Beyond and back.

I remember going through an experience that I don't think I will ever forget. I did not have a long history of doing drugs, only for about 8 months or so, but when I started I was never completely satisfied with my trip off of any drug until this night. I had tripped before a few times off of LSD and Mushrooms and I often boasted that it was impossible for me to have a so-called "bad trip". I convinced myself that I was too smart, had too much self control, or for whatever reason, had immunity to bad trips. I found out that I was dead wrong.
First of all I already knew that you should never trip with people you feel uncomfortable with. I also knew that going without sleep or eating makes your mushroom that much more potent. But I guess I forgot or ignored this knowledge.
I had recently been introduced to a new drug , meth. Like most people I said I would never touch the junk, but I did. My so-called friend got me started on meth about a month before, and I used somewhat heavily for a short period of time. Anyway, I had already been without food or sleep for about 7 or 8 days and my mind was already a mess from that. At the time I lacked the power to reason with what I was about to do and to be honest I really didn't care what happened, I was just being a fool, I guess.
Me and my friend K were on a mission to get some weed and get really high. We were planning on getting a quarter ounce, but when I called "The Man" he knew how I was and told me about the Mushrooms that he had. We ended up getting a quarter of shrooms instead of weed. This was great to me but K had never tripped before. I insured here that she was in good hands, and that I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.
I couldn't believe that the whole night was bad luck over and over and over again. About 7 PM we got 2 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's migrated to my friend C's house. We devided up the mushrooms but K told me she didn't want as much as me because she never had done it before and she didn't want the whole eighth. No problem by me. Now I don't exactly know what kind of mushrooms these were, but what I do know was that they were extremely big (to me anyway), I remember that one of stems was so damn big that it poked out about 1/2 to 3/4 inch on each side of the hamburger, And it was so thick it made a huge ridge in the bun of the burger. After we put the shrooms on the burgers I put a whole bunch of powdery type stuff from the bottom of the bag on mine. Not eating for a week or better made it very difficult to swallow this dry and nasty burger, but after about 45 minutes I managed to get down the whole thing. I was tripping before I was even done with it. In the midst of choking down the JBC One of C's drunken fool friends came running in the house ranting on and on about how he wanted to fight me, but I told him that I was going to treat his problem the next day, in not exactly those words. That situation became unbearable, so me and K left to take a scenic drive around town. I remembered that I had no tail lights and I needed to fix a fuse, because the last thing I wanted was to get pulled over and have to deal with that so we went to a grocery store to solve the problem. By this time the mushrooms were kicking fairly strongly so I wanted to get the lights fixed as soon as possible. I couldn't fix them after about 6 fuses because I didn't know that there was 2 fuses out and each one I put in burnt within 10 seconds. That sucked, very frustrating. We traveled on anyway and eventually ended up out side of our friend D's house. By then the mushrooms had control of my mind and things were starting to tick me off a bit. Me and K sat in my car outside of D's house debating whether to go in. She wanted to and I didn't because I didn't like the thought of all of those people when I was tripping and none of them were. (you see D's house is what you might call a flop house for the drug addicted.) She convinced me to go in with her and I told her the only way I would go in was through the window. I knew a lot of people in there and I didn't want to have to put up with stopping and talking to all of them when there all spun out and when I'm all trippin. We climbed in the window into a small bedroom and it was basically all downhill from there.
As soon a I got in the house my friend P was shoving joints in my face telling me that the weed was bomb, so I smoked. The weed smelled and tasted so good that My only concern was seeing how big of hits I could take because the mushrooms made me smoke like a champ and never cough. I really wasn't paying attention to the high I was getting from the weed because the only thing on my mind smoking it. We smoked for a little while. Finally I did something really stupid with the weed. I made sure to get everyone's attention and I told them "The biggest hit ever taken". So I filled my mouth about 10 or 12 times with smoke all in one inhale and held it in for what seemed like 5 min but in actuality it was probably around 100 seconds. When I blew out no smoke came out and I started coughing uncontrollably for about 5 more min. This is when things started getting "weird".
I looked at everyone's distorted faces staring wide-eyed back at me. Then I made a big mistake by actually thinking about what was actually was going on around me. Then instead of keeping my mind on one thing I started drifting on to every possible thing. Paranoia was setting in. It was like I was moving in hyper speed. like the world was on slow motion, I was moving and acting in normal speed to me, but to the rest of the world, I was in over drive. I laid on the bed, Jumped up and looked around, laid on the bed. I couldn't tell if I was breathing or not. This made me very nervous. I put my hand in front of my mouth to feel the breath but I couldn't feel it. What I didn't realize was that I couldn't feel anything. I cowered in a corner and just stared out at all of the faces. Then they began acting weird towards me in reaction to the was I was behaving. My thoughts ran wild and I feared the worst about every little thing.
I started asking, .........."What the F*ck is going on here?"......................"What the F@ck is going on?
I said it over and over again because that was all I was thinking. I was trying to speak out loud everything I could but I couldn't stop feeling like the guy on the Matrix when he didn't have a mouth. I couldn't decipher if I was speaking this nonsense or just thinking it to myself. All I wanted in the whole world was to know if I was talking or not.
My friends tried to calm me down but what they were saying just wasn't registering in. Everything they said just sounded like they were putting on an act for some reason.
"Hey c'mon man you know us were your friends."
"You come here all the time,,,,, remember."
The thing that will never escape my mind is deja vu. I thought deja vu was always something that never really ever happened, just something people said when people think that they have been some place before. My friend M came into the room from the living room and asked, "Yall got any of that good?" (meaning crank). They told him "no" and he walked out of the room. The strange thing was that in my twisted brain, as soon as he left he just kept coming back in again doing the exact same thing. There was no sound just sight. Then he left again and came again, and again and again. It was like my eyes were a T.V. screen, and someone was messing with me pressing rewind and play, rewind and play, about 7 times to be approximate. Now this is the straw that broke the camels back, because after that I screamed at D to open the window. I ran like Carl Lewis down the street. I remember running so fast I started tipping forward. I remember breathing so hard it echoed in my ear drums. I remember the look of the street light soaring by me and how each intersection looked exactly the same as the last.
Finally I realized that I couldn't sprint for ever so I just ran away from the light. I Saw a totally pitch black area between the street lights and ran head first into the darkness. That's were I wanted to be. I heard "Bang, Bang, Clang" I ran into a chain like fence. I remember the horrible fear I had that people in there houses would hear me and call the police. I remember looking left, right, left, expecting to see where I was supposed to go but I couldn't see anything. My attempts to find total darkness had worked almost too well. Then I heard the Dog. The loudest sound I have ever heard, or ever will hear. The dogs voice broke the silence like a clap of thunder and I dropped. Luckily for my sake the dog was on the OTHER side of the fence I was next to. I knew he could smell me and I knew he could hear me hyperventilating. I just wanted it all to be over. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there and put full concentration into stopping breathing erratically. I just hoped if I stopped breathing a million heavy breaths a second the dog would stop barking and no one would wake up. Luck was on my side and the dog finally quit. I distinctly remember looking out into the darkness and knowing that not one ray of light should disturb the darkness. And if indeed I did see a light, it only meant one thing, that it was the cops, and upon seeing me they would take me to a mental institution. I had been to one before (For getting in trouble, not for being a nut) and I didn't want to go back.
As I sat there in the dirt I suddenly realized that I was unable to move. The dog had shouted every though right out of my mind and now all I could concentrate on was every aspect of the fear that boiled inside me. I still couldn't feel myself breathing but something from deep within told me I was going to be all right. I tried to flee the situation but I couldn't stand up. I started feeling very afraid. I was sitting up at the time I tried to say something but I couldn't. I am now guessing that I was overdosing on the mushrooms, but at the time I had totally forgotten I had taken them. It was so dark. I kept blinking my eyes open and shut. There was no difference between the two so I don't remember if I kept them open or shut.
I wore my car key around my neck. It seemed so very important to me that I didn't loose it. I took it from off of my neck and clenched it in my teeth. I don't know why I made such a big deal out of my key. I think that my key was a symbol, but I cant tell what it means. I thought, " no one is getting my key from me no matter what!" I think it meant so much to me because I was homeless at the time and my car was really the my possession of value. It took me anywhere I wanted to go.
The next occurrence was amazing, it was like in a movie when a person has a magical vision, but there was no sight, only sound. Now that I think about it I think my brain acted out my worst fear, Cops. It was like I was wearing headphones. Crystal clear audio sound. It was like a tape recording of me getting arrested, it was so amazing.
I heard a bunch sirens as if I were getting pulled over, "Woo Woo"
I heard stepping , "Step Step Step Step", Getting louder and louder as he got closer to me.
No actual voice of a cop but I heard the scanners going off like you always do. Saying something or other like "3-14-niner" or some bull like that. I heard a door slam and it was over. Or at least that's all I can remember.
I noticed my train of thought de-railing. It was like I was losing the ability to think. I knew that my brain was what powered my whole body and every organ in it. It scared me that if I couldn't think I couldn't function and I was going to die soon. I hated this. Every thought that popped in my head vanished into thin air immediately after. As if my thoughts were spiraling down a funnel and withering away in an instant it was gone. . I started getting very frustrated when I realized that I was unable to keep any thoughts in my brain. When the point in time came that I could not even produce thoughts anymore I remember a very very loud very long tone. Hard to explain really. It was like the sound channel 5 plays when they are not broadcasting. This low tone was all there was in the world to me. Then the pain came. It was a very sharp and intense pain that came from inside the right side of my gut. I had no idea what it came from but I only remember that it hurt so bad but I couldn't do anything about it.
I remember just being aware that I was alive, not any actual thoughts in my head as hard as I tried just the awareness of being. I couldn't really be sad or afraid anymore, I could only be. I had a picture in my mind of a mentally handicapped kid whose picture hung up in my high school and I suddenly felt very sad. It was the first time I had ever put any kind of thought into how a person in his situation must feel. My brain was somewhat functioning, aware of my own existence, but I lacked all motor skills. I was certain that the condition I was in was going to stick with me the rest of my life.
I don't know when this happened but I remember I had no body. My soul was shot somewhere very far away and I visioned a 3-D Square shaped grid. Thin lines of illuminated color waving through the darkness like a flag, but horizontal. This was what I believed to be the culmination of the souls of every living creature gathering together to form a stream of life, as a whole. And each soul that went in it would sometime eventually come out to live once more. There is now way I can describe the feeling I had but I knew I was entering the afterlife. Sounds insane now, but at the time, it was the most beautiful and true thing I had ever seen. I don't know if this was a good or bad thing that happened to me but it changed my life.
Waking up was something that was very strange. I heard birds chirping, but not as in nature, but kind of like a cartoon when someone falls off of a cliff and they circle your head. I believe my first memory of the period of time after the terrifying peak was visions of little yellow tweety birds circling my head and sooner or later actually opening my eyes to find it was still pitch black out. I distinctly remember sunrise. The way the world looked through my distorted vision. I remember seeing a blur of light. It kind of looked like someone splattered a little bit of dark paint on a piece of black paper. I couldn't figure out what the light actually was for the longest time. After a while It became pretty obvious to me that the light that just kept growing and growing was actually the sun coming through the trees but it was crazy because they didn't look like trees. The birds randomly chirped but not like before more like they are actually supposed to sound. For a long time I stared at some object that looked like an upside down V. I couldn't tell what it was but now I realize that it was the side of a kids swing set. I also remember hearing cars heading off to work in the morning. I couldn't really deceiver what this sound was at the time but I remember that I had no perception of how far away the cars were. Every sound I heard sounded exactly the same and from the same distance.
I sat there for a few good hours just in a daze. It took until about 11 in the morning for me to realize anything and everything. The thing I remember most about coming to in the morning was the moment I realized I was alive. The shock hit me like sticking a fork in a socket, (Literally) it stung. At the same time for a split second the world turned color negative and I heard a loud "ZOOM" in my ears. I was staring at a leaf on a tree branch when this happened. At that instant my mind started running wild again. I was thinking weird thoughts. I thought that I just earned my way into a whole new class of people who have really seen what life is really all about. I planned on trippin my way out of reality in the future. (After sobering up it is not something I want to do again.) I was so happy I started to dance right there where I was standing. I realized that no one was watching because I thought that if anyone woke up, looked out the window, and seen a kid laying on the ground with pants covered in urine that they would of said something by now. I finally got the courage to get the hell out of there. I had no idea where I was so I just started sneaking out of the backyard and hit the streets. When I realized where I was I ran all over the place hoping to find a friend to help me out. After about an hour I finally found some friends who were up and they helped me out.
After all of this I continued to take hallucinogenic drugs to find that bad trips were a new accepted part of my drug life. I often get the same feelings from this trip even when I only smoke weed.