The Bus Stop Experience

I am an experienced tripper. I have had many psychedelic experiences with a variety of different compounds. To make a long story short, my first LSD trip was in my sophomore year of high school. 

The night started seemingly safe. My father was in the other room drunk as can be. The night was cool and clear. I had been relaxing the whole day. I had plenty of orange juice. I hadn't eaten in about a day and a half. I was ready - or so I thought.

I consumed the shroom at exactly 9:00 and washed it down with a glass of light-pulp orange juice - I love the taste of fresh psilocybe. I knew I'd have to wait roughly 30 minutes for the effects because of a multitude of experiments I did on myself. So, for 20 minutes I talked with my Lover over text and listened to calm music. I started feeling onsetting nausea and hunger from below and followed my impulse outside where I walked for 10 minutes to the nearest McDonalds to get some fries, a big mac, and a medium coffee.  As any smart tripper does, I smoked a Djarum Black filtered clove cigar to alleviate the nausea on my way there.

I was in the parking lot and saw a sketchy looking individual at the entrance. I knew ahead of time what he was trying to accomplish. He was looking for a cigarette to smoke. To avoid contact, I gave him one free of charge although he offered to give me monetary compensation.  I entered the McDonalds and waited in line behind a younger couple also looking for a meal. I smelled the weed on them and giggled to myself. I hope it wasn't out loud. Regardless, nobody paid any attention so I bought my food and coffee and left the store through the back entrance in case the gentleman I helped was a lookout. I freely acknowledged that I was starting to get compulsively paranoid and anxious about how my trip was going to turn out.

About half way back I was hit with the first real wave of my trip. The time was 9:45. I felt my legs get a bit weaker, and the street getting brighter. I knew my pupils were dilated and I was worried if someone noticed. I decided to eat my sandwich and fries at the bus stop because it was void of human beings. I started overthinking why I was avoiding people so much and it was bothering me enough that I needed another smoke and that cup of nice, warm, coffee. This quick observation enlightened me to the fact that the night had gotten considerably colder. It was no longer a steady 70, but a chilling 58 (there was a temperature reader across the street which also showed time). I started thinking about how climate change would eventually ruin our own environment and force us to colonize other planets or fix this one, but I was distracted by the now visually appealing street. An abandoned office building also across the street from me began glowing and breathing steadily. The bus stop sign in front of me began bending only enough for me to notice that it was bending. Another 5 minutes and the green grass in front of me had tints of blue and violet. I was where I wanted to be. I was about to take another drag on my cigar, when I was hit with a sudden catharsis (collapse) of my state because of another man came up and sat next to me at the bus station, laughing at my obvious need to get away from others and apologizing for his intrusion. I offered the man food and smokes, but he refused - he just wanted to get on a taxi and go home. The taxi was late, and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to not seem completely lost in the nether of my mind.

To my relief, the taxi arrived eventually. However, my food was now cold, and I had no coffee to wash it down with. Due to my rotten luck at avoiding inner-city people I decided to eat the burger and fries dry - Bad idea.

I started munching on the fries and immediately regretted my decision. They were cold, too salty, and tasted like dirt in my mouth. I couldn't let myself let them go to waste on account of being a 'bill to bill' college student with minimal hours at my job. The taste gave me the knowledge of how humans have bastardized something as pure and nourishing as a potato. By the time I was done, I gave myself a stomach ache, and started shaking from the cold. It was 10:45.

I began the burger, too afraid to go inside to get warm because of the now increasing intensity of my visual effects. Stars began winking at me, directly addressing my conscious. I smiled and waved back. Cars wizzing by me in the street began to change my mood with how often they came by, how fast they were going, and how angrily the driver seemed to be driving. When a chain of bikers drove by I almost pissed myself and dropped what was left of my now cold, despicable, sandwich on the floor. I picked it up and threw it in the trash can. I could now walk regularly, so I proceeded to go to my apartment.

I didn't make it to the door. A warm light made me very happy and warm, so I went to it to smoke some more. I smoke in this spot all the time, so people just tend to leave me be when they know I'm trying to relax. I hadn't gotten through half of my cigar when a very irritated Indian fellow burst out of the apartment complex entrance down the walkway. He was yelling angrily into his phone. This is where everything began to really die in my 'self'. I began to really fear the man, and really hoped he would just go away so I could enjoy my cigar. He continued in his manner and completely closed off the part of my mind which gave me vivid illusions in the world. Instead my world became gray, colder than it should have been, sad, and afraid for my life. I had incidents like this with other drugs, but first time with mushrooms. I did what I always do when in a bad situation on a trip; I left. I started to walk around my complex to avoid the asshole who in essence blew out my birthday candles with a firehose.

I found a nice bright spot behind the building with a bright fluorescent light. It looked pale under the veil of my current mood at the time. I leaned against the brick wall and continued my smoke. This sent me into deep contemplation about empathy. One thing lead to another, and with my memory of the sandwich I ate still lingering, I started to self reflect on my life choices. 

Complete dread filled me as I looked at my frozen hands. They were rough, pale, and purple at the knuckles. I reflected that I was wearing jeans and a hoodie, so I had the impression of a drug dealer. A form I never thought I'd take when I was younger. I was in the midst of internal agony about my own deeply rooted, self-loathing, when out of nowhere a truck drove up and a bunch of sketchy people began to get out. I almost had a panic attack. I thought I was about to be murdered, robbed, kidnapped, or worse. With the power of shrooms all of the worst possible possibilities drove me to spontaneously begin walking back to my apartment complex entrance; hoping, praying, that the angry man was gone.

He was. I walked into the complex, and took the elevator to the floor I live on. I knew I needed to talk to someone who could calm me down. What I didn't know is that my dead-drunk father woke up to go to the bathroom. This was not my idea of someone who I could talk to to calm down. I contained myself, said that I was going to bed, and that I didn't want to be disturbed. I turned on the OST of the game "Journey" and slid under my blanket, finally into warmth. My father bursts into the room more drunk than a college frat boy and I start worrying. He is speaking, but I do not understand a word of it because he is too intoxicated - just mindless gibberish. I started worrying that it was the mushrooms, but I asserted that since I could still talk, he was at fault. I straight up told him to leave, and after a bit, he decided that I was too uninteresting to bother. I felt lighter on my chest now that he was gone, but this was short lived. I suddenly felt pathetic. A caricature of a drug dealer hiding under the covers for any kind of comfort, who had a stomach ache because he was too cheap to throw trash into the trash can. I began sobbing. I hated myself more for it.

Luckily I found my phone and started texting my Lover. Thank the heavens she responded in the middle of the night. I immediately felt better, although still weeping for everything alive that had to endure my presence in this world. After a while of her confessing her emotions for me, and reassuring that I'm not all that bad, I began to sink into a state I can only describe as hopeful. I was looking forward to the next day, when I'd get to spend the day with her at the beach. We said our goodnights, and I drank some water to help calm my nerves. I began to drift off to sleep, exhausted after my experience.

I fell asleep to mild, close-eyed, visual effects about people walking through dunes.

When I woke up, I reflected on the prior night, and how awful I had felt. I was very glad for my experience, and my caring Soulmate, otherwise I would not have made it out of that state mentally. But with it, I had learned an inexplicable amount of things about myself that I had never known before.

Things turned out well for me in the end because there was someone waiting for me on the phone who loves me. I will avoid tripping outside, in the dark, and in the cold from now on. I hope others read this and learn from my mistakes.

This report is dedicated to my Soulmare, for saving me from a very dark place.