PRE-CONDITIONS
(mind)Set: calm, slightly tired
(physical condition) Set: baseline
Setting (location): quiet room of house with dimmed lights
time of day: 2322
recent drug use: none
last meal: 1500, grape salad
PARTICIPANT
Gender: male
body weight: 74 kg
known sensitivities: none
history of use: novice
BIOASSAY
Substance(s): DMT (powdered orange resin mixed with white crystals)
Dose(s): 20 mg (?)
Method of administration: vaporizer
The night before last I opted to experiment with the "orange" batch which I had yet to touch; a highly resinous composite separated from the pristine white crystals of an earlier extraction. Though after vaporizing approximately 20 mg of the stuff (of which it was impossible for me inhale a full tidal volume) I will now refer to it as the "wicked" batch, ehhe. It resulted in the most intense and at times terrifying experience I've had thus far with the spice. The speed of the onset was most remarkable.
I had decided to take a week off from work for some much needed mind/body rejuvenation through meditation and the completion of a few art projects I've been working on. Though I've had a wonderful resurgence of creative motivation and inspiration in my life (eternal thanks to the Nexus and its members for that!) I've been feeling a bit lonely and emotionally isolated. Not to take away from the wonderful people in my life and the valuable relationships I have with them... but more of an existential loneliness that's been hanging around like an unemployed dead-beat friend who is sleeping on your couch and eats all of your cereal at 2 a.m. Who likes to pop his head up and nag at my psyche from time to time; "what are you doing with your life? Why are you still single? Maybe if you weren't so eccentric you wouldn't feel alone. Maybe if you conformed more you would have a happier life"... blah blah blah, etc. and so on, ad nauseam.
I carefully prepared the bowl of my vaporizer with 20 mg of the yellowish orange spice (I wanted to be cautious about the dose since I had yet to try this variation) and completed my usual ritual of igniting incense and playing soft ambient music. I then meditated on my loneliness with the intention of getting to the bottom of its tenacity during my journey with the spice.
When I felt ready I lit and methodically inhaled. I wasn't even able to inhale the warm vapors to full lung capacity before I thought "UH-OH!" and forced myself to quickly set the pipe and lighter down. My body just exploded with the most excruciatingly intense sensations; pleasure becoming painful and pain becoming pleasurable. It felt like my tongue sprouted razor sharp daggers inside my mouth and then was lit on fire! Concurrently the room fractured into a dizzying array of complex patterns and everything in the room began to elongate vertically while becoming hard, shiny and ultra-focused. The background music turned vividly visual, dancing within the harsh flower-like geometries swarming around me into perpetual complexity. Everything was imbued with a sort of pressured fanaticism.
And the vibrations were terrible, a kind of tuning in and out that saturated everything. When it would tune in the frequency became so intense it seemed to threaten to rip the world apart at the quantum level... my futile attempt at a respectful mindfulness, to stay seated upright in half-lotus position and keep my eyes half-lidded, was rebuked with a psychic blast of data radiation overwhelming all of my senses. I had no choice but to shut my eyes and lay back, letting everything my mind was grasping at for support sink under the tide of vibration and disintegration. It literally felt like my mind was gasping for breath, though I had no awareness of my physical body at this point and the concept of breathing was meaningless.
I found myself in a large dome-like space, looking up at a sea of angrily vibrant primary color in rabid motion. Tube-like battery shapes connected by electrified zigzag wires were the dominant fractal geometry here. There was a completely strange and alien ovoid form bobbling all around along the concave ceiling of the dome, like gravity was reversed but I was looking up. I couldn't decide if this was an entity type form or some ultra-complex gyroscope robot by its bizarre, random gliding movements. There was no sense that it was aware of me or had an intrinsic awareness at all. It had a kind of body without arms or legs (a cross between a Russian doll form and one of those egg shaped children's toys with liquid inside, that slides and bobbles back upright when swatted). There was a windshield type face and I could see into its inner workings where there appeared to be some hyper dimensional clockwork business going on; gears rotating in fantastical ways. There was some type of mechanical calendar or timekeeping system spinning like some bizarro sideways odometer in a recess of its midsection. Its colors were of the background fractals and glistened/morphed mechanically off of its platicy, glass-metallic surface.
I remembered thinking, "what the hell is this even? Is it even conscious and how am I suppose to ask it my existential question?!?" I was at a loss... it was truly absurd to even contemplate communication. I strengthened my resolve though and reluctantly floated up to it in the spirit of discovery and attempted to communicate. It seemed to have been unaware of me (if it even had awareness) and I tried with all my ability to form a "hello" but I didn't even get THAT out. As soon as I tried to "talk" to it, it kind of turned on me and filled the entire space with this loud painful vibration/garble and I failed to even remember sounds or words or questions.
The space vibrated into a different, larger space and I was floating before this glowing white sphere. My question was lost to me as if my thoughts were being slowly blown from my awareness. I could barely remember the concept of "communication" at this point but I kept willing myself to "say" anything but was failing miserably. Finally, with a grand effort, I somehow pushed out my consciousness towards the orb in a sense of "I AM HERE I AM HERE WHAT AM I I AM HERE!!!"
The response was another painful shock wave in high frequency and then a blurring vibration of everything. When the vibration settled I found myself in what looked more like a traditional space which was warehouse-like with dark, rich wooden walls and a high ceiling. There was a wooden half wall dividing the space and something was on the other side of the wall glowing misty white and creating strong waves of vibration frequency, the waves came in the rhythmic pattern of a heart beat. Each beat sending out pulses of white milky light and mist which spilled over the wall, and with each beat too an almost unbearable painful vibration increasing with intensity in a cumulative effect. The room began to shake, the space and its dividing wall vibrating so quickly at one point it was as if an enlarged material reality was forming intermittently.
My mind began to crack, fracturing with the wall before me in a horrific parade to destination insanity. The experience had become truly unbearable as my awareness was finding less and less to hold onto. I became desperate, franticly searching for any kind of meaning and relevance in an attempt to make sense of this reality. I was being blown away, as sure and certain as the cycles of the ocean tides and the rising and setting of the sun. I was about to give up and relinquish myself to insanity, but just then I became aware of something dense and stable near me, and discovered the presence of my heart which had been there with me the whole time... it seemingly unaffected by the ensuing chaos. A real life raft in a sea roiling by a hurricane of insanity. Woohoo! I latched on, somehow remembering previous meditation practices on the heart chakra.
So I held onto my heart for dear life, the vibrations continued to fracture my mind like a livid rhinoceros in a china shop on fire. There were cracks splitting and snaking progressively with each pulse. The half wall dividing the space shattered, its pieces morphing into translucent glass, suspended in mid-air. Peering through the fractured glass wall was a giant white porcelain doll head with eyes deep and black like pools of slick oil. It was cracking with the rest of the world, the bulbous head slightly spinning sideways and looking off into the distance, cold and emotionless. With each vibration pulse a thick oily stream of blackness (or maybe dark red blood) would stream out of its optic cavities, branching into progressively thinner and complex rivulets. The liquid began leaking through the cracks in the now shattered half wall, suspended in the air like arteries and veins inextricably reaching out towards me.
Thank the universe for my heart, it felt truly resilient and deep. I was able to detach enough from the madness and channel most of my consciousness into my heart space. Just observing the goings on without fully experiencing the outrageous insult to my psyche. It even became almost pleasant observing things from this vantage point. The space softened a bit and more positive sensations flowed, taking the harsh and painful edge off. I watched the doll head slowly obliterate itself, fusing with the broken glass in an obscene stop -motion kind of progression. Each vibration pulse would stop the environment in a freeze frame, an eerie cacophony of porcelain and glass shards sullied by the oily residue suspended in complex branches. Each frame started to vibrate in sync with my heart and washed my being with confused emotions. After a time the vibration and feelings became quite bearable and cumulatively bittersweet.
At some point I found my breath (thinking, Thank Baby Jesus!!!), the tether back to my physical body and I slowly began to drift back as the spice wore off. I passed through another room, reminding me of a dingy dark bar, absent of patrons. A bizarre jukebox contraption played a lonely tune in the corner. A dark, dense looking brown mass was slowly engulfing it, brown branches sprouted up and out of it like a tree devoid of life and leaf. On its branches draped pieces or red flesh and bodily organs, like a grotesque Christmas tree displaying grisly ornaments.
I continued to drift back until I was aware of the familiarity of my living space and room, though it seemed wholly transformed with spiraling fractal patterns in flamboyant Technicolor. The space was saturated with multidimensional blooming flowers, unfolding outward yet folding in at the same time. I realized my physical body had become a sarcophagus laid out down and below me on a slab of an ancient altar.
The shape of my body was thick and heavy without limbs but elongated and tapered gracefully to contain a human form. It looked very much akin to an Egyptian Pharaoh's sarcophagus though less decoratively elaborate, and was at the same time my physical body (?). There was an ethereal white mist of light drifting inward like incense into an opening at the third eye. I felt my awareness being laid gently into the sarcophagus, where I abided for a good length of time while the last lingering effects of the spice wore off. I very much enjoyed the feeling of breathing and was relieved in every fiber of my being that I made it back in one piece (and mind), if not a little worse for the wear.
"If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth" Jacob's Ladder