DOSE:	1 bowl	smoked	Cannabis
	1 hit	sublingual	25C-NBOMe	(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

I would have considered myself an experienced psychonaut before the occurrence I'm about to describe, even though I now realize I experienced a lot of things I was completely new to and definitely not expecting.

Over a year ago me and a handful of friends purchased 25C blotters during the summer and decided to take them at the beach. It was a beautiful day and I loved everything about the trip, so when a friend of mine who had also purchased a tab that day decided to give me their tab I happily agreed to take it off their hands. They had been storing the single blotter in a plastic tube that was stuffed with a piece of cotton cloth to keep the blotter from moving around, but it had been in and out of hot cars and houses for a few months before it came into my possession. I just put it in a little cigar box in my room thinking, if anything, it was going to just lose its potency and I was fine with that since I didn't even pay for it.

A couple of months passed and I found myself to be home alone for a full 30 hours so I felt it would be a perfect time to try out the tab. I didn't have any plans for that day and next couple. I have never tripped alone before, but had tripped at least 5-6 times before and had always been the 'cool' one out of the groups I was with (usually the one calming other people down). I had never experienced an 'ego death,' but was familiar with the idea. Reading about an ego death, and experiencing an ego death are two completely different things. Ego death can be scary, and although I am extremely grateful for what I experienced, I can see how it can be psychologically damaging to some. If you are inexperienced, or even if you are just nervous about your trip I would suggest starting with small doses so as to not overwhelm yourself unexpectedly. I think my experience was made extra intense by the fact that I was tripping alone. At times I had no other output for exploration other than my mind.

That morning when my roommates went off I woke up and prepared myself some breakfast. I had a plain bagel, half with Mediterranean veggies and the other half with cinnamon sugar. I had a cookie and some tea as well a little later. I knew I wouldn't be hungry on the trip and that I should eat something to fill up first thing, but didn't want to get sick so I decided to read for a couple hours, waiting for my meal to start digesting a bit more.

I smoked a bowl and sat about lazily waiting for the heat to go down. At around 4 I decided to take the tab. (Thinking back on it I should taken half of it before ingesting it all, but what's done is done. ) I had taken 25C twice before and immediately recognized the bitter metallic taste I got from the blotter. I let it sit underneath my tongue and put on some tennis shoes so I could take a walk in the canyon outside my house to distract myself as I dissolved the paper in my mouth. I knew I had to keep it in the my mouth for at least 20 minutes, then chew up the piece and swallow. I reached the top of a semi-steep hill in about 15 minutes, still feeling the paper under my tongue, but slowly loosing feeling in my mouth and throat when realized I could feel my perspective changing: the hills around me were wobbling lightly like jello, far away mountains seemed more vibrant and closer, the sun was going down and the sky's colors were strong and misty, and I could feel a calm sense of euphoria. I stood on top for maybe ten more minutes as I saw the coast line swallow up the sun in the west, and made my way back to my house trying to suppress giggles and a smile as I strolled by my neighbors enjoying a meal in their backyard.

I got back and felt a bit sweaty from my walk and from coming up so I decided to shower. I started to see stripes of light around myself as I showered in the warm water and watched the darkness overcome my backyard through the bathroom window. I reached for a dried up starfish on the ledge of the window and it seemed alive, the fractal patterns veining along its upper side seemed infinite and when I flipped it over it's mouth and tiny barbs looks as if they were trying to suck my finger in when I touched it. At this point it had been maybe 45 minutes since I dropped and I was beginning to feel more and more dizzy, and see more animation in objects. For the sake of brevity I'm going to skip the average visual stuff you see when tripping(tribal patterns, growing plants, rays of light, breathing objects) to the part that I found extremely peculiar.

It was about 6 o'clock, I had smoked another bowl and was sitting on the dirt because I felt a strong need to solely be with natural things. That's when I began to become more detached from my body. I'm not a new comer to derealiztion and out-of-body experiences (I even felt possessed once when I took salvia) but things started to get much more weird. For one, I couldn't remember my past experiences or realize what was going on from a subjective point of view. At this point I was only an observer, unable to comprehend or analyze. I could just watch and I had to let the wave pass before I could get back to controlling myself and my thoughts, but until then I was stuck. I could see the visuals becoming more and more folded into themselves, like instead of just seeing a geometric strip of pattern float across my eyes randomly it turned towards itself and began continually spinning inside itself. This even happened with more complex patterns, like prehistoric geometric strip shapes moving in a triangular conveyor belt. Except what I found most interesting was that they appeared in the shapes of the plants and animals I was seeing. There was no part of my that could understand what was going on through inner dialogue or imagination. There was no 'middle-man' any more, there was no me, just everything. Eventually I came back to that part of me that I will describe as my 'ego.'

I understand it now as seeing the intrinsic connection of life, constantly intertwining through every part, always moving, folding in on itself only to have created a transcendence. It was no new idea, and I love psychedelics for not only giving you the understanding, but for giving you the experience and the true feeling of the 'one-ness.' I decided to go inside for a change of pace after the intense, yet awe-inspiring, situation that happened, but as I walked towards my living room door I changed my mind and walked towards another entrance to a bedroom, then I changed my mind again and walked to the living room door, then back towards the bedroom door... I'm not sure how long this lasted because I don't remember being 'conscious' exactly. I was confused and nothing felt real. I can only describe my state as being that of a dream, metaphorically and literally(Existence seemed to be just in my imagined world, exactly as you would experience seeing or remembering a dream). Like how you can experience something, but don't have the knowledge of how you got there or why things were the way they were, you're just thrown into it. And just like a lucid dream I began to recognize the discrepancies, except instead of using logic to see that you are dreaming, I began using logic to realize I wasn't dreaming.

I sat and I tried to bring myself back to the 'Here and Now.' I stopped trying to remember what I was walking to, I stopped trying to remember why I was so confused. I sat again on the dirt and breathed, and I remembered, like a revelation, 'I'm tripping!' This broke me out of the dream-loop, and I think I got into the loop because I tried for a moment to focus on my thoughts and wants, and just like everything I was witnessing, my mind too was just a record player, looping ideas, memories, feelings, etc. I decided to stop letting my ego dictate how I was going to, or SHOULD, spend this trip and sat with my plants in the night, meditating. This is when I broke reality.

I say 'broke reality' because I felt like reality was broken, or I had broken a rule of reality and gone too far into the 'matrix.' I could try to describe the visuals, but for the most part there was just the usual barrage of technicolor patterns, except tons and tons of static noise that left me unable to enjoy anything I saw because I couldn't interpret any of it. I realized I was about to peak again and I tried to calm my breathing, ignoring the light show happening around myself I just stared blankly ahead and suddenly the world around me dissipated. For a time I was able to stick with my thoughts and my inner dialogue, but then I lost control of that too, the words in my head were jumbled up and nonsensical so I stopped trying to use them and just laid down, supine, breathing. Suddenly I could feel a sense of communication or reception of a message or idea, but it wasn't through a voice or words, it was just an infinite loop of preternatural feelings about life, sustenance, urination, sex, birth, sleep, death, life, sustenance, urination, sex, birth, sleep...(Just a quick reminder that this drug will make you a little dehydrated so remember to keep using the restroom as long as your drinking water and not eating solids.)

As I began to regain a bit of my ego I got scared, because I thought that the fractal-ing and cycling of life was just SO obvious in literally every portion of existence that it HAD to be a simulator. I was part of a huge game, and I felt that it was very wrong of me recognize that. I felt like the universe was this supreme being with absolute power and we just transiently move through it, unaware that we are just an infinite looping of it's divine will to continue at any cost. I also realized that we all die, and I felt a bit of disapproval towards that idea. I felt like the universe was holding us hostage and taking advantage for it's personal agenda, but as I soon as I thought of this, I was sent back into an even more harrowing experience that I can only describe as an incarnation of basic moral rules, similar to the 10 ten commandments but not as specific. I grew up as a Roman Catholic (which is probably why I interpret this experience as I do), and I don't consider myself one anymore because of their hypocrisy, but many of the non-callous fundamental beliefs that are within most religions have to do with this experience and the need for thankfulness, and kindness, I'm sure. Even if it's just because that's the type of creatures we are, hardwired to love and be loved, it is the only way to true happiness, as we know it. I was filled with the need to repent for thinking that: being a separate human with a separate conscious is unimportant or counter intuitive to the blissful network of existence. I was overcome with the feeling of needing to bow down to the One, the Us.

I realized that only through our everyday awake consciousness can we create and work and improve because even though existence is infinite, it is a conglomerate of tiny tiny parts. In order for things to come together, parts have to separate. In order to achieve a goal, you have to repeatedly practice. Yin needs Yang, and Yang needs Yin. For there to be something, there has be an absence or a 'nothing.' Just as the macrocosm that is existence in it's entirety freely subjugates it's parts to do it's will, so does our consciousness, the microcosm, use our free will and control(however limited) as a medium to express what we want and create ourselves. The universe didn't banish us to a strange solitude, it let us free, as a gift, as symbol of our equal-ness. And so on and so on...

A few minutes passed and I decided to go inside and watch some science documentaries with my cat. Still tripping heavily and seeing faces in everything but no longer in an ego death, I was humbled to be just a simple single unit again. Once I came to accept the universe for who and what it was I was able to not only appreciate it, but also appreciate myself, connected or alone. I found myself watching a documentary on the auspiciousness of earth's position in the universe, and in it they were also hitting on important aspects of our current climate crisis. I felt an archaic reproach for the people who capitalized on the precious gifts of our resources and left us with the mess, but I also felt hopeful for the bright minds that were out there trying to fix the problem. Nothings ever going to be perfect, and now I have a new found appreciation for that because the universe needs constant flux, it's a crucial aspect of it, without bad, good has no place. That's just the way it is. I hope that anyone out there reading this can apply this to even a non-tripping situation, because we can learn from what we feel are 'bad' situations, and come out even higher and better in the end.

I ate a couple cookies with tea then went into a solid, yet dreamless, sleep until 10 the next morning and woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed. I texted my mother and told her I loved her and appreciated her, something I haven't said in a long time. I hung out with my friend in the afternoon, when I had been inside all week. I'm not saying people need to experience an ego death or any drug for that matter to achieve this gratitude, but I wouldn't have traded my experience for anything, and I'm never going to forget it. If people didn't just recognize these things, but actually felt them first hand, the world would be a much more connected, clean, and safer place.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 107419
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Aug 1, 2017	Views: 3,170
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25C-NBOMe (540) : Nature / Outdoors (23), Difficult Experiences (5), Alone (16)