DOSE: T+ 0:00	0.5	oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)
T+ 0:30	0.5	oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)
T+ 1:00	0.5	oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)
T+ 1:10	0.5	oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

Consciousness, has always been a topic of intrigue, to me; in particular, ways and means of exploring and mapping states of consciousness to ordinary reality. The first reason, I pursue it for personal or spiritual growth. The second reason, practical knowledge in creating an artificially conscious mind i.e. real Artificial Intelligence.

In regards to personal or spiritual growth, I consider myself a spiritual person, but I don't subscribe to any religion. I've had mystical experiences in my teens, when I was a Christian, and similarly had mystical experiences in my 30s, without identifying with any religion. Consequently, I view psychoactive substances, shamanism, language, real-life experiences etc, as useful tools in understanding consciousness and navigating the human experience. Despite the knowledge of the effects of psychoactive substances from researching the experiences of dedicated psychonauts, I rarely engage with any substances. I practice the art of flying with my feet firmly planted on the ground, which is a way of altering my reality through real-life experiences, without the use of mind-altering drugs. With that said, I have previously taken a functional approach to CBD, some years ago, as a substitute for massages. This was solely for use after long and intense cycling training efforts, as it worked as a great muscle relaxer for me. I have used CBD maybe 2-3 times, in the last ~2-3 years, once to enhance a sexual experience, and the other, to try and relax my body after some Long-Covid issues.

On to my experience, I had recently had dental surgery. The dentist offered me Norco, an opioid, to address the pain. However, I politely declined but accepted Ibuprofen (Motrin) instead. I had similarly declined being put to sleep for the surgery. As previously mentioned, I choose to navigate life in its rawness as much as I can, without the numbing effects of alcohol or psychoactives. Big mistake on my part! The pain was excruciating. I almost went into a state of delirium as a result of the pain, back at my place. At the tail end of the recovery process, I decided to introduce CBD to speed up the process, particularly in relaxing my jaws.

I bought some hemp derived CBD gummies with less than .3% delta 9 THC. They contained 15mg THC and 15mg CBD per gummy. Aside from that, the ingredient list states that they contain sodium citrate, buffered pectin, natural flavor, natural color, distilled water, granulated sugar, citric acid, hemp seed oil, 43 DE tapioca syrup. The person at the shop that sold it had asked me what I needed it for. I mentioned the pain from dental surgery and maybe relax a bit, in which case he suggested those particular gummies. I rarely use THC, as it has given me headaches and feelings of paranoia in the past.

It was a Friday in September at 7:30pm when I took the gummies. I had taken a single gummy the previous Saturday and simply fell asleep. I had therefore committed to taking two gummies, for the best possible outcome. At the time, I was upstairs in my bedroom, getting ready to jump into bed for some reading. I'm a hermit by nature, and therefore it was unlikely that there would be any distraction. If you were curious as to why I was getting into bed that early on a Friday, Long-Covid! I caught the first wave of Covid in February 2020, and it has significantly affected my quality of life since.

I got into bed, bit off half a gummy, and started reading. I was reading Be Here Now by Ram Dass. I had read some of it years ago, and bits of it resonated with me at the time. I had somewhat felt inclined to pick it up off my bookshelf a couple of weeks earlier, for no apparent reason. At the 8pm mark, I took another half-gummy. I kept on reading, but at some point, it became apparent that I wasn't making much progress. I was reading the same sentence over and over. I haven't meditated in a long time, but it occurred to me to do so as the gummy started to kick in.

Off the bed, and onto the floor I was, setting myself up for meditation. I was uncomfortable, as I can barely hold a lotus position due to my long-leggedness. The lights in my bedroom were still on. I turned around, picked up the other gummy and bit off half of it. This is likely within the 8-9pm window. About 10 minutes later, I decided to eat the remaining half gummy, turn off the lights and commit to the meditation. The discomfort of the floor and lotus position forced me back onto the bed. I would meditate in the dark, laying on my back, on the bed. However, the meditation was rapidly going nowhere. Rather, strange feelings of paranoia started kicking in. There were voices and songs in my head, and I realized this is what it's like to go mad. Check please, this is not what I had signed up for!

The thing with the drug induced paranoia, it doesn't just go away because it's no longer convenient for me to experience it. If anything, it became an echo chamber for experiencing even more paranoia. I decided to quickly manage my state. I got up, turned on the lights, and sat at the edge of the bed, trying to meditate again. The feeling of paranoia, or rather, something being off was increasing. I opened my eyes, looked around and the wall above my closet seemed to be melting, but it looked sinister in my state of mind. More of an energetic sinister than visual sinister. I got up, took myself to the bathroom, faced the mirror and tried to reassure myself that all was well. While in the bathroom, my legs started feeling weak. The state of paranoia was still persistent, and particularly the feeling that I was going to die. At this point, I knew I was in trouble. I was having a bad trip and there was no way out. I could barely manage my mental state, help is what I really needed, short of going mad. The switch was almost being flipped, and you would find me in your local neighborhood, half-naked or naked, raving about how Jesus came to shave your chin because your mother loves goats, or something similar.

I went back to my bedroom, picked up my phone, and typed a message; send 911. This was a message to a friend that I can trust with my life. However, I didn't press send. For one, she's out of state. Two, she would have no idea why and trying to text back and forth at my mental state at the time would have been a chore. I left the message there as a safety net. I would call 911 by myself. I put on some pants, went to the bathroom and brushed my hair, then went downstairs.

The first thing I did was to unlock the door as I was feeling that I was about to pass out. I was rapidly losing motor control and therefore I decided to write a note regarding what happened. I picked up a piece of mail and tried to write what had happened on the back of it. I was barely able to write the words, too much. Underneath those words, I drew an arrow and wrote the number 2, indicating the number of gummies I had taken. I picked up the pack of gummies and the note, and wanted to go next door to my neighbors and ring their doorbell. However, my motor control was still rapidly deteriorating, and therefore I opted for the couch, sat on it. I lay on the couch for a bit to see if it got better. I looked at the time, it was 9:38pm. After what seemed like hours later, I looked at the time, and it was only 9:41pm. That's it, it was time for 911. I dialed the number.

A lady picked up at the other end and asked what my emergency was. I barely slurred the words, too much weed, back to her. She asked if I needed help and I said yes. She went through the exercise of asking for my details, which I was somehow able to conjure up. I struggled to maintain consciousness but was able to provide her with most of the answers til the point she mentioned that help was on the way. At this point, she started asking mostly typical questions to keep me on the line. However, I was rapidly losing consciousness and I let her know that. I apologized in mid-speech for the fact that I was about to pass out while on the line with her, stopped and looked at the phone in my hand, which had somewhat acquired a strong magnetic presence, and it was being repulsed from my face by the magnetic presence between it and my face. I passed out.

At this point, paranoia had turned into a bit of sadness and amusement. I was sure that I was dying. My mother had recently visited, and she told me the story of one of her neighbors who recently died from a drug overdose. This is a rare occurrence in her locale. I was amused by the circumstances, because that is what seemed to be happening to me. I mentally apologized to her and other people I care for, for letting this happen to me. I was able to sit up again, and just in time to hear a radio outside my door. The door swung wide open, with a hello sir! A couple of folks from the fire department walked in.

At this point, I had regained consciousness. I was sitting on the couch with my head resting on my palm. The effect of the edibles seemed to be coming in waves i.e. peaks and lows. In the peaks, I was either passed out or in a state of paranoia. In the lows, I was aware of what was happening with some level of motor and mental control. The guys from the fire department asked me a bunch of questions in relation to what had happened, my previous experiences with the edibles etc, in addition to checking my blood glucose levels. When they were through, they asked if I could walk outside, to which I replied yes. I already had my wallet in my pocket, and simply picked up the phone which had dropped out of my hand when I passed out, then slip on my crocs. We went outside and I locked the door after me.

I live on the 3rd floor, in a building without elevators. The fire department folks had therefore lined up every couple of steps all the way down. I turned around and asked the guy behind me if we could use the alternate steps, but he insisted I go where they were taking me. Part of it was because it was sort of a walk of shame, which I was trying to avoid. Anyway, I obliged. This was the calm before the storm, and it seemed so poetic. At the time it didn't occur to me, but afterwards, it seemed like the firemen were lined up watching someone going to his funeral. They watched, in solemn silence. As I walked towards my fate, there was some kind of dramatic music that started playing in my head. It was short, repetitive and dramatic. I remember the tune, but the only lyrics I can remember out of it was, "...this is how I shed my tears".

I finally got to the bottom of the stairs, the paramedics were waiting. I was strapped on to a stretcher, and rolled down the alley to the waiting ambulance. There were lots of firemen and police as I got put into the ambulance. The paramedic strapped me in, and connected me to the machines to check my vitals. He then asked if I had a preference of where I wanted to be taken. I just mentioned my insurance plan and he suggested a place where they would take me. Off we were to the ER, which is pretty close to me.

The inside of the ambulance was cool. The paramedic was on my left, engaged in reading my vitals. I was looking at the monitor in the ambulance and listening to the sound that was emanating from it. The dramatic music was still playing in my head, but mostly as a background sound. This was about two and a half hours into the experience, which should have been somewhere around 10pm. I had therefore consciously fought off the effect of the gummies as much as I could, on and off, for two and a half hours. Even when I had passed out, I tried to regain control when I came back into consciousness. The tipping point of the gummies completely taking over never came in peace, as I had resorted to fight it off. I was hell bent on maintaining consciousness, because passing out signified death to me, as per my earlier paranoia.

Out of the blue, while I was still conscious and watching the monitor, I felt what seemed like my guts being ripped out of my body via the solar plexus area. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!", I yelped in pain. This was somewhat of a cross between the sound of pain and an orgasmic release sound. The next thing I realized, I was being pulled up by some kind of gravitational force through different kinds of layers, the last of which seemed like slime or oil, black in color. This is similar to what you would see birds or so covered in, when there is an oil spill off a coast. The source of the gravitational pull started becoming visible as some kind of portal started opening where I was being pulled towards.

The oil-like substance was all over me, and as I got pulled towards the portal, I was shedding more and more of it, and turning into a light-like substance. The source of the gravitational pull, for lack of a better definition for it, was God-like, golden-ish in color. This was a gold-like, pure energy entity, that appeared like a bright light or sun. I only caught a glimpse of it, and not the whole entity. I was finally through the portal and within the presence of this entity. The immediate reaction was that my jaw or so, dropped in shock and awe. Next, there was this perception that it was overwhelming to be in the presence of this entity, due to its pureness of being. It felt like burning when you get too close to a fire, unless you happen to be of the same quality as the fire. Almost immediately, I started falling backwards away from the gold-like, energetic entity and portal. I fell back into the slime or oil-like layer and got covered again by that substance. I kept falling all the way till I regained consciousness. The duration of this was maybe one or two seconds in normal time, but it felt slightly longer within the realm that I was sucked into.

As soon as I regained consciousness, which was immediately, the first thing I heard the paramedic say is that I looked like I had seen a ghost. I wanted to correct him and say God, not ghost, but I couldn't speak. My head was still lifted off the stretcher, my jaws were stuck open from the shock and awe, my hands were slightly lifted despite being strapped in. Essentially, my body was stuck in a posture reflecting what felt like my guts being ripped out of my body through the solar plexus area. It was painful, but yet my face was stuck with this look of having seen a ghost, as per the paramedic's words.

Almost instantaneously after regaining consciousness, and hearing the paramedic's words, I lost it, or rather... I died, but not a clinical death. I regained consciousness again, but in a different form. This was a form of consciousness that was outside "my" body but within the ambulance. I could see the paramedic screaming "my" name and violently shaking "my" body, possibly to help it regain consciousness. However, I was watching him perform the actions from an out of body vantage point, on the right side of the ambulance. I could only look at the paramedic sadly, from this out of body vantage point, while he was screaming "my" name. I was trying to tell him that the name he was calling, used to be me, but I was no longer that... Obviously, he couldn't hear me because at this point I was not speaking from the physical body. My spirit or soul, was detached from the body, and it was simply observing the paramedic trying to revive what was previously my body. It no longer belonged to me, or anyone for that matter.

I lost consciousness again, from the vantage of this detached being. It was more like a memory gap rather than losing consciousness, in this new form. When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital waiting room, with the paramedic standing next to me. My lips felt extremely dry. I tried to lick them, to moisten them, but my tongue felt as if it was a lizard or some kind of reptile's tongue. This feeling was terrifying. I was conflicted on trying to moisten my dry lips versus the feeling of experiencing a lizards tongue in my mouth. Finally, I was able to mumble a request of water to the paramedic. Based on his response, I could tell that he wasn't willing to give me any. After that point, I kept slipping into and out of consciousness, with my hands shaking now and then. I heard the paramedic tell someone else that I was tripping since they both seemed to be amused at how far I was gone.

I passed out again and I woke up right as I was being rolled into one of the emergency rooms. I slightly opened my eyes as I was being rolled in and the first image that struck me was that of Jesus on a cross, right above the entrance of the ER room. My hands were still wildly shaking. The nurses tried to ask each other what I was doing, with some of them speculating that I was praying. I was not praying. If anything, I had come to the conclusion that anything that I do as a human being, is pointless, in trying to earn my place in the presence of the gold-sun-like entity that I had encountered. The best I can do, is to live my life... The rest has to be by grace, not by action. Purity of being, from a life well lived. Part of this conclusion is from the after effects of integrating the experience, and understanding that the moment when I was in mental despair, because it became apparent that everything I have done in life, is pointless, but yet, meaningful. It is all pointless, yet meaningful, for me... Was this the drug speaking, or just my state of being at the time?

I was still slipping into and out of consciousness, but no longer at the paranoia level, or levels I encountered in the ambulance. This was more like, in my head level. A couple of scenarios played over and over in my head, showing how my life can or would spectacularly collapse from this incident. I live in California, and have somewhat lost compassion for the homeless after living in San Francisco for 7yrs. The scenarios that played in my head were of chips falling in place, and my life spectacularly collapsing, such that I would be in the shoes of the homeless that I had lost compassion for. This was all a bit comical, and humbling... but I accepted it, if that was my fate from the experience.

When I completely regained consciousness, I buzzed the nurses at the ER. An attendant came over. I asked the time, and he said it was 1:05am. This is about 6hrs into the experience. He asked me to relax and go to sleep. When I woke up again, it was ~3:05am. A nurse kept coming by to check on me since my eyes were open, but every time, I couldn't speak. I could only barely whisper a word or two. This continued on and off til I was finally able to slightly lift the palm of my hand and acknowledge her as she approached me. A doctor came, checked on me, but I still couldn't speak. He asked me to move my eyes, and I barely moved them. He cracked a joke asking if I wanted more weed? I cracked a smile, but couldn't speak. I was discharged at around 7:30am in the morning, but I could barely walk out of the ER. The rest of the day was spent sleeping.

Five days later, on a Wednesday, I woke up with a strong smell of the edibles still in my system. I was dizzy most of the day, but no related hallucinations or paranoia. I was completely in my head, but the biology needed to catch up. A week after the experience at the time of this writing, I am still experiencing soreness or discomfort around my solar plexus area, where my soul/spirit seemed to have been ripped out of me. There is overall body fatigue, and it seems to have re-triggered some Long-Covid issues that I had previously addressed.

The day after the experience, I was almost at the point of losing my mind because of that single moment of rapture in the ambulance, and resulting spiritual conclusions I took away. Luckily, all the right information seemed to have been "waiting" for me, almost by coincidence. But as I already know from practicing the art of flying with my feet firmly planted on the ground, nothing in my life is by coincidence. It happens when it's scheduled, even if it's an accidental overdose. I came upon a page in Ram Dass' book, which points to more or less the same experience I had but via LSD i.e. somewhat making it to a heaven-like realm, for lack of a better definition, via the psychoactive substance, being found out to be a "fraud", and almost immediately being "thrown out". Additionally, a different book that I came across immediately after, pointed out that the oil-like substance I was dragged through, is likely a lower level astral plane. The effect of the edibles therefore, at the highest point, was to rocket propel me through multiple astral planes, to what may be considered as a heavenly-layer, astral plane. It should be noted though that it felt more like the gold-sun-like pure energy entity, was pulling me gravitationally towards it, rather than something propelling me from behind. I was merely a passenger on this unexpected ride.

I am back to my normal life. For starters, I still don't subscribe to any religion, but my outlook on life has significantly changed. Aside from the regression into Long-Covid issues health-wise, my mindset seems to have taken a leap forward in terms of being less judgmental and having more compassion. Everything that I have been doing in my life, seemed pointless, after experiencing the pure energy entity. However, after coming across other data points and integrating the experience, I've come to the understanding that I just need to sit back and watch life unfold, despite me...

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116680
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 30
Published: Oct 14, 2022	Views: 1,957
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Cannabis (1) : Various (28), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Hangover / Days After (46), Entities / Beings (37), Bad Trips (6)