Vick always had the most potential out of anyone I ever knew. I remember back when we were 13, we used to smoke weed on the weekends. If you would’ve told me the man would be worth millions a couple decades down the road, well I’d have believed you with no hesitation. He took a while off the drugs as a teenager (I didn’t) and we lost contact in college. I kinda forgot about Vick, until he contacted me out of the blue some 10 years later.
“Been a while, how are you buddy?” Vick said in a Facebook message. You can imagine my shock when I first opened it. I immediately felt my curiosity grow to see how he’d turned out. Excitement grew as well. This was 3 years ago now. “It’d be great to catch up, I’m in the city now, would you like to have a drink sometime?” he said in a subsequent message. How could I refuse? I was a bit taken aback upon arriving at an apartment after heading to the address Vick gave me, I figured it would be a bar.
Turns out I was right, it was a bar, only what i didn’t expect was the bar was inside Vick’s apartment. When I first stepped into his place, even despite my faith in Vick to be a great success, I was still blown away by his home. Beautiful, sleek yet cozy, modern apartment. Luxurious artwork and furniture laid about. A living room overlooking the city skyline with a (hardly)-Minibar parked in the back of the room.
That night we rejoiced in our memories of old times as teenagers. It took all of 5 minutes to figure out we were both back to being true stoners (not that I had ever stopped). We smoked and had a couple drinks, it was nice. A little before I was getting ready to leave, Vick opened up to me. “So I’ll be honest, there’s kind of a bigger reason as to why I contacted you. I mean, obviously its been great to catch up, but there’s something else.”.
Vick got up and began to pour another drink while continuing his speech. “I’ve got a good amount of friends but…, And i don’t know if its because my path aligned closely with the straight and narrow after high school, but they’re not as exploration-driven. I mean… spiritually. Or I guess maybe psychologically, or both.”. I was starting to become a little confused but he reeled it back in. “Drugs… I won’t sugar coat it, I wanna dive much deeper into the different states of consciousness mainly psychedelics and dissociatives. I figured, you were always a bit more ‘down’ to explore when we were younger. I’ve gathered a decent amount of connections recently and have gained access to quite a few chemicals. If you’re interested in this kind of thing I’d love to have a partner for some of these experiences…”.
Now I’d had a good deal of drug experience. Experienced a pretty bad coke addiction in my mid-20’s. Ended up going to treatment. Didn’t stay sober after that, but I managed to stay away from stimulants. Indulged myself further into my stonerly ways, that’s also around the time I gained most of my “trippy” experience. Vick’s offer was enticing as all hell, but I was left with a dilemma.
You see, my partner at the time was a beautiful woman named Aubrey. Still don’t know how I managed to pull that one off. She was caring, hilarious, and easily one of the sexiest women I’d ever met. We’d fallen in love hard and fast. At the time we were just celebrating our two year anniversary. She was always understanding and didn’t mind the fact that I smoked quite a bit of weed. But I didn’t feel too good about telling her I was going to begin taking strange drugs with a friend she’d never met. But Vick’s offer grew in my mind by the second and became too good for me to say no. I told him I was willing to be his partner. I would hide it from Aubrey. I decided, a mistake part of me will always regret.
Before I left the apartment Vick showed me what he’d been working on. He opened a drawer on a desk he had in his bedroom. Inside was a perfectly arranged plethora of different drugs, all labeled. It had nearly 100 different bags and bottles of different substances. My jaw nearly dropped as he closed the drawer and opened another one underneath. Yet another concoction of what must’ve been another 100 different drugs. “The top drawer is psychedelics, the bottom is disso’s.”. I was blown away. This was the kind of collection that any aspiring psychonaut could only dream of. I knew at that moment life was going to become a lot bigger, the mind was going to travel a lot further than it ever had before.
The next couple years were insane, to say the least. Vick and I would spend the weekends getting absolutely blasted into different dimensions. We tried everything from the traditional drugs, LSD, Shrooms, DMT, Ketamine, PCP, to the rare obscure research chemicals, analogues of the popular drugs in which the experience would be pulled and stretched in different directions, to the point where each chemical had distinct and unique effects.
During this time I lost my job, I lost Aubrey seeing as I couldn’t hide the fact that parts of my mind were becoming slowly destroyed by the constant destruction of my psyche and the world around me. I became homeless. Vick let me stay at his spot. Vick was also seeming to change a bit. Financially he seemed solid, I’m not sure what exactly he did for money, but whatever it was it enabled him to afford staying at home all the time and doing drugs, as well being able to afford me doing the same exact thing.
We explored the different states of consciousness, the psychological realms of being, and the galaxies and dimensions beyond our in ways that most people in this world could not imagine. There were moments of heavenly bliss, to moments of downright terror, and everything in between. But it was about a month ago that something happened, where even despite every understanding of new found belief and comprehension, that I never could’ve imagined was possible.
“Its chemical name is 6-Meo-Pcx” Vick said to me while pulling out a bag of an almost grayish powder. The atmosphere was calm. The night sky illuminated by the different lights on the buildings outside of the apartment. The bag the powder was in was inside a bag I didn’t recognize. Over the past few years I pretty much memorized every drug we’d ever tried, as well as every drug in the arsenal that was Vick’s desk drawers.
“Is it new?” I asked in regards to the chemical Vince had put before me. “Relatively I think, There’s a couple reports I’ve read. Similar response to DMT explanations in the sense that they all basically say there’s no explaining the experience, ‘you just gotta do it to find out’”. I wasnt hesitant about any drug anymore, something inside me had lost all fear of going insane, nor did I fear death, I merely just existed. Vick measured out a dose of the 6-Meo-Pcx and gave me a straw to snort the powder with.
The powder created a sensation upon sniffing it that i’d never experienced. Within a second of snorting it, I could feel what felt like the powder itself crawling its way all the way up to my brain. I could feel each and every microgram moving through me as if they all were alive and crawling. I then felt the substance moving throughout my bloodstream, down to every toe. I was almost too fascinated by the physical sensation to realize when I closed my eyes there was a crystal clear world before me upon closed eyelids. Suddenly I couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or closed. But with every blink I’d watch my reality change before me. One blink I’m in Vicks apartment staring out the window, the next I’m in a bed staring around a room that looks familiar.
I get up and turn on the lights and realize it’s the room I had back when I was 14 in my childhood home. I continued to switch between this place and the Vicks apartment with blinks. Each reality was as clear and lucid as the other. I found it strange that I didn’t even feel high. Merely just felt this possibility to experience two worlds at once. The next moment I found myself in my childhood room I made a conscious effort not to blink while I explored. I walked out of my room and immediately felt an incredible sense of deja vu as I stared all throughout the house I lived in as a kid. I ran up to where my parents slept and burst into their room. Now this is where things became incredibly strange.
As I burst into my parents room I think I expected them not to be there. Despite the lucidity of the trip, I knew I’d ingested a drug at Vicks apartment and therefore my experience at my childhood home must’ve been some in depth subconscious retainment memory. But as I entered my parents room I was greeted with a voice, my fathers voice. “Alvin?! What’s going on?” My dad shouted, startled. This startled me and I immediately blinked upon his shouting sending me back into Vick’s apartment. “Holy shit!” I shouted as I jumped to my feet. Vick was looking at me intrigued and a bit concerned. He hadn’t taken the substance yet but was measuring out a dose for himself before I jumped up.
“You feel the effects?” Vick asked. “Fuck, I… I think so. It’s so strange. I feel sober honestly, but every time I blink i find myself at my parents house, its Lucid as fuck, crystal clear dude. Honestly no difference in the level of detail as things are right here, right now.”. I felt my eyes beginning to dry up, another blink was incoming. “Vick, I’m gonna blink again, I’ll hold my eyes open on the other side as long as I can and when I come back I want you to tell me what I do here, in your apartment.”. Vick nodded and I blinked. I stared as my father got up out of bed, waking my mother up in the process. Upon seeing their faces I ran out of the room straight into the bathroom upstairs in the house. I flipped the lights on and to my monumental disbelief I stared at a 14 year old version of myself. I couldn’t believe it, I inspected myself in the mirror further.
It was literally me at 14, the scar on my face from when I’d fallen off my bike at age 12 was so much more defined, I guess it had faded as I grew up. I opened the drawer under the sink and picked up my old toothbrush, I actually remembered it. Blue, red, and black, reminiscent of spiderman. “Alvin, you alright?” I could hear my father shouting down the hall. “What the fuck is happening?!” I thought. Should I talk to him? Should I blink and try to stay at Vicks? Maybe I could just blink really fast everytime I’m back at my childhood home. That way I could spend most of the time I was on the drug at Vicks where I know reality is well… real.
I blinked and Vick was staring at me intently. “How long was I gone?” I asked. Vick’s face shifted to a look of confusion “What do you mean? You weren’t gone at all? You only blinked once, and now you’re talking again.”. My face now shifted to confusion as well. “Wait, so no time has passed since I asked you to watch when I went to the other place?” I asked. Vick shook his head. “What the fuck… I was in my parents house for at least a minute, I could see everything, I could hear my dad coming, I… I dont know whats happening!” l felt an extreme sense of panic beginning to set in.
I accidentally blinked again and I could hear my father getting closer and closer. I’d try to go back to Vicks but would blink and be greeted by facing my nearing father every time I entered that world. Something about him felt sinister, the whole vibe of that reality felt off in fact. Dark and cold, and like I might die there. When I was back in the apartment I tried expressing this to Vick but wasn’t getting anywhere in terms of relief. He approached the situation with the attitude of you gotta just go with the trip. Let go of the need for control, and just ride out whatever happens. But that just didn’t feel applicable in this instance. There was no potential to just submit…
Like I said, in both realities I did not feel like my consciousness was altered. There were no psychedelic trains to hop aboard and watch the show, nor were there ANY dissociative effects, I was 100% in my body and in control. But fuck it, I couldn’t avoid the situation with my dad in the other reality forever, so I committed to facing him. I blinked back into the bathroom at my parents house, 14 year old me with a feeling of dread in my stomach.
My father knocked on the bathroom door. My heart felt like I was on the edge of a heart attack but I opened the door. To my slight surprise, he didn’t look or feel as sinister as soon as I got a view. It was my same old dad, the way I remembered him as a kid. We’d grown distant over the past decade, still get together for Christmas, but otherwise we dont speak all that much (Stimulant addiction really is no joke…). I blinked and told Vick I was about to speak to my father. Vick was now taking notes of the things I was saying when I’d shift back into my consciousness in the apartment. I blinked again. “Are you okay? Why’d you barge in like that?” my dad asked. I felt frozen almost, how could this be fucking possible. I’d met inter-dimensional beings and even that wasn’t as bizarre as what I was experiencing right now. I stared at my dad for what must’ve been 30 seconds. Watching his expression change from tired and confused to awake and concerned.
My mind was so stunned and confused that I couldn’t think of what I could possibly say in this situation. I blinked again and was back at Vicks “What do I say to him?!” I exclaimed. Vick thought for a second before he said “Tell him do something different in the future and then you can like, see if it altered anything.” Vick was kinda laughing and I could tell he wasn’t all the way serious. But I was. I blinked again and decided I’d wing it. I almost shit my pants when I arrived back and the entire door frame was filled with almost 30 people all trying to peek into the bathroom I was standing in. Bodies upon bodies lying on each other with heads pointing forward straight towards me. I slowly began recognizing people. Aunts, cousins, friends, family friends, all getting a peek in at me through the door frame. I could feel tears beginning to form and my breathing began to become more difficult. I was on the verge of an all out panic attack. Before I could blink I noticed one more familiar face. It was Vick.
14 year old Vick, smoke weed on the weekends Vick. An idea began to surface in my mind. I walked up to the doorframe in the bathroom of my parents house. Aligned myself right next to my childhood friend in their teenage body, and I stuck my finger in his eyeball. Now before you think I’m some psychopath, my thinking is as follows: “If i make some noticeable mark on Vick, one that would last his whole life, maybe then when I blink back to Vicks apartment I’ll be able to notice it on the Vick in that reality.” I blinked.
I was startled beyond belief when I arrived in a completely foreign atmosphere. A wet blanket covered me, I peeked my head out and found myself in an alley filled with dirty puddles, with reflections of distant streetlights in the night sky. My clothes had holes in them, as did my shoes. I reached into my pockets for a phone but all I found was a handful of coins and 3 cigarette butts. I thought to blink, maybe I’d arrive back at Vicks apartment. Only this time when I blinked, nothing happened. I was still in this back alley, cold and wet. I once again began to feel a sense of panic and dread overtaking my body. I got up and began to run. To where I didnt know. As I ran my panic grew 10 fold when I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a window.
I was old, wrinkles covered my face. An out of control beard at least 12 inches long, filled with dirt and bits of food. I began to cry. “What the fuck is happening?!” I began to shout it over and over. “I’ll run to the nearest hospital” I thought. Only problem was I didn’t know where the nearest hospital was, and so I just ran down the streets of a city I didnt recognize shouting “help!” and “what the fuck!” over and over. “These are the kind of drug experiences that people kill themselves over ‘’ I thought to myself as I ran.
Unfortunately I found a couple of cops before I could find a hospital. The cops had the same sinister vibe as the people back at my parent house, stacked in the door frame like a shelf full of stuffed animals. The cops began to chase me and I had no intention of stopping my running, I don’t think I could’ve if i tried. So now I was in pursuit. Before I could get a block away I felt a shooting pain in my back. My body locked up and I fell to the ground. I saw a reflection of the taser wires in my back. Next thing I knew I was being viciously beaten. Repeated punches to the body and head. One punch had so much force it spun my whole body over. I was almost too fucked up to realize somehow the cops had disappeared and the person that was beating me was none other than Vick…
The same Vick who’s apartment I was in when I took whatever the help the drug that put me here was. I tried to scream but he was relentless, when I tried to cry out stop he punched me in the mouth breaking what felt like all of my front teeth. I fell back and was subsequently met with stomp after stomp to the head. I was unconscious after the first stomp. But something in me was still cognizant enough to feel every next stomp. It was about 12 of them before I finally started to see something. It started as a white light. I wondered if this was death.
Did I just die? I mean, it sure as hell seemed like I just got beaten to death, but was it real? The white light grew bigger and bigger and I suddenly began to feel my body again. I licked my front teeth, all there. I could now tell I was sitting down with my head tilted back. I opened my eyes and realized the white light was the light of a lightbulb overhead. I tilted my head forward and immediately recognized my surroundings. Vicks apartment, I shuttered as I turned to the side and saw Vick, shuttered even more as I looked on the living room table and saw remnants of the gray powder on it. I realized I’d just snorted another line of the 6-Meo-Pcx.
I freaked the fuck out and immediately asked Vick for some benzo’s to help ease me out of the experience. I didn’t care about a fucking safety profile, even if the xanax stopped my breathing it’d be better than this hell hole I found myself in. “Is this my second line?!” I asked frantically. “What?” Vick asked. I could feel the chemical making its way all throughout my brain and body once again. “How many lines of this stuff have I done?!” I asked, hurrying as to try and get an answer before I possibly ended up in a brand new setting. “No… that was your first… you just took it, are you okay?” Vick said. Only it sounded more like “Arrrrrrre youuuuuu oooooookaaaaaaaaay” his voice was melting as was everything else in the room. It almost took me a second to put together how absolutely insane what he just said was. That was my first line… It had been a matter of seconds since I took it. How?! What about the entire discussion with Vick about what was happening with the other realities. And then what the fuck was that experience of getting beaten to death. Could all of that have happened in the course of one second?! If so… I think I may have just entered an eternal hell…
Mere seconds later the apartment started to melt. I could feel Vick actually get up and start to shake my body. I must’ve been dying. Before everything faded away I could hear Vick yelling. “Alvin! Hang on Alvin!” But I faded into nothingness. What I remember next will always be difficult for me to grasp, let alone describe so bare with me. But I suddenly seemed to watch my entire life play out from the time I was a baby. The big difference was I was watching it in third person. Every single day. My third party observer would sleep when my body would sleep. I essentially had no control and was nothing more than a watcher. The thing is though, I didn’t mind my observational life. I thought this was normal. I had no recollection of life from a first person perspective. I thought everyone in the universe had a third party observer.
I watched for years. 33 years to be exact. In that 33rd year I was observing the moment at Vicks in which I was about to take the line of 6-Meo-Pcx. As soon as Vick pulled out the chemical I was hit with a bombardment of memories of life from the first person view. I then watched as my body began to bend over to sniff the line. I could feel the observer’s perspective shifting into the first person perspective. “This is it” I thought. “I can snap into my body and pull myself away from the line, preventing me from taking it!”. I immediately started sobbing after finally gaining control of my body but realizing I was too late. The line on the table was gone, and I was feeling for a third time now, this god damn chemical spreading throughout my body.
As the chemical moved through my body I began having mind shattering memories from my life in both third person and first person. They didn’t mix well, no synergy between the two. It was almost like each simultaneous memory subtly contradicted each other. I think we alter experiences in our mind, but the third person view doesn’t pick up on those alterations. Therefore creating different memories of the same experience. This train of thought shifted into even more contradicting viewpoints. Every thought I’d have seemed to be accompanied by a thought that was the polar opposite to whatever the initial thought was.
I tried to keep it simple, starting with a simple thought. “I’m a person” the thought was greeted at the same exact time as a thought that sent me into a realm of horror. The second thought being along the lines of I am “A demon, alien, cyborg, goat, pez dispenser, pubic hair, television, etc.” and in this thought, in my mind, in my mind’s eye, I was all of these things. Visions and vivid memories of entire lives as these living beings and inanimate objects. “I’m in hell and this will never end” was my next thought. No opposite thought accompanied this one however… I was doomed.
I then picked up on the fact that I had become nothing more than thoughts. This brought me slight comfort. This grew into what I finally believed to be an opportunity in which I could finally turn myself over and let my ego wash away. And it did. I watched as neon lights began to form shapes before me. I no longer had any thoughts. These shapes before me were everything in existence. As if I was watching the universe form from a place of absolute nothingness. The neon lights began to create planets, I watched as the lights of life birthed stars and galaxies, entire universes, many of them. It was then almost as if I was transported to a specific planet. Everything on it seemed to be dead, craters the size of oceans.
I was then planted in a location and experienced time beginning reverse. I watched as previously disintegrated dead plants appeared and then came back to life. Soon after the craters began to fill with water and it was clear these were oceans indeed. I then experienced an abandoned, entirely destroyed city begin to form in front of me. Not long after I watched wars take place. Watching murders in reverse. After some time the city didn’t appear as destroyed. Soon enough it was immaculate. Time was also beginning to slow. What started at centuries per millisecond had gone to slow enough to hear individual conversations (in reverse of course).
I soon started to notice my memories begin to come back. These memories grew stronger as I began to recognize an individual apartment coming into focus. My vision was now focusing in third person once again at my body inside Vicks apartment, about to sniff the line. As my consciousness returned I didn’t even bother trying to prevent myself from sniffing it, it was pointless.
I was going to take it no matter what. My out of body view began to shift back into my first person consciousness only this time I was in my body before I took the line. I lifted my head up and looked at the line on the table. Still intact. Suddenly a burst of excitement overtook me as I jumped as far away from the chemical on the table as I could. Vick looked at me confused.
“Oh my fuck… Jesus Christ Vick, get away from that shit!!” I said as I pointed to the line of 6-Meo-Pcx. His confusion grew but before he could make out a question I was hitting him with ones of my own. “Did I take ANY of that shit yet? Or is this the first time I’ve seen it?!”. “What? Dude I just pulled it out, what’s going on?” Vick said. “Dude, I fucking TRIED IT!” I nearly shouted. “I lived fucking entire lives dude, it’s not like the cliche shit you hear of either. The lives were… they were fucking different bro…”. “But… You never took it… it’s all right here.“ Vick said as he pointed to the untouched powder.
Was I having a complete mental breakdown? I questioned. The fact that powder was still there was indicative of that possibility. But the clarity of the experiences said otherwise. I got up and walked into a side room in Vicks apartment. I tried to distract myself with TV and hoped my memories would fade. Right now my mind was so crowded with bizarre memories of the almost infinite time I’d just experienced. I could focus on anything, my thoughts were spinning so hard. I stepped out to ask Vick for a benzo to help me chill out.
As I got there I noticed Vick and put the 6-Meo-Pcx away and seemed to be watching TV in the living room. I asked for the benzos and he got some without hesitation and patted me on the back. I had to consciously fight the urge to shutter as I remembered him stomping me to death. ”It’s gonna be alright buddy… we’ll figure out what happened. Come and chill, take these and try and relax, I’ll put something funny on the TV.”. As much as I tried to calm down, I couldn’t focus. And even the benzos couldn’t mask the fear I felt every time I’d think of the bodies in the doorframe of my parents house, or being ruthlessly beaten. Even picturing the reflection I caught of myself, dirty and sick, homeless and broken, it sent shivers down my spine.
The next morning was no better. I didn’t get any sleep. And all morning I was still stuck in a mental paralysis of merely reexperiencing each and every disturbing moment. I spent the next week basically petrified at every moment. I genuinely believed I was screwed for life, I destroyed my mind, that was it. Now I am doomed to paranoid, terrifying, sinister psychosis. I didn’t touch any drugs, not even weed or a drink that week. I also began to feel a strong urge to finally get out of Vick’s apartment and get back to building my own life. I mean 33 years old, doing copious amounts of drugs with Vick almost daily, no job, no real relationships other than Vick. This life wasn’t a life at all. All it turned out to be was a one way ticket to the crazy train my brain had become. But I was determined. If nothing else, I could use that life changing trip to steer me into a positive direction. Don’t go through the pain in vain right? Make it worth something. The price of a better life.
I ended up getting a job a week ago, remote. Vick was a bit hurt when I told him I was going to be moving out, but said he understood my reasons and that he supported me. He even gave me some cash to shack up in a hotel for a bit while I started my job and looked for another place to live. I was trying to just forget about everything to bury the experience of that drug deep in my subconscious, and to never visit it via any drug ever again. But last night something happened that inspired me to search for help. I was getting ready to go to sleep, I’d just been looking through apartment listings and reached out to a couple landlords. As I turned the light out I closed my eyes and freaked the fuck out when instead of darkness I was greeted with bright lights and another atmosphere. I blinked and was back in my hotel room. I was petrified to blink again.
This couldn’t be happening again, it’s been almost a month. My eyes began to grow dryer and dryer. I said” fuck this” and tried to dump water in them to moisten them. But I poured too much and blinked anyway. And sure enough I recognized where I was immediately at Vick’s god damn motherFUCKING apartment. Oh and you know what’s even better I sniffed the line almost right away, without even thinking. Just a toot toot followed immediately by an oh FUCK! I blinked and found myself back in the hotel room. I’ve been writing this for the last hour everytime i come back to the hotel room. I’m still going back to Vick’s with every blink. And at this point I honestly have no idea which reality is the true one, if any. I’m gonna try and post this from the version of myself thats in the hotel room. If it gets through maybe I’ll be able to call this reality the “real” one. If not I guess I’ll just stick around in this confusing clusterfuck of an existence I’ve created for myself.