Kitten Claws
2009-07-14 {Tuesday}
Background
Having discovered the value of microDose DXM (30mg each evening, daily), for three weeks I enjoyed the most amazing, hyperclear, vivid dreams each night. I felt sensations that had never been felt previously, such as the oh-so-enjoyable tongue down my throat.
The Discordant Day: Hidden
On the eleventh of July, 2009 {Saturday}, for some reason I decided to take about 2.5 grams of Aniracetam in the afternoon, perhaps five hours before the evening's 30mg DXM. The usual sleepiness was noted - I've taken aniracetam about five times in the year previous with the same effect. By late evening the sleepiness was gone, thanks to the usual dosing regimen of piracetam and bright daylight room lighting.
That evening I took the usual 30mg DXM dose, smoked the bowl-o-bud, watched some great anime, and headed to bed. Dreams were vivid as usual.
The next morning I woke up feeling somewhat disoriented, dizzy, and dysphoric. Rather than fade away as I assumed it would, the evil feelings increased to a hellish peak at mid-afternoon.
Now, these feelings of dysphoria, oversensitivity to sound, fear of everything, compromised dynamic range of visual luminance and slight decrease visual color saturation were already classed from previous experience: using DXM at high doses 250-500mg for tripping purposes.
Yet for a short while I could not figure out why this would happen when, for starters, the dose was only 30mg per day {label directions}, and second, three weeks of successful use without a single symptom {I was looking for them very carefully}. Finally, my slothful, feeling-retarded brain came up with the right answer: the aniracetam
A quick check of my drug files and some sites reminded me of a fact I foolishly ignored the prevous day: aniracetam effects the NMDA system, in fact it sensitizes and potentiates the receptors.
Withdrawal of DXM unblocks these receptors faster than the brain can down-regulate its ligand production, resulting in nasty schizophrenic-like symptoms of psychosis in high doses.
At low doses, the brain's ligand overproduction is smaller, so the daily 'withdrawal' from 30mg once every 24 hours was also small. Small enough to be unnoticeable except for the nice burst of energy, talkativeness, ease and a little bit of extra visual 'sharpness' along with a very quiet sense of strangeness when seeing moving object such as cars on the street.
Where it all went wrong was when aniracetam was added to the mix. By sensitizing the receptors which are normally blocked, it made the next-day withdrawal a huge and nasty event. It was like pouring gas on the fire, having super sensitized NMDA receptors waiting like a mass of defenseless fools for the oncoming hail of agonist.
The kitten was for a short while given some very long pointy claws, and it used them to scratch my brain for all it was worth. It was scary because it reminded me of the lion of so many years ago, one which left long-term scars of retardation.
Downregulatory recompensation is inevitably slow, especially because of the three-week dosing regimen. The horrible feeling of near-panic, dizziness, and other psychopathologies gradually faded later that evening, to be brought to a highlight that night with the cannabis dose {alone}. The remainder of the DXM syrup was poured down the drain.
The next day {Monday}, the effects had subsided by about 50%-60%. Tuesday, as I write this, the nasties have almost vanished. Last to leave is a slight difficulty speaking, some verbal errors, and a slight dissociation from the exact present moment felt both during movement and sometimes alone. Recovery is expected to be complete in less than a week.
I've finished describing the events and their chemical rationale. What really interests me is the other face, the secret side where other worlds collide.
The Dreams
The night of the 12th, which was Saturday, was the first night of skippage. That afternoon had been the first hell, and that night was to be revealing.
The usual vivid, often highly tactile dreamtype recurred that night, even without the usual DXM. The last dream of that night was one I had never had in my life. It was not part of the usual dreamcycle of repeat dreams nor was it a legitimate newcomer. I knew that it was a singular occurance, though I don't know why.
I was standing upon some open landscape, staring at something most unusual in front of me. About twenty feet away, and also around twenty feet in total height, was this twisting vortex, or whirlwind of triangular shards. Each with its own color, but they all resembled each other in their reddish non-hues.
In my dreams where there are other people or even strange things I can read their thoughts because I am all of them. I actually have the same dream many times during the dream, and in each I'm a different actor or person.
I couldn't become those strange shards flying around, yet just looking at them it seemed they were partly a part of me, and partly not. It was supremely scary watching them, even though I only did so for a few moments before half-waking.
It wasn't that they were scary or directly threatening. They were moving in a way which was not sane; they were moving and spinning so fast and trying to condense to form something, an object or pattern but never could. Instead they just roared around periodically condensing and shifting.
There was something profoundly abnormal about these shards. Looking at them I became them and felt the utter insanity of their existence. There was an inhuman, yet not alien force moving them, just like a wind stirs paper shreds. I was waving my right arm in the air as if trying to conduct the affair. But I knew that I wasn't controlling that whirling thing out there. It was a vain attempt to contain the horror of its existence, a 'let's pretend' of control which didn't actually exist.
I woke up for a moment very dizzy and a bit afraid, yet soon went back to sleep. Immediately I was treated to a slightly different set of shards (smaller, more rounded) doing the same things. Then I woke completely.
Last night {Monday 13th} I again had vivid but softer (less sharp) dreams. They were more human and had the usual dream-cycle actors. But yet again, the last dream of the night was something shorter yet recognizable.
I was on a boat out on the water at night. Some distant islands stood like dark shadows. I was vagely aware of some other(s) on the boat doing the driving, etc. The boat was soon stopped, and for some reason I wanted to swim so dived off it into the almost-black water.
The water was cold yet not unpleasant. I swam away from the boat wanting to just explore something that I couldn't see or explain. So I swam and the water was almost black but reflected very dark blue so I could just see the foam and ripples on its surface.
I could see the currents and eddies, and the strange semicircular sheens around me that indicated fast currents underneath. I was somewhat scared yet none of these seemed to pull at me during the swimming.
Next thing I knew I looked up and about 40-50 feet away was a group of waterspout things. They were water columns that were actually standing up out of the water, each about 15-20 feet high. There was about 10-12 of them. They were too far away to tell whether hollow water tubes or solid (full of water).
What I felt was almost the same as the previous night's vision. I stopped approaching and watched as several (2-3 at a time) of the spouts fell and became regular underwater funnel-vortexes.
Different sub-groups would unpredictably do this and it was scary to watch. I finally paddled away back toward the boat.
Before I regained sight of the boat however, I came upon a micro-island that could not have been more than a dozen feet wide. It contained a single solid stone staircase without railing, leading up to an open door.
Before I could even think I was walking - dry and clothed - up the stairs and through the door. Inside was a well-appointed section of hallway, or rather the T-shaped meeting of three segments of hall. Before I woke I looked carefully and noticed that it was very much like one I had seen in another vivid dream, except that it was vaguely abnormal. Certain details had been changed. It was twisted. And that was the end: wakeup.
My Interpretation
DXM is a jealous master. Just like the power plants of old, so well described in Carlos Castaneda's books. She deceives, you don't notice her creeping up and soon it is too late. Even in tiny doses, her revenge can be cruel if one turns one's back too quickly.
DXM is also for those who crave power. The power to create whole new worlds. Yet the ultimate price to make those worlds is sanity.
As for the two dreams: the first provided a direct vision of the result of DXM's interelation with my consciousness. Those insane shards flying around were an actual visualization of the hiss and roar of a neurostorm happening as the first wave of withdrawal caused increasing over-activation of receptors.
By the second night things had calmed down somewhat. That night's dream found me watching from a further distance, a less direct and threatening manifestation of the same force. This time rather than a fully abnormal form of shards, it could only manipulate that which was already real in the dream - the water. This it did with its emphasis on chaotic process, though the water funnels never changed width or moved.
Yet even as I swam away from them, I was completely entrapped by a more sophisticated trap. This is where I must comment on the insidious nature of the dark agents such as DXM, Datura, PCP, the anticholinergics. For the small island with its staircase was also another mouth of the Beast, though more subtle than the overt demonstration of waterspout and shard-tornado - and before I knew it I was already inside.
Once inside I noticed the slight abnormality of the hallway-junction, which was nicely furnished and looked otherwise appropriate.
For everywhere within that normalcy lurked something misplaced, something not right. Just like the waking hours of the withdrawal, when everything was not right and an undercurrent of terror ran through each perception.
It's so obvious in direct perception yet so hard to describe. For something had set up that hallway as a mockery to my sanity. The exact differences in the many items present was as obvious to my dream-intuition as the abnormal water spout-holes, and the shard-tornado. All shared that horror of something very not-right. Between the edges of the world lurks a maelstrom from which there is no escape. The sweet yet unexplainably sour note marks a door.
Rather than an entity, it is like a shadow which colors the deep underside of everything in both that world and this. It cannot be directly described because it is part of the not-doing which is so much larger than the tiny universe of doing. Instead it lurks, like a tiny water funnel on the surface of an unperturbed lake. Yet if one gets close enough to the maw of the beast, it turns into a sucking, roaring portal to a place much bigger, scarier and chaotic than can be sanely perceived.
Such experiences can never be described other than in material terms, and usually not remembered in anything other than them too. That is because to perceive these things one has to become them: they are what is called state-dependant memories. I would say the concept is too limited: they are in fact state-dependent REALITIES.
It would take health, courage and daring to once again set foot on the edge of that realm. It sucks one in with the promise of ultimate clarity, ultimate power, and total worlds beyond this one.
Yet that realm constantly beckons. Somehow I knew that one day I would dip toes again into that strange realm, because a siren-like voice always kept calling, saying there's something so very interesting to discover. Something left unfinished.
As for the microdose regime, I'll be skipping it for a while (at least some weeks) to carefully monitor biofunction and re-adaptation. I was reminded that playing with fire can get me burned. I was also reminded that the microdose regime was like enjoying the funny sensation of having one's finger just riding on the surface of a spinning chop-saw blade.
That ticklish sensation as tiny layers of skin are removed; a bit of movement, and in a timeless moment the whole finger's gone...
