DOSE:	3 hits	oral	LSD	(blotter / tab)
	repeated	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)
		smoked	DMT	(powder / crystals)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I had just finished Daniel Pinchbeck's marvelously weaved metaphysical memoir 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl, and after vicariously experiencing all his psychedelic trips, shamanic rituals, and cosmic revelations, I was eager to take my own psychespiritualdelic journey. It had been months since my last trip. So I uncovered my last 3 tabs of LSD I had been saving, a very strong batch of Fluff, which has given me many wondrous, colorful experiences before. I tried to convince my friend Z to join me, but ever since she encountered demons deep within the underbelly of Boston's Charles River on an LSD trip, she has had The Fear.

Even though I consider myself a pretty experienced psychonaut (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, 2C-B, 2C-E, 2C-I, salvia, mali, ecstasy, plus all sorts of combinations :), I had never experienced anything beyond my Self, any kind of Other presence, whether for good or for ill. And even though I saw it terrorize her mind, I could not help but feel envy for her experience, because after all the trips I've been on, I had never had a truly spiritual or mystical experience. The trip always just seemed like something going on in my head. So she stayed relatively sober while I put a tiny white strip of blotter under my tongue.

I spent the next 30-45 minutes sitting around, smoking a bowl or two, and enjoying that familiar curious anxiety that slowly creeps over my consciousness as it begins to expand. We eventually left indoors, got in the car (Z was driving), and took the dog to the beach, which was just a few blocks away. Before we even made it to the sand, I was entranced by the sound of the surf. I remember telling Z that 'the sea is a symphony.' I let the waves wash my feet and ankles. I felt such a strong pull from the ocean. It felt so good. I considered going swimming, but lacking a bathing suit, my shorts instead weighed down with cigarettes, weed, glass, and DMT, among other things, I stayed on dry land. Z and I wandered around a little, smoked a bowl, and then she decided she wanted to go, while I decided to stay. I walked back to the car with her to coerce the dog into the back seat, and then they were gone.

I found myself alone on the beach now. I could see maybe 25 feet in front of me before the ground disappeared into the luminescent haze of the sandy air above it. Despite this, the stars still shone incredibly brightly, and when I looked up at them, they danced and twinkled, forming some kind of geometric net that resembled the appearance of a canyon from directly above. It was slowly descending upon me but never reaching me, and when I looked down at the sand, the rocks seemed to be growing out of the ground beneath the surf, something which they actually do in certain areas, but whether or not it was happening here, something I still am not sure of, the phenomenon was at the very least heightened considerably.

Everything around me was coming alive. This once-empty beach was now surrounding me with its presence. The street lights behind the dunes seemed to wax and wane, sometimes illuminating the haze into a brilliant artificial orange glow, sometimes seemingly disappearing altogether. The effect only added to size and distance distortions I was experiencing. Everything was moving, nothing was concrete. The haze created a small dome around me in which I could clearly see. It was my cloud of perception, and it followed me wherever I went, keeping me out of reach from the foggy unknown world beyond, where shadows and shapes were manifesting and disappearing at the same time.

I found a comfortable seat in the dune flanked by two hills, and it was here that I smoked the remaining crystals and resin that was left in my DMT pipe. Right after I inhaled, long and slow, the haze intensified, and I could barely even make out the water in front of me. It was probably less than 20 feet away. The DMT effects were relatively subtle. First, the geometric net of the stars was noticeably more apparent and complex, but still following the same slow wiggly descent. Then, when I stood up in a moment of paranoia and saw my cloud of perception to be maybe 10 feet in radius, I had the distinct feeling that I was no longer where I thought I was, that I had journeyed somewhere entirely different. There were more shadow figures wandering in the fog now, though never coming into view, and as I passed a mass of beached seaweed, I remember thinking that it looked like I was clearly on some alien planet.

My mind was still accelerating, and the symphony of the sea was ever-present, slowly infiltrating my consciousness, though I didn't realize it at the time, finding distractions everywhere, and even though I knew on a conscious level that I was just on the beach at night, I also knew, both consciously and unconsciously, that I had stumbled into a place I have never been before, and this feeling was only intensifying as I wandered farther down the coast, to a land where the gradual slope of the dunes transforms into steep cliffs.

Then, just as I saw another shadow figure, she saw me, and I saw that it was a mutual, simultaneous observance. She seemed to say something to me, and I seemed to respond. What was literally said or what it sounded like, I have absolutely no idea, but I realize now that she was bidding me to follow, and I was accepting. I began walking in her direction, which was roughly the same direction I had already been heading, but there was such a distinct presence out there now, an 'otherness' that was following me, surrounding me, but staying just outside of my sphere of perception. I kept looking around me, only to find my own shadow and the sound of my own footsteps, but it was as if I could almost touch it. I could feel it getting stronger. I was also entering an incredibly chaotic state of mind, a schizophrenic-like stream of consciousness where there were multiple voices and thoughts in my head simultaneously, and I could not differentiate one from the other, much less my own from my other.

I found a spot on the cliff where the rocks jutted out, providing a small shelter if one were to sit right against the wall. I sat down here and began to pack a bowl of cannabis. Less than a minute later, I was fleeing from the site in panic, because I saw and felt the rocks above me begin to crumble apart. I ventured back to make sure the cliff was still standing, as I knew it was, and that I was just tripping face. I walked a bit farther until I stopped to lean against the rock. It felt so strange to touch it, and as I was gazing at it, trying to collect myself, the rocks again began to crack and crumble apart right in front of me. The unknown had now entered my sphere of perception, and matter was dissolving before my eyes.

I again fell back from them in utter and complete terror. As I backed up, and as the fear grew, the cracks grew massive, climbing up the walls, until I finally calmed myself down, realizing it was being brought on by my emotions. I considered turning back at this point, but I knew I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I did. I was out there looking for something, and I knew I would find it if I kept looking. So I ventured farther, following more shadow figures in the fog. There were so many of them now, their presence still intensifying. I kept walking toward her ever-changing shape, and as she came into view, I saw that it was a stack of rocks, maybe three and a half feet high, but stacked perfectly among the rest of the stones on the beach. It struck me, and I remember looking at it, curious, but I did not stop, I kept walking, entering a still-higher level of schizophrenia. Everything was so jumbled, I eventually sat down against the rocks again, finally smoking that bowl. I was tripping so incredibly hard at this point, I remember telling myself and all the other voices in my head that 'I'm just sitting,' which made me laugh out loud when I made the connection with the Buddha, and just how ridiculous this all was.

I began listening to the symphony of the sea again. I was being lulled into a trance. I did not realize it at the time, but it was her. She had led me there, egged me on, and she was singing to me now. Her voice was transcendent. Once in her trance, I found myself to be in a multi-dimensional sonic space. The rhythm and structure of her song created these pulsating, swirling rhythmic harmonies that were of a complexity so incredible, so beautiful. I have never heard anything like this before in my life. And I've been to the beach before, I've heard the sound of the surf crashing against the sea and sand. But never like this.

I was shaking now. She was stringing me along one of these harmonic columns of energy, spinning, swirling, whirring, and then, right after a momentary eternity of silence, the string snapped, in unraveled, and I heard the deep, guttural roar of a massive wave. I knew it immediately when I heard it, and I wept at its beauty. Tears streamed down my face as I realized what had just happened. I heard a wave for what a wave really is. Not some rising hill of water that breaks on itself as it approaches the coast, but a huge, swirling formation of energy that journeys miles a minute in its constant cycle. As this all sunk in, I was still trembling, my pulse was tremoring, and I was gasping for air, and my body had just been sitting there this whole time.

I channeled her and she channeled me, and the spirit of the water had led me there, against the rocks, where I could hear her sing. The rocks she had led me to were shaped perfectly to resonate the swirling, spinning divine rhythmic harmonies of the waves deep in the sea. I could ride her voice for miles. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Everything was clear now, I was lucid in this spirit realm, and I was in harmony with her, dancing with her. The presence I had felt encircling me was now a part of me. I spent a long time out there, hypnotized and enraptured by her breathtaking roars and elaborate cadence. It resonated within my soul. She was a part of me now, and I was in ecstasy.

I eventually wandered back to Z, who was asleep. I woke her up to tell her my story and smoke a freshly packed bong. Even blocks up from the coastline, I could still hear her, and I could feel her song below my feet. We got in the car and drove around, and after some meandering throughout the sleeping city, pulled on to a street where a massive tractor trailer was trying pull into an alley. I felt the pulsating in my soul again, but this time totally different, and all of a sudden the power lines above us got ripped apart, exploding in a cloud of white sparks. I yelled at Z to back up, because if the pole was coming down, it would've come down right on top of us, and then again, a second explosion. Luckily nothing fell, and everyone was alright. I told her I anticipated it, feeling it before seeing it, and she said she felt it, too. We thought it might have been a small earthquake, but we haven't been able to corroborate this conjecture. In all likelihood the truck got caught on one of the wires and snapped it apart. This had a similar apprehensive feeling as the wave, but it was more of a cosmic punch to the soul than a trance-inducing song.

We spent the rest of the night wandering between the beach and the car, and wherever I went, whether it was an open beach where the sound didn't resonate the same way, I could still hear her, I could still hear the swirling get faster and faster until it snapped and unraveled, exploding in the crashing of a wave. I was eventually lulled to sleep by her when I finally lay in my bed well after dawn. When I woke the next day, and even now, her song still resonates in my soul. The sea sounds forever different to me now. I went back to the same spot I was in the next night, but this time in the normal, material world, where both the haze and the stars were less visible, the rocks were no longer stacked up, and I could only barely hear that whirring energy resonance. But it was still there.

The most astonishing thing to me about this whole experience is the fact that I actually got a response from a seemingly unresponsive universe. I was out there looking for spirits, or some kind of 'other,' I don't even really know. My normal day-to-day life feels different now. Even though I was in such an altered state, as this surely ranks among the strongest trips I have ever had, and even though I am a little unsure about the linear progression of events, I have no doubt about what I heard in that eternal moment. She sang to me.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 65793
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 9, 2007	Views: 42,948
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