Posted: 6/22/2008 2:18:08 PM EDT
Author Unknown So I'd been reading Timothy Leary's books lately.... Started with Psychedelic Prayers, Then I ordered a copy Of High Priest(a must read), and then I read Leary's adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Throw in some Terrence Mckenna recordings for good measure, and I was jonesing for a blast off. I'm usually a 2.8-3 Gram a dose kind of guy, and lately I've been making psilly extracts and experimenting with redosing.(good results if you redose @ T+1hr30min and if you up the dosage by 40-50% on the second dose). So Timmy says that with good preparation, you can expect a good trip, so I read the 'trip manuals',gather my supplies and I had also already been meditating daily for 6 weeks or so. Check check check I decided on 3.7 grams, since that was about a 10% increase over my normal dose, and that seems a reasonable amount. More then an 1/8, but not quite 4 grams. I picked a nice juicy looking golden cap and put it on the scale... 3.9Grams.... so I pinched a little off the bottom of the stem and hit the 3.7 mark. I spoke to the shroom, thanked it for coming to me, and coming for into the world through me. I enjoy being the shrooms little 'elf'. I just make neat places for them to live and grow, and them seem to dig on it and then they tell all their friends to come and move into the new cool shroom condos I built for them. It seems to work out well for both parties. I gently caressed the shroom and took a moment to appreciate it beauty and textures. I told it I was looking forward to the secrets and visions it was to bring me. I carried it to the ceremonial grinder(the Krupps blender) and hand crumbled it into the jar. I left it kinda chunky and decided to just add a little OJ and chug it without blending it into smaller pieces. Whew!!! That's an acquired taste if ever there was one... so I drained the OJ and shroom chunks. I had prerecorded some passages from Leary's Book of the Dead, and had burned them onto CD. Leary had talked about doing this and adding music for a semi/self guided trip. I had added a 20 minute recording of a relaxation CD that is supposed to put you into a light alpha-wave brain pattern. Similar to the brain pattern when you meditate. So I have a 20 minute relaxation session, then 25 minutes of recorded instructions and preparations, and then 2 hours of electronic/psy-trance music that I know and like when I'm booming. I smoke a couple hits of killer kif, put on the head phones and lay down with the lights real low. Then the doubts start in. The kif is really strong and is making my mind race. “what if the Alpha-wave pattern magnifies the shroom effects???” A little paranoia creeps in. I decide to just ride it out. But my mind won't be quiet.... “what if the dose is too big and then you mix it with your brain wave CD and magnifiy the effect of that big dose even further?” This is my biggest dose ever, and I'm starting to have second thoughts 10 minutes after eating the shroom. The relaxation CD isn't working... it's becoming just another extra unknown that I don't need right now... OK... So I decide to just listen to the recording with the instructions and reassuring tips. That starts off pretty well, the voice is soothing and I'm getting into it. But by the 3rd verse, it starts to get too heavy.... it makes it sound like I'm about to be blasted to the far side of the universe!!!! Shit... now I want off.... I don't want to trip now. OK, turn off the damn readings.... maybe some music will help. I try the psy-trace compilation and it sounds like shit..... all disjointed, alien and droning. it's approx T+ 1hr:30mins and I'm feeling the kif and some of the shroom come up, things are starting to get weird. It's not like a low level come up, I'm not having fun and enjoying the effects. I'm starting to see red and green lines in the air, I can't close my eyes for more then about 10 seconds..... I'm starting to get a bad feeling in my stomach. I figure it's shroom related- and due to the larger dose. (even though I've JUST heard the Leary passage about body symptoms meaning that you're fighting the drugs.) Oh god.... not much fun. So I head to the couch and figure I just have to chill and ride it out for an hour or two until the peak passes(this happened to me once before, on about my 4th or 5th shroom trip). I can't find the remote, and I'm having a little trouble figuring out the CD player. Shit. Go to plan B- the radio. What comes on?? College alternative/electronic music!!! arrgh!!! I tune in the rock station and head back to the relative safety of the couch. Damn the radio is playing Voodoo by Godsmack. Jeebus!!! Still too trippy. Fuck me... up off the couch, and over to the stereo...the lights on the stereo are all crazy neon greens and reds now, and the floor feels like it's vibrating from 200,000 volts running under it..... but I'm still fighting it!!! :) I mentally push the vibrations in the air aside and block them out for a moment. I try the classic rock station... Elton John???!!! WTF??!! anything but that right now!!!!! back to the rock station and back to the couch.... My stomach is bothering me still. I tell myself I can block the alkaloids with milk!!! I chug milk and head back to the couch. I close my eyes and try to relax, but there's no music, and the DJ is droning on about something and in my mind's eye, each word I hear becomes a brick in a wall that assembles before me!!! {I was thinking that as long as I kept in touch with at least 'one piece of reality' I would be 'OK'.} I shake that vision off and think that if I can distract myself visually, I'll be able to ride it out better. I crawl over to the TV ( I'm still in denial), the room is spinning and I can't figure out how to plug the TV cord into the power strip. I'm fucked. Nothing's making sense...I can't close my eyes or I feel like I'll fall off the world...I'm starting to feel really warm now...geez... It's prolly a comfy 70F in the room, but I proceed to flip on the AC after I decipher the alien looking thermostat. Brr.. now I'm cold.... So I put on a blanket. 10 seconds later, I'm too hot. Oh Loooord.... I schmoo/crawl over to the thermostat and cut off the AC. Of course, now I'm hot again. And my stomach is kicking up... and I think I have to poop now. Maybe. I'm not real sure about the #2, but something feels like it wants out of me!!! Oh goody. I head to the rest room. Nothing comes out of anywhere.... I head back to the couch... I'm still going through the too hot / too cold thing. The music is sucking and I'm still telling myself that I'm not gonna trip. Matter of fact, I've staggered over to the computer to finish typing my notes on the trip. I'm typing my piece about how the tolerance must have set in after eating shrooms every two weeks for the past 3 months. When... WHAM! In mid-sentence everything on the screen starts to move around. As in things start to change places/locations and reassemble themselves. The top of the Winamp player wander off across the screen with a mind of it's own and the screen itself is an odd collection of green, white and red lines - kinda Matrixy looking' Here is the actual entry: “woak reality flash: the tolorence must have set in... the cev is cool and the headphones make the music really cool. B ut we must sae the whole ' breaking thru/ego death thing' for larther ... truth be told I wussied at the upset stomach and prolly missed the on ramp.” Awww shiiiit.... I better lie down. I resolve to find some good music and luckily find some Jimmy Buffet. Hell yeah!!! Jimmy goes well with everything! I put on the 2 hour best of CD and make it to the couch. Now I can't find a light level I like..too dark might be spooky, and too bright is way too harsh. My stomach is still bothering me and I absolutely cannot get comfortable on the love seat. There isn't enough room to stretch out completely, and my legs feel like they go to sleep instantly if I elevate them over the arm. Add in the ongoing hot / cold flashes and it's a little rough... even the Jimmy buffet is sounding annoying. You know it's not going well when Jimmy Buffet is annoying you!!! I resolve to tough it out. I figure I can gut out two hours If I stay on the couch, and keep my self distracted. Turns out trying to distract yourself from a sizable dose of Psilocin is a very tiring task!!! I'm trying to get into the tunes, but it's just not happening. So I just give up. I surrender. “Fine!! Go ahead!!! Show me whatcha got!! What is it?? Demons?? UFO's ???Aliens?? Let's see it!!” I have to do that 2 or 3 times and I start to relax. I sing along with a shitty song I don't even like on the album...but it seems to activate my “Monkey Brain”(or perhaps 'beginners mind'). I'm not thinking about anything now.... I don't give a shit if anything makes sense... I just give up and give in. I'm not trying to understand the visions, or feelings. It's just like “pffft...what the fuck ever....” At some point then the Jimmy Buffet started to sound much better!!! The music had depth and dimension, the songs were light and fun, and suddenly I was having a great time!!! My stomach felt fine and the hot and cold flashes stopped!! As one of the first thoughts, I recall thinking that I was on some sort of “Monty Python” looking ship - a disjointed/pasted together looking vessel that reminded me of a picture from MP- with torn out spots that had eyes peeking out. I had found the remote and was really enjoying the music now. I jammed on Son of a Sailor a couple of times and had great visions of sailing the stars in a fully rigged sailing ship- the kind with the big cloth sails!. Woohoo!!! Now where getting' somewhere!!! It's approx T+ 2Hr:15 mins and it's coming at me pretty intensely. For a while all i can do is lay back and enjoy my new world and try to get acclimated. It's as if I've popped through a membrane or something - into a sort of a parallel universe.... I'm still me. And I'm still in my house. I'm still the captain of my ship.... but now it's a verrry odd ship in a very strange neighborhood! It's like the place I live, but it also very different. I expected it to be some far away galaxy or something, but it's like I've just sort of moved sideways a few feet into the next plane over. A lot of what I see is almost exactly like the authors describe, and I also feel like I'm on a higher plane of existence. Sort of like I'm now in an exclusive club of the enlightened folk. I see figures that remind me of cave paintings of stick figures, but in neon yellow, and lot's of them have 'rays' or lines coming out of them, and/ or the figures also have squiggly line around them in some places - in contrasting neon colors. Later I think that the figures are very similar to cave paintings and prehistoric figures I have seen. I also see flowing 'ribbons' of neon yellow symbols that move sort of like a stock ticker or a screen crawler on the wall. It follows the contours of the walls. Nothing exciting about the symbols- just kind of miscellaneous wing-ding kind of symbols- like cartoon curse words...spirals / stars/ circles /hearts etc. At some point the music developed texture... I distinctly remember one song that seemd to have a really slick, glossy red, blistered and bubbled finish! From the couch I ‘saw’ a chicken wire fence in the dark kitchen with a broom as it’s corner post. In a dark bathroom, the objects on the counters around the sink became a city skyline and buildings after dark- with the rays and squiggly lines on the top. I saw a lot of red and green lines in the air.. like threads in a piece of fabric or something... I notice a lot of the red/green thing with shroom visuals. There was also this odd reoccurring 1970's “feel” to the trip at times... I was just feeling a shade of dark brown that I associated with the '70's for some reason. Hard to describe that one. Now a trip down the hallway to the bathroom is an exciting adventure! I always get great CEV's when I walk into the dark bathroom from the lighted hallway..... But NOW... it's something different each time. One time I step into the black and I'm suddenly standing in some kind of open cargo ramp on a space station, looking out into dark space!!! I take a few timid steps forward and get ready to have a wazz.... as soon as I close my eyes again.....whammo!!! The CEV's are now color and 3D- undulating, shifting fields of kaleidoscopic and geometric patterns, It's a fun ride, but I can't keep my balance if I keep my eyes closed. So I finish and wander back to the living room. The initial peak is settling down and I'm much more at home and comfortable now. I decide I want to hear the psy-trance now and wonder over to the computer.... The screen is still all kinds of crazyness, but I manage to get a CD loaded and get the head phones on..... the songs are cool and all, but nothing spectacular. I can't connect with just the electronic sounds with no vocals. Then up comes Lords Of Acid on Winamp with LSD = Truth !!! Oh yeah !!! it's on now!!!! That's a really nice little ride, and the i play Jazz Tripping. Now I'm really enjoying the songs. I decide I wanted to play some harder music and I wanted to see some visualizations and when I click on the 'start plug in' for the winamp visualizations I just happen to load up Milkdrop. Hooooly chit!!!!! I'm listening to This is the New Shit by Marylin Manson. I like the sound of a couple of his songs when I'm boomin', and this song run through Milkdrop was incredible!!! I was totally awe struck. I played it a again and decided I'd found my new favorite toy. Next I played Beethoven's Fur Elise and the Milkdrop visual was a curling, single white thread coming out of the center of a black background- like a tendril of smoke drifting to the music. The song itself if very minimalist. Just a piano and simple melodies. But it matched the visuals so well it was just incredible. I actually like the song so much, that when I hear it tripping, I get teary eyed like a chunky wise-guy at the opera! Other fun titles to run through Milkdrop turned out to be Rabbit in the Moon,(much more fun the it usually is!!!), Infected Mushroom, Les Claypool's Frog Brigades' Highway to the Moon, Oasis- Champagne Super Nova, Squarepusher's Port Rhombus,Enthogenic's Midnight Eyes and I also found out why Nine Inch Nails made it to Tim Leary's list of bands in 1995!! Trent owns!! Headphones and milkdrop- ya gotta try it!!!! After my aborted attempt at finishing my notes early, I go back to the notes to update them. Again, here is the actual entry: “udate 2 hours lat” yep, that as far as I got. I still couldn't even type, even two hours later, well past the peak. My monkey brain was capable of pushing the buttons to make the Winamp and Milkdrop work, but not much beyond that. but once I had peaked, it seemed to level off and stay pretty consistent(and strong) for about 3 hours or so. Much different then my usual effect from the 3ish grams. A half gram can make a big difference. After a shaky start, it turned out to be a great experience overall. Next time, I'll do 3.7 again ( I think that will be my new 'regular' dose)and I should be able to 'pop' much easier. I think you have to be fairly proactive with the trip to stay 'in control' of it. If you're capable of telling where you are- you can control what's happening inside your head. Looking back its is also amazing how dead-on Leary's descriptions and instructions were. From telling you what to expect, and what can go wrong, to giving you advise on how to handle rough spots. His stuff seems somewhat rigid and structured at times and is hard to make correlations to, especially when you're laying on the living room floor, just trying to hold on, but if you read the books I mentioned above, I think it will make the going easier for you. I finished off the evening with a plate of whole wheat pita chips, some nice smoked Gouda cheese and some red and green seedless grapes. A nice ending to a great voyage. Hope y'all enjoyed the story. |
 I have varied tastes.. Beethoven's fur elise almost makes me cry. But I love the industrial noise factor of manson/NIN and Static x Für Elise" (German for "For Elise") is the popular name of the bagatelle in A minor WoO 59, marked poco moto, a piece of music for solo piano by Ludwig van Beethoven(1770-1827), dated 27 April 1810. Beethoven scholars are not entirely certain who "Elise" was. The most reasonable theory is that Beethoven originally titled his work "Für Therese", Therese being Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza (1792-1851), whom Beethoven intended to marry in 1810 and was also one of his students. However, she declined Beethoven's proposal. In 1816 Therese, who was the daughter of the Viennese merchant Jacob Malfatti von Rohrenbach (1769-1829), married the Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Droßdik (1771-1859)[1] Another theory is that 'Elise' was used to describe a sweetheart during Beethoven's time. If this is true, then the piece is dedicated to sweethearts in general, with no specific person in mind. However this theory is unlikely because it doesn't fit well with Beethoven's composing and dedication history. When the work was published in 1865, the discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, mistranscribed the illegible title as "Für Elise". The autograph is lost.[2] |