Pandora's Box

This is an account of my first experience, which took place at a friend's home on April 21st  from around 2 AM until roughly 7 AM.  I am not normally a night owl, but I had been in celebration of the previous evening for some time when I hastily decided to eat the 1/8th oz of Amazonian cubes that I had received from a friend of mine.  I had in no way prepared for my trip, and was accompanied on the trip only by my roommate of mine who had no previous experience with mushrooms, but had experimented with LSD.

After approximately 30 minutes, I began speaking very rapidly, moving from topic to topic in a non-sequitur manner.  My speech increased in speed and volume.  I felt that my stream of consciousness was suddenly pertinent to conversations taking place in the room amidst three very close friends of mine.  I began to speak more loudly, I felt myself craving attention as a young child, and consequently would begin yelling prophetic words of doom at my companions, announcing the coming of demons and angelic beings.  I was not experiencing sensations or hallucinations of these, I was just making up stories to childishly attract attention from my friends, whom I greatly feared were ignoring me.


About 45 minutes into the trip, my thinking out-loud became more and more frantic.  At this point, my roommate and trip-mate suggested that I be recorded so that I be able to listen later.  This was a good decision.  My speaking was rhythmic and in-tempo with music that was playing in the background, of which I had no memory.  Slowly, I began to wind down and feel a strong body high.  After an hour in or so, I began to experience time dilation, which I would not have noticed except for someone asking me how long I thought It had been since I dosed.  My sober friends, none of whom had any prior experience with hallucinogens, bombarded me with questions about the state of my experience.  This caused me a great deal of worry.  I became paranoid that I was missing out on something, that I would not have a full experience.  I was scared that my mother would call me, and realized that if I did answer the phone, she would be extremely disappointed in me, because she would somehow know I was tripping.  I decided the logical thing would be to ignore any phone calls, but when I went to turn off my cell phone, I could not escape the notion that by doing so, I was going to be making a huge mistake.  I suddenly felt the sensation one feels while escalating a roller coaster, highly anticipative, but mostly just scared in a very guttural, primitive way.  I felt the sensation of rising upwards to a visible crest, which I never actually reached.  My speaking completely stopped at this
point, I was embarking on the trip.  I am not precisely sure at what point this began happening, but the recording of me speaking ends at approximately 1:10 in.

At this juncture I began to consider my assumed ideas about planes and dimensions.  In ways that I find difficult to understand other than when I am tripping, I began to conceive viewing my surroundings from impossible perspectives.  I felt as if  new dimensions were visible to me from this new perspective that I had found.  I had been aurally hallucinating for some time, but in this state, my hallucinations grew "louder."  I recognized the very rhythmic beat which I was hallucinating as being a continuous loop of a sound effect from one of my favorite Windows-95-era video games.  After coming to this realization, began visiting memories which I have been able to recall since the trip, but which were inaccessible to me prior to the experience.  I recalled a time at which I wet myself at DisneyWorld after being frightened by a costume actor dressed as an alligator.  As I looked over the scene in my mind like an aged photograph, I noticed that people faded and became distorted as I focused on the thought more.  I suddenly had the urge to urinate, but was transfixed on my childhood memory.

I began to speak to myself in my own mind at an uncontrollable rate, I felt as though my vocabulary was expanded greatly, that I was the ultimate dramatist in my own private world.  Like an unstoppable train, as though my subconscious were finally gaining its chance to speak to my consciousness, I cycled through narcissistic thoughts and fought to disengage from self-worship.  The horrible sensation that I was missing out on something important returned, and I felt physically wracked.  After I opened my eyes, I felt as if everyone in the room was staring at me.  In my left peripheral, I saw my girlfriend staring down at me, but when I turned to look, she had fallen asleep in her chair.  I was cold sweating, and decided this would be a good point at which to check my blood sugar, as I have been a Juvenile Diabetic for 15 years.  My trip mate suggested at this point that we go for a walk.  He flipped on the light switch, and I felt some wooziness overcome me.  My blood sugar test was normal, but I had to attempt the test four times in order to get the blood on the correct point of the strip, as my ability to focus my vision was greatly diminished.  Looking at the clock, I was astonished.  Less than 2 hours had passed since dosing.  While in my own thoughts, I felt as though several hours had passed.

When I stood up, the most curious and persistent element of my trip cropped up: I felt as though I had urinated on myself and that my fly was undone, despite numerous reassurances from quite sober fellows.  I headed to the restroom, spent what seemed like an eternity waiting on the bathroom mirror to make me look like a lion, and then left at my trip-mate's beckoning.  He led me outside.  We had dosed approximately four blocks from the local park, and so naturally we tromped in that direction.  At first, I was fine, I bumped into a few cracks and uneven places in the sidewalk, but was, for the most part, unimpeded.  After walking what may have been 2 blocks, I had the sensation that the walk would absolutely never end.  I was terrified that my trip-mate would leave me by myself, and that I would be totally unable to navigate my way home.

I looked at my roommate.  I felt as though he was a scientist, observing my every move.  I tried to conceptualize what he thought of me.  Eventually, I decided that he must regard me like a fellow scientist.  Consequently, I reported in extremely quiet, broken speech, my report, which he kindly wrote down for me:
Dimensions are collapsing.  Walking on flat line through space: invisible.  Watched by big greyscale sundial.

From my perspective, two dimensional surfaces were folding downward to create a flat surface upon which I could walk.  I felt as though my vision decreased to a straight-forward plane upon which I was walking, but somehow this all occurred while I simultaneously retained the ability to view my surroundings.  Curbs, for instance, proved to be a huge impediment, because I could not conceive moving my foot upward to step upward, as there was no upward nor downward.

We arrived at the local park.  We sat upon a bench on a concrete area which connects to a grassy area.  I watched in fascination as the grass and the pavement fought each other for ground.  I lost myself in a couple cycles of thought before I heard some kids coming through the park.  They were innocently passing in front of us, but I suspected, even knew most factually that they were moments away from calling the police.  I urged my trip-mate to return back to base.  At first, he attempted to calm me down, but I just became more and more panicked, speaking ever loudly of how important it was that we return home.  Not wanting to create a situation, he quickly seceded and we headed back.

The journey back was calm.  My aural hallucinations were really prominent during this section of the trip, and my inner dialogue had completely ceased.  I felt fatigued and somewhat ill as we headed back.

Upon arriving, I was again fascinated with how little time had passed in my absence from the clock.  i sat down, and felt as if I were buckled in for a ride.  I felt the sensation of dimensions opening up again as the lights were turned back off, and my thoughts faded away.

I have always been fascinated with the concept of Tibetan Buddhist bodies of emanation, and I am not surprised that this entered as a theme of the trip.  Again, I talked myself in wild circles until I felt again in control of myself.  I was still convinced that I had urinated upon myself and that I was a horrible person.  I often try to envision images of destitute people when feeling sorry for myself as a motivator, as I began to think of my living situation comparatively with that of people in the developing world, I felt absolutely worthless.  I began recounting lies I had told to relatives, I thought of the lie I would fabricate when asked by my parents if I had done anything interesting lately.  I had been entertaining the idea of breaking up with my girlfriend at the time, and my doing so pained me.  I began crying and started babbling something about the consciousness of dying things.  I began to consider the inevitability of my own death, how diabetics often die in horribly medically-complicated situations, how I wou
ld likely suffer a great deal of pain before my death.  I felt myself being pulled toward my death, closer and closer.  I was more frightened than I can recall ever being prior to the experience.  I felt like a baby whose perspective was entirely inverted.  I saw myself ultimately as a horrible, ugly, lying and truly worthless person, and the feelings of regret which came from this were overwhelming.

I felt extremely wet, but I was not sweating.  My fingers felt like they were traveling through water, then the horrible sensation of nearly drowning came over me.  I tried to bargain with myself for what seemed like years as I felt slowly but inevitably pushed to my death.  I understood that I would die by the end of my trip, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  I confronted the image of the giant stone hourglass, glowing hues of blue now, and felt as if I had unlocked some kind of puzzle, everything made sense, and I came to the realization that even if I spent my entire life searching out any kind of material comfort, it would be worthless.  I felt true purposelessness, and I no longer felt a struggle, I did not feel like I had missed out on any important meetings or that anything in my day-to-day environment had any meaning.  I stopped thinking thoughts, and I waited to die, completely emotionless.

This lasted, sadly, what seemed like only a short time.  Soon I opened up my eyes to see that everyone in the room had fallen asleep except for my girlfriend and another friend of ours.  I felt, for lack of a better term, raped.  I was uneasy and felt as if I had met the end of all meaning.  My girlfriend took me home around 4:00.  I had experienced what has thus far been the most extraordinary experience of my memorable life in about two hours.

The car ride back was amazing.  I was, for perhaps the first time, grateful for the experiences of sight and sound.  I was again hallucinating sounds that integrated into music being played on the radio.  I looked over to my chauffeuse, and I felt as though I understood her every biorhythm.  I was overcome with guilt for considering ending our relationship.  We had, at this point, been dating for about three years.  There were many functional dissonances in our relationship, and the only part of my trip that I felt complicated or worsened my living situation is what follows:

I felt as though I was now capable of loving.  I felt like I had been holding back my desire to establish a family with her, and that doing anything past this point other than constantly lauding her was a waste of my time.  As we rounded the familiar corner going down my street, I shouted out the window "I have achieved Nirvana consciousness!  I am a being of love!  I emanate god bodies of song!" and other such declarations.  This was at the onset of my coming down, I believe, as I did not truly feel these sensations, but was merely happy to consider the possibility of having an impossibly loving relationship with my lover.

We got home and crawled into bed.  At this time, I realized that she had an 8:00 AM lecture.  I felt the horrible guilt feelings return, I apologized to her relentlessly, despite her decision to simply skip the lecture.  I tossed and turned, I had horrible visions when i closed my eyes, and when I opened them, everything in the room appeared to me to be cardboard cut-outs.  I was afraid of the strange place in which I had ended up.

I went downstairs, frustrated, around 6 AM.  I was regaining the ability to recognize objects with which I commonly interacted.  I felt as though I was rebuilding the concept of time in my mind, and the "waves" of the trip became more and more apparent in their nature, as I would convince myself I was sober just prior to being swept away.  Not knowing it was pointless, I headed to the restroom to attempt to abort the trip by vomiting.  This only made things worse, as I was now not only drained energetically, but also unable to sleep and quite queasy.  I made myself some breakfast and tried again to pass out on the living room couch.  My girlfriend came downstairs to bring me back up to bed, as she was worried about me.  I headed back up and unsuccessfully tried to sleep until 7:30, at which point I got ready to walk to class, since I had left my bike (I don't drive) at my place of work.

This trip was, ironically, very sobering.  I realized the extent to which I distance myself from friends and family, and have sought to be a more loving person.  Though I continued on with my relationship enthusiastically, I found out with in a few weeks that the emotional bond I felt with my girlfriend would not be enough to bridge the very wide gap in our ideological differences.

Speaking to my mother about my memory at DisneyWorld, I discovered that in fact I was terrified by a costume actor in an alligator suit, but I at no point to her recollection urinated on myself.  I was 4 years old at the time of the experience.

I have no doubts that this, and two other trips I have experienced since, have strengthened me spiritually, as well as helped me to reshape a morality and actually ignited a great interest in me to accept the minuteness of my own being, while simultaneously celebrating the wonder of living in any beautiful state of consciousness.