Sunday, October 18, 2009

Head Trip

This one isn't mine but it is very interesting.

Drugs are bad, okay?

It's not exactly a secret in modern society. But let me explain something to you. I'm not going to harp on the negative impact they can have on your day-to-day existence, your family, your physical body, the health of your mind, or the fact that you can become irrevocably addicted your first time trying certain drugs.

I am not an addict, but I am a free spirit. At one time during my life, when I was in college, I was determined to do every drug under the sun at least once. And I did. I wanted to trry EVERYTHING once. Skydiving, downhill skiing, surfing, mescalin... you know, all in a day's work. I wanted to get it all done before I graduated and got a real job and became a part of "the machine."

I started with pot, the "gateway drug," as they've dubbed it. Let me tell you something about THAT. There's no "gateway" associated with weed, ok? You smoke it, you like it, and if you're feeling frisky, maybe you're looking for something a little harder. Then you pop a few Xanaxes, or maybe you buy a couple of oxycodones or Loritabs from your buddy who sees a shrink since his breakup with his girlfriend. Then, you snort a line of cocaine at a party. After consuming every opiate and barbituate known to man, you're looking at hallucinogens. You eat some shrooms, drop some acid, and you manage to find somebody with mescalin extract and you all of a sudden, you're tripping balls all over the place.

I hated coke. I love music, and I love video games. When I was "speedballing," I didn't want to listen to anything and playing my Xbox made me irritable. I knew something was horribly wrong, so I never did any of those types of drugs again.

Pills were not my thing, either .I didn't like the deep, ingrained stoning of your body that you felt like you were helpless to control. Although I would sit back on the coach and let them take me along for a ride, I never liked the destination itself. And so, I never did those again, either.

I remember thinking at the time that I don't understand why people get addicted to certain drugs and screw up their lives. Because they're dumbfucks, I guess. I'm not really sure. One thing that I did enjoy though..... was hallucinogens.

The first time I tripped mushrooms, it blew my mind. I couldn't see anything in front of my face.... only crazy, swiliring starbursts of infinite color and nonsensical apparitions that faded away as soon as they arrived.

I know, this isn't scary, right? I'm getting there. Trust me, I'm not trying to sound cool.... I'm just trying to explain it to you if you've never been exposed to these things.... who knows, maybe you're sheltered.

I am 100% color blind. When I drive, I pay attention to the position of the lights. If it's in the top spot, it's red. Bottom spot, it's green. If it's a horizontal light, I'm screwed and I just watch people around me. It's an unnerving thing, but you can't really miss what you never had.

When I tripped, I saw EVERYTHING in color..... in my head. I would see things right in front of me, but I knew that the drugs were releasing inhibitors in my brain, allowing me to witness and explore circles of thought that I had never once considered. Imagine a shroom or mescalin trip as one, giant stretch of you being the most genuinely curious person in the world for six to twelve hours. You question everything, and then you arrive at conclusions about those questions, in no particular order. You think about EVERYTHING in circles..... things that you could not possibly make a connection with before all suddenly click together and make sense. At the end of your trip, you will come to one, ultimate conclusion. You will know how the world works, why it works the way it does, and when you finally come down, you will never look at the world around you the same way ever again. Certain types of music that you hated before will appeal to you. I seriously believe that hallucinogens can "unlock" a certain part of your psyche, but I would not suggest tripping frequently. It's a one or two times a year sort of thing. Take my advice on that.... trip too much, and you'll end up like Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd, strumming your guitar out of sync and staring at your audience with a blank-eyed stare for hours at a time.

My fourth trip is the reason that I'm writing this. Sorry for all the fluff, but it's imperative that I make it clear to you what was going on in my head at the time. I lived in a two bedroom house off of a street that was close to Western Kentucky University's campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I went to school there, and it was easy for me to walk to class or to work, where I tended bar at night.

I had the entire weekend off, and it was Friday night. I was sitting in my living room, playing games with my roommate and some of our friends. One of them pulled out a huge bag of shrooms, and I knew it was go time. I had thirty six hours to trip my balls off, and then I was heading up to Nashville to see family members on that Sunday for a family reunion cookout.

I want to say that I wish I had never taken them, but a part of me is glad that I did. You may understand why, or you may not. My first three trips were amazing.... all of them were outside in nature, in the middle of a state park or out in a meadow. I turned my iPod on, let the drug kick in, and I sat there for hours, tripping my brains out and thinking about every thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

Be warned. If you are not in the correct emotional mindset, or if you're too generous with your dosage the first time, or if you even start to have negative thoughts or feelings.... do NOT ingest any sort of hallucinogenic drug. They amplify your internal motivations by ten thousand fold. If your mother just died and you took mescalin, there's a very good probability that you'd end up jumping out of a window or slashing your wrists in the bathroom. Trips can go horribly wrong, and that's what happened with this one.

It takes a good forty five minutes or so for cubensis mushrooms to fully kick in, but you won't "peak" on them until you're about two hours in. I was watching "America's Best Dance Crew" on TV (I know, I know), and I knew that my trip was starting when I started to see pink, green, and yellow swirls in the TV screen. I see things in black and white... the indicators are very tell-tale with me, as opposed to other people. If you don't believe me, look it up on Web MD. It's possible.

I started out pretty good, really. We turned on Madden after the show was over, and although I was completely belligerent and not all "there" with my friends around me, they assured me that they would "trip sit" for me and make sure I didn't do anything stupid. The first kick off return that I received in this particular game of Madden, I scored a touchdown. I didn't just run straight up the field, though. I ran circles around my roommate's players. I dove, juked, and literally had his team chasing me with the ball for a good thirty seconds before I hit the end zone. If you play Madden, you know how weird this really is. I remember all of this as if it happened five minutes ago, and I remember him looking at me and saying "Holy shit man, that was amazing. Why can't you play like that when you're sober?"

I wasn't really paying attention by that point, though. Another friend of mine, David, was playing accoustic guitar in the corner. I think he was trying to play "Free Falling," by Tom Petty, which is an easy chord that repeats over and over. He was new, and we were trying to teach him rhythm to play in our Pink Floyd cover band. He was playing the right chords, but I knew my trip was already spoiling on me. The mushrooms had turned on me when I heard the most ear-piercing, disturbing sound I've ever heard in my entire life.

Have you ever seen "The Sixth Sense?" You know when the kid is taking a leak, and something runs by the door, and it's playing the creepy, violin-straining noise? I was hearing something along those lines. On our wall in the living room, we had a five foot by five foot poster of the state of Kentucky, accompanied by every county line, every district, and city names. It was a cool thing to stare at, regardless of whether you were high or not. I was seeing faces in the map..... terrible, disgusting faces. Their mouths were wide open, and their lower jaws seemed "out of place"..... like their mouths were positioned ten inches lower than they should have been. It was a disturbing effect, but I tried to tune it out and enjoy my buzz. At this juncture, though, it wasn't happening.

The guitar sound was freaking me out, and the bad vibes were getting steadily worse. I dropped my controller and stood up. My roommate knew something was wrong, but I muttered something like "I'm fine, give me some time" and walked straight in to my bedroom.

Let me give you another imperative piece of advice. DO NOT EVER BE ALONE if you suspect you're starting to go on a bad trip. It becomes impossible to trust yourself or the accuracy of what you are seeing or experiencing. If you're in a great mood or you feel happy, it can be exhilarating, but that's different. I shouldn't have gone in to that room.... and I definitely shouldn't have closed the door.

As soon as I walked through and shut it, I remember thinking "Okay, I'll just lay down on my bed and sleep it off."

You can't "sleep off" hallucinogens like you can if you smoke too much weed or drink too much vodka. Your brain is in such a hyper-stimulated condition that it's impossible. Your body will be experiencing an intense "stoning" effect, but you won't really notice it because your head feels like it's made out of pudding and you're seeing shit EVERYWHERE.

My room has my dresser, my nightstand, my bed, a long desk that spans an entire wall with recording equipment, amplifiers, and turntables, and a neon sign in the corner. The sign is a "Marlboro" sign with the Marlboro man (the cowboy) leaning against the "O" at the end of the word. That neon sign was fucking with me hardcore. When I closed my eyes, I saw swirling vortexes of purple and black light, and it messed with me, so I opened them. The sign was bugging out..... it would be two inches from my face, and then it would look like it was 200 yards away. I can't say with 100% certainty that I was sitting still this entire time, but I think I was. I walked up to the sign, trying to unplug it or cut off the switch, but I heard voices in my head. This was the first time I'd heard voices, ever, when I was tripping. Sometimes, I would hear faint laughs or giggles in the distance, but these were loud, insistent voices. They had a guttural, feral, beastial quality to them.

"DON'T FRY YOURSELF, FUCKER."

I think that's what they said, but again, I can't be too sure. I got so scared that I didn't mess with the sign anymore. Looking around the room, it seemed like the corners were stretching in and out, pulsating, like the room was breathing and surrounding me. I felt like a prisoner, but I didn't want to open the door, because my pride was at stake .Screaming would basically tell my friends that I was a big pussy, and even though I was tripping hardcore, I didn't want to be the target of their insults for the next week. That's when the "circular thinking" started.

In a normal trip, you'll just think about random, bullshit things. An image of an apple will pop in to your head, and it almost looks like you can reach forward and touch it because it seems so real. Then, you will see images of a bicycle or a friend you knew from kindergarten. Then, you will form a story, or a cohesive thought pattern, that incorporates all three of those things in to some weird connection. I know it sounds really fucking stupid when I try to describe it in words, but a bad trip can be the most terrifying thing you can imagine.

I wasn't thinking about random things. I was thinking about my entire life, from beginning to end.... and I didn't say "up until the point that I existed." I saw myself getting older, where I was working, who I was married to, whether I had kids or not..... and I can't really trust the voracity of those hallucinations, because this was only two years ago and I've yet to see any of those come to fruition.

However, after about an hour of this, I was laying on my bed in a fetal position. A strong shroom trip can cause your body to move or jerk involuntarily. This is embarrassing, but I will go ahead and say it. During my second trip, I felt a strong, compulsive feeling to masturbate in the middle of a field in a state park. I did, and it was crazy..... better than sex, in a lot of ways. However, this time I wasn't feeling any of those vibes. Instead, my eyes were forced wide open, and I was staring at the wall. My hands or legs would jerk every now and then, and I felt like I was being forced to rotate my neck in a circle, around and around again. I was very scared at the time. I remember thinking "Good job, Drew. You've fucked yourself up permanently because you wouldn't lay off the drugs." I thought I would never be normal again.

That's when the trip came in on me full force. If you ingest enough of a hallucinogen, you will not even see what's in front of you. You will retreat ENTIRELY to your mind, and withdraw in to yourself until all you can see or be aware of is blackness, nothingness, or the feeling of a "wide space." This is called the fifth level of tripping, or the most intense "out of body" experience you can possibly have. I took enough for this to kick in, and I'd experienced it before.... but this was uncomfortable and disturbing. Rather than sailing in space on a journey, I felt like I was being dragged in to it. That may sound lame, but I can't describe it any other way. This is where it actually gets freaky.

I saw myself, at the cookout that I was going to attend two days later. I saw my family.... my aunts, uncles, my dad, my mom, my sisters..... everyone. We were in the yard, and I was drinking beer and helping my father grill burgers and dogs. We were going to get a volleyball game going. My black labrador, Kobe (named after my favorite Japanese restaurant), was running around, being the most lovable dog ever as he always was.

I've had my dog since I was in sixth grade. I am 23 now as of writing this, but I remember picking him up as a puppy, taking him home, and hearing him cry in the basement because he'd been taken from his mother and brothers and sisters, and he was lonely. I used to sit with him on the stairs leading up from our basement for hours. Sometimes, I slept with him on an air mattress downstairs. He was the best friend I've ever had, and most of you know how loyal and loving a golden retriever or black lab can be.

The image that I saw after this was HORRIBLE. All of a sudden, everyone was gathered in one spot, in a sort of circle, staring down at the ground. I didn't know what had happened. I saw myself walking over, and looking at the ground. My dog was there, and his eyes were closed. He wasn't moving or breathing. He was completely gone.... and I collapsed on top of him, rubbing the fur around his collar.

As I came down from my trip, nothing was as clear as that moment. I remember it like it happened five minutes ago.

That's because it happened for real.

That next Sunday, we had a Honda Forerunner "four-wheeler" (or ATV, if you prefer), and my uncle was taking my younger cousins around on it. My dog always loved to chase it, and although he couldn't always keep up, he loved to play and run around. It was what he did.

At around 3pm that afternoon, he collapsed to the ground, frothing at the mouth. He was dehydrated, and very old. I still remember seeing him drop, out of nowhere, like he'd been hit by an invisible bullet.

I put him in a blanket in the back of my SUV and tried to get him to the veterinarian in time, but I saw his torso heaving with the laboered breathing before we ever got there.

My dog passed away, right behind me, and to this day, I know there was nothing I could do. I miss him terribly, and although I am not a devoutly religious person, I believe that something, or someone, was trying to prepare me for the loss that day. That trip was one of the most disturbing, horrifying experiences of my life, but if I hadn't experienced it, I would have been an emotional wreck the day I lost Kobe.

It was still hard, and I'm actually quite teary-eyed, finishing this up right now.... but it just goes to show you. There really are things beyond your scope of comprehension and understanding. I believe there is a part of the human brain, of the psyche, that is separate from everything else. What occurs to us through that pathway is unknown, and unexplainable.

I miss my dog, of course, but I wouldn't trade that weekend for anything. In a lot of ways, it gave me an inner peace and changed the way I look at life. I stopped doing drugs that day, except for pot, which I must admit.... I will probably smoke until I'm six feet under.

This story is entirely true, and it's also an inquiry. I've talked to a lot of people since that day, and some have given me similar reports of "clairvoyance" or visions that later came true. I'm not talking deja vu.... but a lucid, out-of-body hallucination that you can still remember, clear as day.

It's freaky, but a story worth sharing, and so, here you are. This is not a creepypasta, persay, but maybe you'll encounter something like this some day.

Part of me hopes that you will, and part of me prays that you won't.

Monkey See Monkey Kill


This clip makes me wonder how stupid people are sometimes, I know some people are against animals being tested on and no matter what you do they will always keep testing on animals and even humans. This is just a movie though and I love it, sends out a good message about war and hatred.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Thoughts With The Side Of Pickles

It was noon and I was driving to my friends house today when I saw a huge deer in front of me, I hit the breaks and slowed down and my heart was pounding so fast from what just happened. This was a road I have never taken before and I was just looking for a short cut. I went to turn the opposite direction where I was going because this was a bad road; I was freaking out when I looked at my GPS and saw that I was heading the same way. I hit the breaks and made a U turn and headed the other way. I thought something was wrong with my GPS so I tried to call my mother but no signal and it was getting dark, darker then usual.As I kept driving I looked out in the woods and I saw something weird, I thought it was nothing just another damn deer. I was so scared because I was going no where, so I pulled over and looked at my GPS to see if I could find another route and nothing it was just one straight road going no where. I was scared, worried and almost out of gas, I didn't know where to go until I heard this loud roar literally ten feet behind my truck, it was probably the scariest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I hit the gas and started speeding like crazy, I looked on my mirror and there was nothing, I was glad but then my truck stopped and I was scared shitless again because I heard the same roar getting closer to me, I got my cellphone and GPS and started running. I can't believe how loud it got and it was closer every second. I thought it was a bear or a wolf and could almost imagine the worst, all of the sudden my phone rang and when I answered it, I could hear my mom and she was crying and my whole family was there. It was blurry at first but then I opened my eyes and I was at the hospital and I couldn't feel my arms or legs. My family all had their heads down then a doctor came in and told my mom that I was no longer paralyzed from the car accident from when I curved and missed the deer and that I was dead and I didn't make the operation, I was in shock because I was here the whole time. My mom started crying and yelling. My family was upset and sadden, the doctor looked right at me and smiled and told me "WAKE THE FUCK UP". I opened my eyes and I was on my bed; looked at my alarm clock and it was 9:42 AM September 11, 2001 and I was late for the first day of school. Fuck!

The World

The world can be a mean, cold, bitter place or a nice, calm, happy, peaceful place, the world comes in different varieties the way you look at it and from what point of view you stand. This world of ours is full of questions and we need answers; it's hard to say what happens to us when we die because there are so many different theories but none of them actually give evidence to support their theories, so no one really knows and it's one of the world greatest mystery.