Hard U-Turn

So I took an eighth and started tripping pretty good. I just sat in my room and enjoyed the head effects for a while, but once the hallucinations started I went for a walk. I sat down in this little park and enjoyed it for a bit. The rocks in the path were swimming like fish and the trees were waving back and forth, bending at the trunk like they were made of rubber.

I then went into the campus library which has a great technicolored carpet I have enjoyed on previous trips. This time I sat down on a nice comfy couch and just let it take hold. The carpet is just long stripes in lots of crisp, bright colors, which are a hell of a lot crisper and brighter when you’re on shrooms. The lines turned into flickering lights and it felt like a runway, like they were carrying me and the couch off into the horizon. Across from me was a brick wall with a door. The bricks were moving around like cars in traffic, back and forth and changing lanes. The door started to spiral. As the magical carpet carried me further towards it, the spiral got bigger and bigger, encompassing the bookshelves around it, and soon my entire vision. I was being sucked into some kind of wonderful vortex. It was the start of a fantastic trip.

I then went to hang with my friend Harry and smoke some grass. Marijuana usually accentuates a shroom trip for me, but this time it did not. I had not smoked in quite some time, so when I took a couple of powerful bong hoots I was extremely stoned. Like, have you ever seen some kid who has never actually smoked grass, but is trying to act high to be funny? They talk all stupid and stumble and say “maaaan” a whole lot? Yeah, that was me.

I usually enjoy marijuana, but this high was so overpowering that I couldn’t even feel the shrooms anymore. I even stopped hallucinating. I seriously thought the weed was going to completely overpower the mushrooms….so I took another gram, just to kick it back into gear.

Mistake. Although, it was not immediately apparent as such. Hank went to get our friend Mike while I was in my room. I lay on my back on the bed and stared at my ceiling. It was sliding around as a whole, back and forth and up and down, then different tiles started sliding around. The little cracks and holes were swirling around into lots of different shapes. I saw all kinds of faces, animals, and bizarre geometric patterns. I seem to have a recurring hallucination that appears every time I do shrooms, but not always in the same place. It is a large mosaic of people, animals, and shapes which have all been drawm together in plain black and white very simply. They look like cave paintings, but a little more geometric. The closest thing I can relate it to is those mosaics you see covering Aztec and Mayan temples, but that’s not exactly it either. For some reason, I felt the need to cover myself up with the blanket, even though I was fully clothed and the room was warm. I think it was really just about the feel of the nice soft blanket.

Hank and Mike got back and saw me under the covers grinning like a lunatic and they knew I was tripping hard. I told them I wanted to go to the mall. They really didn’t think It was a good idea, but I insisted. So, we drove to the mall.

Mistake. I should have known from previous experiences that being in big groups of strangers isn’t good, but then I guess I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. After all, I was tripping my balls off. We all went into a few store sand I had a really hard time keeping myself under control. I wanted to laugh so hard and so long at absolutely nothing, but I obviously couldn’t. Hank and Mike wanted to get some food from the food court and I went off by myself down to the other end of the mall. I walked by all the stores and looked in the windows and at the end of the hall ambled into J.C. Penney.

That’s when the fear hit. I kept walking around the store and I felt like I was being followed, by who, I didn’t know. I wanted to look over my shoulder, but then I didn’t because I didn’t want whoever it was to know that I was aware of their presence. The clothes were all shimmering and dripping like water. Some were shaking. I didn’t want to run, but I walked speedily out of the store and across the mall. I went into Dillards. Their aisles snake around in a kind of maze that is intended to keep people in the store. Well, for me it was completely confusing. I got totally lost. Whenever I tried to take a step, the floor right in front of me would jump out of the way, as if to dodge my foot, like it didn’t want to be stepped on. I was like “But you’re floor! That’s what you’re there for!” I may have said that out loud, I don’t know.

To make things worse this elderly couple was following me. I didn’t know for sure if they were following me, but wherever I went, they seemed to magically appear. It freaked the hell out of me. So, I did what any sane person would do in that situation: I ducked behind a clothing rack and peered at them until they walked away. Then I followed them. Haha! I had turned the tables! I felt very proud of myself. I followed them until they left the store, sometimes from far away, or sometimes so close I was breathing down their neck. I imagined I could have stabbed them right in the back, but I didn’t. I then went back to the food court to find my friends.

They had been worried sick, running around looking for me. We went back home and decided to call it a night. I was still tripping hard, but told them I’d be ok just hanging out in my room alone.

Mistake. I was already in an anxious state of mind and tripping alone is never good. I sat on my bed telling myself, I was worthless, my life had no point, nobody liked me, I was doomed to failure, etc. It was a completely horrible introspective nightmare which I was unprepared to deal with. Luckily, Mike lives just a few doors down from me so I went to see him. He was trying to do homework, but he was a good friend and kept me entertained for the next few hours. We listened to music and made some prank phone calls and I was back in a good mood again. I slowly faded out of the trip while we were watching School of Rock and went to bed soundly. It’s been a week and a half since I did that and I’ve been having flashbacks every day since.