DOSE:

smoked

DMT

BODY WEIGHT:

200 lb

I don't think I can change back.

I tried DMT nearly a year ago; since then, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling of constant culture-shock. A little background first may help: I live in the hick-town temperance-colony where I was born and raised, it’s one of those places that has never left the safety of the 1950s. The kind of city where drugs are abhorred - except caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and acetaminophen for the grown-ups, and Ritalin and Adderall for the kids. I grew up taking my prescribed instructions on reality from television, Jesus, and colonial myths - never questioning them, but, still never totally immersing myself in the narrative either. The plan was law-school, money, the pride of my parents and extended family, always making sure to stay on the rails of civilisation.

I had a little rebelliousness in me: I quietly stopped believing in God, had a little fornication, enjoyed a bit of the oft maligned marijuana, but, other than that, I’ve been a good boy. One day, I had an opportunity to try this DMT (I won’t go into details, I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy) that I’ve heard so many praises sung of from all corners of the internet. When you’re an ex-evangelical and you hear something lets you experience death and come back, well, curiosity gets the better of you. Now remember, I’m naive in the ways of the psychonaut; cannabis and alcohol are all that have altered my reality until then, and in hindsight it was probably for the best that I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I planned for my evening like I was going to get super, super, super baked: I had my snacks and juice, and a PVR ready to show a National Geographic special on the known Universe. I heated up what is colloquially seen as a “crack-pipe” and, well...

Here’s where words fail, I suppose. Every atom in my body exploded away from my core, although, exploded isn’t the right word... It was blisteringly fast, I was almost instantly scattered evenly across the Universe, but it wasn’t “concussive”, it was like chalk-dust rushing away from clapped erasers. What perception was left could “see” everything in an infinitely high resolution, and I plunged through that resolution, “knowing” more the deeper I went. I didn’t feel alone, there were glittering lattice-works of pure celestial creation everywhere, but there wasn’t a sense that we’d comprehend each other. Eventually, “years” later, I came to the Source. That’s the best word I can think of for it. The bottom turtle. But what I “remember” does not coincide with what I “understood”: this Source was simply an infinite, perfectly flat plane that rippled and shimmered on whims ; these ripples being what births realities. And that’s all that I can really describe.

When I came back I was baffled and exhausted; I think I was pretty sure I had died and there wasn’t going to be a coming-back, but there I was. I chugged some juice and tried to sleep.

The next few weeks to a month were sparklingly beautiful. Follies and fallacies had been swept away and all was new. Everything that had a shape or a texture, a taste or a smell was gorgeous, and I felt at peace. Birds swirling overhead made my eyes well up and I despaired that I couldn’t share this with those busy fingering their plastic rectangles. With hell being other people, this feeling wouldn’t last. I started to feel like I couldn’t communicate properly with others, my friends and family; they’d go on about Dancing with the Stars, the activities of Tiger Woods, what kind of new new new car they were going to lease next. I used to be able to participate in this fantasy, I couldn’t anymore, the banality made my head swim and the hopeless emptiness of it filled me with grief. Morally, I knew I couldn’t chase my vestigial tail and bits of paper anymore; animal instinct and arbitrarily constructed value just didn’t mean anything.

I thought I just needed to give it time - I could go back to blaming the poor for their poverty, railing against faceless injustice that made me a victim as I unknowingly victimised others - but I haven’t been able to. I can’t stop caring, I can’t stop seeing the absolutely pointless suffering we cause despite being well within our power to stop. I can’t stop seeing Westerners consuming until it kills them as the rest of the world starves to death. But everyone around me doesn’t want to see, they don’t want to know, so I have no one to talk to.

My question is, what now? I can’t keep living in a concrete wasteland but nearly everyone I know would see my rejection as a monumental betrayal. I don’t want to abandon people, I just want out of the horrible machine they’ve built.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 88112
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Sep 7, 2016	Views: 4,681
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DMT (18) : Unknown Context (20), Post Trip Problems (8), Retrospective / Summary (11), General (1)