisfaction.
Slowly the context of the visions begins to get more complete. The scenes start to replay again but they are different, more continuous, and the plot alters. Now we are on a space ship, a large space station, going around and performing missions within the station, but still involving scenes from the episode. This time, though, at the end of the scene loop, the dream continues in a way that is unrelated to the episode, but still involves the same characters. At some point, our mission complete, I begin to head toward a teleportation pod, my destination the beautiful blue and green planet below.
*blur*
I wake up, stand up, rub my eyes and head out of the building I am in. This building is a dormitory, and myself and a bunch of friends and other people I don't know are all staying there. I walk out into the bright sunlight. Around me is a glorious wonderland of a beautiful planet that is not Earth, towering trees, huge rock cliffs and canyons, beautiful creatures everywhere. In the dream I do not consider it other than with pure enjoyment, because it's just the place I'm from. Some friends walk outside too and we look over from our beautiful hilly vantage point at the festival that is going on. We decide we would like to attend, as there are many great, fun activities and booths. We fly down there, simply willing ourselves to lift off and move.
Once we arrive, I notice a large canopied tent advertising a special formulation of marijuana hash oil in a giant electronic bong. The proprietor explains to me that this is a new, high-tech way to consume cannabis, and he points to a wall that is awash in shifting purple energy and says that once you take your hit, you can go in there and explore the funhouse. Eagerly I agree, and pay for a hit in exchange for a bit of my energy. The guy takes a bottle and pours some of the contents into a chamber in the bong. What comes out is a brilliant purple goo. He flips a switch and that goo turns into roiling green smoke that fills the chamber. I step up, put my mouth over the opening, and inhale deeply. The smoke feels cool and tingly going down, as if I am inhaling cool water vapor; there is no pain and no cough whatsoever. Almost immediately, I become very dissociated and I realize that this "new hash oil" is, in reality, smokeable ibogaine, as the feeling is precisely the same; for a brief moment I remember that I am on ibogaine in real life and having a vision, then that recedes once more. This makes me super excited, and I begin tripping on ibogaine, within my ibogaine dream. As the effects rapidly overcome me, as well as my friends who had also decided to partake, rather than entering the dream, my body and essence transform into pure energy, and I drift myself over to the purple glowing wall. As I touch it, I am drawn in.
Inside the funhouse is difficult to describe. The souls of everyone who entered are there, as floating, brilliant points of light. We can communicate through flashing our soul-light at each other, and the communication registers as language. I am overcome with a feeling of exhilaration at this novel state. I gaze around, or turn my mind's eye around in 360 degrees, or perhaps in more than 360 degrees, as the constraints of three dimensions seem to be lifted. I notice flashes of an uncountable number of scenarios, and I realize that by approaching them I can insert myself into them and experience what that scenario has to offer. I can also see the bright light orbs of others whom I do not know already inside some of the scenarios. Together, my friends and I decide on one to enter, and we drift toward it. As we approach, it becomes larger and larger until it fills my entire awareness, and I feel myself suctioned powerfully in an unknown direction.
*blur*
My senses stretch out beyond anything I have ever known, and in doing so, I detect the five-dimensional space I am in. What was before an abstract concept is suddenly directly perceptible. Now, after the fact, it is impossible for me to really remember what it was like, let alone describe it. But in this moment, all is clear. My form is an advanced being whose body stretches across many frames of time and realities, existing in all of them simultaneously. I move experimentally, flexing my multidimensional appendages, and the sensation is entirely unique and wonderful. I turn my awareness around and meet those of my friends, and we share in the revelry. We turn together in an unidentifiable direction and dart off to do fifth-dimensional tasks. I can't now recall what exactly that was like, I have only impressions involving complex shapes and colors and feelings attached.
*blur*
I emerge from a dark place through the other side of the purple swirling wall with a start. Wow, that was incredible! The vendor of the ibogaine "hash oil" smoke smiles at me knowingly and asks if I'd like another. I happily oblige, giving him a sly look, attempting to communicate "you sly dog, good move calling this hash oil since that's legal and ibogaine isn't". Smiling knowingly, he again pours some of the purple goo into that giant electronic bong. At my nod, he presses a button and the goo rapidly turns into that delicious roiling green smoke. I inhale it into my lungs, again noting the incredible cool smoothness. The flavor is very distinctive, but difficult to describe. I can taste it now, a sort of musky artificial grape flavor with a deep velvety richness underneath. Again I dissolve into pure essence, and I eagerly thrust myself back into the purple void.
I have many more experiences with the smokeable ibogaine dreams, so many in fact that they run into each other. Periodically I open my eyes in the real world momentarily and remember that I am dreaming, but sometimes I think it is the next night, or the next night. Once I wonder how I keep getting high on ibogaine, because didn't I consume the rest on the first night?
But mostly, I just have a whole series of beautiful, relaxing, bright, fun dreams, taking full advantage of my disembodied state. I'm really having the time of my life, and the night stretches on long, gloriously long.
*blur*
I open my eyes in real life, realizing the need to pee. Unlike during the flood dose, I am not disoriented or disjointed when I emerge enough to actually move; instead, I have immediate, complete, continuous memory. Rather than feeling like waking up from a dream, as during the flood dose, it feels more like emerging from a deep meditation. I have no trouble collecting myself and separating the visions from reality. Yet still, the visions are utterly consuming, and for most of the time I am having them I have been forgetting I am actually elsewhere, on ibogaine. As well as consuming, they are wonderful, mystical, space-age. I am enjoying them immensely!
I get up carefully, noting that the lack of coordination and incredibly intense visual displays are just as strong as ever, perhaps even stronger. At this point it has been probably 3 hours since I first started really getting hit with the full ibogaine dose. Accompanied by the black dots, I again stumble to the bathroom as a jungle springs up all around me. Once done, I hit the bed rather hard and close my eyes and immediately begin to see something.
*blur*
I again get up from bed in the dorm my friends and I are staying in, and walk out into the hallway, meeting them as we all emerge from our rooms. This time a young woman is with us, another friend who had not been present in the previous dreams. We walk outside, and again drift over to the festival, which it is the last day of. So we decide to make the best of it. We once again take the ibogaine smoke hits and drift into the funhouse and begin to have amazing adventures.
Then all of a sudden we all receive a mental jolt and a message, that our mothership hovering above the planet is under attack from a hostile species! Rather than exit our state, we use the increased mental powers given to us through the ibogaine and our disembodies states and will our essences to travel out of the funhouse, up through the air and into space, and through the walls of our mothership. Once there, we are somehow in our bodies again. We run through the corridors, blasting the intruders when we see them. For hours we rush around the ship, holding it off from the invaders. Then, they initiate a quantum jump and pull us all into a different reality, along with the ship... their own reality.
Daunted, we nevertheless keep fighting. Slowly we beat them back, until finally we have control of the ship back. I initiate a high-speed loop that will intersect with the point we entered this reality at, and due to the speed, the recoil of our motion will reverse the quantum jump back to our own reality. However, right before we reach that point, an invader jumps out of hiding, grabs the female friend with us, and teleports out to his escape pod. It's too late to reverse; in a second or less we will jump. Helplessly, I watch my friend pressed up against the glass of the escape pod, screaming out to us. Then a soundless jolt and a flash of light hits as a sense of coming together enters my head, and we jump back to our own reality, minus one important passenger.
*blur*
I wake up in the dormitory, stretching and contemplating how I got here. Then I remember the events of the previous day. And then I remember my female friend who got left behind. Suddenly anxious, I run to her room to check on her. I'm hoping that maybe it was a dream after all, or maybe she eventually just snapped back to the reality she is supposed to be in. But as I round the corner to her room, I see her roommate is talking to a few people, worriedly explaining that her roommate never came home last night. My heart sinks and tears spring to my eyes.
*blur*
I wake up in my bed, again having to pee. It's about 5:30am, and I feel as if I haven't slept at all. But the visions are so interesting that I don't care. For a moment I think about how I can save my friend who got trapped in another reality. Then I realize that was a dream. With a chuckle, I get up, unsteady as ever, and go to the bathroom. The visuals are a little less intense at this point, but my balance is equally bad. I quickly do my business and go back to bed, but I still have a nagging sense of loss, even though I intellectually realize it was a dream.
*blur*
I am on a beautiful planet, jeweled trees and grand canyons and towering mountains with a crystal blue sky and streams everywhere. I'm on my float-bike, soaring over a deep gorge, with my friends. I'm about twenty years old, not a child but with my whole life ahead of me. Suddenly, one of my friends who has been doing flips loses control and his float-bike slams into me, knocking me clean off. As soon as I begin to fall, terror utterly consumes me and I scream out with my entire being. I see my friend, who has righted his bike, realize what happened and let out his own scream. He tips his bike down and flies full-speed towards me, but as I gain in velocity, he slowly falls behind, and then quickly. I realize at this point that I am going to die.
As I reach terminal velocity, I feel as if I am floating, no longer falling. A strange sense of calm comes over me. I look around me at the beautiful bands of colors on the canyon walls as they slowly rush past me. I look down, at the slowly approaching river at the bottom. Water or not, I think, I am dead. The river is about two miles down, so the fall is long. I think about my friends, and I forgive the one who was reckless and got me killed. I hope he forgives himself. I think of my family and a tear springs forth. They will be so sad; there will be a hole in their lives. I think of my girlfriend and then I really start to tear up. I love her so much and I wanted to be able to spend the rest of my life with her, but now that will not be possible. And she will be so heartbroken. I feel a tremendous sense of pain at the effect this will have on my loved ones.
I look down again, and this time the ground is close. So very close. I slam into the water at terminal velocity after having fallen for two miles, and there is no time for pain or sensation of any kind.
*blur*
I find myself above my body. I see it and I realize I am dead. I am ascending up, up, up, now I have just passed my friends who are wide-eyed and shaken to the core staring down dumbly. I think to them that it's okay, I'm still here, just not in the same way. I continue to rise, up, up and up, through the cumulus and other low-hanging clouds, up through the wispy stratus. The air is becoming darker and darker, deep blue, then black-blue. Then, finally, the inky black of space. I can see in all directions at once, I can see everything. Brilliant stars shine from most corners, some in much larger clusters and closer. It is like the night sky times a thousand, nothing between me and the objects of space. However, by this point the memory of my last life is just a tiny piece of the grander memory. I recall all of the lives I have ever had, and begin to integrate this latest one into my total experience, my total soul learning thus far. I drift farther and farther from the planet, though I can always see it. I see directly in the direction I am traveling a brilliant silvery line, and within moments, I attach to it.
*blur*
I am oneness, the all. This is the source and it is where I have always been. I take one eternal moment to contemplate the core of existence. I remember that there are massive lines that branch off of the core where I am now. And from these branches sprout smaller branches, and from them even smaller branches, down many, many, many levels, uncountable, infinite. And when I choose to return to another life, I will travel down the same way again, as my part of the oneness occupies some one of the smallest-level threads. This means I will return to the same planet, at least for the next many lives. These branches drift with concentrations of matter, and where they do not occupy, life is not possible. However the galaxies are strong magnets. Each galaxy has a large branch drifting with it, shooting off branches exponentially to all of the planets in that galaxy. Over a long, long period of time, some branches will eventually come to connect to a different planet, but until then I will always be going back to the same planet. This brings me happiness because I have enjoyed living on that planet. With a sense of anticipation, I jump onto the large cord and rapidly, at impossible speed, I soar down the pathway that leads to my individual soul. The next time someone is born, I will enter, and that moment is now. All turns white.
*blur*
I emerge from comfortable darkness into a loud, chaotic place. What are all these colors? Shapes? WHAT IS THIS?? I do not really use words though, they are raw emotions. I am dimly aware of what is going on, but have no ability to process it so it evokes raw terror. Then suddenly I am placed in a pair of arms. I look up and a feeling hits me: mother. I feel a deep sense of happiness and peace as her arms enshroud me with safety.
*blur*
Recovery
The next morning, Saturday morning, exactly seven days after taking the flood dose, and of course the morning after my booster, I wake up feeling very weird and out of sorts. I hadn't really slept, it was more of an all-night vision quest. The ibogaine follow-up dose is not affecting me strongly enough to cause me to be partially dreaming anymore, yet the visuals are still at about 25% strength, and I am still quite unsteady walking. Unfortunately, the minor withdrawals are back. I feel sore, exhausted (especially since I really never fully slept last night). Taking the flood dose, I emerged after two days of deep dream trance, relatively immobile, with absolutely no fatigue and in fact a boundless energy and euphoria. The follow-up dose is not like this, though there are many factors at play, most significant of which is my slip-up with kratom that got me feeling this minor withdrawal again. It actually feels worse today than it did before. But worst of all, I feel hopeless, sad, and deeply regretful, and totally drained. I can't get out of my head that I am an idiot for not throwing my kratom away before this process, and for making the poor snap decisions at the times that I did to take some. I feel that I have totally destroyed my ibogaine experience, entirely through my own stupidity. But I can admit that my strong addiction is cleared. I have resolve to not use any opiates again despite my crappy feeling. I know I have to make this worth something; the only feeling worse than this would be if I actually fully relapsed, making it all for literally nothing. But nevertheless, I am terrified by how low I feel. I feel deep, deep regret. Slowly, painfully, I get out of bed after a good hour of watching TV shows (again How I Met Your Mother, I pretty much blasted through the entirety of the show without watching anything else once I started watching it, over a much longer period of time than this story covers). I walk downstairs unsteadily, though now I can do it fine, and get on my computer, browsing Bluelight. I chat with some people; I chat with Morninggloryseed for a while, spilling my woes me him. He tries to make me feel better, but I feel as if nothing can accomplish this.
After a while, I go lay on my deck in the sunlight, trying to soak it up as much as possible and maybe start getting a tan. It's relaxing, but it doesn't really make me feel all that much better. As time goes on, my sadness grows. I start to feel on the verge of tears. Everything wrong with my life, everything I did that I regret, comes rushing back to me. It all makes me sad, but the thing I am the saddest about at this time is my failed relationship. 12 years together and almost 6 years of marriage, and it's over. I was 100% positive she was the one, that I would never be alone again. Though the negative aspects of the relationship have been on my mind pretty much since one month after she left to go live with her mom (in February), now I am thinking only of the positives that I miss. Despite the emotional abuse when she got angry, and the lack of contributing financially, for the majority of our relationship we were so in love and very happy, though there were always aspects that I was subconsciously incredibly frustrated by that I didn't realize until it was over - hence why the ending of it is truly a good thing in disguise. But in this moment I don't feel at all that it is a blessing. I am LONELY. I have never lived alone until now, and I don't really like it overall. I like having people around who I care about. I miss her smell, her touch, her smile. Most of all, I feel a crushing void within where being in love with her used to be. I miss SO BADLY the feeling of having someone to love, to be in love with. Of course I also miss the sex very badly, and it was great. In fact we've only had sex with each other since we got together at 18, and it was a really special part of our relationship. But mostly I miss having someone to love and to express that love to. It's so painful in this moment that I can't stand it and, holding back tears, I decide to call my mom.
I get ahold of my dad, since he answers before my mom. But I only want to talk to my mom right now. He asks me how I'm doing and I don't say much, just that I'm a bit down and I want to talk to mom. I think he can tell I am upset. My mom gets on the phone and immediately I start crying softly, but not too hard to talk. But my voice is constantly quavering. I tell my mom that I've been clean for exactly two weeks (I don't mention the slip-ups) and that I am having a hard time, that I feel super lonely and then I tell her I miss having someone to be in love with, but I can't quite get through it without sobbing. I feel the loss of my relationship so deeply, and it hurts terribly. This makes my mom quaver a bit too, and then she tells me about how she is feeling about my dad, who has ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease, always fatal within 3-7 years), and then she starts crying a little bit. So we cry together, and it makes me feel a little better. I feel much less lonely because even though my parents live 700 miles away from me, I can still always rely on them to be there for me.
My mom tells me that I really should get some drug counseling, and maybe try NA. The idea of either one seems a little, I don't know, junkie-like to me. And then I realize, I have been a junkie for many years. I may never have gotten into heroin or injecting, as the stigma of junkie implies, but I have been a slave to opiates for almost ten tears, and have lied to the point of shattering my marriage for them, and lied to everyone else too. I realize that I really do need drug counseling, and I tell my mom that and I also tell her I'll try NA. She is extremely relieved, and I feel a bit of a weight lifted off me. I tell my mom I love her and get off the phone. I'm feeling a little better, the day looks a little brighter. I feel like I have something of a plan. My legs are restless, so I decide to go take a hot shower, which, as anyone ever addicted to opiates probably knows, is one of the only ways to feel pretty much normal and relaxed.
I get in the shower, feeling very weak. I think about recent times as the water turns hot and I step gratefully into it. I realize that I am often physically tired, but I don't do much. This is one of those times, so I sit down in the shower, turning it up a little to account for the greater distance the water is falling and cooling, and then I lay back, letting the water flow over my legs like a balm. As I lay there, weakly, wishing I never had to get up, I look at myself, like
really look at my body. And it terrifies me. My rib cage is dramatically sticking out, my muscles are tiny, weak. I have been living a mostly sedentary life where all I do is work at my home on a chair at a desk, take opiates and lounge around and go out and drive places by car. It hits me hard how out of shape I am. And then it occurs to me that in five years, I see myself having a child that is being raised by myself and the mother, married or not. I want to find someone else to love. And to do that, I need to make myself into the person I want to be, a healthy, happy, strong, vibrant, non-addict adult male who has his shit together and has the means to support a child. And as I realize this, my horror turns to determination. I recall suddenly the last dream I had the previous night on ibogaine, the reincarnation dream. The significance and magnitude of such an experience slams into me and fills me with reverence for life, that it even exists, the great unsolvable mystery of how matter can become conscious and alive. And then a stream of recollections from my three-day dream vision quest that started a week ago slams together in my brain all in order, and I understand the flow of the visions, at least largely, and what they have prepared me for. I feel filled up with a strength I never knew I had, born from a steely resolve to leave my darkness behind and live my current life to its fullest, because that's why we're here. To live. To experience joy, love, suffering, sadness, and the entire range of human emotions. And I realize that I have it within me to change in any way that I want, to pick myself up and make the life I want, that I should have, that I need to be fulfilled. The fact that it is possible for me to experience what I experienced on my ibogaine journey is incredible, and reveals to me just how beautiful life is. Tears spring to my eyes as I stand back up in the shower, grateful to be alive and ready to never take another opiate again as long as I live, even if I have to suffer some minor withdrawals for awhile, even if I experience PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome) as I have before. Everything has come together, all of the fragments from the past week, and I once again feel eternally grateful that I made this experience happen for myself. And what's this? Suddenly I feel... happy, content, centered. With a clear mind, I think about my situation as the hot water caresses my back and head. What to do to fix this? Number one, I need to exercise, regularly, daily, and get back in shape. Number two, I need to eat a lot of healthy food and put weight back on, because my skinniness and lack of energy is alarming. Number three, I need to start drug counseling therapy, and possibly start going to NA meetings. There. That's it. Those three or four things will allow me to turn my life around, or at least to start.
I finally get out of the shower, refreshed in every way. The world looks brighter and I feel a hundred times lighter. I spend the rest of the day going out to buy good food, browsing Bluelight, and beginning to write an outline for the report I am going to write on my experience. I feel it's not quite time to start writing in earnest, because it isn't over yet. Eventually, the night grows late and I get in bed. It probably takes me an hour to get to sleep because my legs are restless and I have that weird body energy, yet it barely bothers me.
* * *
I awake on Sunday morning, the eighth day after my flood dose began, sluggish as is common when withdrawing, and a bit restless, but in a good mood. I get up and go to church, which I attend for the nice people and because I sing in the choir there. I love singing and this is a great choir, and we're working on some really beautiful pieces. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, due to various reasons, all drug-related. It feels good to be back. I may have never attended church again after college unless my ex insisted or I was with my family, but when we moved to North Carolina after college, she got a church pianist job and begged me to join the choir. I reluctantly did, but it ended up being a wonderful thing in my life, because the church really had the right idea about things and it was such a warm, loving place to be a part of. This church today is the same way. The people are great, the messages are always positive and loving, and it's a good group to be a part of for me, and it allows me to have the experience of singing in a good choir.
I get in my car after showering and dressing and drive to the church. Upon arrival, I suddenly get a little anxious to interact with these people (mostly old people or at least in their fifties, I am the youngest by far). But it's not a big deal, I decide to just deal with it, and I still have a smile on my face. I walk in, a bit out of breath as I make it to the top of the stairs, and get to the choir room. Everyone is really happy to see me and asks me how I've been doing, which is difficult to answer. But their enthusiasm makes me feel happy and welcome. I just tell them I've been going through some stuff but I'm back. I previously told them I was going through divorce, so I am sure that's what they assume. It turns out we're singing a really beautiful song from the Rutter Requiem (which we are learning the entirety of), and I enjoy it greatly. After that, there is still some service to go and I feel a bit antsy. I almost decide to get up and leave, but ultimately I feel I have to be strong, and learn to deal with negative feelings without hiding. So I stay, and I am glad I do. While at the service I send out some positive energy and intention during the prayers. A plan for the rest of the day is churning through my brain.
After church ends, I head out quickly. On the way back, I stop at several stores including a natural foods farmstand that I often get produce at, quality and cheap compared to the grocery store. I load up on eggs, fruit, vegetables, rice... a few frozen and other supplements to the main meals. I buy a bunch of granola and cereal too. I also purchase a thing of pre-workout supplement to help maximize energy and muscle usage when I start working out. Then I go to GNC and buy a large container of high-quality protein powder, chocolate flavored. While out at the mall, where GNC is, I usually buy a Double Doozie from the Great American Cookie Company. They're so delicious, but it is very easy to resist, because I am committed to eating right. On the way home, I stop to buy a jug of ant killer/repeller, so I can do the perimeter of the house inside and out, because ant season is upon me.
Finally I arrive home, many bags of groceries and supplies on hand. Before I do anything, I call my doctor, who I remember gave me a recommendation for a drug counselor/therapist when I broke my hand in late July 2013 (from punching the refrigerator during a fight with my ex-wife; I sure am glad to be out of that unsolvable situation!). I had told him about my opiate addiction because he offered me hydrocodone for my hand and at the time I was clean (though it didn't last long). I got ahold of the receptionist who said she'd tell the doctor to call me. So while I wait, I begin cooking a stir-fry sauce, something of an Indian and Thai fusion sauce, with coconut mild, peanut butter, yellow and red Indian curries, and Thai curry. At the end I add some cream. The result is an amazingly delicious sauce. I find my rice cooker and start cooking some organic brown basmati rice I bought in bulk. Then the phone rings; it's my doctor. He tells me his advice: call this therapist, who he says is amazing, and gives me her number and info. Then he says I should go to NA meetings. And finally he says that there is an outpatient rehab program he can give me information for. He is very compassionate and supportive. I thank him profusely and write all of the information down. Then as soon as he hangs up, I call the therapist, as that is what I am most eager to start. I figure it will help me in more ways than one, and maybe help me identify what parts of myself or my thought processes are holding me back. I call her and leave a message. Then I go back to the food preparation.
The rice is done, the sauce is done. I put some vegetable oil and olive oil in my large pan and start chopping vegetables, carrots, bok choy, green pepper and onion, both yellow and red. I throw them all in there and start stir-frying. I stick the onions in first to caramelize just a bit. Then after I add the rest of the vegetables I add the rice and after it all is hot and frying, I pour in a bunch of the sauce, and stir it all up. It smells phenomenal. I close the lid of the pot and let it fry for a bit. Then I crack three eggs in, stir them up, and cover again until it's all cooked. I begin to eat it; oh man, if this is what eating healthy is, then I'm going to love this! Before long, much to my surprise, I have eaten the entire pot, easily four or five servings. I'm full but I can tell I will want to eat more later, as it's only about 6pm. Dinner finished, I look up NA meetings... I figure I should give it a try, and at this point I am still scared of my own brain. I feel pretty good now but I've been here many times before and I ALWAYS have relapsed due to convincing myself in some way that it would be appropriate. I find an NA meeting right down the street at a church, in a half hour. I quickly get ready and go.
At the NA meeting, I sit there quietly, a bit too out of place feeling to actually get up and tell my story. And I am not sure that they will all want to hear about how I used a drug to get off a drug. A lot of these people are very desperate looking and sounding and the whole vibe is very "no drugs, ever". That's not what I want, I want to be able to smoke marijuana responsibly (as I do already), and take psychedelics occasionally, and even take other drugs that aren't opiates on occasion. I am not into the victim mentality. I have the power to stay off opiates without going to a meeting every day or surrendering myself to something else. It is something only I can do, I can do it without being involved in such a depressing organization. At least that's how I see it while I am in this meeting. After a while, it's over and I slip out before anyone can talk to me. The whole thing made me feel a little weird, but in way, also stronger, because I realize I can do this without putting myself into that kind of mindset. So in a roundabout way, the meeting does help me.
I head back home and spend the rest of the day cleaning up the house, spraying an ant perimeter, and eating more and more food. Finally it is night time, and I set my alarm for 7:30am, intending to get up to work out for the first time at the local YMCA, where I can get a guest pass, and then join after that guest week. I am extremely excited to start working out, I just know that I will feel much better once I am getting in shape. The last thought in my mind before I fall into a somehow comfortable sleep is that I can't wait to start my new life tomorrow.
Conclusion
This retelling took a long time and a lot of discipline to write, and in compiling it together, my integration of the trip was aided. It is now Monday May 19th, three weeks and two days after I first took my flood dose, and I have finally completed this report. But my journey is only beginning. I feel as if my life has started anew. Many of my most significant past bad patterns of behavior and thought are simply no longer there, replaced with new, healthy ones, as if by magic.
On that Monday morning two weeks ago, I did indeed wake up and head to the gym, after I stopped at GNC to get some protein powder and pre-working muscle power supplement. I've been doing three days on, one day off with the working out. Always in the past, I disliked working out; I mean, I've always liked the results but the process of doing it felt painful and unpleasant to me. But now, it's one of the best parts of my day, I would do it every day if I could get away with it. The minor lingering withdrawal has nearly gone, but it still pops up if I don't work out, perhaps a very mild form of PAWS. The exercise has allowed my mood to stabilize and I have gone through every day with a smile on my face. And I'm already twice as in shape and strong as I was, I can lift so much more, run so much farther, bike so much farther. It feels so great to be so much more in tune with my body, and for my body to feel so much healthier.
Additionally I have kept up with my new eating habits. I am buying mostly organic fruits and vegetables, lots of them and lots of variety, and rice, organic chicken, and eggs, lots of eggs. I eat about six eggs a day, three for breakfast and then for dinner I make stir-fry with egg in it. I'll make my own sauces, usually Thai or Indian (or a fusion) and then I'll stir-fry up some vegetables, maybe green pepper, carrot, bok choy, sugar snap peas, and mango, add some rice, then add some sauce, and once the vegetables are tender I'll add three eggs and heat it until the eggs are fully cooked. This will fill up an entire large frying pan to the rim, easily 4 to 6 servings. And I'll eat the whole thing over the course of two hours for dinner. Plus I am also eating 50 grams of protein powder on workout days. I have been eating tremendous amounts of food, as I am six feet tall and weighed only 130 pounds at my low point, when I saw my ribs in the shower. I went to a potluck with my friends a few days ago and I ate the biggest portion of dinner out of anyone, then I was still hungry so I went out to get a burger, hush puppies and shake, and then after I ate that, an hour later I was hungry again so I ate another helping of dinner as big as the first; this is the kind of eating I've been doing (except the burger and shake were just that once). But I'm happy to say that now I weigh 145 and my ribs are no longer sticking out. My appetite is a bit less than it was in the past day or two, I suspect I am catching up and can eat more normally from now on. I still plan to eat loads of fruit and vegetables though, indefinitely. A proper diet makes SUCH a big difference in how I feel.
I also began drug counseling/therapy two Wednesdays ago. I really like my therapist, she seems cool and open-minded. I have decided in my life to tell the truth from now on, which is a lesson hard-learned from my failed relationship. So I told her the truth about my story. Ibogaine didn't ring a bell to her, until I described what it's for and then she recalled hearing about it, but had never met anyone who did it. She seemed fascinated by my story and agreed with me that it seems to have so much potential for addiction treatment. I told her that I plan to keep using psychedelics and marijuana responsibly, and she seems to think this is alright, and she also seems open to psychedelics being a positive influence in a person's life. I've had two sessions so far and it feels good to have someone to talk to about this stuff who isn't a friend or family. I plan to continue therapy for at least a long while.
I have not been back to NA after that first time. It just didn't quite sit right with me. Plus I don't feel I need it, I feel good, steady, stable. It is, however, good to know it's there, in case I need it.
The post-ibogaine euphoria, which at first seemed like it was destroyed, was really just in hiding, and it has been coming back out, little by little. It is not nearly as strong or wonderful as it was those first few days after I emerged, but it's still wonderful and it's helping me to keep my new life on track.
The course of the dream visions, which at the time and directly afterwards seemed so random and nonsensical, was in fact logical after all. When everything came together for me in the shower a week later I realized what they meant and why their course fell out the way it did. The first day or so consisted of a spattering of pleasant dreams with dreams containing myself being controlled by dark occult forces. It is my belief that the occult forces present in many of my dreams always represented the opiates and excessive drugs in my life. On that first day I also had the dream about falling in love with that woman, which I think has been a help for me in getting the rest of the way over my ex.
The second night and morning were mostly filled with the long, monotonous, tedious gathering dream. In it, some mysterious, distant occult overlord force (the opiates) had driven me crazy, and I spent all of my days searching for things that I believed would make me feel better, but in reality were leading me to waste my life away and cause everyone else to see me as a crazy person. And in the end I tried to climb up out to escape, but my continual focus on my drugs caused me to fail in this. To me, the message here is very clear. This was one of the most impactful dreams on me because it was SO long, it occupied a lot of my thoughts for a while, and it was unpleasant in the same way that being an opiate addict is unpleasant. Shortly after that there were the dreams about the "special festival drugs" and attempting to get them, yet another focus on mindlessly seeking drugs. The topic of drugs came up a whole lot in my visions, especially early on.
Then the third day's evening, when I was over at A and E's house, I believe was just there to show me a fun variety of experiences, to let off a little steam. The dreams were so incredibly random and bizarre and varied. I did notice that my family was in several of them, and we were in fantastical and amazing scenarios such as being gods in our sky palace or living in a space house. And the one where I woke up as a kid in my childhood bedroom and shook off the last twenty years of life as a crazy dream was amazing. I used to wonder when I was that age if I'd sudden;y wake up and be 5 or 6 again, and now I have experienced that, sort of. I think Monday night's dreams basically just helped the post-ibogaine euphoria to get started and gave me a lot of pleasant and fun memories to treasure.
And last but certainly not least, the follow-up dose's visions were so amazing and so important to me, I feel they tied it all together. Unlike the flood dose dreams, these visions were more lucid and complete, and went much longer without shifting into something else. All of them involved being in space or on another absolutely beautiful planet. Many of them involved taking ibogaine, but there were no other drugs involved in these visions. I experienced many hyper-dimensional adventures and other incredible things which fill me with awe to have experienced. And the very last ibogaine dream I ever had, the one where I died and was reincarnated and experienced insights on the nature and structure of consciousness in the universe... that dream was the single most awe-inspiring of all of the dreams I had during that entire week. When it came flooding back to me in the shower when this trip came together for me, I was filled with awe for life, and gratefulness that I have my life, here, as Xorkoth. And ever since then I have been steadily filled with an appreciation for, and enjoyment of, my life. Although the post-ibogaine euphoria is more subtle now and has been slow to return, I realize that I am feeling it. Every day still feels new and exciting, and I nearly always have a smile on my face.
In conclusion, my ibogaine flood dose at home was a huge success for me, although it nearly went off course after the initial flood dose. I believe my greatest mistake was in not having enough supervision lined up. I also should have unplugged my electronics, thrown away my kratom, and hidden my phone and car keys. That would have solved most of the issues I ran into, but I might have just found more things to be a problem, which is why the very most important thing for this kind of experience is CONSTANT supervision for THREE DAYS at least. I am fine, but I could have very easily gotten into serious trouble, been arrested, been institutionalized, hurt myself, or any number of other undesirable outcomes. Imagine if I had wandered my neighborhood, trying to talk to my neighbors and babbling nonsense? Or if I had, god forbid, driven (I keep assuming I did not and that was just a dream, but really who knows for sure? I could have been dreaming that it was evening while actually driving). Also, had I had supervision, they could have prevented me from taking all the other drugs I did right after I emerged. I believe I did screw myself a bit and that I would be in an even better place now had I just hung around peacefully and been watched for the days afterward. But the message of iboga had not come together yet when I re-entered the world. I could have really benefited from taking the rest of the week off work too, I definitely went back too soon. My recommendation to you, the single strongest and most important one, is to have sufficient supervision for a sufficient amount of time, and give yourself at least a week of nothing else going to to integrate your experience. Such a long and monumental trip deserves that. It worked out for me beautifully in the end, and all the pieces fit together, but I took some really big risks that I do not recommend, so please learn from my mistakes.
Overall, my ibogaine flood dose was tied for my most important +4 experience, tied with my very first trip, on mushrooms, that blasted open my mind and revealed to me my spirituality and forever altered my life because of it. But ibogaine was far and away the most influential experience I've ever had on my day-to-day behaviors. It has been deeply transformative in a way that surprises me every day and is difficult to describe, though I have certainly tried my best. It feels like my old life ended and my new life has begun. It feels like it's been months since I took that flood dose. The few days of acute effects seemed to go on for weeks. Also, ibogaine was the most intense experience I have ever had by a tremendous margin. Even the follow-up dose of ~350mg was incredibly intense. I have had a lot of really intense psychedelic experiences but this one is in its own league; it has redefined my standards of intensity.
If you made it this far, congratulations for reading it all, and I hope you enjoyed it! If you're considering taking a flood dose of ibogaine, for addiction or any other reason, I hope this story has been informative for you and that you can learn from some of my mistakes. I have total confidence that I can continue this indefinitely, even though it's only been a few weeks, because of how much my patterns of thought and behaviors have changed. I truly do feel reborn and I have no cravings for opiates; that part of my life is blessedly over, and I feel better on a day to day basis than I did when I took opiates during my addiction. If you're looking to try this, know that in my experience ibogaine is the most powerful spiritual plant medicine that exists on this planet. It is NOT to be taken lightly, and preparations must be made, even more than what I did. But also know that iboga is a gentle teacher. Despite my descriptions of extreme intoxication, staggering length of time, and utterly engrossing dreams, some of which were unpleasant or frightening, I never once felt real fear (except when I wasn't being watched on the third day and freaked out and emailed my boss because I thought I had broken my brain), just dream fear, more of a sense of foreboding really.
I will most certainly take a flood dose again one day, though not for addiction. I loved everything about my experience and I thank my lucky stars every single day that iboga found its way into my life, at just the right time. To be free of opiates after ten years of soul-crushing slavery to them... forget MasterCard, now THAT is priceless.