LostInTransmission
Bluelighter
I guess this isn't really a 'typical' trip report, hopefully it will be interesting anyway. I'm happy to elaborate/clarify anything you think needs it. If you're not a Tool fan, some of the significance may be lost =/
To preface a little bit, I was tripping alone on a small island off the coast of Brisbane (I mean, there were people on the island, but I wasn't there with friends or anything.) I arrived in the dark (organized as usual 8) ), too late to check into a camping ground, so I spent the night on the beach, smoking weed and staring at the moon.
In the morning, I checked into the camping ground (I was the only one staying there that day), pitched my tent under some trees about 5 meters from the beach, and ate my first sugar cube. I have no idea what the dosage was in mics, but suffice to say the were good strong trips.
After about an hour of sitting in my tent, trying to get my stuff together for the day, I gave up, grabbed my iPod and whatever I'd already collected, ate my second cube and set off down the beach in search of a secluded spot. This was the first time I'd doubled up with acid, and the rushes as I was walking along the beach knocked me sideways. It occured to me (briefly) that I should have maybe found a good spot before I dosed. No matter.
And without further ado, the guts of the thing:
Have you ever seen a really, really big sky? If that sounds like a stupid question, you haven't.
An uninterupted view, 230 degrees or more of nothing but ocean and sky towering over tiny little me under a tree on a beach. The sky bigger than anything else you'll ever, ever see, and stretching all the million miles to the horizon, one vast cloud mandala.
Fat Freddy's Drop, playing. And the mandala spreading and blending and fading and twisting, to the music. Faces, smiling, women's, faces...the whole sky. The whole vast unspeakable sky to the very horizon is cloud faces, smiling, swirling, to the music.
And then at some point it occurs to me (me - lying on sand under tree, head on backpack (only use all those books and pens and tripping doohickies got - pillow duty). Me - awestruk stupefication personified, goggling at sky through sunglasses, above rapturous golden glowing acid smile, swaying to the dub) it occurs to me that I have 10,000 Days on my iPod. Tool.
Scrawled across a page of notebook, spitting out broken bits of words - they all fail, which is exactly what I was doing. Crunchy taste in my mouth, of all the symbols falling apart in the face of reality. Needless to say, no words can convey the momentousness of the decision - do I dare to play Tool on that sky?! That whole sky...what would happen?!
But of course, how could you not?
The first striding false-calm pulse of Vicarious is a smooth tidal-wave adrenaline ride, uncontrollable, irrevocable ascention towards the curling crest, and then the whole weight of primal driven power explodes towards the sky and consumes me.
The lyrics all perfect acid nonsense of course, but a line holds together long enough to catch - Stare like a junkie, into the TV - and the concept of being shut inside staring at a glowing box, calling it "entertainment", sends me paroxysming down the hysterical laughter chute, convulsed in the glorious fine sand with blowtorch sun perfectly balanced by open-ocean island wind, surfers silhouettes against diamond explosions and violent bluegreen waves, turning heads curiously.
distracted long enough to pack my pipe and take a hit, lean back to exhale and there's...that...sky...
A million miles of towering battle-clouds massing vast formations morphing and twisting, pixellating,
and then Wings.
With static crashing down, meteor raindrop stars - vivid black scratches flashing down the celluloid of an old film and spattering the ocean, crackling, and with the bass building and acid wind gusting static hard enough to kick up sand, the pixellating sky - mile-across pixels, you understand, and infinite resolution! - the pixels begin to twist into a spiralling fractal tunnel, the pixels of the infinite forming a funnel above, pointed directly at me and every mile-across pixel a shimmering steel mirror and my face face face face face into infinity, glowing steely acid smile down through the static - naturally, my mind cracks, and I cackle and am overcome by the metallic shattering echo of my infinite reflected faces face faces splitting wide open in pure emotive explosion,
the surfers' heads turn again.
Taking a piss has never, ever, been more complicated than this.
I have absolutely no recollection of listening to The Pot. I musta been high =P
later, Lost Keys. Haha, yes, blame Hofmann. The significance of the title is lost on me, just more crunched up words spit out in the sand. And Rosetta Stoned, monster rush of emotive verbalization slicing straight through all that symbolic nonsense into my goddamn soul. COMMUNICATION! Nonono, fuck communication. Communion.
Later still, walking back down the beach into the swirling sunset, every shell on the sand glows translucent, perfect in it's pattern and colouring but I can see through to the tiny microcosm underneath. But driven, driven, by Tool and waves and the driving acid-wind gusting me up into that sunset blazing down through the clouds, I can't stop to look, onwards! Furthur!
tides and minor rock-climbing have never been such a strange act of dissociation - my sparkling twisted mind adrift in the wind, communing with the sky, noting with passing curiosity the body stepping and reaching, leaning, pausing, gripping, trusting instinct to take me to this nice flat spot here where we can stop for a cigarette. Tastes awful but it's too windy to smoke the pipe here.
As the sun touches the sea, flowing gold and dark sapphire under burning pearl, it occurs to me that humans are attracted to gems, and "precious" metals, because they mimic these colours, provide a glimpse of a memory of a distant dream of this.
I realize I can see my tent from here - seclusion, safety, no wind! By the time I emerge amid thick blissful dream haze of smoke (it's a small tent), the sun is gone and the trees are glowing orange at the edges - floodlights through there, deserted cabins and caravans, I'm the only one here.
I don't remember the stars...
The night is beautiful, but my legs are weak and my head is drifting, lolling, why am I here in empty floodlit civiliza...water, yeah...
Find tap, fill bottles, deeply satisfied with this simple act of acquiring something fundamental, and drift happily back to the tent to go to sleep, listening to the Mountain Goats. Tallahassee.
And sleep, and sleep, ten hours of vivid restful dreams that dissolve as I open my eyes. The first thing I see is a carrot. (I was stoned and in a hurry, packing) I eat the carrot, amazed at how cold and sweet it is.
The next thing I see is the pipe, abandoned, full, right next to my only lighter. Open the tent door and shuffle my sleeping bag around to poke my head out, and there's the very edge of the sun creeping back up out of the ocean, at the other end of the beach.
The sky was a cloudless bluescreen for the next two days - I think I blew something, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
Peace-
LiT
To preface a little bit, I was tripping alone on a small island off the coast of Brisbane (I mean, there were people on the island, but I wasn't there with friends or anything.) I arrived in the dark (organized as usual 8) ), too late to check into a camping ground, so I spent the night on the beach, smoking weed and staring at the moon.
In the morning, I checked into the camping ground (I was the only one staying there that day), pitched my tent under some trees about 5 meters from the beach, and ate my first sugar cube. I have no idea what the dosage was in mics, but suffice to say the were good strong trips.
After about an hour of sitting in my tent, trying to get my stuff together for the day, I gave up, grabbed my iPod and whatever I'd already collected, ate my second cube and set off down the beach in search of a secluded spot. This was the first time I'd doubled up with acid, and the rushes as I was walking along the beach knocked me sideways. It occured to me (briefly) that I should have maybe found a good spot before I dosed. No matter.
And without further ado, the guts of the thing:
Have you ever seen a really, really big sky? If that sounds like a stupid question, you haven't.
An uninterupted view, 230 degrees or more of nothing but ocean and sky towering over tiny little me under a tree on a beach. The sky bigger than anything else you'll ever, ever see, and stretching all the million miles to the horizon, one vast cloud mandala.
Fat Freddy's Drop, playing. And the mandala spreading and blending and fading and twisting, to the music. Faces, smiling, women's, faces...the whole sky. The whole vast unspeakable sky to the very horizon is cloud faces, smiling, swirling, to the music.
And then at some point it occurs to me (me - lying on sand under tree, head on backpack (only use all those books and pens and tripping doohickies got - pillow duty). Me - awestruk stupefication personified, goggling at sky through sunglasses, above rapturous golden glowing acid smile, swaying to the dub) it occurs to me that I have 10,000 Days on my iPod. Tool.
Scrawled across a page of notebook, spitting out broken bits of words - they all fail, which is exactly what I was doing. Crunchy taste in my mouth, of all the symbols falling apart in the face of reality. Needless to say, no words can convey the momentousness of the decision - do I dare to play Tool on that sky?! That whole sky...what would happen?!
But of course, how could you not?
The first striding false-calm pulse of Vicarious is a smooth tidal-wave adrenaline ride, uncontrollable, irrevocable ascention towards the curling crest, and then the whole weight of primal driven power explodes towards the sky and consumes me.
The lyrics all perfect acid nonsense of course, but a line holds together long enough to catch - Stare like a junkie, into the TV - and the concept of being shut inside staring at a glowing box, calling it "entertainment", sends me paroxysming down the hysterical laughter chute, convulsed in the glorious fine sand with blowtorch sun perfectly balanced by open-ocean island wind, surfers silhouettes against diamond explosions and violent bluegreen waves, turning heads curiously.
distracted long enough to pack my pipe and take a hit, lean back to exhale and there's...that...sky...
A million miles of towering battle-clouds massing vast formations morphing and twisting, pixellating,
and then Wings.
With static crashing down, meteor raindrop stars - vivid black scratches flashing down the celluloid of an old film and spattering the ocean, crackling, and with the bass building and acid wind gusting static hard enough to kick up sand, the pixellating sky - mile-across pixels, you understand, and infinite resolution! - the pixels begin to twist into a spiralling fractal tunnel, the pixels of the infinite forming a funnel above, pointed directly at me and every mile-across pixel a shimmering steel mirror and my face face face face face into infinity, glowing steely acid smile down through the static - naturally, my mind cracks, and I cackle and am overcome by the metallic shattering echo of my infinite reflected faces face faces splitting wide open in pure emotive explosion,
the surfers' heads turn again.
Taking a piss has never, ever, been more complicated than this.
I have absolutely no recollection of listening to The Pot. I musta been high =P
later, Lost Keys. Haha, yes, blame Hofmann. The significance of the title is lost on me, just more crunched up words spit out in the sand. And Rosetta Stoned, monster rush of emotive verbalization slicing straight through all that symbolic nonsense into my goddamn soul. COMMUNICATION! Nonono, fuck communication. Communion.
Later still, walking back down the beach into the swirling sunset, every shell on the sand glows translucent, perfect in it's pattern and colouring but I can see through to the tiny microcosm underneath. But driven, driven, by Tool and waves and the driving acid-wind gusting me up into that sunset blazing down through the clouds, I can't stop to look, onwards! Furthur!
tides and minor rock-climbing have never been such a strange act of dissociation - my sparkling twisted mind adrift in the wind, communing with the sky, noting with passing curiosity the body stepping and reaching, leaning, pausing, gripping, trusting instinct to take me to this nice flat spot here where we can stop for a cigarette. Tastes awful but it's too windy to smoke the pipe here.
As the sun touches the sea, flowing gold and dark sapphire under burning pearl, it occurs to me that humans are attracted to gems, and "precious" metals, because they mimic these colours, provide a glimpse of a memory of a distant dream of this.
I realize I can see my tent from here - seclusion, safety, no wind! By the time I emerge amid thick blissful dream haze of smoke (it's a small tent), the sun is gone and the trees are glowing orange at the edges - floodlights through there, deserted cabins and caravans, I'm the only one here.
I don't remember the stars...
The night is beautiful, but my legs are weak and my head is drifting, lolling, why am I here in empty floodlit civiliza...water, yeah...
Find tap, fill bottles, deeply satisfied with this simple act of acquiring something fundamental, and drift happily back to the tent to go to sleep, listening to the Mountain Goats. Tallahassee.
And sleep, and sleep, ten hours of vivid restful dreams that dissolve as I open my eyes. The first thing I see is a carrot. (I was stoned and in a hurry, packing) I eat the carrot, amazed at how cold and sweet it is.
The next thing I see is the pipe, abandoned, full, right next to my only lighter. Open the tent door and shuffle my sleeping bag around to poke my head out, and there's the very edge of the sun creeping back up out of the ocean, at the other end of the beach.
The sky was a cloudless bluescreen for the next two days - I think I blew something, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
Peace-
LiT
Last edited:
Heh, I guess I'll have to get over it and come up with my own way at some point though...