Death

5

Endings, change, disillusionment, destruction, truth, uncertainty

A bright enough light can be just as blinding as darkness. Power corrupts and knowledge is its own prison. Under the guise of The Magician, The Seeker emerges reborn from the darkness only to burn his wings on The Sun, the white light of reason, of cause and effect, truth and consequence, the true eldritch abomination behind everything. The same force that creates and sustains life also harbours supreme power over it. It shines so bright that he doesn’t even cast a shadow. Even that which casts a shadow is engulfed by the supernal glow. All form disintegrates and flakes away in layers against the raw force of the universe’s breath. But there is still movement. There is still breath. The very mind that dispelled the illusions of the darkness turns out to be an illusion itself. Death is real, the shadow cast by life that transcends itself, the true universal constant, and takes on many forms; amnesia and the redistribution of matter are merely the flagella of this great force. But there is movement. Growth. A living planet would not consent to an autopsy. Conclusions are Death in the abstract. Full stops are just tiny black holes and black holes are infinitely dense nuclei that spawn new universes from nothingness, infantile big bangs. More lies and monkeyshines. And in strange aeons even Death may die.

 I was still annoyed that I hadn't got any effects from the LSA besides energy and mild nausea. Tommy passed out at about 5AM, and William brought the barbeque into Tommy's room to have spots.

The psychedelic effects of the LSA finally kicked in when I had my spot. It was almost instantaneous, and very different to what I'd experienced on LSD and mescaline. It was like flipping a switch, an abrupt shift in hue without any of the moving or evolving visuals I got from other psychedelics, that left my other senses untouched. I also felt a sudden and urgent need to leave. I realised that Tommy's parents would probably be getting up soon; they'd see the light on and come and check on us, and I'd start my trip getting told off for smoking weed while sobering up. William was annoyed at me when I told him I was leaving, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

I felt a lot better once I was out moving. My house was about a ten minute walk away and the sun was just rising. Everything had a strange violet tone to it. I went straight to bed when I got home. It took me a while to get to sleep, but I felt quite relaxed and comfortable. I wondered why the trip had taken so long to kick in, and concluded that the alcohol had weakened it and the weed had potentiated it, and decided to try the seeds again soon, but start my trip with weed instead of alcohol.

About two weeks later, William and I decided to take the full 300 seeds and see how we go.

Our plan that night was to go to a party in the city, at a flat where a bunch of my friends from school lived. We met up at Tommy's. Once again, William and I got started munching the seeds, and William and Tommy started getting drunk. We'd eaten most of the seeds when my friend Joe showed up. Joe was my friend from school, and one of the first people I smoked weed with. We also had a few of our early trips together. He was up visiting from Carrington, where he went to University, and was flatting with a bunch of my brother's friends from school. We gave Joe the rest of the seeds, smoked a joint, and set off.

It was about an hour walk to the party, and we went through Kura Park, stopping on a bench for Tommy, Joe, and William to slam a few beers. William and I were already feeling nauseous and a little bit spaced out. I definitely felt different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Talking was quite difficult. I had a hard time finding the words and kept losing my train of thought. This was vaguely annoying; but, knowing that it meant that the drugs were working, I was content to just let the others do the talking.

The party was kicking off when we got there. William and I were both feeling the LSA, but neither of us were sure exactly what it was doing. There was an unusual lack of sensory distortion or enhancement, which made the effects hard to quantify. Soon after, Joe started feeling it too, and we all agreed that we should find somewhere a bit less rowdy to let the trip settle in.

We found an empty room downstairs to hang out in, and the four of us made ourselves comfortable. William, Joe, and I started walking around on the carpet on our knees, and we all felt like we were wading through a knee-deep lake. Even though the visuals were still conspicuously absent, the sense that the carpet was water was almost powerful enough to describe as a hallucination. Tommy drank heavily while we tripped out. Out of the blue, he told us he was gonna piss in a cup and see if someone drinks it, and did it right in front of us. He got stage fright and couldn't go, but stubbornly waited for it to start while us three laughed hysterically at the possibility of someone coming downstairs to find three trippers pretending they're wading through a lake while another dude stands before them with his dick in a cup.

After a while, Joe had to leave to do a drug deal. Tommy and William wanted to go back up to the party. I was anxious about being around people, but didn't really want to sit down there by myself, so I followed them upstairs. My nausea had started to intensify, to the point that it felt more like stomach cramps. Upstairs, I tried to talk to my friends from school, but I couldn't find my words, and whatever I did manage to say came out wrong. Though I was never any good at small talk, I could usually make people laugh pretty easily, or at least talk about my interests in an entertaining way. But it was like I'd forgotten what a conversation was. I couldn't figure out what was expected of me, or why we would even want to talk to each other. Unable to talk to anyone else, I started looking for William, eventually finding him sitting on a couch in the lounge. I sat down next to him. In front of us, about ten people were dancing. William pointed out how weird dance floors are, how a bunch of people gather together to make weird shapes with their bodies. His eyes were wide open and blank; I realised that mine were probably the same, and that it was actually pretty creepy that we were just sitting on the couch staring at people dancing. I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do at a party; all I knew is that I probably shouldn't be sitting there staring at people.

I went into the kitchen and found Tommy getting yelled at for vomiting on the floor. I still wasn't getting any clear visuals, but the way my mind interpreted things was drastically altered. Drunk people all seemed to be sick and dying, and their faces had a haunted, demonic quality similar to the demon children we saw on the billboard on our mescaline trip. I tried to figure out whether I was hallucinating, but I couldn't grasp the difference between seeing and hallucinating. Someone offered me a spot; I accepted, hoping it would ease my growing nausea. As soon as I breathed out the smoke I completely lost grip on reality.

I could no longer distinguish between my nausea and my mental distress; even the horrific and chaotic scene unfolding around me seemed to be entwined with this experience. At some point, I became aware that Joe had returned and was trying to talk to me. He said something about getting ripped off on the drug deal, then told me that he thought he might be having a bad trip. He described what was going on in his trip, and I started to lose the distinction between his words and my thoughts. All I could say was, 'I'm sick,' over and over. I suddenly found myself surrounded by people, asking me if I was okay, telling me I looked pale. I started to feel suffocated; it was like they could all see into my thoughts, all my flaws and anxiety on display. I just kept telling them that I was sick. Even though I recognised them all, they all seemed alien and unfamiliar. I knew that they were my friends, but I couldn't remember what a friend was. It was time to leave.

I abruptly turned and left the party, informing everyone that I was sick. Before I made it to the door, Joe's flatmate, Dane, turned up. He was also one of my brother's friends from school. I told him that I was sick, but he insisted that I wasn't allowed to leave, because he wanted to introduce me to a couple of people he had with him. The idea of introducing myself to someone was pretty futile by this point, since I didn't even know who I was anymore, so I just kept walking. As soon as I stepped out the door, Dane's girlfriend, Gemma, appeared and gave me a hug. She started talking to me excitedly, and I told her that I was sick and pushed through her into the night.

Everything felt alien and unfamiliar on the walk home. The nausea had progressed to an intense, stabbing pain that brought with it a barrage of incoherent, anxious thoughts. I tried to wrap my head around the fact that I was tripping, but I couldn't figure out what it meant to trip, what aspect of my experience was different from my everyday consciousness. I could no longer distinguish between my thoughts, feelings, and senses. Nothing made any sense to me, and the only grip on reality I managed to hold onto consisted of isolated pieces of information I hoped were true, such as 'I'm sick', 'Going home', and 'on drugs.' Somewhere on the way, someone stopped me to ask if I was okay. My brain completely malfunctioned trying to process the question, and I started looking for it in my pocket. I quickly forgot what I was doing, told him I didn't know, and kept walking.

Luckily, no one was up when I finally got home. I lived with five strangers who I struggled to communicate with at the best of times. For lack of a better idea, I went straight to bed. The merging of concepts and sensations continued to intensify. I was shaking uncontrollably, and couldn't tell whether it was from fear or cold, or even what the difference between fear and cold was. When I realised that I couldn't stop shaking, and was, therefore, not in control of my body, I became convinced that I was having a seizure. My heart pounded erratically and my nausea intensified, merging with the cold and frightened seizure. I was vaguely aware that bed was where I slept, and wondered if that was what I was trying to do, but the idea of sleep made no sense. Was I asleep now? Would I know if I was asleep? The only understanding I had of sleep was that it was a kind of off switch. But the fact that I was trying to switch myself off meant that I was trying to die. The seizure, fear, nausea, cold, racing heart, and desire to be unconscious all combined into the belief that I was experiencing the process of dying. Considering my racing heart, I thought about my brother and his illness, but the memory of him felt so vague and distant, as did my memory of myself. Somehow, the disintegration of my concept of friends, family, and self, all seemed to be part of the process of dying. For what felt like forever, my mind went in loops, trying to distinguish between awake and asleep, asleep and dead, dead and alive, alive and perceiving, perceiving and thinking, thinking and dreaming, dreaming and hallucinating, hallucinations and consciousness, consciousness and sleep, over and over, like some kind of large scale mantra trying to cleanse my psychic turmoil.

The maze finally resolved itself with the conclusion that the loop itself was the fundamental basis of all reality, and I was existing in a state outside of life, death, sleep, and consciousness. Even time ceased to exist: Since the heart of reality consisted of an endlessly repeating loop of wondering, then there was no linear progression of time, just a circle with no beginning or end. This construct seemed to be localised where I was, so I concluded that all I needed to do to return to the illusory reality was move.

I got out of bed and left my room. Though I was still extremely confused about reality, I was starting to make sense of things enough to contemplate what to do. I spent a long time trapped in the hallway; I was trying to have a shower, get some water, and go to the lounge at the same time, but would only make it a few steps before forgetting what I was doing or changing my mind. Eventually, I ended up in the lounge, looking for a DVD to watch or an album to listen to. I tried to find something that wasn't about humans, but soon realised that doesn't exist - even nature documentaries have a human narrator; and even purely instrumental tracks are produced by humans. I started to wonder why humans are so obsessed with other humans, and came to a blindingly obvious realisation that seemed quite profound at the time: Animals don't create films or albums, and I can't escape from the human experience because I am, in fact, a human.

From here, I concluded that my only option was to create something of my own; what felt like an aversion to humans was actually the need for solitude, to reconnect with myself away from the influence of others. I went back to my bedroom and started shakily filling an A3 piece of paper with random psychotic thoughts and incoherent drawings. Though this page was quite harrowing to look back on, small fragments of poetry and truth sat amongst the insanity. My personal favourites are:

• The big bang never ended

• It's spooky when there's no visuals

• This is actually happening

• We're just creatures that wonder

• Live comfortably in the nightmare

It was almost sunrise when I finally went to bed. Though I was still shaken up, writing out my thoughts was quite cathartic, and I had become dimly aware that there was a normality that I would, at some point, return to. I remembered that I had some Zopiclone and took three of them, hoping things would be different when I woke up.

For a few weeks after that trip, I felt depressed, lethargic, and dissociated. Everything had a distant and unreal quality. I felt too disconnected from my body to skate properly, and too alien to be around people. For the first time in over a year, I took a break from drugs to recover.

I went back to the head shop about a month later looking for a new book to read or a new drug to try. Mitch told me he'd got more Morning Glory seeds in and had actually counted them out properly this time. He showed me a bag containing 300 seeds - it was about a quarter of the size of the bags we got from him earlier. Me and William must have eaten about 1000 seeds each that night. I told Mitchell that I'd had almost an entire bag to myself.

'Fuck. Must have been some vasoconstriction there,' he said.

And he was right. Somewhere between the writhing agony, total insanity, and weeks of derealisation, there had, indeed, been some vasoconstriction.

Nodus Tollens part five

Shrooms

I could barely contain my excitement as winter of 2008 drew near. Shroom season. Psychedelic drugs would be blooming from the earth. A few months of tripping without having to scope out, steal, and boil up San Pedro cacti; hunt down sources of overpriced and underdosed acid; or battle through the intense physical discomfort of LSA seeds.

Shrooms always had a mystical quality to me. I imagined them to be the ultimate psychedelic. Sometime the previous year, two of my friends from school, Stu and Gareth, had their first mushroom trip. Back then, my only experience with a true psychedelic was a low dose of mescaline. Their trip sounded insane. Stu said that he was convinced he'd killed someone and was a fugitive on the run, and that every car that drove past was part of a search party trying to hunt him down. Gareth and another friend, Bjorn, described similarly mind-melting experiences. Because of these stories, I put shrooms on a pedestal. It became clear later why their trip was so extreme. Those three had their first trip with William and Ty. It was Ty who dosed everyone. He was a pretty crazy dude, completely reckless and fearless in any situation, and just sadistic enough to not be above megadosing first time trippers - and himself - and try to hold it together and watch them squirm. Another factor was William. A year or so later, I was hanging out with Bjorn, Stu, and Gareth, while they reminisced about that trip. All three of them attributed their freak outs to something William said or did that day - apparently a mantra of 'Shut the fuck up William' permeated the trip.

In the winter of 2008, I was working part-time at my first job as a checkout operator at a convenience store. I was still on the sickness benefit, and had found out I could sell my Ritalin and Zopiclone, so I worked as little as possible. William and I still tripped on mescaline - and acid when we could find it - regularly, with whoever else was keen at the time. This was often our friend, Ryan, who we introduced to psychedelics earlier that year.

Ryan was an odd fellow. I went to high school with him, and we had some kind of friendship until he got expelled for computer hacking. He was a sullen, thoughtful guy, with a quiet recklessness simmering just beneath the surface. We reconnected at the start of 2008, when William convinced Ryan's flatmate, Darren, to let us cook mescaline at their house, and I convinced Ryan to trip with us. By then, Tommy had distanced himself from William and I somewhat, and Ryan filled the gap quite comfortably. At first, the three of us hung out at Ryan's flat most nights; over time, we started spending more and more of our time hanging out in Ty's basement where Bjorn was living.

My first attempt at a shroom trip was a disappointment. It was earlier that year. Darren, Stu, and I bought some shroom honey mixed into bottles of Powerade. We were told that each bottle had 100 shrooms in it. This was clearly a lie. We drank a bottle each, expecting to lose our minds, but all we got was a slight mood lift. This also severely skewed my perspective of how many shrooms were in a dose.