AmiableAlchemist?
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2016
- Messages
- 3
The walk to Walgreen's had been easy. Easy too it was to obtain myself a generic brand bottle of Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide, carefully selected to avoid the unpleasant additives the screen had told me to avoid such as antihistamines. Gleefully I walked back home, confident that my search for a cheap drug to cheat the system and its UA's had finally bore fruit. I had done my research. What could possibly go wrong, other than that fairly disconcerting and yet tantalizing remark made by some strange drug addled commentator on this very site about crossing over the highway completely disconnecting from the squares' reality, totally vulnerable to highly intense introspective encounters of the 4th kind.
But I was no newbie. This was not my first time balancing on the edge, trying to get a peek at the place of definitions. The challenges of LSD, Psilocybin, Salvia, Benadryl, MDMA, and DMT along with the unique clarion calls for growth that each psychic pilgrimage had incited, had prepared me for whatever lay ahead. I had roommates now though, so I went in my room and locked the door. If I could've thrown away the key I would've, but I didn't have one. I did one last checklist of what I would need, and I embarked on what could've have been wonderful, had fate not stepped in and declared it otherwise. I cracked open the cough syrup, raising to my lips and gulping it down quickly. The cherry flavor was pleasant enough. I didn't quite drink all of it, and while fumbling around on my computer, I knocked over the bottle and spilled the little that remained. I cleaned it up, and turned on some trippin' music.
I forget exactly how long the stuff took to drop, but I'm going to shoot from the hip and say it was around 15-30 minutes. I was playing on my phone in the mean time having a predilection for impatience in the waiting game. It started slowly at first. The peaceful music and its good vibrations were warped into some demented version of music that served only to discombobulate (and not in the good way!). Weird sensations coupled with rising vibrations like the initial moments of intense calm before the storm. A distinct high began to arise within me. It was pleasurable, at first. Strange feelings started welling up in me, so swirled as to be completely and utterly undefinable. My sensitivity to touch was increasing similarly to MDMA. There was one thing I noted very quickly: As opposed to LSD or Psilocybin where you never knew what turn it would take you on next, DXM had a very clear vector. DXM was starting to clearly define itself as a high powered elevator forever accelerating without a ceiling. And it was beginning to feel like a one way ticket. In fact an integral part of the DXM experience for me was a fear that was unlike any I've felt since. It was particularly unsettling because unlike the paranoia I've felt previously, where I knew my feelings to be irrational(Though I was unable to shake them), this new fear felt fiercely calculated. As if my brain had been turned into a super computer that had already ran all possible outcomes, and had come to the conclusion that due to the unfailing increases in acceleration there was a near certainty of my imminent demise. It was unavoidable. It was as if on the bridge of spaceship DXM Limited the crew just stopped whatever they were doing and rang home to tell their loved ones goodbye. Mind you this last paragraph was only like a few minutes into the trip.
The itching started suddenly. At first it wasn't that bad, but soon I realized it had the same trajectory as the intensity of the trip. I had read about the so called "robo-itching", but my understanding of it was a more intense version of opiate crawls, not the melting of flesh off your bones. Already I felt this trip had gone severely off the charts of even the most horrifying trip reports I had read. My skin was on fire, and hives were flashing in and out across my body. The fluid nature of the itch intensity map that was my skin meant my efforts to soothe the pain had to frantically keep up with the next crisis center. One minute my legs would be consuming all rational thought, and the next my shoulder blades would scream for help. The only constant was my scalp. It felt like the oils of hair were burning my scalp as if by adding more fuel to the fire. It felt like ringworms formed and twisted across my scalp. The super computer recalculated the survival odds, and it was grim. I literally told myself that I was probably going to die. My mind probably would've melted had it not been for the tools my previous experiences had given me. Serenity in the face of soul shattering happenstance and horror was not new to me.
Either I would pull through or I wouldn't. I had no control of that now. I felt this voice in my head speak words I had read on an Erowid Datura Trip Report, "Zane you've poisoned yourself quite badly, and there's a good chance you're not going to make it out of this. You need to choose your next actions very carefully. Your life is in your hands." But I wasn't going to die afraid in the eyes of this faithless voice, and I tried to keep it together. My emotions had gained definition now. It was the sad nostalgia for the life I had lived, bringing with it intense feelings of pure love and thankfulness, and sadness that those days would never come again. The intensity of the fire became that of actual flame and was still increasing. I cringed and started crying in pain, but I was still trying to not cry too loudly as if some part of me new the game well enough to know that the trip doesn't last forever. I couldn't scratch without literally causing the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life, like a sear on the soul. So I had no choice but to gently rub my scalp trying in vain to have an effect on these happenings. Not only was the ship on a collision course, it was fucking on fire. Things were reaching a critical point.
And as suddenly as it had began, the burning subsided. The high was still increasing however. I became quite angry quite quickly. I certainly wanted to wring the neck of the sick motherless cur who had synthesized such a foul chemical. In fact, later when I got a cold even a small recommended amount of DXM syrup would bring the feeling slightly to my throat. I hated it. I felt empowered. And just then the burning returned rendering me utterly unable to do anything but hang on for dear life. It continued like, the burning ebbing and flowing. Heaven for one moment. Hell in the next. My anger had been burnt out of me the way a dog's bark is castrated by shock after shock from some unknown hand of God. I was on a new level. Utter enlightenment emerged in my tired eyes during the short respites before the inferno would come again. Faint traces of that tranquility can occasionally be seen in them to this day.
When I had been on my phone a lifetime before, I had posted that I had done DXM on Snapchat. My phone buzzed with a question of how it was going. The burning had just subsided, and the increasing high felt like charcoal drawing impurities to the surface to be burned away in the next round in the forge. I felt like I had something to say to make peace with a past life, and I might only have that last chance to do so. I don't honestly remember what was said exactly, other than a very clear warning to stay the fuck away from cough syrup. I remember seeing myself in the selfies and thinking, "Jesus that guy looks like hell." My face was puffed up to the degree it would be if I had just survived a wasp attack. I sent messages to friends, then the burning would start again, and by the time I had come back to the world I'd have a response waiting. It went on like this for some time.
After an eternity of this, even the brief respites no longer eased the constant sunburned feeling of my skin. And the burning had gotten worse during its reigns of terror. The trip itself was taking so much out of me. The sunburnt skin was taking so much out of me. Burning alive was taking so much out of me. In fact in one of the breaks I thought to myself with a cynical chuckle, "Well I guess I can say I know what it's like to burn alive." I've burned myself on fire and stoves many times, so let me get this point across to you. I would choose having red hot iron pressed on every square inch of skin on my body than the searing pain I experienced at the hands of DXM. I had obviously, at this point, realized I was allergic to DXM. It made me laugh. Everything had taken on a new humor. But the chuckles were probably silent. I didn't have the strength to make a sound.
During one of the burnings my Saudi Arabian roommate knocked on the door calling me. For some terrible reason, even in the midst of my melting flesh I got up stupidly and opened the door. He asked me something cryptic about a missing pink bottle that he was unable to elaborate further on. It was too much for me, and I was burning alive so I didn't have much in the way of empathy with something as pointless as missing material. All I said before closing the door was some gibberish about I had taken cough syrup and I was probably going survive (to reassure him of course, I was a dead duck), along with an emphatic appeal to never do what I had done. I closed the door, and returned to my personal hell. It was rough going, and even the demon gibberish echoing out of my computer mocking everything I believed music should sound like was of an enormous comfort to me. It was a psychic tether to keep me from floating adrift, never to be seen again in the world of men.
After the computer read that 3 hours had passed, I was far too fried to create viable commentary to my careening. I finally mustered the strength to turn off the music and go to bed. It was no restful sleep. I'm not even sure if it was sleep. More likely to be seen as hypnotic catatonia. I awoke the next day with a great thirst. I jumped out of bed madly, and scurried into the bathroom taking feral gulps from the man made spring in the concrete jungle. Once I had my fill of water, I looked up into the mirror to see my face was still totally swollen. It was highly alarming. And I crept back into bed sluggishly, this time finally being granted the rest I so desperately needed. When I awoke either one or two days later, I was my silly self again.
It had been the hell grinder of spiritual challenges. I haven't been the same since, but in all the best ways. It was as if the impurities had been smelted out of my iron to reveal a sharp steel. The "if I can survive this..." factor was very high, but unlike other trips it hasn't faded away instead maturing into something far more useful. I honestly felt that my mettle had been tested, and I passed the test. Had I failed I wouldn't be here. OR maybe I failed and I am here. I suppose we'll never know for sure.
But I was no newbie. This was not my first time balancing on the edge, trying to get a peek at the place of definitions. The challenges of LSD, Psilocybin, Salvia, Benadryl, MDMA, and DMT along with the unique clarion calls for growth that each psychic pilgrimage had incited, had prepared me for whatever lay ahead. I had roommates now though, so I went in my room and locked the door. If I could've thrown away the key I would've, but I didn't have one. I did one last checklist of what I would need, and I embarked on what could've have been wonderful, had fate not stepped in and declared it otherwise. I cracked open the cough syrup, raising to my lips and gulping it down quickly. The cherry flavor was pleasant enough. I didn't quite drink all of it, and while fumbling around on my computer, I knocked over the bottle and spilled the little that remained. I cleaned it up, and turned on some trippin' music.
I forget exactly how long the stuff took to drop, but I'm going to shoot from the hip and say it was around 15-30 minutes. I was playing on my phone in the mean time having a predilection for impatience in the waiting game. It started slowly at first. The peaceful music and its good vibrations were warped into some demented version of music that served only to discombobulate (and not in the good way!). Weird sensations coupled with rising vibrations like the initial moments of intense calm before the storm. A distinct high began to arise within me. It was pleasurable, at first. Strange feelings started welling up in me, so swirled as to be completely and utterly undefinable. My sensitivity to touch was increasing similarly to MDMA. There was one thing I noted very quickly: As opposed to LSD or Psilocybin where you never knew what turn it would take you on next, DXM had a very clear vector. DXM was starting to clearly define itself as a high powered elevator forever accelerating without a ceiling. And it was beginning to feel like a one way ticket. In fact an integral part of the DXM experience for me was a fear that was unlike any I've felt since. It was particularly unsettling because unlike the paranoia I've felt previously, where I knew my feelings to be irrational(Though I was unable to shake them), this new fear felt fiercely calculated. As if my brain had been turned into a super computer that had already ran all possible outcomes, and had come to the conclusion that due to the unfailing increases in acceleration there was a near certainty of my imminent demise. It was unavoidable. It was as if on the bridge of spaceship DXM Limited the crew just stopped whatever they were doing and rang home to tell their loved ones goodbye. Mind you this last paragraph was only like a few minutes into the trip.
The itching started suddenly. At first it wasn't that bad, but soon I realized it had the same trajectory as the intensity of the trip. I had read about the so called "robo-itching", but my understanding of it was a more intense version of opiate crawls, not the melting of flesh off your bones. Already I felt this trip had gone severely off the charts of even the most horrifying trip reports I had read. My skin was on fire, and hives were flashing in and out across my body. The fluid nature of the itch intensity map that was my skin meant my efforts to soothe the pain had to frantically keep up with the next crisis center. One minute my legs would be consuming all rational thought, and the next my shoulder blades would scream for help. The only constant was my scalp. It felt like the oils of hair were burning my scalp as if by adding more fuel to the fire. It felt like ringworms formed and twisted across my scalp. The super computer recalculated the survival odds, and it was grim. I literally told myself that I was probably going to die. My mind probably would've melted had it not been for the tools my previous experiences had given me. Serenity in the face of soul shattering happenstance and horror was not new to me.
Either I would pull through or I wouldn't. I had no control of that now. I felt this voice in my head speak words I had read on an Erowid Datura Trip Report, "Zane you've poisoned yourself quite badly, and there's a good chance you're not going to make it out of this. You need to choose your next actions very carefully. Your life is in your hands." But I wasn't going to die afraid in the eyes of this faithless voice, and I tried to keep it together. My emotions had gained definition now. It was the sad nostalgia for the life I had lived, bringing with it intense feelings of pure love and thankfulness, and sadness that those days would never come again. The intensity of the fire became that of actual flame and was still increasing. I cringed and started crying in pain, but I was still trying to not cry too loudly as if some part of me new the game well enough to know that the trip doesn't last forever. I couldn't scratch without literally causing the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life, like a sear on the soul. So I had no choice but to gently rub my scalp trying in vain to have an effect on these happenings. Not only was the ship on a collision course, it was fucking on fire. Things were reaching a critical point.
And as suddenly as it had began, the burning subsided. The high was still increasing however. I became quite angry quite quickly. I certainly wanted to wring the neck of the sick motherless cur who had synthesized such a foul chemical. In fact, later when I got a cold even a small recommended amount of DXM syrup would bring the feeling slightly to my throat. I hated it. I felt empowered. And just then the burning returned rendering me utterly unable to do anything but hang on for dear life. It continued like, the burning ebbing and flowing. Heaven for one moment. Hell in the next. My anger had been burnt out of me the way a dog's bark is castrated by shock after shock from some unknown hand of God. I was on a new level. Utter enlightenment emerged in my tired eyes during the short respites before the inferno would come again. Faint traces of that tranquility can occasionally be seen in them to this day.
When I had been on my phone a lifetime before, I had posted that I had done DXM on Snapchat. My phone buzzed with a question of how it was going. The burning had just subsided, and the increasing high felt like charcoal drawing impurities to the surface to be burned away in the next round in the forge. I felt like I had something to say to make peace with a past life, and I might only have that last chance to do so. I don't honestly remember what was said exactly, other than a very clear warning to stay the fuck away from cough syrup. I remember seeing myself in the selfies and thinking, "Jesus that guy looks like hell." My face was puffed up to the degree it would be if I had just survived a wasp attack. I sent messages to friends, then the burning would start again, and by the time I had come back to the world I'd have a response waiting. It went on like this for some time.
After an eternity of this, even the brief respites no longer eased the constant sunburned feeling of my skin. And the burning had gotten worse during its reigns of terror. The trip itself was taking so much out of me. The sunburnt skin was taking so much out of me. Burning alive was taking so much out of me. In fact in one of the breaks I thought to myself with a cynical chuckle, "Well I guess I can say I know what it's like to burn alive." I've burned myself on fire and stoves many times, so let me get this point across to you. I would choose having red hot iron pressed on every square inch of skin on my body than the searing pain I experienced at the hands of DXM. I had obviously, at this point, realized I was allergic to DXM. It made me laugh. Everything had taken on a new humor. But the chuckles were probably silent. I didn't have the strength to make a sound.
During one of the burnings my Saudi Arabian roommate knocked on the door calling me. For some terrible reason, even in the midst of my melting flesh I got up stupidly and opened the door. He asked me something cryptic about a missing pink bottle that he was unable to elaborate further on. It was too much for me, and I was burning alive so I didn't have much in the way of empathy with something as pointless as missing material. All I said before closing the door was some gibberish about I had taken cough syrup and I was probably going survive (to reassure him of course, I was a dead duck), along with an emphatic appeal to never do what I had done. I closed the door, and returned to my personal hell. It was rough going, and even the demon gibberish echoing out of my computer mocking everything I believed music should sound like was of an enormous comfort to me. It was a psychic tether to keep me from floating adrift, never to be seen again in the world of men.
After the computer read that 3 hours had passed, I was far too fried to create viable commentary to my careening. I finally mustered the strength to turn off the music and go to bed. It was no restful sleep. I'm not even sure if it was sleep. More likely to be seen as hypnotic catatonia. I awoke the next day with a great thirst. I jumped out of bed madly, and scurried into the bathroom taking feral gulps from the man made spring in the concrete jungle. Once I had my fill of water, I looked up into the mirror to see my face was still totally swollen. It was highly alarming. And I crept back into bed sluggishly, this time finally being granted the rest I so desperately needed. When I awoke either one or two days later, I was my silly self again.
It had been the hell grinder of spiritual challenges. I haven't been the same since, but in all the best ways. It was as if the impurities had been smelted out of my iron to reveal a sharp steel. The "if I can survive this..." factor was very high, but unlike other trips it hasn't faded away instead maturing into something far more useful. I honestly felt that my mettle had been tested, and I passed the test. Had I failed I wouldn't be here. OR maybe I failed and I am here. I suppose we'll never know for sure.