MX Missle Blast-Off

I still cannot figure out what happened that night. I was definitely not new to the field of mushrooms; before this night I had dosed probably close to 50 times - and some of these trips were *extremely* intense. But in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 13, 1997, I apparently did something that would go on to change my life indefinitely.

My friend and I each took a White Dove (ecstasy) pill around 9pm that night - the six others that lived in our suite all ate some fungus at around the same time. I had a stash of my own mushrooms that I was planning on eating with the rest of them, but when my E-friend told me that he had two roll pills, I decided to eat one of those instead - having never tried it before.

By 10pm, I was feeling sedated, relaxed, and peaceful. Because this was my first time experiencing the joys of ecstasy, I felt especially wonderful. Not a thing in the world was wrong. We went out to a party for awhile, and the two of us on E sat together and enjoyed the music as well as each other's company. We were amused by the state of our other friends that were tripping on shrooms - they had come to the party, too - and were beginning to get pretty lit up. It wasn't long, however, that they began to realize that their states of mind were not compatible with the party scene, so we headed back to our on-campus suite to relax.

We arrived back in our rooms by 11:30pm - I was still experiencing the intense rushes of pleasure, continually smiling, while my mushroom friends were still enjoying the peak of their trips. My mind in a whirl, I recalled the 3.5g of Liberty Caps that I had stashed away in my desk drawer. I pondered eating them, trying my hardest to determine what would ensue. Everyone wanted me take them to see what the combination of shrooms and ecstasy would be like. Deliberating, realizing that I would be up for the rest of the night and everyone else would be asleep by 3 or 4 am or so, I decided to take the solo trip of my life. I ate the entire eighth-ounce of Liberty Caps, jar of peanut butter in hand, at midnight.

We began playing some spades at our card table; I was merely trying to pass some time - everyone else was already tripping and amusing themselves by the cards. After about 45 minutes of spades, while the ecstasy was still rolling strong, the effects of the mushrooms began to set in. The effects began like they did in every other mushroom trip that I had endured: dreamy, flowing, trails; enhanced colors; mild sedation; and the like. What I would soon notice, however, that would be more intense that it had ever been before, was my altered sense of time. My trip progressively became more intense for what seemed like the next 6 hours. Because 1am marked the end of my ability to accurately track time, I can no longer recall the specific times at which certain events took place.

But sometime around 1am, maybe a little after, I took a seat on our couch in the infamous "red room," a room completely illuminated with nothing but red lights. As I listened to my friend play his guitar, I realized how incredibly fucked up I was and how incredibly intense my experience was. Pondering the intensity of the experience, realizing that by just after 1am it was already the most intense trip I had ever encountered, I failed to think that it could become any more intense. But I could not have been any more wrong. My vision became more and more distorted, my body more and more motionless, and my hearing soon became practically worthless. Anyone familiar with the "wa-wa's" of nitrous oxide can relate. But the redundant echoing of my friends' voices would continue for the next several hours, unlike the abrupt ending of nitrous.

The next realization was that I could not move. I do not say this as an exxageration of my sedation; I literally *could* not move. I sat in the same place on the couch until reality slowly re-rentered my conciousness. I was sweating bullets, and I was dehydrated like never before. I mumbled for someone to get me a glass of water, although I really didn't even have the ability to move the glass, once placed in my hand, to my mouth. I got enough in my mouth to temporarily sooth, while spilling the majority of the water on my chest.. It was at this point that I could decipher someone's apparent incoherent rambling as something to the effect as, "this kid is really fucking wacked!"

My eyes lay directed, yet unfocused, at one of the many beer posters in the room. Aided by the red illumation, this large poster served as the basis for a large portion of the remainder of my trip. My eyes seemed to extend from my seated body into the poster, pulling my lagging torso behind. I dove through the poster and into the scene it portrayed, watching closely as casual bar-goers would drink their beer and aim their cue sticks. It was at this point that I literally became lost.

When I finally became able to muster enough energy to make attempts to communicate with my friends, I convinced myself that they were all aware of something that I wasn't. I figured this was typical paranioa associated with such an intense trip, but nonetheless I became nearly frightened when I began to believe that I was no longer the same. As far as I was concerned, I had been taken, by who I had no clue, but I had been taken from my normal life at the college to some other foreign domain. Although some of the things that I could see I can recall as being reminiscent of my dorm room, I was absolutely *convinced* that I was not at my normal location. I was also convinced that the people around me, although they all resembled the person that they were, had all obtained new identities. At one point, I believed that one of my friends was gay and was going to try to rape me. I didn't think it was possible to be as completely LOST as I was this night. I finally learned that I had never known the meaning of lost before this night. I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done to get me where I was. And this was my continuing dilemma for the remainder of my adventure.

By the time I was beginning to return, everyone had disappeared into their beds - the last one up besides me was the one that I thought was going to rape me, and headed quickly to bed, probably frightened *for* me, when I mentioned my thought. The sun was beginning to rise, but my mind was still so convoluted that I refused to believe that everything was the same. I was absolutely certain that an enormous change had taken place, and that things would never be the same.

For the first time in about six hours or so (I know this because the sun had just risen), I made my way up from the couch to hit off the bathroom. My muscles felt so drab, like I had been sleeping for weeks. I struggled to make my way toward the toilet, and became more disoriented when I glanced at the normally off-white tiles and noticed them to be a pale green. I proceeded to the toilet where I relieved myself, only to be freaked out by the color of my urine - a distinct pale blue-green, falling downward in a spiral - definitely unlike the typical linear stream that I am used to. I shook my head and continued onward through the bathroom to my bedroom, where I climbed the ladder to my bunk and put my head down. Surprisingly, I don't recall tossing and turning in bed for long - I must have fallen asleep in a timely fashion.