Flickering
Bluelighter
I'm huddled in bed right now after two hours' sleep, in the wake of a second very bad trip. To date I've had but four experiences with drugs, one positive, and two, utter nightmares. And now I'm done with the stuff. Clearly, something in my body just can't cope with having strange chemicals in the bloodstream.
The prologue was a dark foreboding sense that carried through the entire day, which I ignored. I reasoned it was just trepidition from my last experience with DXM, a mere 600mg that somehow propelled me into something like the fourth plateau. In retrospect, it seems some part of my mind knew this was going to happen. I made it worse by deciding to trip solo, as I prefer privacy for these deep inner explorations, but I had my roommate on standby in case anything went wrong. He'd taken 1.5g for the first time the night before, and reported that overall it was a good experience, but that it had lasted three hours longer than it was supposed to. I got home at 7p.m. and he gave me the two grams, advised me to follow it down with some tea because it tastes disgusting, and brace myself.
Part 1: Liftoff
Actually, the eight or so little mushrooms didn't taste bad at all. I ground them up in my mouth for three minutes until they'd disintegrated into mush, and swallowed. I had some lemon tea, and started preparing ginger tea as well in case I became nauseous, though fortunately this didn't come to pass.
I was surprised when, less than fifteen minutes in, I started feeling strange.
There was a buzz around my head, like it was heavier, expanding... in no time at all, I felt thoroughly inebriated. I reported this to my roommate, amazed and excited, because I hadn't expected the first effects to hit for another hour, but I suppose it's from chewing so thoroughly.
He promptly gave me a tour of the psychadelic mind, showing me around the house. "Bricks," he said, "are awesome. Have a look." Indeed, the longer I stared at the wall, the more the bricks took on a different texture, until they appeared as a carpet. On one wall, I could see the outlines of numbers, and a strange face, and moving patterns - I understood at once where the Woodstock cliches come from. He took me outside to look at some trees, which loomed at me vibrant and alive. He advised me not to look in any mirrors, and then directed my attention to the floor. There I saw all manner of hidden patterns, including the etheric forms of two figures embracing each other. It distinctly reminded me of Alex Grey's artwork.
"Holy shit," I said. "We have to look at Alex Grey's work. Have you seen him?"
I showed my friend to my computer, and brought up Alex Grey's site. By then I couldn't tell whether the pictures there were actually moving animations or not, and had to keep asking my friend whether I was hallucinating. I realised to my amazement that I was only ten minutes in, and felt assured that the next six hours would be pure awesome. At this point I asked to be alone in the room, as the trip kicked into gear.
Part 2: The Carnival of the Strange
What followed was one of the most brilliant experiences of my life. I was sure I'd remember this as the most fun I'd ever had, and regard it as the best decision of my life.
The music. The music. I put a playlist on and I was on fire. It was like a rock concert in my head. Emotions were on full throttle. It was a physical and mental high, sheer clear-minded euphoria, an experience I will miss for the rest of my years. This, I realised, kicked the everloving shit out of DXM, which had been a beautiful haze for sure, but music on psilocybin is ten times better. Always upbeat even when it was gloomy, and revelatory, transcendental. I explored my clean room with wonder, gazing at the lava lamp, seeing a womb and fetus in the red globs... I was fascinated. Then I closed my eyes and wow, things went to a whole new level.
My imagination was so much clearer. Whatever I thought of came to life as a picture before my eyes. The best part was the atmosphere - a busy, excited carnival show in the background of whatever image I was conjuring. "The carnival of the strange," I said aloud. I believe if I'd taken another gram or so, it would have been hard to tell whether my eyes were closed or open. Indeed whenever I opened my eyes, the external world seemed mundane. I dropped onto the bed, hallucinating behind the eyelids, thoroughly overjoyed to be happy for the first time since, well, the only decent DXM trip I ever had. I couldn't wait to peak, because things could surely only get more incredible.
I really wish it had stayed that way.
Part 3: Descent
The hallucinations filtered out.
The lights dimmed. Everything suddenly went dark and quiet. There was a knock on my door. "How's it going?" my roommate asked.
"Good," I replied, though I wasn't so sure anymore. "I'm gonna go to bed now."
"Aw, really? Well, okay, sleep well - if you can." And off he went.
Things really didn't feel fun anymore. I think I'd already stopped the music.
There was a time lapse, discontinuity. I started getting confused about who I was and what was happening. I browsed the Internet briefly, eventually stopping at Facebook, where I saw my own profile picture, and that sober person only made so much sense to me... a friend had left a message on my wall and I understood it, but it was very far away. What happened next, I have no idea, but the transition must have taken less than ten minutes because the computer goes on standby in that time, and it was still on when I stumbled into the next phase. It felt like forever. No, it felt timeless.
Part 4: Ramblings of a Mad God
And then everything was wrong. I was walking around the room talking to myself. Nothing I said made sense. "The gredgits, if I give her, the ambligad, and then they, and her, her, and HIM." A horrendous thought loop started up. Looking back, it's so hard to describe... but basically, I realised I was God. My entire life had been just one manifestation of existence and I was the only thing that existed. Everything else was a figment of my imagination. Even I was a figment of my imagination, and I was in fact eternal, except... this revelation brought me no peace at all. It all felt off. I started missing my human life, my family and friends. But I realised none of them had ever been real.
"This is absurd!" was one of the only coherent things I said. "This can't be true, my old life was [babble]!" I remembered I'd taken a drug. I thought of my family, how I'd celebrated my 21st birthday with them yesterday, how proud they were, and how disappointed they'd be now I'd fucked myself up on mushrooms and ended up in a mental asylum. I was probably in one now, I realised, trapped inside my head and only imagining this room. "I've done it again," I was saying. "If I could only take it back, have my old life back... there's too much suffering, how can anyone die, it's horrible... but every time I hit the pillow I can hold on to the retfamings, grosgrings." The mental asylum, I realised, was actually another delusion. In truth I was God, I was Everything, and taking those mushrooms had freed me from this transient form, this personality; I was neverending. I had lived forever before this and I would live forever after it. Pain and mental suffering was but one mortal experience and now I longed for warmth and comfort again. But every time I reached for something, believing it would help, it all just seemed so faint and far away.
I must have turned on the light. Garish brightness permeated the rest of the trip. I fell deep into the thought loop. This is absurd. I have to get back to the way things were. I love my dog. My friends knew this would happen. But my old life was crazy too. As if any of it mattered. As if I could really die! If I free mysef from believing it was real, I can move on. But isn't that the drug talking? No, if I shake myself from that belief, I can transcend. No! - it's a drug-induced psychosis! But this is absurd. I have to get back to the way things were... On this went a couple more hours, an oscillating depressive madness. At one point, I think I pissed my pants. I called out for my friend. He didn't come. I screamed and screamed. I was trapped in this room for all time.
Part 5: False Identity Crisis
I was experiencing severe derealisation. I was real, but the external world, and even my own body, was not. On DXM I'd experienced severe depersonalisation, where my mind seemingly ceased to exist. This was another form of dissociation altogether, but they're both hideous.
The thought loop mutated into something even more grotesque. First I believed I was God cycling through the void, trying to find an identity to settle on. This process is simply indescribable. I had no idea what I was, and each picture was as insane as the next. I kept hearing strange noises, a dog whining, a garbage truck, chalk on a board... but I no longer had any concept of human existence. I was just a very confused deity, waiting to settle on something I could accept, leave my old life that I could no longer remember behind.
Eventually my identity reformed, but it was all wrong. "I'M A CANNIBAL!" I bellowed. "I AXE-MURDER DOORS! I SCRAMBLE KITTENS! I TOUCH YOUR MEN!" See, I could say what I wanted, be whatever I desired to try, because there was no one to judge me for it, just myself, and projections of myself. Even my roommate was a projection. But none of it was right, none of it was me, and nothing gave me any contentment.
Part 6: Purgatory and Psychosis
At the mercy of the trip, I finally drifted off. But not before flailing about on the bed trying to escape this terrible discomfort. This room was Hell, nothing beyond it existed, and I would be trapped here forever.
My thoughts devolved into a madness beyond anything that had happened yet. I won't even bother.
I woke up two hours later at 5a.m. It took me a few moments to realise I was sane again. I was picking up pieces of my mind where it had shattered into a trillion shards on the carpet. My jeans reeked. I could hear noises beyond the door and I realised some of my other roommates were home. Had they heard me screaming? I still don't know. I hope they don't think I'm a cannibal rapist kitten-scrambling door-murderer. Indeed I was trapped in that thought for the next hour, unable to get out of bed for fear, before I finally settled down. The dysphoria is still clearing now. This was one of the worst things I've ever been through.
I wish, I really desperately wish, that it had been a proper trip. I feel like I deserve one. The initial hallucinations were brilliant, so was the euphoria, and I felt like I was getting somewhere. Now I'm back to square one, in another kind of limbo, and not sure where to turn next.
The prologue was a dark foreboding sense that carried through the entire day, which I ignored. I reasoned it was just trepidition from my last experience with DXM, a mere 600mg that somehow propelled me into something like the fourth plateau. In retrospect, it seems some part of my mind knew this was going to happen. I made it worse by deciding to trip solo, as I prefer privacy for these deep inner explorations, but I had my roommate on standby in case anything went wrong. He'd taken 1.5g for the first time the night before, and reported that overall it was a good experience, but that it had lasted three hours longer than it was supposed to. I got home at 7p.m. and he gave me the two grams, advised me to follow it down with some tea because it tastes disgusting, and brace myself.
Part 1: Liftoff
Actually, the eight or so little mushrooms didn't taste bad at all. I ground them up in my mouth for three minutes until they'd disintegrated into mush, and swallowed. I had some lemon tea, and started preparing ginger tea as well in case I became nauseous, though fortunately this didn't come to pass.
I was surprised when, less than fifteen minutes in, I started feeling strange.
There was a buzz around my head, like it was heavier, expanding... in no time at all, I felt thoroughly inebriated. I reported this to my roommate, amazed and excited, because I hadn't expected the first effects to hit for another hour, but I suppose it's from chewing so thoroughly.
He promptly gave me a tour of the psychadelic mind, showing me around the house. "Bricks," he said, "are awesome. Have a look." Indeed, the longer I stared at the wall, the more the bricks took on a different texture, until they appeared as a carpet. On one wall, I could see the outlines of numbers, and a strange face, and moving patterns - I understood at once where the Woodstock cliches come from. He took me outside to look at some trees, which loomed at me vibrant and alive. He advised me not to look in any mirrors, and then directed my attention to the floor. There I saw all manner of hidden patterns, including the etheric forms of two figures embracing each other. It distinctly reminded me of Alex Grey's artwork.
"Holy shit," I said. "We have to look at Alex Grey's work. Have you seen him?"
I showed my friend to my computer, and brought up Alex Grey's site. By then I couldn't tell whether the pictures there were actually moving animations or not, and had to keep asking my friend whether I was hallucinating. I realised to my amazement that I was only ten minutes in, and felt assured that the next six hours would be pure awesome. At this point I asked to be alone in the room, as the trip kicked into gear.
Part 2: The Carnival of the Strange
What followed was one of the most brilliant experiences of my life. I was sure I'd remember this as the most fun I'd ever had, and regard it as the best decision of my life.
The music. The music. I put a playlist on and I was on fire. It was like a rock concert in my head. Emotions were on full throttle. It was a physical and mental high, sheer clear-minded euphoria, an experience I will miss for the rest of my years. This, I realised, kicked the everloving shit out of DXM, which had been a beautiful haze for sure, but music on psilocybin is ten times better. Always upbeat even when it was gloomy, and revelatory, transcendental. I explored my clean room with wonder, gazing at the lava lamp, seeing a womb and fetus in the red globs... I was fascinated. Then I closed my eyes and wow, things went to a whole new level.
My imagination was so much clearer. Whatever I thought of came to life as a picture before my eyes. The best part was the atmosphere - a busy, excited carnival show in the background of whatever image I was conjuring. "The carnival of the strange," I said aloud. I believe if I'd taken another gram or so, it would have been hard to tell whether my eyes were closed or open. Indeed whenever I opened my eyes, the external world seemed mundane. I dropped onto the bed, hallucinating behind the eyelids, thoroughly overjoyed to be happy for the first time since, well, the only decent DXM trip I ever had. I couldn't wait to peak, because things could surely only get more incredible.
I really wish it had stayed that way.
Part 3: Descent
The hallucinations filtered out.
The lights dimmed. Everything suddenly went dark and quiet. There was a knock on my door. "How's it going?" my roommate asked.
"Good," I replied, though I wasn't so sure anymore. "I'm gonna go to bed now."
"Aw, really? Well, okay, sleep well - if you can." And off he went.
Things really didn't feel fun anymore. I think I'd already stopped the music.
There was a time lapse, discontinuity. I started getting confused about who I was and what was happening. I browsed the Internet briefly, eventually stopping at Facebook, where I saw my own profile picture, and that sober person only made so much sense to me... a friend had left a message on my wall and I understood it, but it was very far away. What happened next, I have no idea, but the transition must have taken less than ten minutes because the computer goes on standby in that time, and it was still on when I stumbled into the next phase. It felt like forever. No, it felt timeless.
Part 4: Ramblings of a Mad God
And then everything was wrong. I was walking around the room talking to myself. Nothing I said made sense. "The gredgits, if I give her, the ambligad, and then they, and her, her, and HIM." A horrendous thought loop started up. Looking back, it's so hard to describe... but basically, I realised I was God. My entire life had been just one manifestation of existence and I was the only thing that existed. Everything else was a figment of my imagination. Even I was a figment of my imagination, and I was in fact eternal, except... this revelation brought me no peace at all. It all felt off. I started missing my human life, my family and friends. But I realised none of them had ever been real.
"This is absurd!" was one of the only coherent things I said. "This can't be true, my old life was [babble]!" I remembered I'd taken a drug. I thought of my family, how I'd celebrated my 21st birthday with them yesterday, how proud they were, and how disappointed they'd be now I'd fucked myself up on mushrooms and ended up in a mental asylum. I was probably in one now, I realised, trapped inside my head and only imagining this room. "I've done it again," I was saying. "If I could only take it back, have my old life back... there's too much suffering, how can anyone die, it's horrible... but every time I hit the pillow I can hold on to the retfamings, grosgrings." The mental asylum, I realised, was actually another delusion. In truth I was God, I was Everything, and taking those mushrooms had freed me from this transient form, this personality; I was neverending. I had lived forever before this and I would live forever after it. Pain and mental suffering was but one mortal experience and now I longed for warmth and comfort again. But every time I reached for something, believing it would help, it all just seemed so faint and far away.
I must have turned on the light. Garish brightness permeated the rest of the trip. I fell deep into the thought loop. This is absurd. I have to get back to the way things were. I love my dog. My friends knew this would happen. But my old life was crazy too. As if any of it mattered. As if I could really die! If I free mysef from believing it was real, I can move on. But isn't that the drug talking? No, if I shake myself from that belief, I can transcend. No! - it's a drug-induced psychosis! But this is absurd. I have to get back to the way things were... On this went a couple more hours, an oscillating depressive madness. At one point, I think I pissed my pants. I called out for my friend. He didn't come. I screamed and screamed. I was trapped in this room for all time.
Part 5: False Identity Crisis
I was experiencing severe derealisation. I was real, but the external world, and even my own body, was not. On DXM I'd experienced severe depersonalisation, where my mind seemingly ceased to exist. This was another form of dissociation altogether, but they're both hideous.
The thought loop mutated into something even more grotesque. First I believed I was God cycling through the void, trying to find an identity to settle on. This process is simply indescribable. I had no idea what I was, and each picture was as insane as the next. I kept hearing strange noises, a dog whining, a garbage truck, chalk on a board... but I no longer had any concept of human existence. I was just a very confused deity, waiting to settle on something I could accept, leave my old life that I could no longer remember behind.
Eventually my identity reformed, but it was all wrong. "I'M A CANNIBAL!" I bellowed. "I AXE-MURDER DOORS! I SCRAMBLE KITTENS! I TOUCH YOUR MEN!" See, I could say what I wanted, be whatever I desired to try, because there was no one to judge me for it, just myself, and projections of myself. Even my roommate was a projection. But none of it was right, none of it was me, and nothing gave me any contentment.
Part 6: Purgatory and Psychosis
At the mercy of the trip, I finally drifted off. But not before flailing about on the bed trying to escape this terrible discomfort. This room was Hell, nothing beyond it existed, and I would be trapped here forever.
My thoughts devolved into a madness beyond anything that had happened yet. I won't even bother.
I woke up two hours later at 5a.m. It took me a few moments to realise I was sane again. I was picking up pieces of my mind where it had shattered into a trillion shards on the carpet. My jeans reeked. I could hear noises beyond the door and I realised some of my other roommates were home. Had they heard me screaming? I still don't know. I hope they don't think I'm a cannibal rapist kitten-scrambling door-murderer. Indeed I was trapped in that thought for the next hour, unable to get out of bed for fear, before I finally settled down. The dysphoria is still clearing now. This was one of the worst things I've ever been through.
I wish, I really desperately wish, that it had been a proper trip. I feel like I deserve one. The initial hallucinations were brilliant, so was the euphoria, and I felt like I was getting somewhere. Now I'm back to square one, in another kind of limbo, and not sure where to turn next.
