A voyage through heaven and hell

Trip report post 2011 LSD/MDMA trip 

The time I looked into the mirror on acid against all advice….

My impulses lay uninhibited and ready to burst out of my chest as sheer euphoria pounded through my body, causing my heart to race with pure adrenaline as I stood alone on that crowded city street, inhaling the smoke from the cigarette dangling between my fingers, my eyes readily devouring the chaos that lamented my surroundings as crowds of people swarming around me carried out their daily endeavours. 

Who were all these strangers I wondered? 

They all seemed so preoccupied within the anxiety associated with their lives and displayed a mask of sour, bittersweet apprehension across their face. Didn’t they know that life was a mere illusion? A pattern within a pattern disguised with the delusion one must commence a lifelong quest in order to obtain truth and happiness.  But there I stood on a cold, rainy Winter afternoon watching as people busily rushed back and forth, filling their life with regulated mundane activities in a hopelessly vain attempt to chase down happiness and seize it by the throat. Never before had I felt more alone; immersed within a sea of faces and bodies, watching life progress from the sidelines, my uninhabited frenzy of emotions longing to break loose and run wild.

The music flowing from my ear phones provided my soul with the only comfort from the hollow abyss of solitude that was awaiting my arrival, 

Tool understood my mortal dilemma, their music is pure fucking brilliance manifested into audible decibels, 

Maynard’s luminous symphonies had never failed to satisfy the eternal longing that echoed within the vacant cavity that had grown to live in my chest, always crawling under my skin and clawing for satiation, screaming my name constantly under excruciating frequencies, begging me to fill my body and mind with a temporary cure to the immense loneliness and ambiguity that lingered and groaned relentlessly. 

Demons, demons knocking at the door, longing to take hold, block them out and ignore.

An uncontrollable grin had crept upon my face and taken a hold, I pondered the sensation of the euphoric bliss that raced through my body and wondered if happiness was simply just accepting the state of eternal solitude that coincides with human life and coming to terms with the fact that one will stumble over rough terrain and high seas and commence their journey to the grave alone? I had known the truth for too long, since that day I sat on the beach as terror sucked me into the vacant abyss for the first time and opened my eyes to the raw and complex mediocrity of existence. I had been stunned that day and my perception had been altered significantly. 

That vacant abyss lingered again, that dense and daunting vortex of naked truth that shrouds every corner of the globe, waiting for the aware and alert eyes to glimpse into its woven web of volatile information. 

It was whispering empty illusions in my ear attempting to coax me into the dark tunnel of infinite oblivion that consequently consumes the entirety of my being after consuming a strong dose of LSD.

I felt fucking incredible, too good, my mind was stimulated and racing with ideas, flowing with creativity and voicing a continual stream of paradoxical queries. 

But the laws of physics hit too close to home for me and I knew what goes up, must always come down, often resulting in me crashing in a cataclysmic meltdown and collapsing into an inconsolable mess.

It wasn’t too long before the demons worked their way through and took hold. I wandered back to the hotel room and found my lover and stripped off to have a warm shower when they lurked their way into my proximity.

 

I broke down in a mixture of hysterical tears and laughter as I attempted to cleanse the demonic entities from my mind and soul, but as I tried to wash them away they filled the bathtub and slithered up from the drains and into my hair. 

My lover held me in his arms and stroked my hair as I babbled incessantly about my fears, trembling and crying, burying my head into his chest and longing to escape the capricious concave of my tainted past that was now infusing my surroundings. 

I felt my eyes twitch as they fought to take my body and mind hostage, flashes of tattered and bloody bodies nailed to crucifixes and pentagrams filled my minds eye, 

I felt like I was vomiting an overwhelming sea of emotion. 

So this is why I hated vomiting, It wasn’t the actual sensation of gagging and choking on digested food that I was afraid of, rather the high anxiety associated with being trapped in my body and being completely out of control of my thoughts and feelings that I could not stand. It was not understanding, confrontation with pure terror, feeling so wrong and out of place, messed up and disfigured by the hands of a sick and twisted man and not knowing why I was experiencing paralysing dread whenever his hands wandered into places they were not supposed to go had literally made me sick, sick with fear. 

The nightmare I was trapped within as a child was now looming upon me, broken memories and shattered recollections overpowered my mind and chased me relentlessly. I curled up into a ball and battled the colourful flow of images racing through my head. I don’t remember when it passed, but it did.

We swallowed some MDMA as the night wore on, inhaled the fumes of marijuana, and chugged down glasses of vodka and eventually I calmed down and had an enormous conflict with my reflection in the mirror as I attempted to do my hair and make-up and get ready to go out clubbing. 

We left the hotel eventually, wandering the city streets and bracing the chill of the cool night air and heavy rain that showered down. 

My lover and I chatted incessantly about the nature of the people who surrounded us and how much we despised the human race, how their facades were disgustingly transparent and their minds shallow and empty. 

We got to the club and stood outside puffing on cigarettes and analysing everyone, after about thirty minutes we decided we didn’t want to be around all these people, this convoy of freaks masquerading false illusions and deceiving themselves and we walked back through the pouring rain to the hotel. 

I collapsed on the bed when I got home and swallowed a Xanax my lover had obtained to end the remnants negative trip I had earlier. Serenity slowly washed over my body and we laid together and the remainder of reality and the external world faded out. He was the only person alive in the whole fucking universe for the rest of the night as far as I was concerned, with music playing, the cigarettes and marijuana infinite and the conversation running open and free we lost ourselves in each other until the morning light began to peak through the curtains.

I realised how I couldn’t be without him now, how his presence meant everything to me these days and we had entwined as one. He was perfect for me, he understood my cynical mind and injected it with optimism and hope. 

He levels out my hysterical and emotional core and provides me with coherence and stability. He is the logic and the rationale that I have always longed to be and he teaches me so much. We talk openly with one another and divulge our buried secrets and untold truths and embrace each other’s souls. 

Being with him as we tripped together on LSD and coming so close to perpetual insanity, with him holding my hand and taking care of me for each step of the journey, never judging me or losing patience with me ensured my connection to him had strengthened significantly. 

I haven’t felt this complete, connected and comfortable to anybody in so many years and only once before this. I contemplated the fact that I might love him, when did this happen I wonder? 

When did I fall into the depths of this oblivious fury? 

I had spent an entire year attempting to get his attention and when I finally succeeded I was fucking ecstatic, something I longed insatiably for had finally become mine and I will always cherish that. 

I speculated that maybe I had tried to dismiss our relationship and sever the ties between us because I was so afraid of falling in love and being abandoned again so once again that horrid sensation chokes me and leaves me desperate for air. I don’t want him to leave me, I worry that he will lose interest and find someone else, or that I’m not pretty or successful enough for him. I am so paranoid that I am broken, beyond repair, plagued by an array of debilitating mental disorders and he will eventually tire of my outlandish antics, wavering, raw emotions and my disposition for pessimistic melancholy. 

What about the way I sit deep in thought and smoke too many cigarettes? Or forget to take my medication and become unstable, staying up all night and writing pages and pages lost in a manic haze, then going out getting fucked up, getting myself into dangerous situations, partying incessantly then crashing into a tedious depression where I consequently spiral out of control and attempt to kill myself and need to be taken to the hospital. 

What about the days where facing the world becomes unfathomable and I become ensnared by a depressive haze and I cannot physically leave the house or get out of bed.

Will he lose interest in the melodrama that incorporates my whole life eventually? Every time we have sex I have paralysing flashbacks making it an almost impossible act and I am frightened that he will become bored and impatient with this, find a girl who will fuck him without crying hysterically and complicating even the simplest act and leave me for her.

 I’m worried I may become so anxious about him abandoning me that I will push him too far in one of our fights and he will never call or text me again, leaving me in the dark forever. 

I’m so afraid he will realise how defective and fucked up I really am, is he ashamed of the scars on my arms and legs from when I slice open my flesh? 

What about my tendency to abuse chemicals? 

 What about when I become consumed by the dark vortex of disenchanted apathy? Or when I lash out and lose control?

I swallowed my AM dexamphetamine and cleaned up the hotel then went for a walk through the city to get coffee and food and became very lost as the morning progressed. 

It took me ages to find the hotel again as I was sleep deprived and disoriented from my cocktail of substances. 

I have concurred that I will NOT take acid again as the outcome is always the same and the journey descends through heaven and into the confines of hell every time. 

My eyes are already open to the divine truths be held by the universe and I have done acid around 20 times and each time It exacerbates my mental health problems to extreme levels and could be dangerous if I have a bad trip and start to think suicide is the only escape. 

I realise the importance of moderation and resisting the urge to abuse drugs in excess, sure I like them a fucking LOT but they do not make up who I am, provide a useful escape or turn me into someone else like I initially assumed they did. I also want to move into an apartment in the inner city as soon as possible because I thrive off the continual movement and action that occurs in the city. xxx