Fractal Zen

I took an eigth of an ounce (dried) at around 8pm.. The day before April fools. This was my second time tripping. The first time had seemed really cool, but it wasn't much (just like really good kind bud for a really long time). I was the only one shrooming, my friends had decided to throw down a lot of weed into an immense blunt. While they were busy stuffing it, I was trying to help someone fix their computer. As a Computer Science Major I get a lot of that kind of shit. The person knew I was tripping but I fix peoples computers all the time while drunk and or stoned, I figured it wouldnt be too different. I noticed however after I fixed it that people in the rooms faces started to blur for a second, and then come back again. Then I noticed this ying-yang poster on the wall and it had this intense 3-d effect. Well I decided I better go back to my friends rolling the blunt. In case I freaked or something they would know what to do. So I sat there for a while and once they were done we decided to go to The Fenway (a small park) to smoke the blunt. I started to notice that voices seemed to become wobbly every now and then.. Sort of alien sounding.. So we went to The Fenway (aka The Fens) and went behind this building to smoke. This was when I peaked I guess... I saw street lights projecting the branches of trees onto the concrete building we were smoking behind.. I noticed these seemed to shift and were forming a tesselating pattern. Then I noticed crystal formations on the wall as well. Sort of spikey crystal branches. I only took one hit off the blunt, I figured I was good enough already... So we decided to walk around the fens a bit. I saw these images on the ground of crystal latices and fractals and all sorts of stuff. Now as a Zen Buddhist I believe the universe is a united whole. I came up with the idea that religions were created because people mistook branches comming out of the united whole for other things. Its hard to explain, but for example early pagans sort of worshipped trees, where you have the fractal branches. New age people think they find things in crystals, which sort of have fractal patterns inside them. My theory was that people are mistaking the fractal nature of the universe for something to be worshipped instead of just enjoying the esstential one-ness of the universe. I tried to explain this to my friends but they were all baked and obviously could not cope with these ideas. I felt reality was sort of an illusion and realities themselves were confined in crystal chambers which folded into massive fractal branches which all came from the one source. I saw these branches dissolve and got a deep feeling of being one with everything.. A sort of satori state. Well after this we left The Fenway and went to the local convienence store (all my friends had the munchies). I was sort of horrified by this whole experience.. Here I had been among nice trees and nature (well the fenway isnt exactly a nice place, but still) and I was thrust into this glowing world of packages products and crap. I got this feeling that this was very bad, and that people should get away from all this crap. It didnt help either that all the colors were probably far more brilliant and garrish than they normally are. I wandered over to the deli and saw a pickle jar and bought a half-sour pickle for .59 cents.. I dont know why.. It just seemed like the thing to do.. So then I wandered back up to my friends room and we chilled there for a while, and I looked at some fractals on his computer. Then I went back into my room and put the pickle in the freezer and lay down. The last thing I noticed before I went to sleep was crystal patterns in my bed sheets, that was about 2 AM, April 1st 1998... The next morning when I woke up I noticed there is in fact a subtle pattern on the sheet, I just hadnt noticed it!

Afterwards I felt I had gained a lot from this trip.. It was almost religious in nature.. Its hard to explain. I hope I continue to have 'beneficial' trips in the future.