It was 8:57 pm, December 31, 2009.
My two best friends and I were waiting for 9:00 to start downing the shrooms that I had picked up the day before. Before I go any further, I want introduce them as James and Nick (I don't want to use their real names since this is being posted on the internet). We had originally planned to start eating them at 9:30 but we changed it sooner so that we wouldn't be tripping longer into the night and we could try and get some sleep after (since I had work at 2:30 the next day). I was so calm and so ready to have this experience. I was excited and was counting down the final minutes.
About this time though, James's cell phone rings, and it's his ex girlfriend younger sister. She asked if he could run and pick her up some beer really quick. And it being New Year's Eve night, he said ok. This made me feel a little uneasy about the situation, but I ignored it and said it's cool so we waited on eating till he got back from the store.
As I was sitting I started really thinking about what was about to happen, I started questioning myself if I was actually ready for this. My legs also started to shake and my hands twitched and my doubt grew more. My friend finally got back and it was exactly 9:30. I thought to myself ok, just like the original plan, everything is going to be cool, I can do this. So we all opened our bags and we started to eat. I ate mine with peanut M&M's and I couldn't taste the shrooms at all. My 2 friends consumed 2.3 grams each and I ate almost an entire 3 grams before breaking 2 small pieces off to share with them. After I had swallowed my last bite, I freaked myself out again, because I knew now I was in a state of no return. This is going to happen whether I have a good trip or not.
After about thirty minutes or so later, I sat on the floor and kept inviting my two friends to join me but they were busy getting music ready and they just weren't talking to me or really talking about anything, except gathering their music. Even when I said I was feeling a little uneasy right now. Finally, Nick came and sat with me and he was asking if we were all going to be together tonight because he felt he couldn't be alone. I told him I felt the same and I would be here with him until it was all over.
About 40 minutes after consuming our shrooms, James said he was going to run out to his car real quick and get some more CDs out of his car before our trip sets in. So I said ok and I went back and sat down in the dining room of his apt and just talked with my other friend. All of sudden I started feeling a little weird. Everything started to barely twirl up a little bit and I had forgotten what shrooms were. I knew that we took them, but I felt like I forgot it was an actual object. And I started questioning if everything was always like this. I felt normal, everything seemed somewhat normal visually, but I forgot that I had a job, I forgot about just about almost everything in general.
Time started to really fly and I had forgotten that my friend had been outside for a while getting his music. We started listening to Crystal Castles, and then all of a sudden I felt as though I was rolling on e. It felt just like the come up of a roll, even my friend said he was feeling the same way. I started dancing uncontrollably and smiling and enjoying my time spent with Nick. I thought to myself I can so do this, I love rolling. This is going to be the best time ever! All of sudden I get a text from James, and he said he was stuck. It scared me a little because I hadn't started hallucinating yet, and I didn't know what was out there and why he was stuck. But I told him we were coming.
By this time though, it was like will.I.am himself casted amnesia on Nick. He kept asking what we were doing, where were we going, where is James, are we drinking tonight? He even looked at me and asked if this was real or is he dreaming. He was asking these same questions over and over and over and over. I picked up his jacket and gave it to him and told him to put it on. So we can go get James because he is stuck. He looked at it and asked how he was supposed to wear it. He didn't know what to do. I took his arm and put it in the arm pockets and he laughed and pushed away from it, he saw his arm disappear and he thought it would be gone forever if he put his whole arm in it.
After ten minutes of trying to put our jackets on and go rescue our friend I was starting to get really worrisome for James. We finally got out the door and I told him to lock his door in case we decide to go on a nature walk when we meet up with our friend. He still kept asking the same questions over and over. What was going on? Where is James? Are we drinking tonight? Where are we? Over and over and I was getting so flustered because I was answering the same questions just to be asked it 30 seconds later. I took the key from him and locked the door and told him let's go. He seemed a little shocked and sad because I was getting flustered at him and he didn't know why. I was just so worried for James now and it was taking so long to go get him.
We finally got to his car in the parking lot and it was so dark outside. I could barely see inside the vehicle when I got to the passengers side and knocked on the window and I could barely see my friend sitting in his car, not moving. I went to the driver side and the window was all fogged up. I saw this evil force behind the window and I started tripping about it. I got scared, my heart was pounding, so I quickly tried to open the door but it was locked. I knocked and yelled for him to open but he didn't. So I ran to the passenger side and tried to open, but it was locked. My amnesia friend walked over to me and was laughing asking what I was doing. I told him James is stuck in his car. He won't come out. Nick started looking through the window and was laughing, asking are we supposed to be seeing things. I said yea we are; and still my friend wouldn't come out of his car.
I then looked up at my surroundings and hundreds of creeping eyeballs popped up from the windows of apartments and from the darkness that the glow of the streetlights couldn't reach. I needed to leave; I was disrupting them from their sleep. I looked at my friend, and I asked very quietly and very calmly but very stern if we could go back to his apartment. He finally grasped something I said and he said ok. I didn't run back, but I quietly and quickly started walking back to the apartment. I told him to be quiet for a little bit as I was staring at the ground trying not to make eye contact with one of the onlookers. We got to the stairs and I had his key in hand, unlocked the door and walked in, I left the key in the door thinking my friend would get it an close the door, but he just followed me. I realized he didn't close the door, so I ran back to it, got the key out and as I was shutting the door I saw a glimpse of a spirit or something coming for the door. It had a half hearted smile and its hand was extended out. So I slammed the door and locked it, and went and sat down in the dining room.
I was spinning around watching as the walls were slowly closing down on me. I had no control over any of this. I quickly started telling myself I'm ok. It's shrooms; this is what's supposed to happen. This is not real, I looked at the ceiling and everything started to turn a light shade of red. Nick came over to me and he was still asking the same questions! He asked if we went outside, where is James, are we drinking. Again I explained to him the entire situation. He was laughing nonstop and his face seemed to start dethatching from his face.
Finally, there was a rattle at the door and James hurled himself inside the front door. I was so relieved to see him. I went to go hug him because I was so worried for him. He stopped me in my tracks and said don't come closer, he believed me, he just needed some space. After this I felt so good, I was so comfortable with everything, I was now ready for this to happen. As Nick and I talked at the table, James laid on his back staring at the ceiling already tripping hard with visuals. It was then I remember my body getting extremely fatigued. I took one of the deepest yawns ever, I could feel both of my lungs expanding and pushing against my bones. The walls then started to melt down. It looked beautiful, they were just melting and I was so tired. I got up and made my way over to go lay with my friend. I got a little to close and he told me to back up some, I was disturbing them. I didn't ask who or what; I just complied. So we all three lay on our backs staring at the ceiling.
I looked up and I started to see the ceiling breathe and everything was moving so quickly about it. The wall started to breathe and sink down closer to me. I stared in awe as greens, blues, yellows, and purples swept over everything. Then I started to see in a distance, thousands of smiling little creatures holding out there hands and waving to me. I started smiling so hard and I was yelling for them to come here! "Hurry! You're almost here! You can do it! I am so happy right now!" I asked my friends if they could see the people but they didn't see what I saw. James was seeing something similar but it was more on the spiritual side.
As my little friends started to get closer I saw that they were trapped behind a chain link fence of some sort. I wanted them out, and they were wanting out, but they couldn't get closer. Throughout this whole time, Nick was still asking the same questions over and over just to me. I was telling him just enjoy everything you see right now, we're tripping shrooms. I looked over at James and he told me that he knew I would feel this connection with this outside force like he is.
So he grabbed my hand and he told me to push as much positive energy out that I can right now, and he would do the same. So I looked back up at the thousands of smiling faces and took a deep breath and pushed everything out I could. And the wall got extremely wishy washy and everything pushed out at high speeds, pushing everything miles and miles away, the colors merged, there were some sort of connection between me and my environment and the fence disappeared! Then thousands of smiling waving aliens, which were once trapped behind a fence, started running closer to me. They just kept getting closer, waving at me and I was yelling for them to hurry up. I was excited, I was screaming out how happy I was. We had music from Bassnectar and Crystal Castles playing in the background (I forgot what music was, and I believed that it was life's background music. It was the way that these "things" were able to communicate over to us since I couldn't hear a spoken language).
They moved in closer and closer and they were on the carpet with me touching my arms and I was laughing and saying hey and what's up to them. James looked at me differently like he understood what I was seeing. These little aliens told me (still through the music, not verbally) that they were sorry for startling me earlier outside. We weren?t introduced properly and they really mean no harm. They have been watching me my whole life, but they were waiting for the right time to see me in my conscious state. They were unsure at first if I was able to see them or not. They missed me and were so happy to see me again. I missed them also, it felt as though we met before, but in reality this is the first time I've tripped before. They told me to lay back they wanted to show me something. I complied and began to watch as the ceiling turned into a running stream of water. I could hear it and see fish swimming through it and I could feel the coolness as it quietly flowed throughout the apartment. It was beautiful; it was "life."
After tripping out for like 30 minutes or so we all stood up and we began talking about what we saw and felt. James felt the need to try and draw it, to draw life. He had pen and paper but he just couldn't draw what he saw. He became so frustrated about it. He was yelling and getting so excited but angry as to why he couldn't draw it. He stared getting so angry he said he wanted to kill himself, so I told him it's ok, we understand what you feel, but you don't need to do anything stupid like killing yourself. He calmed down and then he went to go open the front door.
Our friend (we will call him Sam) was at the door. So they let him in, originally I didn't want to trip by him because I didn?t think I would be comfortable with anyone sober watching me trip out and be crazy, except my ex-girlfriend maybe. Also, his sense of humor is different from a lot of people. It's so funny, but it's usually a darker humor and lately he has been down about life and quite negative (I have been also; life has seemed to be shitting on me lately as well). So I didn't want him to be our trip sitter, because I was afraid he would accidently scare me since I have never done any drugs with him, except a little weed and drinking. I don?t know if he would really understand what my body was going to go through tonight. I love him to death, but I wasn't comfortable enough for him to be around while I'm in such an altered state of mind. I asked a lot of people days before what I should do. I told them, it wasn?t that I was scared that he would actually mess with my head on purpose; I just don?t know how I am going to act around him. I don?t want to be the person in the group that excludes someone. I like hanging out with Sam, he is hilarious and is a really good friend and a good person. They told me, but when on shrooms, your mind seems to forget some things and it?s easy to psyche yourself out about anything. It?s better to be a dick about it, then experiencing a bad trip. So I came up with it, which I would be ok if I tripped out first then he came over after I felt more comfortable about what I was going to go through.
By this time, all of us were sitting in the dining room and I started to feel really weird. Sam knew I was tripping so he was smiling and trying to look happy, but I could see behind his eyes, I could see that he was bothered and that this is not going to be good. Even though I knew his intentions were ok.
Are We Human or Are We Dancer (Armin Van Buuren Remix) then blared through my headphones that I had forgotten were on my ears. I exploded with so much emotion to all my friends. Saying we are Dancer! We are not human; this makes so much more sense! We are human, but for those who have traveled to the other side like we were doing, we were more than human now. We were altered now forever; we have seen what many wished they could understand. We were no longer in auto pilot rushing through life. We see it, it sees us. We feel it, it feels us. We are Dancer and that's what these aliens were whispering to me. They were calling me dancer.
Later James's phone was ringing so he went somewhere to talk; it was a girl he has been talking to recently. So it was me, Nick, and Sam. I started to freak out about Sam. His face turned blank and he was looking so agitated and I could feel a negative force that was slowly seeping out through his pores. And he would look at me and just stare and his face and head seemed be twitching like a zombie. He was also scraping his beer bottle on the edge of the table as he was just staring at me. And I would smile, or try to talk to him and comfort this evil. It was like these aliens were telling me; tonight is going to be a battle of strength and self control. They showed me the happiest time of my life and I went through such an amazing high. Now they were going to put me in a situation where I would be walking toe to toe with evil. They told me I can do this, I can keep happy while a monster sat 2 feet next to me. I stared down this evil beast, as I did I could see his skull meshing through the skin of his cheeks and his jaw clinched with an evil grin. His eyes were emotionless. But I stared it down. I talked to it; I did everything I could to keep myself from going on edge. And what was so symbolic about this, is that all of us were wearing light color clothing. Sam was wearing all black and a black hoody with it up over his head. I was terrified but I was going to win this war.
That's when I started to melt. I was melting. I could feel pieces of my skin fall off and splash on the melted carpet. I was stuck in this chair, and I couldn't say anything but "but this all makes sense now, everything makes sense, this is life, and I'm actually melting!" I would say this over and over nonstop for what seemed like an eternity. I was melting! And I couldn't move or yell for help. I could just sit there and grow into my chair as the devil sat right next to me. He was easily able to have his way and to torture my body without me being able to do anything about it. I was terrified but I continued to push happy thoughts through my brain. I told myself, this is going to be ok. Sam's face and body continued to push out more evil and transform into this dark cloud of some sort. I remember using so much energy to keep my mind balanced that I would grow so tired so quickly. My body would feel so weak and I felt I could sleep for days. So I would meditate for like 2 or 3 minutes then the energy I built up would be used again to fight of this evil around me. This cycled 6 or 7 times before James finally came back to the room and said he had to go pick up his lady friend. Sam was going to be driving so I said ok and them two left as we still sat and talked about what was going on.
This is where the peak started to set in as I think back now. At the time I felt so accomplished because I was able to stay balanced while Sam was there. I felt alive again; I felt that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd began to play and an instant picture of my dad flashed through my mind. I flashed back to when I was younger and we had seen this band live in concert. I then started seeing how things slowly changed overtime, and how we weren't as close like we used to be. He used to be my best friend; we used to hang out all the time. And now I'm never home and we barely even eat dinner together anymore. But this song made me so happy and I started breaking down in tears. I missed him so much and I felt guilty for letting our relationship sink a little. I cried and cried and just listened to the words of the song and thought about what I need to do to get him back. I missed his love and I missed the way I used to feel about him. Then Nick finally snapped out of his amnesia stage and he began questioning existence itself. We both forgot what our purpose was here. It was like these aliens melted us down to our core and took away our feelings and how we once viewed the world.
We were learning everything over again. We would laugh at random moments like we were trying to figure out what are appropriate moments to laugh at and what weren't things to laugh about. I was learning how to remember again, and how to memorize different situations and how to move from point ?A? to point ?B? in every aspect of life. These aliens were showing me that we are all programmed with a goal inside our minds that we must, as Dancer, find out what it is we actually seek. I learned how to communicate, dance, love, hurt, and enjoy everything around me. They taught me things I knew but I lost focus on when I was still human. They taught me to how to trust them and myself to the maximum extent.
My friend then began philosophizing how our existence is all connected by every little thing in the world. We are all from and connected by a water bottle that he was holding up in the air. He started blurting things out like books and remembering what they were. I was learning for the first time in my life now, he was teaching me. And I sat just taking in every bit of information that these aliens were showing him. Even though he was oblivious to these people, he didn't know anything about them. But I could almost feel as that they had entered his body and they were finally able to talk to me verbally. They needed a source to reach me besides the music and he was that source.
We broke it down to what we truly love, mine is music and writing lyrics and poetry. His love was dancing. We had figured out what our goal was but we didn't know what to do about it. It made sense, everything that we ever needed in our lives; we had in us the entire time. We didn't have to step one foot out that front door to find it. We already had the key to our lives within us. He needed his music to dance to, I needed a melody to put my words to and I needed a way to record my voice to share with everyone around me. But we ran into a problem, he couldn't find his music and I couldn't find a way to record my voice on my phone and play the music at the same time. He went out to his car to get his music and I sat in the living room listening to my music and just making up my own song, and recording it in my head. I tried to find pen and paper to write it all down, but I forgot how to write. It was like these aliens didn't teach me how to write yet, as they had made James forget how to draw. I couldn't record my voice and I couldn't write down my words. I didn't know what purpose this served and why they did this to me. My friend came back with his music and we both sat together trying to solve our goal we were being tested with. He soon, after became a little depressed because even when he realized dancing was his love, it only benefitted him and no one else. And I could only sing a song to myself and no one would benefit from what I have because I couldn't get it recorded. It was a struggle for us and it became so real, and everything at the moment became so clear for the both of us. We both knew that we had a special talent in us, we discovered it. But these aliens didn't want us to achieve this life goal at this moment. They wanted us to take this experience back with us to the world we once lived in before. They wanted us to know we have a talent that many wished they could have as their own talent. We need to cherish this, and build it to its maximum potential as years pass by in the near future.
It was about 2:15am.
My vision started to become less blurry and my emotions became more stable. I remember staring at the wall, confused, questioning everything around me, asking if we had landed yet. It felt as though I was in some sort of aircraft and we were taken to a whole new planet. But there was a filtering process that occurred during this journey. Pieces of information that I collected in my life were washed away so that I could truly see and feel what they wanted to show me. They had to open me up, but if it wasn't for me forgetting the basics, I wouldn't have had such an eye opening, out of body, life changing experience. Instead it would have been just a shroom trip where I hallucinate and see cool things change shape. This trip was more about finding and learning everything about me all over again, and experiencing each and every emotion my body can take on. But each emotion was increased by 100 xs. Soon there after I got a call from my ex and she asked if I was still tripping, but all I could really ask is if we had landed yet. Are we there yet? After talking for a little bit of got off the phone and realized that it was over. I put on my headphones and walked over to the wall and slowly touched it, the melting had stopped but it was still breathing at me. Then the wall grew out and formed into the Cliffside of a mountain and I just stared in admiration, as my eyes watered up. Everything about it was beautiful and so overwhelming. And I felt peace again. It was the last emotion that I yet was able to experience truly the entire night, and it definitely had the strongest effect on me.
My two buddies got back home along with James's lady friend. They were laughing and seemed to have an enjoyable time but I was tripping a little still. I was on the comedown but it felt my body had been abused, mentally and physically. They were eating Taco Bell, and it didn't gross me out, but I had no desire for it. I just wanted to chill and smoke the blunt we had rolled earlier. As I was smoking I was holding it so delicately, I even got a plate to put the ashes on, and I held the plate as everyone took their hits to catch the ashes that were soon to be falling from the blunt. Soon after I took my iPhone and headphones and went to my friends bed by myself and just lay down and thought about my experience I had gone through.
I had felt a little sad because it was over before it started. I was hoping for more insight to myself. At the same time though I was so satisfied it was over and I felt that maybe there was no more. This is it; this is what it truly is about. This is life. I began zoning out and staring at the ceiling, and I saw it breathing at me again. And the ceiling started to get lower and lower and everything got really quiet. It began to breathe deeper and it touched down almost four feet in front of me. It may sound really crazy, but it was the master, the head honcho so to speak of these robot elves, alien life form that had taken me through this journey. And I reached out for it in awe and it got closer to me. It stayed with me and just kind of hung out with me for three or four minutes. I felt so close to it; a few tears ran down my cheeks, I felt so tiny compared to him. But at the same time I felt so comfortable with him and I knew now what his purpose was. It all made sense. It was like they have been watching me my whole life, but they were waiting on the perfect opportunity to come out and show me what they have been planning to show me for a while.
Finally, I reached out to this force and I thanked it for everything I experienced tonight and told it that I really needed this. It breathed out and shook for the last time and then it went back to normal size. Then the thousands of smiling aliens that I was greeted with earlier were back and waving goodbye to me. So I waved back and thanked them all as well.
My world was officially shaken to the core. All I could do was Lay in the bed feeling the forces of life pushing on my back, hands, legs, feet, and my head. I was a wreck, but felt so in tuned with everything around me. I felt strong, and everything was so emotional for me. I spent the rest of the night drying my eyes after thinking about beautiful life really is. I cherished it all, the positives and the negatives. This trip changed my life and I truly needed an experience like this. And until the next time I and these forces meet again, I will be living everyday to the fullest with no regrets; it's too precious to do that.
