DOSE:

2 hits

smoked

Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

[Erowid Note: Some authors report suspicions that their cannabis has been 'laced' (adulterated), in some cases, presumably with PCP. While this is possible, readers should be aware that idiosyncratic response to the effects of cannabis (usually higher doses) can lead some users to presume their cannabis has been 'laced'. There is no way to know if the cannabis in the report below was adulterated or not. Reports of plant material and cannabis laced with powerful synthetic cannabinoids and other psychoactive substances became more common starting in 2007.]

In 1998, I smoked some weed that I believe was laced with something, perhaps PCP. It brought about the most profoundly intense psychedelic experience of my life before or since. At the time, I'd only ever smoked weed, but after eight years of further experimentation and more intentional psychedelic experiences, I still say nothing compares to this. No reports I've read of people smoking weed laced with PCP or anything else seem to corroborate, and I'm still curious as to what it was and how it could be recreated.

One consideration, before I commence: due to my absolutely unprepared mental set (I just thought I was hitting a bowl of weed, as did my companions), I wonder if there was a level of openness and vulnerability that was distinctly absent from later, prepared efforts at psychedelic experiment. All I know for sure is that this was extraordinarily intense, very short-lived (for a while, I though it may have been DMT, but I doubt it), and utterly unlike anything I've encountered before or since.

I got high at a friend's dorm room with a group of people, but about 5 minutes after a few hits off a pipe I felt a sense of insane weakness and fear. I stood up and left without saying anything. I barely made it to my room, and along the hall leading to it everything seemed to be throbbing, like someone was fucking with the sharpness of my vision, as though tweaking a knob on a TV. I dropped on my bed and the weakness overwhelmed me and I lay there sensing my external world start to fade out. I felt like I was submerged in water, or like the air was water, and when I touched my stomach my tactile responses were greatly distorted: it was like I was pressing on a four-inch layer of foam; like I had receded deeply into my own body and the surface was being shut off.

Soon, a serious pain developed deep in my abdomen; however, I was so physically sedated that no thought of doing anything about it, such as contacting security, every occurred: I was my own sensory cosmos and little else had bearing on my reality, although I still retained a small hold on my visual field. All of my focus went to the pain and I closed my eyes, being vaguely aware of a grey mist behind my eyelids. Everything was dull, floating, and detached, except for the pain in my abdomen. As my focus went to it, I felt it start to rise up into my stomach. It was like a ball of energy lodged in my lower body, slowly working its way up. Next it was in my chest, then my throat. As I realized it was going to reach my head, I became convinced I was dying: when the ball of energy hits my eyes, I'll expire. There was such an intense level of conviction and fear surrounding this that I was forced to reconcile myself to it and accept the occurrence of my own death. An immense calm came over me: I was giving myself over to dying. I felt the painful energy go through my sinuses, and when it hit the space between my eyes, there was an explosion of geometric patterns behind my eyes. I was utterly blind at this point, completely disconnected from the outside world. The geometric patterns were vivid and bright, distinctly pulsating rectangles of varying colors that seemed to present a tunnel at certain points, at other points a flat vibrating surface. Eventually, as the energy of the vibration increased, a sort of slide-show began: not photographic; more a mesh of shifting geometrics of varying depth. A sense of familiarity and nostalgia overcame me, and it was as though I was being asked to recognize the shapes: they were intimate, familiar, uniquely my own. In all seriousness, I recognized them as abstract colored patterns on shirts I wore as a child, as though I was being shown the clothes I wore as child through the eyes of my childhood self. The absurdly mundane nature of that realization occurred to me afterwards, but in the moment it was like some treasure of my childhood had been laid before me, totally accessible and recovered.

Eventually, the patterns ceased intensifying and merely oscillated, entirely geometric with a void center from which the phosphene colors seemed to generate and resolve. As it died away, there was a twilight effect as I began to look out into the real world again, even though all the lines, corners, shades, and colors of my room would click into alignment and become representations of other things, like a mutating art object. When I felt sane again, and could stand up and gather myself, I noticed it had been less than 90 minutes since I'd left my room.

What amazes me about it is the way in which the painful ball of energy seemed to move through the chakras, exploding in the sixth: the third eye. Also, the intensity of the recovered visual memories amazed me. It was as though at the moment of death, which I was very sure of, I was comforted by a random detail seen by my childhood eyes. The next day, a friend of mine I smoked with asked me, 'Have you ever been so high you left your body?' I laughed, feeling somewhat uncomfortable about telling him of my experience. I didn't know what to make of it, and feared being accused of exaggeration; they were all hardened weed-smokers. He said after that bowl we smoked he ended up having to lie down and went into a hypnotic, levitating state of complete confusion. So, that leads me to believe it was laced: I was not alone.

I have experienced access to this core of childhood remnants and benevolence, primarily with salvia. However, the physical discoordination and sense of numbness and submersion all felt like they were leading to coma if I can be allowed that approximation, never myself having been literally comatose.

Exp Year: 1998	ExpID: 67343
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 4, 2013	Views: 14,834
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Cannabis (1), OBE (332) : What Was in That? (26), Alone (16)