October Light's 450 mg Experience
FRIDAY 1/30/98 - 8:14 PM, took 360 mg on full stomach (Chinese food).
(12 Drixoral Cold & Cough Liquicaps)
9:00 PM - Nothing
9:30 PM - Still nothing
9:45 PM - Very slight "weird" feeling. Slightly loopy & tingly,
seemingly centered in head, more or less. Very slight alteration in
thought & slight intensification of music. But very slight.
10:30 - Same as above. Still not sure if I'm really feeling anything,
except a slight tingling in scalp & extremities.
11:30 - Very disappointed for most of past several hours. Little or no
effect except tingly scalp & extremities & perhaps a slight
intensification of music - possibly placebo effect and in any case
nothing close to pot or nitrous oxide. No discernible change in mood,
affect, thought processes, interior perceptions, etc. No "inner"
experience at all. Also no difference in visuals & nothing noticeable
re: movement/motor skills/ locomotion. Essentially a non-experience, or
almost that.
SATURDAY 1/31/98 - Took 450 mg in form of 15 Drixoral Liquitabs at 7:37
PM. No dinner yet, only a light lunch at 2:00 PM consisting of fat-free,
sugar-free frozen yogurt and a fat-free, sugar-free brownie.
After dosing, sat down to read & listen to music.
8:08 PM - Sudden scalp tingles & random chills along lower legs & back
of neck. As if a ghost had just entered the room. Tingling in
extremities.
8:09 - Slight nausea
8:12 - Generally, a slightly weird feeling - somewhat heavy or sluggish
- or at least, my movements feel peculiar. Also, an odd feeling in the
head - not quite a headache, not quite a feeling of pressure, and not
quite an alteration of thought or awareness - but something like all of
these, yet still very faint. A sense of something "coming on"; a train
is coming down these tracks. Also, some queasiness in stomach.
This feeling is increasing noticeably by 8:14 - a mounting sense that
something odd is coming on, physically (legs, arms, and head) - and
mentally. First sense that thought processes are altering slightly.
Also, mild nausea. Should I eat something to try to settle my stomach?
8:16 - Looked in mirror: VERY pronounced dilation of eyes. "Wow."
Definite mental/physical changes occurring. Trying to eat 2 "Toddlers"
(hard, dry sugar-free seed-cookies from Todd's frozen yogurt stand).
Very dry mouth.
8:19 - "Kinda stoned". Also, kinda queasy. Mouth extremely dry. Still
trying to finish first "Toddler", usually one of my favorite snacks.
Tasteless,like sand, tonight; no appetite.
8:24 - To the kitchen for a Diet Coke. Uncoordinated. Feel peculiar.
Can't quite imagine actually being able to drink the Diet Coke or eat
the second "Toddler". Just want to sit. Feeling sick. Not entirely a
pleasant experience.
8:30 - Extreme nausea. (Ran to bathroom and vomited in middle of
writing word "nausea".)
8:32 - Vomited. Little to bring up from empty stomach. After vomiting,
the nausea continues; hot flashes; all-over body itches; tingles; I'm
scratching my chest, my arms, my scalp, all at once! Hot & itchy &
nauseous - THIS is the experience I wanted?
8:34 - Vomited again & several dry heaves. Little to come up.
By 8:35 I feel better, though stomach still seems on a hair-trigger
reflex.
(Over the next 2 or 3 minutes it seems as if something has changed. I
suddenly feel alright.)
8:37 - **SO**, obviously, this is kicking in. My eyes aren't quite
focusing properly, making reading difficult. Besides, don't really feel
like reading any more; stuff's starting to go on. For the moment, at
least, the nausea has passed & I feel fine. I think this experience is
settling in & "downloading" itself slowly into my brain. Odd tension at
back of neck. Thought is definitely different, but can't explain how.
Not like cannabis or nitrous. So far, I'm not noticing anything with
music. Lightheadedness. Slight/mild dizziness (8:42).
8:45 - I'm noticing I can't read very well & my spelling is
deteriorating. Words look peculiar. A common word - but is that really
how you spell it? I'm getting a bit fucked up here. Some part of the
brain that keeps track of spelling is out of whack: also, eyes aren't
focusing very well. Words & sense are beginning to separate: Here,
language; There, meaning. 2 different realms. Not the same. I find
myself repeating/obsessing over meanings and spellings. Everything is
shifting in my head - shifting from one meaning to another.
8:47 - Slight nausea again. Eyes still blurry.
8:50 - Eyes closed; listening to music. Time to "go inside." An odd
state of awareness, different from cannabis & nitrous. I feel sedated &
opiated. Don't want to move. Feel thick. Feel dreamy. As if in a lucid
dream. Consciousness - it's peculiar. ( Suddenly the very fact of
consciousness itself seems peculiar. Funny.) In and out of almost
simultaneous states of awareness or points of view about awareness
itself - various awarenesses about awareness. Almost like in a dream
where you know you're in a dream dreaming that you're in a dream in
which you are aware that you are dreaming that you're in a dream - and
so on.
Cool graphics when I close my eyes! Imagery, like hypnagogic images - I
just saw a purple/red/blue glowing figure that looked like a plant from
a different planet, tendrils alive and spiraling around itself - then
the tendrils became arms and I realized it wasn't a plant, it was a
sentient being, a space alien like a plant-man - faintly threatening --&
then the image evolved into a robot spaceship and then all kinds of
shifting geometric 3-D shapes rotating and mutating in space like a
kaleidoscope. Yet these aren't hallucinations; I know they aren't real,
just fantastic imagery being generated behind my eyelids. Fun to watch.
Almost interactive.
9:06 - As if my body were stilled. Body feels detached - no, that's not
right; feels flattened, one-dimensional. In a slightly different matrix
of existence, slightly "off", from the one where the mind operates. Legs
feel light & heavy at same time - flat, lacking feeling, as if made of
paper - bundles of paper, thick, solid, but light & dry - while my mind
is off in multi-dimensional space, turning slowly, like a star.
9:11 - Time seems to be slowing down.
9:00 -- 10:00 - Interior processing. As if my mind has become somehow
crystalline, like that pure October light that pours out of the sky and
transforms everything - so that nothing is changed but everything is
perceived differently. I'm looking at structures - structures of my
mind, structures of my consciousness (can't spell any more- is that
wrong or right?, structures of my life - why do I attach so much meaning
to THIS, or THIS? Ideas - fixations - structures - invisible boundaries
I have set for myself - all are somehow becoming intangibly visible in
this odd October light of the mind. As if a "reveal codes" command had
been given to the psyche. Calm & lucid. Clear & looking-through-it --
correct word: perceptive - the quality of directing awareness toward a
thing. Rambling. Can't use words coherently any more. Yet very calm. No
uncontrollable euphoria, no sudden surges of emotion. An odd detachment.
A clinical high. A clear processing. A clear pool - my mind right now.
October light. Clear, cool, calm, lucid, still. Scientific or
philosophical, this experience, not poetic. Cannabis: poetic. It brings
connections-links-permutations-creative tangents-wordplay-playfulness.
Sparks, surges, surprises. This: clear, calm, like x-ray vision into the
self. A diagnostic high. "Have a look at yourself. Here's your life;
let's shine the light on it." October light of the mind.
9:45 - Words don't make sense any more. Words seem like freeze-dried
thoughts. Rearrange them; look at them; shake them; test them for
meaning. Who's living in there? Not interested in the dry body of the
words - interested in the light flickering behind - the meaning.
10:00 - Stomach quite calm. No hunger. Feels like I SHOULD be hungry,
but as if the hunger has been excised - removed.
Very stoned.
Odd "crick" at the back of the neck. Still some tingling in legs. Cool
now - was hot before - temperature regulation seems to be awry? Can't
tell how loud the music is. Is it too loud? Seems to be coming in
through the skin - as if it were a different medium, not sound. Like
water. The music is like water - how could it bother the neighbors?
Flash on an old Robt Bly poem: "and our skin shall see far off, as it
does under water." That's how the music seems - like I'm immersed in it,
semi-permeable.
-Odd repetitions of letters when writing. A "u" turns into a "w" - "11"
becomes "111" - etc. Motor skills deteriorating? Eyes out of focus? Or
some reiteration center in the brain being stimulated, a neural site
affected? That's what it feels like. Connection here: Everything seems
to be caught in a stutter-repetion. Stutter-motion of body,
stutter-talking, stutter-writing- Clumps of disconnected actions - as if
links are severed.
10:04 - Got up to turn heat up. I can hardly walk! Legs don't seem to
work. Lurched, as if on stilts. Spastic. Virtually immobile - only
quasi-corporeal.
10:17 - Got up to answer phone. Odd! Don't know how to describe this
locomotion. I meant to run to phone, to catch it before it went to
answering machine, but couldn't run - ended up almost hopping - as if
each action were disconnected from the others - a series of fast,
unconnected lurches. Then on the phone - couldn't make sentences!
Astonishing! Could NOT make myself say strings of more than 2 or 3 words
coherently - I understood everything & was formulating clear sentences
in my head - and I can scribble still - but could not get teeth, tongue,
& larynx to get them out - could only say chopped-up words, like a
person who had just been waked up & was groping for thoughts. But my
thoughts were clear, I just couldn't talk. Well, SORT of clear - warped,
but crystalline. Everything registered but seemed surreal.
It seems as if everything is happening in strobe-light fashion - in
surges or flashes. Disconnected moments of awareness. Words come in
clumps, with inexplicable disconnects or gaps in between. Same for
locomotion. A sudden lurch forward - a neural disconnect, an unplugging,
a pause - Then another lurch. The connection between these things is
that they all involve the disconnection of normal links in the brain.
A different kind of mental experience than cannabis. Cannabis high is
fluid, flamboyant, floral, flowing - This is clear, cold, crystalline.
I'm alliterating! (Didn't mean to.) Odd. Another variety of repetition
or clumping.
10:25 - Trying to eat second "Toddler". Can't do it! Tastes like
sawdust, an alien substance, & jaws feel like a plastic machine not
really connected to my being. I'm putting it down half-eaten.
Disconnected from the body, yet still attached. Semi-corporeal.
11:08 - I feel as if the experience is beginning to descend from its
peak, but let me note the following: (1) Time is definitely slower - at
11:00 I looked at the clock, thinking it would be 2 in the morning - was
astonished to see 11:00. Now it seems another long stretch has passed.
Off I went on a revery with the music for those 8 minutes and it seemed
like hours had passed. (2) Music is definitely enhanced but not as with
cannabis or nitrous - not quite in that way. More like the sounds become
sharper, finer, tinglier, more crystalline, & the structure of the music
stands out. The hidden instrument or voice in the back corner of the
mix, which you had never noticed before, now jumps out at you and
becomes a recurring or defining element through the song - etc.
I have not experienced the euphoria that I get from cannabis, or the
heady rush and WHOA! that you get from nitrous - the "affect" is
different. That is a key difference.
11:20 - Absentmindedness about time, that's it. It SEEMS like more time
has passed; you've already confirmed to yourself that it really hasn't,
that's it's still early - but you keep forgetting, you have a short-term
memory loss, you are absentminded & slip back into that belief that it's
late. You look up and are surprised all over again - "It's only 11:20 -
oh, that's right, I knew it was still early - guess I forgot - anyway,
it seems like hours ago when I saw that it was early - Funny that's it's
still early even all this time later - or did I just forget to think
about time and somehow that MADE time take a pause?" Almost seems as if
you could change the pace or existence of time by changing the structure
of your awareness - you can ALMOST figure out the link between time and
mind, then it slips away.
11:36 - Same thing. What? It isn't 2 AM? But I knew that - must have
forgotten - seems so long ago when I last looked. (More
disassociation/severing/stuttering - one moment disconnected from those
around it.)
12:30 - Physical coordination returning, but still not normal. Still
lurching around a bit. Still high, but the peak is long past - that pure
October light is gone, the mental x-ray machine has been turned off,
just the gentle descent left. Still getting images behind my eyes, but
not as vivid now. Also, time is slowly going back to normal. Now I'll
finally put some food in my stomach. (Oddly, not really hungry though -
the "hunger switch" is still off, I guess.
Looking forward to exploring this more next weekend. I've got the
feeling there's a lot more to be learned here.
-October Light
©1998 The Third Plateau
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