DOSE:	3 hits	smoked	Cannabis - High THC
		oral	Alcohol - Hard

BODY WEIGHT:

144 lb

A Profound Cannabis Experience

In early 2009 I actively began smoking marijuana. My first few purchases were of low quality weed and therefore my experiences were unremarkable.

Eventually, a good friend hooked me up with some great weed (it was orange-ish and looked pretty serious) and this discourse will describe an experience with that.

One night, I went to a friends apartment and we smoked out of a large bong with a water reservoir at the bottom [and I drank some alcohol (80 proof)]. This was my first time smoking with a water bong. I took only 3 hits and within 10-20 minutes started feeling extremely high. I started having a pretty substantial panic attack and my heart was racing. I got so anxious that I had to leave my friends house and go home. I felt very embarrassed and I hope they couldn't tell I left because I was too high!

I called someone on the way out to my car and couldn't speak very well. The person even asked me if I had something in my mouth. Time was extremely dilated at this point and the 20 minutes drive home felt like forever. [Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!] I thought about my friends who I had just been smoking with and it felt as if I hadn't seen them in years and this made me feel very very sad. I felt like I loved all my friends very much as well.

Anxiety persisted throughout the entire drive home. At times I felt like my heart was racing, or beating really hard on my chest. When I focused on my breathing in an attempt to calm myself down inhaling and exhaling felt very difficult. I was having mild convulsions. All this was pretty unpleasant. I had intense dry mouth and was later informed my eyes looked very 'glazed over.' I tried to listen to music, songs I liked a lot sober didn't seem much more profound and the additional sensory input just intensified my anxiety. I kept in mind that I was all right and that the high was just making my heartbeat and breathing seem very profound when in fact they were just my normal heartbeat and breathing pattern.

I was having periods of lucidity and what seemed to be stupor. When I was nearly done driving home I had finally managed to get a grip on my trip and become a little less on the verge of a panic attack, although I was still legitimately fearful. I tried listening to music again and this time I enjoyed it a little bit more. At one point the music become intensely profound and upon thinking back on this moment I am filled with moderate bliss and I sometimes cry, although I cannot fully grasp why because this experience seemed to have no apparent meaning beyond thorough enjoyment of music.

I got home and went to my room. My mom talked to me and I had to conjure a lot of will power to appear sober, it was still hard to talk. A friend came over to hang out for a while. I felt like I needed to warn her of how high I was. She wasn't very understanding, but I digress. We went to taco bell and on the drive home I had another pretty profound introspection. I was thinking about all my friends I've had over the years in general and felt like I hadn't seen them in decades. This sort of made me realize that one of my biggest concerns at this point in my life was of losing friends new or old that I hold very dear. This is a fear that I have been confronted with while sober on several occasions too. I resolved to start actively maintaining relationships with people and to try to be less egocentric, which it seems a lot of people seem to have a problem with and it ruins friendships.

I wasn't really enjoying much of my high because I was really dizzy and couldn't focus very well on anything, whenever I tried to concentrate on anything besides some sort of vague train of thought I would zone out for a minute. It felt like having just woke up in bed and when I fall in and out of that lucid dream state. I tried to mess around on my computer but I couldn't. I mostly paced around or just sat. I drank some whiskey to calm my nerves and it sort of helped since being drunk counteracts my anxiety.

To my surprise and relief, within 2-3 hours of smoking I was almost completely sober. Afterglow was present with slight feelings of euphoria and time dilation. 5-6 hours later as I am writing this I still feel kind of light headed and groggy, although I did take a short nap which may attribute to that.

This was a weird experience. I can't really say I liked it but I feel like it was worthwhile, because I sort of mitigated some mental turmoil... But the entire high was accented by constant anxiety. I have chronic anxiety problems and I am also Obsessive Compulsive, which is probably worth noting. Psychoactives seem to cause severe distress in individuals like me but I feel strangely compelled to experiment with them because in altering one's consciousness one can come to better understand one's sober mind.

It's all about set and setting. I don't think anyone can stress that enough. Drugs have made me realize that all life really is is just a perception of one's own reality. The human mind is SO powerful. After all when you think about it, if you took away my senses of sight, smell, touch, etc but I still existed how would I ever know I was in the real world, even though I physically am. I wouldn't even have a sense of dimension... Reality just seems so obvious but I believe it is a lot more specific to an individual. We might be floating around in some fourth dimension and the only reason we don't know it is because we don't have the sensual capacity to be aware of it. Our brains aren't capable... sober.

Marijuana seems to greatly intensify one's sensory perceptions. A subtle heartbeat can turn into a pounding bass drum inside my chest. Simple anxiety can turn into a panic attack. My sadness and longing became very profound. I had a strong sense of nostalgia at some points during my high. I will definitely continue to experiment in hopes of achieving some sort of enlightenment to life or at least some clarity of mind for myself. But maybe I'll stick to some weaker weed till I build up some experience.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 76950
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 18, 2020	Views: 1,019
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Cannabis (1) : Difficult Experiences (5), Various (28)