(Reuploaded to fit subreddit rules about titles excluding the word “real.”)
The smartest thing you can do when experimenting with drugs is to do them in a hotel room.
If you have a bad trip, throw up, or lose control of any other bodily functions, it’s best to not do it in your own home. Hotels have maids, clean sheets, and it’s easy to immediately get help, as needed, just in case something goes seriously wrong. All you have to do is be discrete and do your best to not draw attention to yourself.
Consider that a “Degenerate Pro-Tip.”
This is why I took 5 grams of magic mushrooms in a cheap hotel room in Boston, before quickly running to the bath to fill up the tub. The drain wasn’t working properly, and the metal overflow drain was hanging off by a prayer and some wire, but I still managed to fill the tub while waiting for the psychedelic adventure to begin.
For me, the tub is the ideal place to trip. It’s warm, soft, comforting, and I feel safe there. There’s virtually no risk of drowning because I had bent my knees to fit in the small tub, which prevented me from easily sinking into the waters without some effort. Plus, I had my girlfriend with me, so I knew I was safe, even though she was tripping with me, too.
Before getting in, I made sure to turn off the lights and laid towels on the floor. One couldn’t be too careful in a hotel room. Last thing I needed was to be mid-trip and getting kicked out for flooding the rooms below.
Not long after settling into the water, the light show in my brain began to fill the dark, steamy room. It’s hard to describe these visuals. They were fractals, shapes that melted into each other, and were so bright that I tried to close my eyes, but the light was coming from inside me. There was no escaping it.
My partner held onto me from the adjacent commode. She was tripping as badly, if not more than I was. Her passions were flared, but sadly, mine were nonexistent. I would have rather not been touched at all, but she needed me to be her anchor. I consented, but my mind was elsewhere.
I was far too focused on the internal, because what was happening to my brain far exceeded any desire I had for intimacy. I felt like, though I was sitting in place, that I was moving through a fully lit covered bridge with windows on the sides and ceiling. The lights though those windows were like filaments in a lightbulb and resembled both mushroom roots and nerve synapses.
As I walked on through this bridge, I couldn’t help but staring up at the almost indescribable beauty of it all. These shapes and lights went on forever. They were infinite. I had the feeling they went on forever. I remember opening my eyes, but seeing only my girlfriend’s silhouette in the shadow, her face only inches from mine.
She’s fully clothed, her sweater getting wet from my bath water as she was half out of the tub, and on top of me. I feel myself being drawn back to look at the filaments of light, and tell her she’s getting wet, and to give me space. She abides, and I slide back into my own mind again, losing all sense of the outside world.
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than those filaments of light. I had felt like I was on the verge of some great breakthrough. Every fiber of my being knew there was knowledge here. Knowledge, I coveted, but I didn’t even know what that knowledge would be, or the nature of it. I just knew I wanted it, and something here had it, and I NEEDED it.
I called out into that eternal aether of light and said “I’m ready. I need to know what you know.”
It called back to me: “You’re not ready. Be patient.”
That answer was unsatisfactory to me. I protested that I was in fact very ready for this knowledge, and I demanded it be revealed to me.
Laughter filled the azure covered bridge I stood on. It was laughing at me. This made me furious. Once again, I demanded revelation. The laughter stopped and I felt a shift in the energy. The ambient light dimmed into black, leaving only the multicolored filaments flashing and pulsating, being my only illumination.
“Reveal yourself,” I yelled out in demand.
To be clear, I’m paraphrasing the dialogue between myself and the Filament. I remember what was said, but not exactly how it was said. I can only offer what I recall to the best of my ability, being the state I was in at the time.
It answered quickly. “You’re looking at me. I am everything you see around you.”
“Are you God?”
“No. At very least, not the one you’re talking about. I’m no supernatural thing, nor religious entity. I simply AM.”
“What are you?” I could hear fear in my own voice, but I wasn’t even aware I was scared to begin with. I was in awe. I was curious, but God help me, I was slowly growing more and more terrified as it spoke.
“The simple answer? Fungus. I was one of the first forms of life on this planet, and most things alive today or have been long extinct, have existed at all because of me. I’m connected to all things. Everything ties back to me. I carry the knowledge of all that is, and ever was, inside my roots, stems and caps. I am the primordial ooze in which all life as you know it began.”
I was confused and just sat there, listening to it speak.
The Filament continued. “Other lifeforms eat me, take pieces of my eternal knowledge, and spread it to their offspring. Then, they die, and I eat them, and they become a part of me, sharing their knowledge with all the lives that are born after. Life begins again and again, and newly gained knowledge is passed on with each life that is born, ends and returns back to me. I am all consciousness. I am the universal knowledge. I am the universe that can contemplate itself. I am how babies know how to suckle, and how you know when it’s time to procreate at the start of puberty. The knowledge of your ancestors that I carry is why humans fear the darkness.”
At this point, I was out of the bath, and in one of the hotel beds. I was wet, naked, and confused about how I had even gotten there. I stopped hearing the Filament and was horrified by the brightly illuminated room. The lamps were on, and the curtain was open. Sun was shining through. My girl sat on the other bed, staring at me, obviously lost in her trip. She had dozens of eyes all over her face in the shape of circles. Everything was moving like waves of water all around me, leaving me nauseous and a little seasick.
When I closed my eyes, I was back with the Filament again.
“Do you want to feel what eternity is like?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even hesitate.
“I’m telling you that you’re not ready. Do you still wish to proceed?”
“YES!”
I regret saying yes. I really do. Suddenly, I was exposed to the truth. The terrible, horrible, mind-numbing truth, but I can’t describe it. Words won’t cut it. The best I can say is that what I saw was a cosmic horror. Like, Lovecraft shit. I became a part of the Filament. Those lights were roots, brain and nerves, conduits of knowledge and instinct.
I became painfully aware of my own existence. I was aware, for the first time ever, that I existed. Not that I was alive, but I existed. The weight of my existence crushed me. I knew everything all at once, and I started screaming, begging for it to stop.
The Filament spoke to me again. “This knowledge isn’t yours to keep. Not yet. Don’t fear it. Embrace it. This is what life is before life, and what death is after you die. The only reprieve from this is being alive. You’re blessed because you are incapable of understanding the burden of this knowledge in full force. It’s why you only get a little when born. Your human brain can’t handle the truth.”
It was right. It couldn’t. I can’t remember what exactly I knew, but that knowledge tormented me. I begged it to stop. I begged to be released from the Filament. I was one with the universe, and I hated it for more than I’ve ever hated being alive.
What I can remember is being painfully aware of my own shortcomings and failures. I kept chanting “Oh, God, I failed. I failed my entire life.” Now, I can’t remember the full reason why I felt that way, as the knowledge has long since dissipated, but I remember at one point seeing my own mediocrity and it broke my spirit. I saw the good in me, too, but I was embarrassed and ashamed that I always thought I was more than I really was. I can’t explain it more than that without freaking myself out, so I’ll leave that thought alone.
Eternity was being connected to the Filament. Connected to all life and death and knowledge in the universe. There was no end to the Filament. No beginning. It’ll continue until its last spores are destroyed, and then we all fade away into nothingness, but it was too large, too vast, to ever be completely killed off.
I was screaming, begging, crying, and then, suddenly… Nothing.
I was still high, the world was spinning, and I didn’t know anything. It was like temporary insanity. It must be what dementia feels like, honestly. I had total ego death. It was like tabula rasa. I was dead, and reborn with no memories. My cell phone looked alien to me. I didn’t know how to use it. My girl was a stranger. My reflection was monstrous. I didn’t even know how to put on my clothes, though I remember desperately feeling the need to dress.
The sun went down. It went up again. Then repeat. I just assumed I was laying there for days in that bed, but, as it turned out, it was only about three hours.
I started to come back around, but everything was wrong. The hotel room felt weird, like it was smaller than before. My cigarettes look like the candy ones from childhood. Smaller than I remembered. The ratio of space between floor and ceiling looked much bigger, and doorknobs became the single most confusing piece of technology I’d ever experienced.
My girl saw me panicking and tried to tend to my needs. She gave me water, assurance, and eventually a waste bin to vomit in. Once I was in a better state, I tried to explain what I saw, but it came out as word salad. What I saw was simply unspeakable. Then, the memories started to fade, and the knowledge I was given had disappeared. Only then did I start making sense again.
I just know that I saw a cosmic horror, and it cured any suicidal tendencies I used to have. I no longer want to die. I used to feel suicidal because I wanted oblivion. The idea of being awake for eternity, connected to the universe without reprieve sounds a lot like hell to me.
No fucking thank you.