		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 5 hits
		 oral
		 LSD

		   T+ 14:00

		 smoked
		 Cannabis

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   190 lb

This trip is the one that showed me the way.  It has since proven to be but a glimpse of the doorway to enlightenment. The date of experience is February 15, 2005.

I dosed at 8:00pm.  My mindset going is was incredibly calm.  It was probably due to the amount of time I spent meditating in the last 4 months prior to the experience.  Anyways, after dosing, I got into bed and just lay there.  Complete silence.  It was the first time I have ever tried tripping in complete, silent darkness.  About 15 minutes in I started feeling the initial mind whirl that I always get coming up on acid.  I felt incredibly drawn into everything.  By now I had turned on the light and was vividly staring at a stopwatch that I had been using.    Things continued on, and I called up to my buddy via the 2 way radio, just to say 'What's up'.  At this point, I felt incredibly light, like my skin was evaporating into the air.  At that same moment, I said to myself 'Here we go' for I knew what lay just beyond the hour.

I as I continued to lay in my bed, (t+ 0:30) I got incredibly bored just sitting there, so I said 'Fuck it, I'm gettin' up.”  By now, I was totally feeling the effects of this 'wondrous molecule' as I so eloquently put it in my inebriated state.  I got out of bed, turned on my main overhead light, and looked at the amazing display I had created for this very purpose.   The room was covered in multiple pattern sheets.  I hung them like drapes from the ceiling, boxing off an area with my bookshelves, and weight set (which I covered with its own blanket, a Canadian flag with a pot leaf replacing the traditional maple), which became a cool area in of itself.

Anyway, back to the room, I covered everything with blankets and floral sheets: the floor, my dresser, everything except my nightstand.  On top of my dresser, I had some really cool looking plants, which really looked like fractals even when sober. It was the coolest looking room I have ever seen.  My bed was a haven of blankets and pillows.  I was in heaven at this point.  Just taking it all in.

I started feeling a little anxious as I approached the hour and a half mark.  Now this is just a rough estimate of what time it could have been.  I removed all source of time, except for that of my stopwatch, which I had conveniently placed out of sight.  I remembered all my previous acid trips, but not just those, “There’s this feeling, that, like, I’ve done this a million times before… an infinite number of times before” which gave me a sense of great calm.   I felt connected with a force far greater than that of which my mind could conceive.  Then it hit me.  To truly know it, is not to know it…

I had to play guitar.  I came out of my room, turned everything on, and just wailed!  I have a looper that I can record a progression, then I just jam over it.  As I continued to play, I looked up at this poster of Jimi Hendrix, and it looked like he was smiling and nodding his head at me.  It made me shiver.  I was playing exactly what came into my head without any effort.  My fingers could fly up and down the neck, at speeds I couldn’t comprehend sober.  Any note, melody, chord, or sound could be produced at will.  I merged what I was thinking, with what I was sensing, and I was the sound.  I became the vibrations in space that created this, like one big ass Super-string (for those familiar with the string theory in quantum physics).

I remember at one point, I could see the fields of sound coming out of the amp.  Each frequency was seen as a different color, and I could change the note feeding back by simply moving my finger, and walking into another field of visual sound.  These fields were everywhere, a beauty beyond compare.  It was like a massive collage of sound, layering infinitely on top of each other.  I played for a little while longer, then, just like that, felt it was time to stop.  I put the guitar down, powered off, gave a nod to my Hendrix poster, then proceeded back into my room.

That is when “I” disappeared.  I felt this wave of energy flowing through me, it was the eternal life force that is all consciousness.  There was an immediate connection to all beings, “I” was now simply a letter to identify my body.  It had no connection to my true self.  At this point, there was no difference to what I was seeing with my eyes open, vs. closed.  So I decided to head upstairs to converse with my buddy.  In previous trips, where I have encountered non-tripping people, it really brings me back to reality, but for some reason, he was just as much a part of the trip as the plants, or the wall for example.

“It's funny, when I hear this, I feel that all of a sudden, I’m everybody that’s going to hear this, and also the voice speaking it, AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!”

My buddy had a fire lit, which I found quite amazing.  I kept staring into the fire, and I would become the fire.  I am sure a lot of you know what I am talking about.

As time went on, I saw vision after vision, just constantly flowing.  I knew I was totally emerged in the experience at this point, and just started walking around slowly, contemplating life and existence.  I got this vision of a graph.  I related the graph to awareness being brought into nothingness, or the zero point.  Then I started attaching words to this, and BOOM, it hit me.  When I analyzed my experience I would always start spinning in my head, pure chaos at its finest.  But when I just felt my experience, not attaching any thought, opinion, idea, or any other construct of the rationalizing human mind, I became everything and nothing at the exact same moment.  There was no experience to be felt, for I was the experience, and to feel it, would imply knowing I was feeling it, and “knowing” is a function of the human brain.  I became the same as everything around me.   I simply did not exist.

“I am the wave…” I felt that everything was flowing, moving, and eternally changing and I was part of it all.  Every time I gained self-awareness, it simply felt like I was me, coasting on a wave, which would instantly cast me back into the realm of nothingness.  I wondered around in this ego-less state for what seemed like hours.  At one point I remember thinking that it must have been at least 8 hours into the trip, but upon further inspection,

“It's only quarter to twelve!  Holy Shit!”

I figured I’d better get back downstairs.  I headed downstairs, and lay in bed for a minute or two, but I was far to energized to stay there.  I got out and began just wandering around.  I went upstairs, and just started walking around my house, in a constant circle.  Through my living room, then past the kitchen table, into the hallway, past the bathroom, back into the living room.  I did all this incredibly slowly.  Taking about 5 minutes to make one rotation.  Once I had been around about 10 times, I realized that I was just walking and observing, which instantly reminded me of my Zen practice, and Kinhin (walking meditation).  As I continued to walk around, I recognized the fact that there was no internal dialogue.  If there was, I was not aware of it.  I was just one big antenna, receiving every bit of information at the exact same moment in time.  RIGHT NOW!

“It’s all sensation, just, sensation. Just feel. Don’t analyze the feelings, just feel.  That’s it.  Anything else is just purely… itself.   Feel…Sensation cannot be expressed in any way shape or form.  It can only be perceived…”

I don’t know when I said this. It was sometime during my kinhin practice.  I continued doing this for quite sometime, not sure how long though.  But at least another hour.  I have no idea, I can’t really remember much about the next few hours, other than incredible feelings of my own omnipresence.  Details are lost.  But the sensation I remember, was this ultimate calm.  Everything was perfect.  It was the most blissful experience of my life.

“Zen is the practice of everything and nothingness, being sensation, yet being beyond sensation… I understand.  Some would call this enlightenment.  Others would just call it words.  Beautiful…  Zen practice, is Zen practice.  It is after all, a practice.  It’s not about understanding… Understanding is great and all, but understanding is something that we apply to it. You cannot know, to know is to not know. It goes beyond the sense of wonder, because the sense of wonder in itself, is just that. A sense of wonder” and to apply anything to a sense, is the mind at work.

There was a point, where I could perceive an infinite number of dimensions.  Both spatial and temporal.  Like for every single perceiving being in the universe, there was another dimension of existence, and I was aware of all of them.  I remember seeing all this again relating to a graph.  It was like a cube.  But there was also a vision of time as a spatial dimension, constantly unfolding to reveal a more, different reality.  I remember seeing fractals everywhere as well.  Everything was a fractal.  Time, was a fractal.  It didn’t matter what I looked at, it would become a fractal.

The last thing I have recorded is “All those shit meanings, that don't mean shit” I have no clue to what I was referring to, but I figured it necessary to get down.  Ah well.  The rest of the night is a big blur of events.  I remember dicing up some gingerroot and making some ginger tea, and I don’t know what else happened.  I remember after my buddy had gone to bed, I was sitting upstairs, this was like 10:00 am now, and I just kept smoking joint after joint, but due to the nature of my trip, I just couldn’t reclaim my ego.  For I felt doing so would be ignorant.  Then I smoked a joint, and realized that I am in fact a separate physical being (for now anyway) and that life is about feeling, interacting, and most importantly of all, loving.  Every moment, just love.  Not any one or any thing, but just for the sake of love in itself.

There was not one difficult moment.  Every time something unpleasant would come up, Instead of trying to drop it, I just marveled at the fact that this was going on.  I remained selfless for who knows how long, because I remember waking up, in my own bed, like I had actually taken the time to get ready to sleep.  I have no recollection of this whatsoever, just that I finally regained my ego after waking up.  The last time I do remember (probably right before I went to bed) is 8:00pm Thursday, exactly 24 hours after dosing.  I had no concept of it being Thursday however, I simply know it didn’t just disappear.

I woke up at 4:00am Friday morning, got out of bed, and realized that “I” was back.  I rolled up a joint, threw on “I Robot” which I thought would be the perfect movie for right then, and it was, it put me in a massively introspective mode.  I cooked up some burritos, then chilled.  I watched another movie (Cellular, horrible IMHO) and went back to bed at 9:00am or so.  I got up again at 2:00pm Friday, smoked a joint, and thought to myself, “Where the hell did Thursday go?”  I remember Wednesday, and then waking up on Friday morning, but Thursday is nowhere to be found.  I gave a little chuckle, and with a flick of my lighter, lit up another joint.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 53392

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Oct 14, 2008	Views: 19,030

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LSD (2) : Alone (16), Music Discussion (22), Mystical Experiences (9), Glowing Experiences (4)


		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 2 hits

		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   T+ 10:00
		 1 bowl
		 smoked
		 Salvia divinorum
		 (extract - 10x)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   140 lb

I had taken two hits of acid around 2 PM that afternoon, which yielded a decent not particularly notable journey (although all trips are fairly memorable). I have eaten ten-strips of Lucy in one sitting or over the course of a few days with little problems and no bad trips. I’m not even sure what a “bad” trip is. I only see trips as challenging, with some more daunting than others. That’s the acid test one must pass when, and if one does pass, they almost always come out that much stronger in a sense. This experience is the closest thing I ever have had to a “bad” trip, but I still can’t label it as such. This was an eye opening, shit-your-pants ego destruction fling. And it wasn’t entirely the acid’s doing. It was the Green Goddess who kicked it off. And she wasn’t happy to see me this time around.

I waited until midnight, the witching hour, to smoke the remaining apple flavored Salvia 10X I had. By this time I was slowly coming down off the blotter, but going to sleep was still way out of the question.  I took some time to meditate before the journey.  Well, really to brace myself for the mindfuck I knew was coming.  I had never introduced Lucy to Sally before, and was quite unsure of the consequences, despite reading D.M. Turner’s literature on the matter. I got myself pumped up and ready to go, and took the first massive rip out of my bowl. I managed to take the enormous pack in one huge pull, resulting in a lung buster cloud of smoke.  While I was holding it in, I got the last minute jitters, knowing full well that I was in for a crazy ride. This always happen when I smoke salvia, despite having done it countless times in addition to developing a respectful relationship with La Madre de las Hojas  herself.

I was in dark of my living room.  All was still and quiet. I pulled a blanket over my head to further reduce any interference from the moonlight outside the window.  In the dark abyss of my blanket I began to see the first few textile patterns form before my eyes.  “Here it comes!” I anxiously thought.  “Just give yourself over, accept her, don’t resist” was my final sober thought. My body began to feel the Salvia spinning effect come on. I exhaled after 30 seconds.

There was no transition from the initial patterns. NONE. I was slammed into the hyper-real salvia dimension.  Bewildered and totally disoriented with amnesia as to what I had just done to get to this alien world of alternating brick patterns in (every color at once). It resembled something from Super Mario World, but entirely unique in its own.  Then those unintelligible voices I always hear began their chants.  I can always understand them during the journey, but can only remember the gist of what is said when I return to this plane.  At first they said something like “welcome back”, and then they began to get annoyed.  “Get in your spot” they shouted, or something to that effect.  “You know what you have to do”   “Get back to work” (This expression has been a motif of several trips I've had)  I saw the entities saying these things.  There were the classic “gingerbread people” (or the “patrol” as I have dubbed them), as well as more intimidating, larger creatures who seemed to “supervise” the lesser being and were also bossing me around.  They were the aggressive force bossing me around.

I suddenly found myself becoming a bowling alley.  They were using me as their lanes.  I would switch views from being an alien bowling lane, like the view of the ball coming straight for me, right down the middle.  Then this view shifted to me being in the middle of some darkened slot of some sort.  I have been in a toaster with the three little pigs during a past trip (no lie), but I quickly realized I was in some other device.  It dawned on me that I was underneath the cover of a piano, right on top of the mallets that strike the notes when they keys are pressed.  I was shot out of this contraption when a note was struck, and found myself back at the landscape I had first been transported to.  The entities scattered in fear.  Now there was a terrifying presence before me.  It was HER! Lady Salvia herself. No loving embraces or mystic secrets to be shared this time.  She was hideous and awesome in appearance; the closest thing I can relate it to is the Chiquita Banana Lady, except with gnarled, green skin, rough, green wooden hands, and instead of a fruit basket on her head, it was a two-dimensional top of a leafy tree with branches sticking out in all directions. A real witch indeed (had the 'witching hour' timing of the trip psychologically influenced her appearence).

Her expression was one of incredible fury and petulance.  I was scared beyond belief.  She approached me in a menacing strut.  She spoke in that tongue only intelligible in Salvia space.  This time I understood her clearly, and her intentions.  “You know why I’m here; now it’s your time.” She was there to take me away. Permanently.  She reached out for me, and cast a spell.  I then was above a hollow plastic doll that looked nothing like me, but I knew it was me.  Each piece of the doll-me was being lifted up and destroyed; imagine pulling files out a filing cabinet in a rapid motion.  Each segment was being ripped out faster and faster. I was terrified. This was it, my last moments!  I then got a view from inside the me-doll. There was other “me-s” inside, but from other dimensions.  They were being sucked up with segmentation of the hollow doll, screaming and pleading for their life.  There were two more segments to be ripped out before my turn came.  I turned to run, but I saw her looking IN the doll, her face full of malice and anticipation.  Her bony hand reached for me, but I managed to run through the doll and escape.

I ripped the blanket off of me, and in the darkness of the living room, I stumbled and fumbled my way around furniture, trying to run for my life.  I turned around, and guess who was there? She was still in the living room, reaching out to grab me! She literally chased me in my living room for a few seconds, which seemed like 5 minutes of a horror movie, until she dissolved into the darkness.  She could only briefly sustain a metaphysical form in this dimension.   Before she was completely gone, she telepathically sent me a message “I’ll be back and I’m waiting for you.”  I ran upstairs and locked my door.  I knew death was inevitable.  But she did not appear again that night, and I slowly drifted off to sleep, digesting what had just happened.  This was a terrifying experience, but it taught me to re-learn how to respect salvia all over again.  It was much more intense than my first few salvia encounters, and much more eye opening in many aspects.  It made me think about my life, all the rotten things I have done, and instilled in me the values of “carpe diem” and “memento mori”, and as the AC DC song Hell’s Bells goes “your only young but your gonna die.”

Combing two hits of LSD with salvia is a VERY potent combination.  It may have “only” been 10x salvia, but the experience was 10x X 10!(And that's for someone who can have a second 'A' trip on the S-A-L-V-I-A scale of intensity by smoking natural leaf!)  If you learn anything from this report, let it be that Salvia is a plant and personality that MUST be respected and treated accordingly.  Intention and deference are everything.  Use it wisely, and you may benefit from it greatly. Use it with acid, and buckle up tight!

One more thing I would like to note; I don’t plan on using Salvia anytime soon.  I feel it’s necessary to give it some time to let “her” cool off, and then try to re-establish our relationship.  This may have been just the wake-up call I needed.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 67528

Gender: Male

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 18, 2009	Views: 22,263

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LSD (2), Salvia divinorum (44) : Difficult Experiences (5), Entities / Beings (37), Combinations (3), Alone (16)


		 DOSE:
 T+ 0:00
		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD

		   T+ 9:00
		 2 hits
		 oral
		 LSD

		   T+ 0:00
		   repeated
		 smoked
		 Tobacco - Cigarettes

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   140 lb

The Heart of Christmas, the Beat of the Beast That Drives Us.

It was Christmas break and I was returning home to Portland, the City of Roses. Since I was returning from Eugene, the culture shock would be nonexistent. Portland, at least the west side of the river where I grew up, is littered with coffee shops filled with ironic, sweatshirt-wearing indie rockers. Or pretend indie rockers, but it doesn’t really matter. They mix with the hippies who sold out and started running more corporate businesses. Portland is a liberal colony, and I was planning on being very liberal with my pursuits.

It had been immensely boring the past week; I was growing tired of the green glow from my Xbox 360. I had been out and about with friends, but nothing interesting had happened in a long time. Of course, in my experience, when things are not interesting is when they’re great (like a day at the beach where all you do is relax and enjoy), but since I have not had a nice boring year yet, I am not accustomed to a lack of action. Yes, it would be time for sightseeing, but since I didn’t need to see anything in the City it would have to be of a different nature. I made the phone call and a childhood acquaintance picked up. He was at work and he could arrange the sightseeing around 12 p.m. I was going to take substance ‘A’ in hopes of gaining some insight or intuition that would allow me to make drastic changes in my life and perhaps lead to world domination, but I digress. Mere boredom was more of a primary factor than anything else.

I met the man at 12 outside his office, which was conveniently located near my house. The problem was that his supply of “A” was on the other side of the river. Under the cover of night, away from my parents’ prying skepticism, I borrowed the car and helped him grab his movie collection from his old house and finally returned home. I was feeling somewhat apprehensive about doing the substance with this individual and was wishy-washy in my intent that night. This is, of course, a great character trait, and my friend was taking it like a true champ. Under constant peer pressure assault for the entire two hours that picking up substance “A” took, I finally relented when my friend had imbibed it and freaked out when I told him I didn’t want to join in his experience. The catch was that he freaked out in a public street and eyes were on me despite the late night hour. So I did what any rational person would do; I acquiesced his request so he would shut up and not blow our cover, the poor fool. I felt bad, and forced into a strange situation.

The restaurant I had worked at was open till 3, so we decided to go and allow the drug to kick in. Three “cougars” (slang for older 'horny' woman, the word changes every 10 years or so) descended upon me, so I thoughtfully reverted to childhood boyish antics. Unfortunately, this seemed to interest them even more, but finally my lack of commitment shook off the leader of the group, a completely-wasted 28 year-old blonde woman. Now was no time for sex; I was starting to lose basic functioning abilities. My ex co-workers were all veterans themselves save one; she was a rookie.

Drunks piled in and out, and I slowly began to notice that the restaurant I used to work in was filled with all sorts of terrible dark things. A plastic rat figurine creepily perched on a speaker overlooking the whole place; a clay snake with the head of Richard Nixon; a Superman figurines hanging from the ceiling with a condom taped to their backs; Wonder Woman mid-coitus with Spider-man by the bathroom; and the Queen of England with a Nazi Swastika imprinted on her face and horns added to her head above the entrance to the kitchen. My ability to speak sentences understood by human beings was slowly decaying and confused looks flashed upon my ex co-workers' faces. It didn’t matter. The male ex co-worker, not the rookie, understood. The awkwardness never settled in, and in retrospect the place I worked was full of interesting people. A real stepping stone into a future career in the restaurant business if I chose to take it, but such things took a backseat to a college degree.

The night itself was not particularly interesting or unique, but I played some good guitar and enjoyed Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” in a whole new light. City of God was watched and then my friend and I parted ways.

By then it was 7 in the morning. Sleep would not come to me. My mind was racing and my desire to accomplish something while I was conscious overwhelmed me. Lyrics to an album were quickly written down and 8 tracks later it was finished. Around 9 a.m., I called my best friend and said nothing other than to meet me in Pioneer Courthouse Square. He agreed and then fell back asleep, but at that point it was too late and I was in transit to the Square. It was the heat of Christmas shopping season, and although the main effects of the drug had worn off, my new perceptive abilities hadn’t changed. Under its influence, I started to notice all sorts of strange things about the people that I had filtered out before, and Portland is strange as it is. Everyone looked to be twisted in some way. Indecision, amidst the consumers flushed and in lines, deciding what to buy. The madness of the Christmas shopping was an intense sporting event for the women in packs, and the men were no different. There is a campaign called “Keep Portland Weird.” I’m not sure how a campaign like that could ever be successful on such loosely-defined terms.

I texted my other best friend in the peak of the drug's wrath, with the incoherent demand: “come Portland now kthxbai.” I did not expect to see him as he lived far away and was working for UPS, which of course was very busy at the time. At the Square, I played my guitar while my fingers froze and I bitterly waited for my best friend to show up. I ran into members of my college community in various states of Christmas shopping panic. The happy marketed outlook of the holidays was stricken from the eye of every soul. A collective chaos had descended upon the citizens, presumably due to the late date; procrastinators were abundant.

A panhandler came up to me demanding to play my guitar; I looked at him, decided he posed no threat, and in the spirit of the season let him have it. He sat down and began playing “Stairway to Heaven,” one of my least favorite songs for reasons I cannot understand. The song fills me with a terrible sadness. The panhandlers' skill quickly deteriorated after the intro bit, which is my least favorite part, adding to my contempt. The panhandler looked at me intensely and I looked back. He gave me the guitar adding 'Do you have a hat?'

'No...wait why?!?'

'We could make some money. Here I'll go get a hat, actually come with me'

This, strangely, for an odd second, was appealing. I stood up and wiped my nose. My contact lens began attempting to remove itself from my eye and I countered its intent with unorthodox blinking. The panhandler looked at me while I struggled, waiting impatiently. He moved his arm in a 'follow me' motion, and I complied.

'Alright so first we gotta ask someone for a hat, or steal one. There's bound to be some silly Christmas hats around unattended and you could make some money with your guitar playing, and when you got tired I could play,' the panhandler reasoned.

'Uhm I don't know man. I'm just waiting here for my friend. He should be here any minute.' I began to want no part in this panhandler's design. Stealing is not something I condone, especially in the Christmas season. Making a quick buck to help score some heroin or crack was not in my Christmas plans. I glanced at the homeless panhandler's eyes. Yes he was definitely on something. I guessed an upper due to his disregard for social norms. A certain confidence exuded from his deluded state. I was sure of it.

'Come on it'll be easy. HEY! YOU Sir.” The panhandler approached a stranger with a Christmas hat on, “Which way is Forest Park!?' At this point I quickly left saying 'Nah man it’s alright, but I got to go.' The panhandler glared at me and I saw him move on to someone else as the stranger quickly removed himself from the homeless man's presence. I circled the Square just long enough to make sure the panhandler would forget about me, and returned to the amphitheatre. Bitterness began to exude from me. The idea of this season of giving and brotherhood began to take a backseat to mistrust of my fellow man. Fate had tried to warn me; my contact's loosening must have been an act of God to alert me to the panhandler's schemes. Or my still-dilated pupils. I couldn't be sure.

A girl approached me, demanding I play in the amphitheatre, and I reasoned with her that I wasn’t skilled enough and my fingers were too cold. After some small chat she wandered away only to circle around me and the rest of the amphitheatre’s inhabitants (one vagabond homeless man and one older woman waiting for someone) for what seemed like some time. I was pleasant with her the whole time, again testing the spirit of the season, but my pleasant polite indifference fueled her and led her to engage in conversation multiple times. But I could not be trifled with; I was on a mission; I had ideas.

What were these ideas? I couldn't be sure, but for a second I thought I had discovered some horrible truth about the situation I was in. A sleep-deprived coma became my state, but completely alert and aware, just lacking the ability to remember any of it in any real coherent sense. Two hours after the initial phone call my friend arrived. The moment I entered the car, he took one look at me and said “What did you do last night?” After I turned to make eye contact with him, he grinned and his question was answered. “How did you know?” I asked, but he merely waved his hand away and responded with “Can you get more?!!” Rodriguez apparently understood the desire to go sight seeing.

This delightful unexpected proposition put me into a crisis situation: Do I do it all over again, this time doubling my dose and try to make it the rest of the day, or do I thank my friend for showing up and then promptly pass out in his car? I decided to do it for scientific reasons and because living hard is something I had never really tried before. For science. I made the call and my friend was awake and we went to go meet him by my house at his new apartment. 2x was applied and 1x for my friend, and I started to think I had made a very, very bad decision. Such thoughts are not good for the mind when encountering an altered state. Happy thoughts, use with force, into existence: prime rib sandwiches, Philly cheese steaks; I was starving! I hadn't eaten in over 12 hours, or had I? I distinctly remembered breakfast with my mother with her only comment being 'You’re funnier than usual.' She had no idea.

Suddenly I got a call from my other best friend Smedly. He was coming to visit me and was already at my house. I was walking a fine line and I knew it, but no changes would occur for hopefully an hour, and maybe he wouldn't notice substance ‘A’s effect. He was not the adventurous sort yet, but a yearning for the unknown was definitely there, for we would not have been best friends otherwise, I'm sure of that. Rodriguez and I were walking on our way to Subway when we encountered him. 'I need to get a present for Syd (his girlfriend of 3 years)' he explained. I recommended the chocolate shop, but first Subway. He agreed. Rodriguez said 'I'll pay for your sandwich Phil, but you have to pay me back in some other lifetime.' I considered the implications.

I was terrified.

Maybe some caffeine was necessary.

Lots of it.

Jesus.

'Honey oat bread please'

Something had changed. The tense. The atmosphere. The Subway store.

My childhood acquaintance who had supplied this nightmare is accompanying us to Subway. He decides to take off for business purposes and Smedly becomes severely confused about his whereabouts. I try to explain to him that we couldn't be sure he existed in the first place. This explanation doesn’t settle so I propose: 'He clicked his shoes and vanished back home!' This rouses a good laugh and Smedly relaxes, but he will not be denied. 'No, Seriously where did he go!!?' 'How can you be sure he was there?!!' Rodriguez supports my hypothesis and the subject is changed. It would be very difficult to prevent Smedly from knowing. So far it had been a smashing success, but the lack of sleep and the nightmarish beginning only meant one thing. The trip had begun.

I stare at my Subway sandwich with animosity that it does not deserve. I am very tired and nauseated, and feel like a balloon is trying to escape my esophagus. Smedly wants to go, and I wrap up the sandwich and take it with me. As we walk to the chocolate shop, I ask God if he would be so kind as to turn all the sidewalks into conveyor belts like at the airport. Solar power could run the damn things, with a Nazi-engineered weapon that magnifies sunlight to pinpoint the solar energy. God disagrees, and I trudge onwards slowly, feeling a descending sense of doom and despair. Rodriguez seems to be settling into the experience and is looking around every which way, while Smedly talks about some cool sound project or movie idea. However, words seem to appear in one ear and then leave my other ear straight into Rodriguezs; we can’t understand Smedly, but keep up the facade for we are in the middle of a public street. It is going well as long as the gesticulations continue to deceive.

We arrive at the chocolate shop and Smedly eagerly runs inside. I follow him and the moment I walk into the store, I swallow the gum I had been chewing. The nausea escalates and I feel like I am going to die. I turn around and rush outside and sit on the chairs outside frantically looking for a trash can or coffin. Smedly, unperturbed by my mysterious fleeing, buys his girlfriend the box of chocolates he had been planning on. Rodriguez comes outside and looks at me. We both laugh.

'I think that it’s kicked in!' I exclaim.

'Definitely, there are some weird uneven people out.' Rodriguez replies.

'This was a bad idea man. I feel awful, definitely like I'm done for. Tired. Going to puke--maybe.'

Rodriguez looks at me with haughty insolence. This rouses a good-natured grin upon my face that washed out as the bad waves of exhaustion and nausea crashed back again, stronger and not settling for less.

'You better not die on me.' A smile spreads as a goofy higher-pitched tone emerges from Rodriguez: ' Wai-T we'll just get some CoffeE.'

'Hey guys, got Syd her gift. Why'd you leave Phil?!' Smedly says, as he exits the shop.

'I swallowed my gum, give me a second I need to rest, bad vibrations you see, ominous dry heaving could be around the corner at any se--I contained the urge to vomit, there was no trashcan close enough--just give me a minute.'

'Alright, that's fine. We'll sit here then.' Smedly sits down as does Rodriguez and they watch as people go by. Rodriguez's brow is furrowed, awash in angst and waves of worry for my wellbeing, but it could also be the terrible drug that causes this perceived commiseration. Smedly looks thoughtfully at his box of chocolates and raises his eyes up to the sky. My eyes follow his and I noticed it is very overcast, but bright nonetheless. Two stragglers, shoppers in the Christmas spree of panic, hurry by.

The first shopper says, 'What a hellish Christmas.' The second shopper replies, 'It isn't going to snow in this city and Santa won't come on his sleigh.'

Words billow up inside of me and for a second I am not sure if I am going to actually vomit all over the white table where we are sitting, or speak. 'He'll COME on the last SLEIGH FROM HELL!' I exclaim to the passing shoppers. Of course, there were no shoppers, by the time the words left my mouth, they were down the street. If they had even existed. Had I heard that?

Rodriguez looked unsettled and Smedly looked like a tabby cat that had been rubbed the wrong way. It was becoming apparent that a change in scenery was necessary, if not for my mind, but for my life to continue. I had never felt so terrible and so sleepy and yet so awake. It was very much like a lucid dream, but stuck within the confines of some nightmarish reality. Perhaps this is what those bad trips are I keep hearing about, but I remain optimistic that it would turn out, and stare blankly with no expression at Smedly while the thoughts work their way through. Smedly blinks. This is his most notable tell to the vigilant poker face inspector, who might mistakenly think Smedly is bluffing, when he merely blinks. Often.

'Hey there's a Wolf's Cameras nearby!' Smedly looks away from my blank face and up the road towards the Plaid Pantry. Sure enough a Wolf's Cameras sign is there. Rodriguez gets up and explains he is going to the Pantry for a personal mission. I stare at my right hand and find a Subway sandwich there, deciding I had all the rations I need for the day's undertaking. I follow Smedly into the camera store.

Once I step inside the store, I feel instantly less nauseated, but am overcome by the geometric patterns of the building’s lights dancing on the display case. I was in a mad house with display mirrors and odd light fixtures designed to fill my mind with panic, and the two women behind the counter did not suspect a thing. Smedly calmly states that he'd like to see a particular model of Canon camera. Confusion settles upon the women's faces, and my bemused, irritated and somewhat scared appearance forces Smedly into action as four female eyes examine me. 'I would like to see this one.' he points at the camera. 'Oh of course.' said the woman and she hands him what appears to be a thousand-plus dollar camera. Her co-worker glances at me again with a raised eyebrow and looks quizzically at Smedly who blinks again.

Suddenly I feel my left leg give out. I swoop toward the ground and recover, awkwardly driving the store's inhabitant’s eyes upon me. Shit. If I stand still I'm going to collapse, CURSE taking this on no sleep, Fuck the science of things. Keep the mind active or else. I could kill for a cigarette, but do not possess the motor skills. The woman was looking at me, getting nervous. I would have to start talking to assuage her fears. To calm her down. 'We're photographers, see,' I lie. 'Really,' the woman retorts a little on edge. 'I just want to check it out feel it, compare it to the camera I already own,' said Smedly, ignoring my blatant lie. He is wise in the ways of the world, but unaware of it nonetheless. I mentally thank him for getting the attention off me, but the two women's eyes came vying back filled with mistrust and loathing. We weren't there to buy anything and we weren't there to pick up the girls. To the women, we were wasted time. 'Check the flash, gamma reduction, you know Smedly the fundamentals! How does this camera compare pixel-wise to my friend here's”—Smedly finishes the sentence for me with the Canon model number.

'I don't know I just open the case and sell them. I know nothing about them,' the woman explains. She is another victim of the quick hiring policies of the Christmas system of business. My attention shifts to Smedly, who has a look on his face that says this excursion is doomed. Out of the corner of my eye, a street freak was looming and had entered the shop. As he enters, a strange smell secretes through the camera shop and I fight back the dry heaves. Now there are three non-customers and the shop keeps are getting afraid. The street freak shuffles about, his rank odor giving him an aura of stench so powerful that no adjective could describe it. It was time to leave. 'The camera's NO GOOD! Shoddy shutters and the like—goodbye!' I rush outside. Smedly follows. The street freak comes out and chuckles as he walks away. The smell was bad, but the fresh outside air provides relief, a cool and rushing sensation.

'That felt very weird. That street freak who entered was sketching me out,' Smedly said, still oblivious to my mental maladies.

'He knew too much,' I explain, but did not explain at the same time. Yes, that street freak had seemed uncomfortably keen on viewing my face. The dilated pupils must have given me away, hopefully he wouldn't perform any acts of vigilante justice on the unkempt youth today during the Christmas season.

'What!? You are making no sense Phil. The display case sure had a large number of cameras,' Smedly says as he shifts his gaze. 'Rodriguez is coming.'

Rodriguez was leaving the Pantry with a big silly grin on his face. The Cheshire cat had competition now. 'I got cigarettes,' Rodriguez proudly proclaims. 'You smoke?' Smedly asks.

'I don't know, I just bought them for today.'

'This is why you are my best friend,' I interject, overjoyed at a possible wake-me-up. 'Both of you, now please tell me one of you has a lighter.'

'Haha here you go.' Rodriguez extended the torch, a beacon of hope in a dreary nightmare. 'I never thought I'd say this, but cigarettes are saving my life today!' I exhale and a rush of wakefulness fights back the overbearing hellish feeling of doom that had previously descended upon me.

'How so?! What have you been talking about? I'm so confused. I didn't know you smoke!' Smedly shoots off rapid fire. I look at my best friend and realize that the middle of a Plaid Pantry parking lot was not the place to discuss theology of the drug user. 'Let's go to Urban Outfitters, I'll explain later.' This seems to settle Smedly for now, but there is one issue of importance before we descend into what is going to be a very packed store.

'Hey guys, one thing before we go. Do I look presentable?! My contact keeps trying to fall out my eye and my nose is runny, but I look fine right?” I ask the group. Rodriguez smiles and says that I look the same as I always look. Smedly stares at me for a second and then calmly explains, 'Phil, you never look presentable.' This rouses laughter from the two fools and I shrug. There was nothing I can do for the poor bastards. If I’m not looking normal and presentable at all, at any time, then it is a mystery to me as to why they would chill around me in the first place. Details though, minor details. Time to force the legs to move, look around and enjoy the Christmas spirit in a whole new light. I notice several souls in various states of Christmas stress. The stressful vibes on the common people's faces intensify as we enter the densely packed Urban Outfitters.

Gripping the large handle, I pull open the door as heat radiates from the building. My runny nose has intensified, a most unpleasant result of the dry air, but I cannot be certain. People are popping into perception. People of all ages are everywhere. A group of three moves past us, and I begin to wonder if my 'not being presentable' will become a problem. The thought is dismissed as silly and not important as we slowly move our way from the women's floor to ascend to the platform in the middle (male section) of the stairs, pushing people pleasantly aside as we climb. There is an assortment of gadgets and silly accessories like fuzzy slippers that any straight male I knew would never wear. I felt the slippers. The soft fuzzy feeling I expected quickly became disgust as I jerked my hand back. The slippers were sticky. I rubbed whatever horrible thing that had eaten my supposed soft–feeling slippers on the first thing I see, a polka dotted t-shirt.

Questioning how male this store’s male section is, I turn my gaze to a strange-looking book with an arch nemesis: George W. Bush, on the cover. Smedly and Rodriguez are scampering about, digging into the doodads and tacky objects like I am. We are out of our element here. It is unbearably hot. I open the book and stare at the abstract art that permeates every page. It is entrancing. For a moment that feels like a decade, my mind discerns what the repeating background art is. Che Guevara and George Bush in a compromising position. 'Hey you guys check this out, how rad is that?!' I sniffle and say.

Smedly examines the book thoroughly and thumbs through it in half the time it took me. He then re-opens it at about the halfway point, his hands on both covers as he states, 'It's pretty cool, I guess.' At this moment Rodriguez turns his attention to the book and stares at it. His large pupils are mesmerized by the page. He looks at me. I raise my eyebrows and glance at another abstract artist’s interpretation of George W. doing a Nazi salute with an endless array of swastikas in the background. A horrifying truth begins attempting to correlate Hitler to George in my mind, echoing at the edge of consciousness. This book is filled with ingenious design. As Rodriguez and I cannot even take our eyes off the page, the pages turn by Smedly's hand. Another hypnotizing image consumes Rodriguez and I, as thousands of George Bush’s fill the page, in a pattern similar to the four-paneled Beatles album cover. Only this time there is no musical creativity behind the picture, and what remains is an artist's ghostly ode to a completely differently-layered type of mind.

A vision then comes to me, flooding my minds eye with a future America: consumerism at its peak, large corporations raking in the cash, subduing the buyers with bigger buildings. The American dream of two cars in every house destroyed, giving way to the corporate American dream. I see four large buildings each with a neon sign taking up a four different blocks. The buildings rise into the night sky as I glance down upon them from the heavens. Wal-Mart glows in blue, K-Mart in red, Disney in black-white neon, and U.S. Government in red, white, and blue. My view from the heavens quickly returns to Newton's laws as I see my point of view fall rapidly down to the sidewalk, on the intersection of this future hell, looking in the windows as my neck cranes up looking at the bland buildings blur into the night sky.

I enter the store and a directory flashes into my mind. 'Find your healthcare needs, 4th floor. Starbucks, 1st floor second building to your right. Military, 5th floor, Women's undergarments, aisle 6.' Each building is filled with the same thing. There is no existence outside these stores. Everything you could ever want or need is within them. Apartments trapped between floors. No more real estate. Socialism, disguised under an illusion of choice. My mind ascends up the building, adjacent stores as each store’s layout proves the same. At the top floor, there is a sky-bridge connecting each of the four buildings to one another. A large fat man smiles from his desk, and on the other side of this room, across from the desk, was a screen filled with an image of the same disturbing image of a fat man, just with a slightly different toned tweed suit. This was America's future if run by the major corporations. I was sure of it.

The loud snap of the book closing brings me back to reality. 'There's nothing I want here.' said Smedly. Rodriguez looks at me, his eyes wide. 'Pretty cool book, huh,' I say to him. 'Yeah, that was pretty abstract art,' he replies. 'Let's go then Smedly, Rodriguez, to Starbucks for I need fuel, we will find one soon enough as there are three within ten blocks that will take us back to around my house.' I propose with shudders coursing through me. 'Alright Phil, sounds good let's go to the one with the plush chairs,' responds Smedly. 'An excellent idea,' says Rodriguez. As we turn to leave a group of people follow us, and by the time we leave the store, we leave as ten. Our crowd disperses as we move down the sidewalk, I ponder the strange vision. Starbucks' number was at five within my neighborhood. The remnants of a Blockbuster from last year had recently converted to the coffee cause. Strange tidings, paranoia, as they open stores close to one another in this overpopulated neighborhood.

Two homeless citizens huddle together in one of the bus-stops littering every two blocks. None of the frenzied frantic shoppers spare them a dime. I ridicule my changeless pockets as we march down 23rd avenue. We decide to stop at a novelty store, but inside there are too many people and Rodriguez leaves. I find a 'Ministry of Silly Walks” t-shirt and show it to Smedly. He smiles and we both re-enact the silliest walk we can remember from the sketch. This drew a few eyes, but everyone is busy and locked in-to a shopping frenzy, so our antics are ignored. We conclude we are done with this silly shop and proceed outside. Rodriguez is there smoking a cigarette and the adventure continues as we pass an inadequate Starbucks, one without comfy chairs for lounging.

We venture down the avenue and walk through the crowds gathering around the streetcar. My stepfather was very involved in bringing the street car to the City, but I would argue, thinking that the era I live in is one with scientifically feasible jet-packs. An awful thought enters my head. What if I encounter my parents walking along the avenue?!? This hadn't occurred yet, so the terrible idea was fresh and powerful. We arrive at the Starbucks, which is a place my mother frequently visits, and I dart for the comfy chairs. Rodriguez looks at me with a worried face, for he would have to order the drinks; I had beaten him in. The girl behind the counter was exceptionally attractive, so my friend’s fate would not be entirely negative. Smedly gets a chia tea, as he enters first, and comes to sit down. The challenge of ordering drinks is overcome by Rodriguez and he comes with two in hand.

'You get me something?' I ask.

'Yes, a Carmel macchiato,' Rodriguez replies.

'Excellent, I can't wait for the caffeine to kick in.'

'Phil you want to go to your house?' Smedly asks. This was a question I had hoped would never come up, and I try to look grim as I sip my coffee.

'Let's see a movie!' Rodriguez summons up a perfect response. I telepathically send him “thanks,” but there is no need. He is one step ahead of me already, and is nodding before the message is sent.

'Yea, my house is lame, we are facing some unusual circumstances. The outside world is far more interesting at the present moment; my house is filled with nothing to do.' I inform my friend.

'Into the Wild looks pretty good.' Rodriguez suggests.

'I'm down, what else is there?' Smedly implores.

'Golden Compass, Charlie Wilson's War”--'No thanks!' Smedly adds and I agree wholeheartedly—“Juno, Atonement,' Rodriguez lists them off. Strangely, Into the Wild seems like the only good choice on the list. There is unanimous agreement. 'My financial situation is not good. I don't know if I have enough cash for the movie,' I say, examining my destitute status and empty wallet.

'I'll cover it. Just pay me back later,' Rodriguez states.

'Alright, where is the movie going to be?' I question.

'Pioneer Courthouse Square,' Rodriguez informs.

I look at him with mounting skepticism. I would be returning to that crowded cesspool of Portland's strange, weird, and busy landmark.

'The Square?!? Are you sure?! I guess we could take the streetcar. First I have to go to the bathroom.'

'Yes, that sounds like a good idea, we can ride for free,' Smedly says.

I stand up and walk toward the bathroom. A man is sitting about 6 feet from us, busily typing some career-defining paper, or so it appears, for he looks intently focused. I pass him and continue on towards the bathroom and as I approach the door, a man exits looking most uncomfortable. My head follows him as he passes me, but his eyes do not waver, determined to find whatever destination brings him away from his experience in the bathroom. I put my hands on the door and push it, opening into a scene with a dirty man at the sink, intently focused on something, and making strange grunting and intense sniffing noises. A wave of absolute terror comes over me and I do not look at the man again, bolting for the urinal.

Great, some man in the depths of some drug experience is behind me and going to shank me at any second! The fear overwhelms me. I can't pee. Focus, dammit! Use your enhanced imagination abilities to work Niagra Falls past the fear. It works, and I let it flow. I slowly turn my head, ready to face the monster in my mind. Ignore this horrible drug, he is most likely just fixing his teeth. My eyes look at a mirror—reflection of a man using a straw to snort cocaine. In a public restroom, at a public Starbucks, in my neighborhood. We share a moment, me and this man. A fragment of time, of deep understanding, a strange rising feeling in the depth of my soul. He knows I am impaired, and he is scared. My pupils are ginormous, and his right blue jean leg is holding him on the sink, closer to the mirror, closer to the cocaine. My contact tries to jump out and I blink awkwardly. I turn and flee the bathroom as he sniffs again. Outside I zip my fly and apply my belt, and rush to the comfort fifteen feet away. My friends look at me with amusement and smiles. I return the smiles with a frown and sit down, only to stand quickly and say 'Let's go! I'm ready to leave.' I grab my coffee and walk out the door.

As I leave the Starbucks, I take the moment alone outside to gather myself. I am shaken by the encounter in the restroom. A travesty, a terror, a freak like myself was trying to enhance the holidays, but with a different poison. The entourage assembles outside and as we walk to the streetcar, I try to explain the monster in the restroom. My friends agree that it would be an uncomfortable situation and the moment is lost as we board the streetcar.

The streetcar never checks for tickets, and we take advantage of this and ride for free. It is a packed car, white on the inside with grey paneling, and I, now aware of my large pupils, sit down in the only single seat. My friend drops a cigarette during the ride, and a large black man mutters, bringing it to my attention. I look at him thankfully as he pounds his chest, acknowledging and understanding without a word being said. This form of communication is appealing and advanced, but impossible to duplicate without such prior understanding. I turn and hand Rodriguez the cigarette, and he asks me where it came from. I tell him a guy in the other section called out, but he did not hear it and doubts me.

'Where do we go when we get off the street car?' Smedly asks, a perfectly logical question that had yet to occur to me. 'Uhm, I can't remember right now, but we'll figure it out when we get off,' I reply. 'Alright, where do we get off and how many stops are left? Smedly counters. 'Uhhhh....' I have no idea. Looking at the map provided by the streetcar provides little help. Surely there is some solution to his question. But a solution fails me. 'We'll find out when we get there.' I say hoping that will suffice, but Smedly would not be satisfied. 'Hmmm, that does not bode well for our future endeavors,' he sagely states.

I look at my friend, my best friend of many years. He is wise beyond what I, and he, can imagine. We must find the solution to his question in order to make it to the mall. The distance between words and reality is starting to increase. It appears the peak is at least one hour away. At that point, we should be in the audience of Into The Wild. The thought settles my mind and my soul. An intense movie like Apocalypto would not be viewed this time around, not on this experience. Intensity is already around anyone and everyone, angrily advancing through the shops. Instead, a more pleasant flick involving a man who decides to throw away all his worldly possessions, and go into the wild.

Throwing away all possessions at a time like Christmas was unfathomable. The buying of future possessions is what keeps this season alive. No more do we practice arcane pagan rituals of saying what we are thankful for at the time of humanity’s supposed savior's birth. At least, not at the families I visited. The majority, 70%, was not even as heavily practicing as my own. The heavy moral consequences were weighing on my mind. A distraction from Smedly's important question to be sure, but what was the most important question? What was more important? The implications of everyone I had seen, ignoring their fellow man, and frantically buying strange and 'fad' items. What was I witnessing? I was not sure anymore, of anything, much less where I was.

Rodriguez quickly straightens up and looks around, I take a quick look at my pants pockets, and Smedly looks at the passengers around him. We are currently passing the Pearl, the booming business/residential district. Despite my years in this part of town, the terrible triumphant drug has effectively rendered my terrible sense of direction null. I am lost. I look at the upcoming stops. Jefferson Street. I always liked that president. Yes, it will have to do. I turn my eyes and look at Smedly, 'We will get off here, at Jefferson.' I inform him. 'Alright, how far is the mall from there?' He retaliates. 'Smedly, to be honest, I haven't been to this part of downtown in awhile, and I can't remember.' Smedly looks at me quizzically. He doesn't know yet, he does not suspect. He trusts me.

The stop arrives at that exact moment and I jump off. Smedly grabs Rodriguez, who is starting to succumb to the drugs almighty wrath. His scanning eyes are black orbs, and he nods as I ponder the situation. We all look around us at the scene. I start walking in a random direction, confident that a solution will present itself. Sure enough, about two blocks later we encounter three street musicians, twenty shoppers, and two homeless people. I smile, for we are not even into the heart of downtown. A metaphor was growing within my mind: Christmas, the season of giving, was currently being consumed by some sort of beast. The beast of consumerism? The beast of greed? The beast of bastardized Santa outfits being worn by 1/6 of the people we pass? I was not yet sure of what type of beast it was, but it was littering the City’s streets. I explain this hypothesis to my friends:

“Well Smedly, Rodriguez, we are walking at a good clip and should arrive at the mall soon. Take notice of the large number of people, all possessed with the desire to give, two days before the giving's proper time.”

'What's your point?' Smedly candidly counters.

'My point my friend, is we are about to enter a monster at the mall. If for any strange reason I myself or our friend Rodriguez here, should raise up our arms, and turn and flee, please just meet us back at the Square which we should... be passing shortly. I'm not sure what we may encounter in there, but I do know that it may be terrifying, a quirky fear of mass claustrophobia magnified by the masses.' I end my monologue to Rodriguez's agreeing smile, and Smedly's doubting stare.

'Flee the mall? Why would we do that?!' He asks. The words come out to me wrongly as, 'Freeeeee the MAAallL? We should DO that.' Naturally I do not respond and eye him suspiciously, so he asks again.

'Oh sorry, well, uhm, you see Smedly nothing about today is normal. You see, well...' I had no idea how to proceed with the sentence. It fell off a cliff in my mind as I stare at a Santa citizen chugging a bottle of Jack Daniels. Dear God, this city is filled with chaos. Soon they'll be breeding. What will happen then? Images of different Santas, some large, some fat, some strapped with vodka, dancing about in a drunken Christmas orgy, engaging in sinful satanic rites, gluttony . . .these thoughts take over my consciousness. We have now entered the Square. I now notice, strange I had not before, a giant Christmas tree smothered in dancing lights and ornaments, reflecting the flickering image. I need something to snap me out of this, this horrible funk.

'Smedly, what Phil is trying to say, is we may not want to go through the mall at all.' Rodriguez says, understanding and absorbing the fear.

'What about the movie?!' Smedly is clearly confused.

'We must see the movie! Screw the Satanic Santas, Fuck the panhandlers, I'm ready to enter this hellhole!' I cry.

A pause among our group. Rodriguez looks at me, his mouth is slightly askew with a downward tilt, and he says 'I do not know if I can do this. Let's smoke another cigarette before we go in.' We all try to walk faster, to get past the crowds, but I trip and wipe my nose, disturbing the pedestrians. 'What are you about!' the old lady pushing the stroller cries, and I respond with 'sorry about that, just trying to pass, enjoy the holidays...ho ho ho.' I adjust the cigarette lighting it. 'Just passing through, don't mind us,' Rodriguez politically pontificates, and the old lady smiles. What we are about would never be possible to explain, and why she asked consumes me.

'What, you guys really don't like the mall or something huh?' Smedly asks us, but does not expect a reply. I can see it in his eyes, he assumes that it is his fault he doesn't understand. Or so I suspect. Doubt on both sides must be settling in. Scrutiny.

'Apparently, you haven't considered everything,' I say, adding: 'expect the unexpected.' The cigarette adds relief, another snap of energy fighting back the cold and nose drip. Morale must remain high or the mall will be unbearable. Right as Smedly is about to ask me what I mean by everything a man in a white bunny suit walks up the Square's brick stairs. He is wearing a black star emblem eye patch. Did I just see that? Smedly's mouth drops affirming my suspicion as another bunny figure pops out behind a crowd, and another from behind the tree. This one has a different eye patch. They are gathering their forces. 'Quick! Into the mall!' I shout, and dart in as we enter the entrance, redundant as it may seem. We move past the crowd gathered around a silver statue man. His eyes follow us, haunting my reality. As I turn my head, a man juggling five golden balls, comes into my vision and I step aside, tossing my finished cigarette. Jesus, we have not even opened the doors and already we are sucked into the madness of sensory overload. My senses were heightened enough, or so I thought.

The two large glass doors open, and the first thing I notice is that the Sharper Image is not a sharper image at all as snow hits my eye. Snow?!? Here?!? What the hell? There is snow everywhere. People are everywhere too. The Urban Outfitters was a populated puddle with tadpoles, compared to the algae-infested lake of people filling the mall. I sneeze a snowflake that does not melt, but sticks to my clothes. Fake snow, an enemy I had not considered. This is sheer madness! Christmas songs beat to chatter that rises, but never seems to fall. There are more people in this mall than there were people in the Square. I stand there, thinking these thoughts while Rodriguez is pressed against me and Smedly behind me. Football tactics would have to be used to traverse the terrain. Madden moves.

Why was I here? The movie! Of course! It resides on the top floor, but before that goal could be achieved, we'd have to work our way through the chaos. 'I'm dreaaaaaaming of a white Christmas' bellows, but babies bawling add an adverse negative connotation to my ear. 'I want I WANT I WANT!' passes my left ear and I feel the fear rising in me. I want to get out of here. I break free of a cluster of people and gasping, I grab the escalator handle. Smedly has passed Rodriguez now, and is four people and five steps behind me. My fear of heights jumps to my attention so I look up. There, at the top of the mall, the apex of the architecture, lies a fake snow machine pelting out white flakes that harass everyone. I see Rodriguez struggling to break through, but finally he does and he smiles, apparently avoiding any semblance of the fear consuming me, as he rides the escalator. He likes heights. How many more of these were there? I look up. Two more. There is no movie theatre on the top floor as I had remembered, we must be in the wrong section of the mall. Stiff-arming my way through two jovial Santas I spin move past a group of five, and creep onto the next escalator.

I stare over the edge, trying to fight the urge to jump off, screaming 'Damn you, Pioneer Courthouse Square Mall, Damn you for ruining order, the pristine condition of prior Christmas.' But I know it's not the mall's fault. It is just a building after all. I don't want to die, not to make this point, not now. Into the Wild will provide relief, the great outdoors, images of nature not defiled by 'tickle me Elmo's' and Nintendo Wii's. Fake snow gets in my eye, and my contact decides at that moment to try to jump out again. My contact adds to the ante of chaos. Curse this decision, the science of things is a science I no longer want to understand. I stumble and fall, but Smedly’s hand catches me. I mumble thanks and look at him trying to point and explain where the movie theatre is. 'WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!' is his reply. Rodriguez is catching up to us, but this floor is louder then the last.

The beat of the beast that drives us rears its ugly head as a small army of Mexicans, Koreans, and other melting-pot families converge on our location bustling with boxes of gifts. Five children forming a pentagram outline scream 'I want to see Santa,' as a drunk man in a Santa outfit stumbles to a bench. 'You can't see this Santa, he is not the real one,' a mother replies. The Santa burps. Two of the children start to cry, the other three join in realizing that Santa, may not appear as he seems on the hallmark cards that sit on top of their boxes. 'YOU TOLD ME Santa was real!' they wail, a zooming, piercing sound that fades out thankfully, as I climb the next escalator. I peer over the edge and my heart leaps into my throat. My contact tries to escape and begins to fall out of my eye, but a blink and a finger poking it stop it. This of course hurts, and I cry out, but stop to sneeze again, shedding fake snow onto the handle of the escalator. We have reached the top floor. Thank God, and his son Jesus, there's a sky bridge leading to the next part of the mall!

On the top floor, there is an Electronics Boutique, filled to the brim with gamers of all ages. Inside, parents too confused to know the difference between a game and a game console scream for verification above the racket as employees' faces fluster. Maybe we do practice the arcane pagan rituals, I begin to consider. Just replace praying, with spraying, fake snow, so that the people do not know, what hinders them, the beast of greed within. Yes greed, or the need, to bring Christmas to the lead, of buyer's impulse decisions. Do I buy the collector's edition game with the sexgunsrapetheftfun4 on the cover, so my son can gloat like no other, or do I buy some other game, for a different console, the right console, this is driving me insane, goes the prayers refrain. But I do not remain. I no longer want to hear, what it is that these buyers fear.

I must get out of this madness. I walk across the circular floor determined to arrive at the surprisingly sparse sky bridge. Smedly has gotten ahead of me, and is looking out the window, and Rodriguez is not far behind me. I walk up, grab the silver handrail, and peer over the railing at the streets below. Thankfully, within this haven, there is no snow. 'Come on, let's press to the movie. It should be at the end of this sky bridge.' As the words leave my mouth I decide now is the time to explain to Smedly, what exactly causes my weird mannerisms. 'Smedly before we continue, Rodriguez and I took substance ‘A’ before you arrived, because we didn't know you were coming.' I feel no weight lifted from my chest. The ball had moved into Smedly's court, and I wasn't sure where he would dribble.

'Seriously?! This whole time?!?' His voice rises and I prepare for condemnation. Rodriguez pulls the draw-strings on his hood. 'Man, if you hadn't told me, I would never have known.' The words leave his lips and bounce off my mind’s wall, hitting me with stupefying surprise. 'I couldn't tell at all. You guys were acting completely normal.' He finishes this startling thought, and a long moment of silence passes between us. Completely normal does not even begin to describe what I have seen. Fuck it. Along with not being presentable, Rodriguez and I must always appear as if on drugs. The peripeteia of our unusual circumstances begins to dawn upon me.

Oh well, at least honesty is being achieved in this dishonest location.

Rodriguez starts to laugh, a chirping sound that echoes off the sky bridge wall as my laughter joins in. Smedly does not understand the ridiculousness of the situation, but he joins in and he is right in doing so. We are alone, the three of us, on this abandoned sky bridge; as if in another world, but 15 feet away, the beat of the Christmas beast continues to bellow. We have conquered him, for now, for on the other side of the sky bridge lies a vast and barely populated movie theater. Sanctuary. What we consume will provide us with food for thought. This is what our Christmas hath brought. Anticlimactic I suppose, but what the truth is . . . who knows?

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 72107

Gender: Not Specified

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Oct 13, 2008	Views: 21,389

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LSD (2) : General (1), Difficult Experiences (5), Various (28)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

		   repeated
		 smoked
		 Cannabis
		 (plant material)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   155 lb

Some background:

Having read extensively on the web and in lots of other books about every aspect of LSD's effects, and also having talked to a lot of people who used it successfully to solve problems and become better people made me more confident in taking it. I had spent a lot of time thinking and learning about what I was taking, why, and what the potential ramifications would be. Had I not done this, I know this first trip would’ve been nowhere near as good as it was, even at the worst moments, and definitely would not have reached the bliss it did.

I had wanted to try acid for a very long time. It’s probably a good thing that I waited, as I used to have some heavy emotional problems and also lots of self-esteem issues. I had been working on being more positive for a while, but I felt like the setbacks I had been encountering in school had made it difficult. I'm a first-semester college student who just moved out, and while it's only been about 2 months on my own it's been a hell of a ride. I had just tried mushrooms a few weeks ago, and while I liked them, I decided I was ready for something more intense. That's why when an acquaintance from high school approached me in front of a building on campus and told me he had a tab of acid he would give to me, I damn near cried with happiness. On that day I had pink eye and bronchitis, so I hadn't gone to my early class, and I ended up skipping my second class to drive with him to his house and pick up the tab.

We talked about a lot of things on the way and also on the way back: what we planned to do with ourselves in the future, our previous experiences with drugs. When I told him that I had never done acid before, it seemed for a minute like he was considering not giving it to me. He cautioned me quite a bit, warning me that acid was nothing like mushrooms in terms of visuals and mind-fucking. He also informed me that this tab was triple-dipped, which I think may have been a fib. I think instead of this scaring me off, it made me want to eat it immediately. This was around 2:00 in the afternoon.

I basically made no attempts at preparation other than lining up a sober sitter and taking a shower. I was cocky and figured that my strength of personality would be enough to keep me safe while I tripped. I wondered if I would be able to put in my eye drops for the pink eye by myself, I wondered if I would know where I was. In retrospect, for all the reverence I give the drug, I wish I had waited for a more special night to take it for the first time. Pink eye + acid make for some really icky sensations and visuals. While I had been told to only take half a tab, I definitely was not going to listen - I wanted to detach myself from reality completely for a while, which I had not been able to do with mushrooms.

My sitter (C.) had some things to attend to, and we agreed that I would take it at 6 and meet her outside my dormitory building. So I decided to go with some guys to pick up some pot and drive around for a while. We ended up sitting in a parking lot for a long time waiting for the guy to show up, and I realized it was 5:30 already. Anxious to take it, I asked the boys how long it would take to kick in, and they all told me it would be about an hour before I felt any effects. I thought 'Oh, hell, it wasn't the plan to take it this early, but I won't feel anything for an hour anyway.' I placed the tab under my tongue and then swished it around for a while. I thought it would be a long time until I felt anything.

This was not the case. On the way back to town, smoking a few bowls after the deal had been made, I definitely noticed some strange (but exciting!) things happening. Mostly it was in the way I felt physically - my body sort of felt like a smear on a flat surface, my jaw felt funny. They were playing some sort of weird music that wasn't really my taste, but it sounded the way I imagine the jungle does at night. I think at this point, I was not equipped to respond to questions very well. They all wanted to go to a place in the woods by a river, and while I knew C. would be waiting for me back at the campus, they were too tempting - 'Do you want to go back or do you want to frolic in nature for a while?'

It was sitting on the rocks on the side of the river that I first noticed some different things happening - things looking different, the water sounding so much louder but also so much more musical. I looked to the other side and decided there was a monkey with a sniper rifle sitting in the grass. I think it was actually a log. This was where I learned how important it is to have good people around you while you're tripping, too. I had met all the people I was with just two months prior to this. Two of the people I was with have anger and depression problems, and they were unpleasant to look at and talk to - they were primitive, animal-like, croaking and misshapen.

Climbing back up the bank to get out of there, I looked at some moss. The tiny plants were growing and squirming, and I had to laugh. Natural things were another highlight of the trip: whether it was the grass, trees, sky, water: it was all so much more interesting and satisfying to look at than artificial things. From there it went downhill for a while. These people, who had not been prepared to baby sit me this night, let me follow them to get some food. We sat around and I realized that I was becoming very uncomfortable. I wouldn't allow myself to be negative, and tried to convince myself that I was having fun, but it was nothing amazing.

Then I ran into a boy I knew outside the building. K., the guy that had given it to me, had procured it from this other guy, who I'll call B. I informed B that I was tripping for the first time, partially thanks to him, and he beamed and told me he was going to take me for a ride. Every time he said the word “tripping” it seemed so bizarre. He said the word a couple times and I thought about it: what if I wasn’t actually tripping? I decided that it was possible that this was all a conspiracy: B. was just a salesman. He must’ve given me this little piece of paper because he knew that I wanted to try LSD, and what I was experiencing was just the placebo effect. He wanted me to tell everyone that his “acid” was good, sell it to everyone, and take over the world from there. This was a scary thought, overwhelming, sad, but I remained composed. It became apparent that this was not the placebo effect when he handed me a light-up egg that changed colors and put on some techno music in his car driving down the highway. It was joyous. I cradled the egg in my hands and thought about it, how it worked, how beautiful it was. B tried talking to me, but was understanding when I found words inadequate.

When I got back, my other friends invited me to go smoke some more pot with them. I accepted somehow, and we went to a clearing by a bridge. It was there that I started thinking about everything, nothing, and what I was supposed to do with my life. When you think about it, you are the same as the screen you are reading this on, and the chair you’re sitting in, the food you eat, the water you drink. Atoms swap electrons, which are moving all the time, and the electrons never touch - everything in the universe is basically made out of the same material, and held together with vibrations. I contemplated this, and tried to wrap my head around it. It was hysterical.

When we got back to the parking lot, we needed to wait for a bus to take us back to the dorms. Everyone waited at the bus stop while I tried to give my cigarette to the red button on the emergency phone nearby. I got frustrated when it wouldn’t accept, and started kicking it. I thought… what stops me from kicking things more often? I have this power as a human being to kick things, why don’t I use it? I wondered if freaking out completely was the best and truest way to live life - since everything is basically the same, and also connected, maybe violence would be the best way to stimulate the rest of the universe and other human beings.

Then, my friend G. (an experienced tripper) began to talk to me about things, and the thoughts and fragments of thoughts I had been having began to make more sense. He talked to me about enjoying the hell out of things, and about how LSD is so good for contemplation because it makes you like a child, you notice everything more. I think that the best thing that he said was after we encountered a trash can knocked over on the sidewalk… “If all destruction was turned into creation, things would be SO COOL.”

This was just what I needed. I prepared to better myself the rest of my life: to be calm even when things are disappointing, to be positive. I realized that kicking things whenever I felt like it would make me physically free, but only for a while, and that the best way to be mentally and spiritually free was to help, to create, to love, to learn. I resolved to stop smoking, and while that failed the next day, I did a great job at cutting back. Until that day, I had smoked cigarettes every day since I was 12 and smoked roughly a pack a day since I turned 18. Since then, I have smoked about 4 cigarettes total, and it’s getting easier to envision my life without them.

I had felt lonely at college, but watching people follow me and try to take care of me, offer me their beds to sleep in and their words to soothe me was the most amazing thing once I realized it. I saw that while maybe I’m not bosom-buddy close to anyone in this college environment yet, they have love in their hearts for me and I just have to be there and ready to accept it. Talking to him, I felt everything in me settle down, as if everything in me had moved too fast up until that point and that was the source of my nervousness, my bad habits.

LSD did make me like a child. I was able to work through the problems I’ve had since I was a kid - I was given another chance to grow up. I can’t say how long this pervasive sense of relief and perfection will last, but I know that the perspective I gained will help me deal with setbacks in the future much differently and in more constructive ways. I plan on tripping again tomorrow, in the sunshine. This time though, my friends will on the same stuff, I can’t wait.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 56654

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Dec 19, 2008	Views: 24,783

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LSD (2) : First Times (2), Glowing Experiences (4), Various (28)


		 DOSE:

		 1 hit
		 oral
		 LSD
		 (blotter / tab)

           BODY WEIGHT:
	   115 lb

After a very mild and unexciting acid experience about 3 months earlier, I was not expecting anything close to what happened. I had purchased 4 tabs from a friend so that I could take more if 1 tab was not strong enough. I was supposed to meet a friend in a couple of hours and thought I had some time to kill so I found the tabs and took one.

At first, I was watching this asinine TV show about people running into things and acting like idiots. It called Americas Funniest Videos. Normally I would leave the tv on while doing something else, but suddenly this became the funniest thing I had ever seen. I started to laugh my ass off uncontrollably at every video and could not stop even when my roomate came in. One thing that made it very uncomfortable was that I had not warned my roomates beforehand that I had taken acid and found it very difficult to explain once I was on it, so I just kept trying to avoid them, but that was very hard considering how small our apartment is. Also considering I would keep staring at them and smile which they probably found to be very creepy.

So I was watching the television show, still partly in reality, thinking that this acid must be the mild kind without any hallucinations. Then my eyes settled on the fan that was rotating. There was a light source emanating from the center and the colors became like water, swirling and melting from blue to light blue to white. I was surprised that I was hallucinating and stood up and the entire room became wavy and I felt a bit motion sick. I hobbled to the bathroom with my arms out in front of me and looked in the mirror. I could see my face and it was huge. My flesh was sort of moving around, I felt like I was in an illustration like Scanner Darkly or Waking Life. That is actually the best explanation of what everything around me turned into. I then accidently locked myself in the bathroom and did not know how to get out. I did not want to bother my roomates or freak them out so I stayed in the bathroom for what felt like an hour and thought maybe I would have to climb out the window. I tried with the doorknob again and finally it turned and I was back in the room.

In my mind, I thought I was going on a journey, which I guess I was, and started to pack my backpack with the supplies, laptop, camera, pencils, sketchbook, ipod, ipod speaker, jacket and brought it all to my bed. I spread everything out and opened my laptop and started playing Thelonius Monk. It was the most amazingly beautiful music I had ever heard. I sat on my bed and stared out the window at the condominiums across the street and it was so unexplainable beautiful and the lighting was incredible. Prior to this experience I had felt uncreative and uninspired living in New York because of the superficiality, my school, and the city, but at that moment I realized that the creativity and potential was inside me and all of us and I could find wonder in everything if I looked for it. I realize this all sounds incredibly cliche, but I felt so inspired and all these self revelations were coming to me and I was completely happy and at peace with myself and my abilities. I think I stared at the condominiums for about 5 hours. I cannot really remember my thoughts then, but I remember seeing the most beautiful lights and colors and patterns everywhere and the music was amazing. I also remember thinking that I could never go back to my old life again. That this had completely changed my life and I could never go back knowing what I knew now and thought I understood.

Then my laptop died and without music it became less pleasurable. I had also turned my phone to silent because I did not think I could handle talking to anyone. The friend I was supposed to meet had called and when I listened to the voicemail, I started to laugh happily and felt his presence with me. I had opened my window and the cold air was coming into my room, but every time I would shiver, waves of euphoria would flow through my body and I would look at the the lightshow and feel incredibly at peace and happy. Then I realized that I had my ipod with me and started playing Comets on Fire. It was the most intense music I had ever listened to. I went from Comets on Fire, to Volcano, to Velvet Underground, to Blue Cheer, to Jefferson Airplane, to the Wipers. I thought they must have all been on acid when they wrote the music, because it was just too perfect.

Time was totally random. I took it at 12 pm and the next time I checked my watch it was 5 pm and dark. The darkness totally intensified the available light. I could not get up and turn on the lights in the room, mostly because I became scared of my roomates and was afraid they would call the police for some reason. At the peak of the acid I was scared, and there was no one to console me except myself. I told myself that it was a journey and that it would eventually end, which helped. So I took out my notebook and started to draw with the light from my cellphone. I believe I did this for like 4 hours. Every pen stroke would light up and then go dark.

This made me very happy to draw. Everything I drew felt like some sort of revelation and it felt like anything was possible. I felt so sure and so capable, like I had found the inner artist in myself. I felt like I had realized my potential. I felt like I was underestimating myself previously and wondered how I could not see the wonder in everything. I remember saying to myself 'why did you not realize the blinds before? they are amazing! The highlights and the shadows alone would make a great painting! I've never realized how wonderful the blinds are!' I pretty much thought shit like this about everything including the dresser.

Every once in a while I would have to get up to go to the bathroom and it was extremely uncomfortable because I did not want to see anyone. I wanted everyone I knew to be with me and experience this new world, and was very sad that they could not see what I was seeing. I was in another universe/dimension and at some point could not distinguish between reality and the trip. I thought the trip had become reality and that I would never go back. Around 10 pm, I was tired, my eyes were tired, and the trip would not end. I sort of wanted it to end, and was uncomfortable because I had been laying in my bed for 10-11 hours at that point without food, water, or any interaction. I could not go outside because of my roomates and did not want to talk to anyone.

It ended around 3 in the morning, and I waited until my roomates were in bed and I went to the bathroom and ate some food and sat on the couch for a while. I then realized that there was writing all over my body and could not remember when or how it got there. One thing that was written was 'The laughing mocks me', I have no idea what that means. I also looked at my notebook and it looked like another person had written all over it. I finally went to sleep for about 4 hours and had to wake up at 9 to go to class. I felt totally out of it. I could not interact with anyone, and felt like I was not stable and could not hold anything. I could not really focus on anything and my eyes kept darting from one person to the next. But I felt like a different person. I was totally sure and at peace with myself. I did not wear any makeup or care, because I felt like I had transcended all of that. I realize this sounds very cliche and retarded, but I felt like I could finally see the beauty and potential of every human being. How much potential I had. How limited we all are.

I knew though that I could never do acid in my apartment again. I had to do it where there is a bigger space and a canvas set up with art supplies. I would want to do it alone I think, I do not think I could handle someone else tripping out next to me. I couldn't do it without music either. Yesterday when I was off of it, but still had some feelings left, I wanted to get back to reality, and never thought I would get back there, but now I am back in reality and I want to experience it again. I probably will do half a tab next time. LSD took me to someplace I could never conceive of and showed me how far I can push my senses. It was a really intense experience, and words can never explain what happened. I did not even try to explain it to anyone afterwards because I couldn't.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 57959

Gender: Female

Age at time of experience: Not Given

Published: Jul 24, 2009	Views: 27,698

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LSD (2) : General (1), Mystical Experiences (9), Music Discussion (22), Hangover / Days After (46), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Glowing Experiences (4), Alone (16)