I know this post should perhaps have been posted into the health forum, and if the moderators feel so, then please move it there. However, this is no ordinary health problem. It does involve psychedelic experience.
This will probably be a long and for the most part uninteresting post for most people. It deals with something which I believe is an immaterial influence on physical things. This is the first time it happened to me, and it's not related to anything pleasant but to my long-time illness. You'll most likely think I'm talking about petty things, but I think I need to go into details and small nuances so that the reader can have a better picture of all that has lead to the odd thing.
In order to explain the newest problem with my ocassional marijuana use, I'll first have to briefly explain my main physical health problem.
Ever since I was 18 (I am 35 now) I have suffered from an obscure illness that only recently started to gain acceptance in the offcial medical community. It is extreme sensitivity to certain toxic molds and their toxins (mycotoxins). The official medical diagnosis would be Mycotoxicosis, or, more precisely, Chronic Neurotoxic Illness caused by mold and Mycotoxins.
It should be noted that is is very different from
1) common allergy to mold, and 2) fungal infections of body organs.
Patients with common allergy have sneezing, coughing, runny nose etc. It's nothing life-crippling. Fungal infections are more of a concern, but they can be treated, and are widely known in official medicine.
Of course, as far as toxic molds and their mycotoxins are concerned, everyone is affected negatively by them. However, since most peoples' immune systems are effective in removing these toxins, most people never experience any symptoms even if their environment is slightly or moderately contaminated. Huge contaminations will affect everyone. In fact, certain mycotoxins (e.g. trichothecenes) were and can be used as biological weapon.
Usually people develop this syndrome if they live in a house that has had a moisture problem or flooding, which results in excessive toxic mold growth. However, that's not the case with me. My flat and building never had these problems.
It appears I am genetically sensitive to *extremely* small amounts of mycotoxins and living molds, so I start experiencing serious symptoms even if I come into contact with objects that were cross-contaminated with these molds. The examples are: soap bars of certain brands, postcards made of certain paper, new clothes imported from certain countries... or if I come into close contact with a person who has been in a moldy area or house.
Cross-contamination is a major problem for people which are very sensitive to mold. It can cause huge problems that don't go away on their own for months and sometimes years or decades!
These are the symptoms I usually get when I come into contact with an object that's been contaminated with a toxic mold or mycotoxins:
- nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, burning skin, severe skin itching, memory problems, headache, extreme fatigue.
These symptoms go away very quickly if I decontaminate myself and my surroundings completely. That means taking shower, changing clothes, and lots lots of housecleaning (which, in case of more severe contaminations, is a very daunting and loathsome job).
There is no vaccine or real cure. As of recently, chronic patients are given cholestyramine to bind toxins from their blood. However, this doesn't make a person immune to future exposures.
Since 2004 I started using psychedelics in hope to gain more insight into my illness, and also to enjoy states of higher consciosness. On average I took magic mushrooms about 4-5 times a year, LSD only 3 times, and I tried mescaline once. I also smoked marijuana but I wouldn't describe my pot usage as chronic. Usually I'd obtain 20-30 grams and smoke it over the period of 1-2 weeks, then abstain for at least 2-3 months. I looked at my marijuana use as an extension to more powerful psychedelics. A way to integrate mushroom and lsd experiences if you will.
Truth be said, I don't think I gained much direct insight into my illness through the use of psychedelics. They have given me more energy and optimism, but not much more. As it turned out, Google was a much better source of information for my illness than psychedelics.
Now let me explain briefly my recent problem.
Somewhere at the beginning of July this year I obtained about 5 grams of weed through an acquaintance of mine. This sample weed proved to be quite good, and I didn't have any adverse reactions to it whatsoever. After about 10 days we decided to obtain 50 grams each of the same weed, for which I hoped would last me this whole summer. This acquantance of mine claimed that the bigger package of weed was from the same batch as the sample. I have no reason to doubt him, because it really tastes and feels exactly like the sample, but of course he could be lying.
The day I got the big stash, my father insisted it was high time that he painted our entrance door and one plywood board that's inside the flat between the entrance door and the door of my room. My father usually decides things like that on the spur of the moment, without any special reason. I am always a bit scared of every job of this kind, because if one makes the smallest mistake and some moldy cross-contaminated object is used, a catastrophe can ensue. However, I told myself everything would be ok, it's just the paint job, like many others in the past, nothhing serious can happen.
After it was painted, when I approached the door I felt only slight feeling characteristic of mold contamination, but it was nothing serious. I thought it would pass of itself and was probably caused by my father's clothes or spores from the air (so called normal air spore count). When my father went to his home (we don't live in the same flat), I waited for some time... and around midnight lit up a joint or two. I listened to music and chilled... but when I approached the freshly painted entrance door it kind of seemed to be emitting a larger amount of mold/mycotoxins than I one would expect. My stomach felt a bit nauseous and the skin started itching, but I attributed this to the usual effects of weed - namely, that it enhances all senses.
I remembered I had some anfifungal herbs, so I made a tea and applied that tea to the door and to the plywood board. This seemed to have helped a lot. For about three days I thought the door was ok. Then I applied some white spirit (paint diluent) to the door because I wanted to remove certain spots. This white spirit was applied to the whole outer side of the door and to the plywood board inside. The inner side of the door I did not touch since it didn't cause me any weird sensations. I was high on weed while I was doing this, but not too high. I didn't have the slightest idea what ODD and HARD TO BELIEVE things were about to happen.
It seems tht the white spirit paint diluent which I used was contaminated with some mold or (more probably) mycotoxins. By nightfall the door started to emit so much mycotoxins that I got very severe diarrhea and nausea. I am positively not allergic to white spirit, so that's out of the question. The symptoms I experienced were typical of mold contamination. I have over 15 years of experience with mold so I know how mold feels like when it hits me.
During next week I expected this would pass, but it didn't. I had to buy some paint removal substance, and even after I removed all the paint from the outer side of the door and from the plywood board, these surfaces were still offgassing and causing me problems. Only when I applied ammonia, did this mycotoxin emission cease. I repainted the outer side of the door with new paint and it seemed ok. The plywood board was a little more suspect so I wanted to wait a bit more to make sure it was ok to repaint it.
Now here finally comes the strangest part. After about a week, the situation with the door and plywood board seemed pretty stable, so I thought I was out of the danger. I decided I should relax a bit and smoked two joints after the two week hiatus. Everything felt normal, I listened to music and watched some movies. By the late afternoon the effects of weed wore off almost completely. But I felt that the plywood board started emitting mycotoxins again! It became contaminated once again!
What was the cause of this "resurrection" of contamination? Was it just a coincidence that I smoked weed again on that day, or did it have some cause-effect relationship after all? Of course, I thought it was coincidence, the real reason being that it was very hot and humid that day, and plywood is especially good surface for mold growth. However, an uneasy doubt about the possible unorthodox influence of pot started to set in...
I had to physically remove the plywood board, leaving behind it a hole in the wall filled with cement with uneven surface. This hole didn't cause me too much trouble, though it wasn't completely neutral. In any case I thought I resolved the problem. I thought the plywood was the food source for mold, and this cavity filled with cement won't be good for mold.
The theory that getting high on weed is causing some permanent physical change in some object nearby (without any contact or psysical intervention of the person who is under the influence of weed) simply defies all laws of science. In fact, such a thing cannot be explained in scientific terms. I felt very scared. How could this be? I wouldn't be so surprised if I had some funny feelings during the trip, but this always happened after I had come down.
When I say that I sense mold/mycotoxins immediately, it means I feel them on my skin like itching. It's much like anyone can instantaneously smell scents on objects just while passing by them, without even touching them. Since I know it can be hard to relate to my mold illness and "mold sense", I offer this analogy:
Imagine someone is growing the mushrooms. He sometimes smokes some weed. Each time he cames down after smoking weed, he finds that his mushrooms are covered with the nastiest contaminants and mold. There was no contact between him and the mushrooms while he was high. It simply doesn't make any sense.
The only thing that could still explain these strange happenings, while remaining in the domain of logic and science, was that this new weed was contaminated with something (mold perhaps). During smoking these toxins would be released into air. If they find a surface that offers fresh food (like freshly painted door or plywood board), they would settle on it and grow.
As I said, I waited for about a week, and then decided to eat a small amount of this weed, by cooking it with butter and milk. Thus I would avoid the possibility of contamination by smoke. I did that experiment 2 days ago. The morning after the trip everything seemed ok. The trip itself was pleasant, nothing unusual. And the door and the plywood board seemed to be ok too.
However, when it was almost dark (the effets of the weed wore off completely), and while I was passing by the door, I felt as if something "clicked", as if someone turned on some "switch", and the place where the plywood board was (now only a hole with cement surrounded by solid woodframes) suddenly started to emit something that felt positively like mold/mycotoxins. All this happened in a matter of a few seconds or minutes. The repainted outer side of the door, which was ok for almost 3 weeks, also started to cause me some symptoms. And I didn't even open the door during this experiment. I simply couldn't believe it!
I still can't understand what is going on here but something is definitely not as it should be. I decided to stop consuming weed altogether. I will probably stop doing other psychedelics as well, although they didn't cause me things like this. There was one similar incident with the mescaline + weed combination in August last year, but I attributed it to pure coincidence. (I can't go into details here, since this post is already too long).
I have at least three theories:
1. Coincidence (although statistical odds are not in favour of it anymore)
2. Some negative entity/energy attached on me or the space where I live while the door was being painted. It uses my weakest point (oversensitivity to mold and their toxins), makes me sick and then feeds off of my fear and feelings of uncertainty.
3. Some "positive" entity/force is likewise using my weakest point (health problem) to warn me not to use weed anymore, because it might be bad for some reason. (but what is that "positive" force that uses the very thing that has destroyed most of my life so far?)
... but the truth is, I don't know. All I know is that this is hardly a coincidence, and I am completely baffled because this is so far from normal. Btw. in almost 3 years of use of psychedelics (mainly mushrooms) and 6-7 years of ocassional pot use, I never experienced worsening of the mold sensitivity. At worst, psychedelics were neutral.
Are there some more experienced people who can help me find out what is really happening here? It's unsettling to say the least! I fear this pattern of random happenings can start springing up with no reason whatsoever, or for completely unrelated reasons.
Perhaps there is someone who is skilled in shamanism, or knows how weed can interfere with physical reality through higher (astral?) planes? Any helpful advice is welcome. You can also PM me if you wish.
Edited by alphaone (07/31/06 11:34 AM)
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