I took two hits, big ones. He suggested a third, but as I reached for it, I could feel the waves taking over. It was, at first, like the wave of elation that comes from nitrous oxide.
I felt my arms weaken. I leaned back, saying whoa, and closed my eyes. I felt myself starting to laugh.
That's when the dream ended, and I awoke to a nightmarish reality I hope never to experience again.
It was like Neo's 'matrix' awakening, but sudden, not gradual. After I laid down, I blacked out; at least, I did so from the consciousness of this 'reality.’ And I awoke in another, one far more disorienting and terrifying than I believe I can relay, but I'm going to try.
I was spinning, or the world around me was, continually, at a steady and constant pace. And in a distorted fashion that I can best describe as kaleidoscopic. And by that, I don't mean the childhood concept of a colorful Kaleidoscope, but the optical prism kind, where all things are sectional and divided through angles in the glass, and as you move, all things around you move inward or away in reflective fashion.
The continual motion kept the prism effect constant, and I felt affixed at the seam of one edge. Things that moved away did so in such a fashion that it 'tore' away at the very fabric of space and time. It tore away in a manner that, as it did so, a segment of myself, both physically and mentally, was pulled along with it and, on the other side, rejoined. This was not a painful experience, but mentally anguishing and something that required my gasping for breath, continually, as it repeated over and over, as the wind felt so continually knocked out of me that I could barely catch my breath, let alone focus, hold my place, still my mind or stop any of the chaotic feelings that came with this overwhelming experience. I can only try to relate it to finding yourself being suddenly and intensely frightened, say by a loud sound, perhaps the crunching of metal and glass in an unexpected accident, or the peak moment of fear when you're unexpectedly crept up on and intentionally frightened. Those moments, that breathtaking millisecond of disorientation and surprise and, to a degree, terror, is what I was feeling. Continually. Without stopping. In an ongoing nightmarish manner.
I struggled to grasp onto something but barely had the energy or the mental focus to do so, as the ongoing experience of this moving, tearing cycle was overwhelming. Trying to fix onto anything mentally was akin to being pressed up against the back of a rapidly spinning cylinder and attempting it lift your arms against the centrifugal force that was pressing them back. I was not going that fast in this rotating prism experience, but it did feel like the struggle to stay conscious and in the moment took every ounce of energy and effort on my part.
The thing was, this was unyielding. I was mentally and physically pulled and rejoined continuously for some time. It was unending, and the disorientation was consuming.
In that unending movement and cycle, I became immediately aware that nothing I believed, experienced or knew was real. None of it. It had all been an illusion. My childhood, family, friends, and children. All just in my mind. This, the relentless ongoing spinning, tearing, disorienting cycle of this prism, was real. This was where I had always been during the time I had the dream of life. Now I was awake, present, in the actual moment, experiencing the absolute truth of my proper place and consciousness.
It was horrible. It was terrifying. It was utter and complete hell. I could not grasp a thought or orient myself in any way. The sudden and increasingly solidifying idea in my mind was that THIS existence, this continual ongoing ripping and moving and blending and gasping for air, was IT. This was awareness and authentic presence. And it would not stop. I could not stop it. There was a force therein, one telling me in my head to accept that my ongoing reality and experience was to be this unyielding, unending.
It was inconceivable. And I shit you not; It’s one of the most REAL feelings I have ever had. Even now, this does not feel like it was some drug-induced experience. I was there; I felt this shift and a complete physical and mental presence in that place. And it felt like I had to accept this as the TRUE nature of existence. I cannot emphasize how truly REAL that felt.
As this was happening, all this movement, all this mental and physical chaos, I was repeatedly saying "No, no, no, no" in that place. It was the first step I felt towards getting some footing of some kind in this, but it was barely all I could do to say that again and again as the prism-like consciousness went on and on and on. I felt myself struggling to hold onto the idea and concept of my wife, of my children, the dream and vision of an entire physical world and all the associated memories of it, even though it was crystal clear to me right then and there that ALL of it never existed in any absolute sense. Adding all the more to the horror that lay in thinking that THIS was what I'd be conscious of and experiencing now.
Along with the sense of living out that moment above of surprise and fear, I was awash with the despair and loneliness that came with facing the idea that all I thought I knew was gone, had never been in the first place, and that the life I had was not only forever out of reach, but the absence of it would haunt me and echo painfully in my thoughts throughout this ongoing and never-ending cycle of agonizing momentum.
As it continued, I kept saying "no" over and over. I struggled further to think of my life and the things that mattered so much that I could not accept abandoning or accepting as having been fragments of my imagination during a dream-like state I'd suddenly awoken from. I thought of my wife and kids and fought against the movement. I still felt something, or someone was repeatedly telling me to accept this. Still, I could not, as it was inconceivable to imagine an eternity in this disorienting state of motion and chaos. I thought about my kids and managed to say something about them and my need to get back to them. I thought of Lauren and said I needed to return to my daughter, who needed me there.
I felt a presence of some sort and heard an echoing voice. The visual movement continued, but at one point, I no longer felt that I was the only constant as all things moved in a prism-like orbit around me. Someone gradually became a part of this, enough so that I felt them beside me and spinning with me. It took several moments, but I slowly recognized the outline of a face. I didn't know who this was, but there was another person in this now. While all continued to cycle, they gradually became more apparent. I was still saying 'no, no no' and they were saying something in return. I mustered up enough focus to ask who they were, and I remember them saying, "it's T, G. It's T. Your like a brother to me".
I found myself focusing on them, recognizing that this was Tom, and gradually feeling the spinning and disorientation starting to slow and dissipate, starting from the center and moving outward. As did some of the peripheral items, Tom gradually became more focused. And I found myself able to walk, weakly and without great confidence or balance, a bit in this slowing cycle of disorientation. I felt grounded. The blurred edges began to settle slightly. I felt some gravel beneath my feet and the coolness of the air on my face, and I recognized the outline of trees against the night sky. Tom's house and the car also became focused, and I realized I was standing outside on his driveway.
I remained utterly disoriented and off balance. I stood there, staggering there, walking in slow circles, looking about, and wanting, needing DESPERATELY to hold onto something to believe that this was real. I leaned on and pressed my lips to the edge of his car. I wanted to feel it, taste it, know it was there, sensory, and something I could experience. I wanted to feel its weight and density and that it was solid matter. It was like grabbing onto an anchor point.
I wasn't able to speak. I stared about, looking at Tom, the house, the car, and the sky. I stood in complete uncertainty as I awaited the motion’s start and the spinning. I struggled to put this into context again, fully recognize Tom and this place and trust any of this as being permanent.
I vaguely recall Tom saying something, but I don't remember what; only the "It's T" comment stayed with me. I stood beside the car, touching it, looking at my friend and this place as a moment of delusion that would likely be taken away as quickly as it came, without my ability to stop it, as that prism cycle resumed.
I walked about a bit more in the driveway and slowly accepted, with great fear and hesitation, that this was where I was again. I looked at my friend with a cocked and skeptical head, still doubting this was not about to dissipate, and I tried to catch my breath.
The door to his house was open, and I slowly managed to walk into it, look about, and recognize my belongings, his furniture, and the pipe on the coffee table that contained the silva I'd inhaled only a few minutes beforehand. Those things helped me grasp the probably but not the certainty that this might be 'stable,' that I might not fly off again into that horrible alternate state, and that I'd been here recently, smoking something that would take me somewhere else.
I sat on the stair in his living room, still not talking, still catching my breath, still trying to put this all into perspective. I felt that, in a way, I'd 'awakened' into that alternate reality, the "TRUE" reality of my cellular or molecular level existence in some abstract and chaotic TRUTH and enlightenment, and through my struggles not to let go of this dream and vision, I put my virtual 'foot into the spokes' as it were, and was able to stop that and fight my way back to the dream state I was once again in.
But that prism, the tearing, the merging, the unending cycle, those WERE truth and at any moment as I sat there trying to center and balance, I could slip back into it and perhaps not find my way back again.
It took some 30 minutes for me to relax. I talked through the experience with Tom as I sat on his stairs, trying desperately to convey the magnitude of what I had just gone through. How real it felt. The horror, the visual, physical and emotional unraveling. But it was just impossible to do. I could not accurately convey the details of the experience, or at least not so, to my satisfaction, that he might comprehend it to any degree of how genuine it felt.
Even now, as much as I know and understand how chemicals might impact other chemicals and cause something as dissociative as this, I wonder which is the reality and which is the hallucination.
I said that it felt like being in hell, and I meant it. I can't think of anything more terrifying and horrific than to be stuck, for eternity, in such a mental and physical state of anguish, confusion, fear, despair, loneliness and regret.
This morning I did more research about this salvia stuff, and one of the Wikipedia statements is that those who intake too much can have negative experiences. They would typically never try it again.
No duh.
Because there was nothing else but this moment and the experience. I felt and to a reasonable degree still feel, like that was another plane or dimension of consciousness that does exist and is going on now.
11/08/08 5:25 PM afterthoughts
I'm on the plane ride home. It’s a bit rough, but nothing horrible. Yet there's a nagging part of me that's been present in my thoughts all through the day as to last night’s experience. What the fuck was that? I am dumbfounded and uncertain about the source of that unbearably visual and realistic experience. It's haunting me. Was it a near-death experience? Was it a glimpse into another plane of consciousness? What meaning should I take from it?
I am not spiritual or religious, but I feel compelled to investigate this further. I need to research more about how this acts on the mind, what it taps into and what plays into users’ experiences. Particularly the bad ones.
This was a bad trip. And I am shaken to the foundation of my belief system. This makes me conscious of how intense the mind is and works. If this is something I can experience and return from, what will death hold? What other ways could one’s mind either play tricks or open one up?