I Am Jesus

A little background information. I'm 21 years old.

I had just moved to Vancouver from a backwoods town in the same province called Nelson, well renowned for heavy drug use and hippie/psychadelic culture. However, I was never much of a drug user and had only dipped into marijuana, although I was heavily into it. I had even spent 90 dollars on a crafty bong at a pawn shop. I had done mushrooms once before, but it was a bad batch and produced no effects other than a little awkward behaviour that I attribute to my own anticipation of the drug.

A friend of mine, Nik, a crazy Russian who I knew from a hockey forum, invited me over to his house to do mushrooms and just have a good time. Our plans were originally to go to the ferries and scout around while tripping. Nik and his buddy (I forget his name) picked me up at the skytrain station at 5PM, and then we drove to his place.

It was your standard college bachelor house. Two bedrooms, unkempt but not messy, not decorated much and giving the feeling of laziness. Huge television and amazing sound system for some reason - most of the other furniture was worn down and their fridge was mostly empty aside from a few beers.

We all decided to go get some food before we had our good time - we didn't want to do it on an empty stomach. I went to Burger King and my friends went for Chinese food. I brought the Burger King into the Chinese restaurant, almost got kicked out, and eventually convinced them to let me stay, but I got a lot of sneers the whole time from the staff and other patrons. I left a tip for their troubles.

Once we got back, we took our doses. I had 2 grams, Nik is bigger so he had 2.5, and the other guys were around my size and each had 2 grams. The fifth guy, Nik's roommate, was playing watchdog and didn't take any. It was one person's first time, but he produced no effects like I did - I think I was the only one who was tripping in such a way.

We decided to go to a local pool hall to waste time while we waited for the mush to kick in - we ate them with chocolate rather than making tea, so we had to wait for it to digest. A game in, I decided to buy us a pitcher of Kokanee. I only had one beer - the first one didn't go down well. Nobody was feeling any effects yet. I was anticipating and started to feel a little lightheaded and dizzy, but I thought that was the alcohol. We walked back to Nik's place and started to watch a documentary on Kevin Smith.

Two hours after the consumption we still hadn't felt anything. We each took another half gram. I told them after that that a friend of mine would smoke marijuana to "trigger" the mushroom journey. We had about three bowls between the four of us - good stuff, too. It hit us almost instantly.

At first I was just sitting in a comfortable chair like a dummy. The colors of his walls were INCREDIBLE. Colorful things became the greatest things in the world. All I wanted to do was look at things that were colored funky. His pastel light green and pastel light purple walls made me feel like I was in a dollhouse. It was the greatest feeling ever - I was secure and comfortable.

Time passed, the movie ended without me noticing, and I was sitting in that chair, drooling like an idiot. I had the bag of mushrooms in my hand and continued to eat more as if they were Doritos. Nobody was doing anything about it because they were all too fucked to care. I estimate that I ate another 2 and a half grams from the baggie. My memory becomes a little choppy at this point. I was lying down for a while on a bed in the livingroom and don't remember going there. I closed my eyes and I was getting a great feeling. It was the single greatest feeling I had ever felt before. It was like a billion orgasms, all concentrated in my brain. In my mind's eye, I was visualizing a tiny sperm making contact with an egg, much like conception. I decided that I had felt Nirvana.

This is when I started to flip out. I had also decided that I was now addicted to drugs. I thought, after feeling this great feeling, that I wouldn't ever be happy again feeling normal. I was under the impression that this is why heroin addicts just keep doing heroin until they die. Nothing matters except this feeling. I became upset. I didn't want to let my family down. I was thinking of my mom who spent a lot of time and energy raising me, and I didn't want to let her down and become a lowlife drug addict who only cared about himself. I didn't want to put her through that. I started running around the house, looking for a knife or a gun to kill myself with. I found Nik and I ordered him to kill me. He looked really scared and tried to sit me down. He got me some water and some bread but I was still upset. I tried to rationalize away the thoughts I was having as drug experiences, but the feelings were so absolute and convincing that I couldn't do it. I ran into the kitchen looking for a knife, but I was shaking too much to open a drawer. I dropped to the ground and started whimpering and pushing myself into the corner. I got up again and told him to kill me again, then asked his friend, saying he didn't know me so he wouldn't feel bad for doing it. They told me to go lie down and so I did. I was quivering a little bit. I didn't notice because my mind was disappearing, but I had started to convulse. I saw what most people describe as a white light, but it wasn't really a white light. It was more like an absence of recognition of a physical realm - I saw absolutely nothing at all, as opposed to just a light that was really bright. I felt something pulling me towards it. They told me that before I convulsed, I was muttering to myself "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die". While I was convulsing, I heard Nik's friend say to him "Maybe we should take him to a hospital. I've heard about stories where drug users said they were gonna die and then they did." I snapped out of my convulsions at this point and that's when my panicking ended.

At that point, I felt a universal understanding. My mind felt like it could freely leave my body at will and transcend into an alternate dimension. I saw my body from at least a foot above it, and my eyes were still open. I shut off my worldly senses and sensed that I was a ball of energy. I felt balls of energy in the room - two, to be exact, and I felt that they belonged to Nik and his friend. My energy ball was playing with theirs. I was staring directly at Nik this entire time, apparently, and he was staring back. I felt that this trip was intentional, and the two of them were agents that gave me mushrooms to bring me into this higher realm of understanding and consciousness.

I started to "understand" more things. I use the word lightly - I do not accept this as fact now that I'm sober, but it was solid fact to me while I was tripping. I understood why Jimi Hendrix died. I understood why Janis Joplin died. I understood why Brad Nowell died. I understood why Kurt Cobain died. They died on purpose. Their overdoses were simply transgressions into new stages of their soul's journey - their completion of the physical realm. They knew something that nobody else knew. They knew something that Harvard grads, Fortune 500 CEOs, computer programmers and rocket scientists would never know. I understood that if I had not been interrupted, I would have "overdosed" and proceeded into the next physical realm. I understood Jesus suddenly - he didn't want us to go to church and worship God, he wanted to lead us into death. The bible, Christianity - these are simply tools to help people reach this same understanding I had reached. I knew I could have grabbed more mushrooms and finished the job off, but I decided I wasn't ready. I decided I was the second coming of Jesus. I wanted to stay alive to spread word of this wonder.

I was suddenly happier than I had ever been before. I felt incredibly light. Moving required no effort and I had a general great feeling about me. I assured Nik that I was going to be fine and that I could go to bed safely. This was at around 2AM. I slept well that night and still felt great the next morning when I woke up at 11.