________ ________ ________
2021-04-01 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
A little while back, I think I've / _/ / /
mentioned this maybe once before, I \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
"overdosed" on dextromethorphan. I put / \/ \/ / \
overdose in quotes because what comes to / _/ /_ _/
mind when you talk about drug overdoses is /- / _/ /
generally something more severe or fatal but \________/\________/\___/____/
this wasn't particularly dangerous, it just
was more than I normally take and the effects were quite different.
For those not familliar with dextromethorphan, the effects tend to even out
into plateus depending on how much y ou take and those plateaus can be quite
different. For context I hover around the second plateau, a state of euphoria
and general disconnection. Everything becomes tinted by a kind of rose-colored
selflessness and I feel at peace. Anxiety gone, life is good.
At the time I was very epressed, grieving my grandmother who passed away
some time ago and distressed about some other things in my life I largely have
no control over. This made me somewhat reckless and I took around twice what I
would normally take, aching for an escape. The l argest downside I find with
dextromethorphan is that it takes a little while to come on so it's easy to
take more than you need, thinking the initial effects weren't enough, only to
find an hour later you're lost in the Juice of Sapho.
I was sat on the couch when I realised something was wrong. The room got
small and hazy, like a cocoon, and sound became impossibly far away. There's a
dog that lives nearby that, when robo tripping, rings out crystal clear in my
head. It's bark becomes a bell, reminding me of where I am.
In addition to the visual and aural effects my mind also got stretched into
new shapes and this was by far the most interesting part.
My ego, my sense of self was completely evaporated. I became conscious of a
vast succession of the movement of atoms. Like a silvery carbon thread,
stretching from the big bang, through me and onwards to my future. Atoms born
into the expanding universe, coalescing, becoming stars, becoming planets,
becoming complex molecules, microbes, primitive animals, ancient man, my
ancestors, my grandmother, my mother, myself, my daughter. I saw it as clear
as day, like I could touch it, the path of an atom through impossible lenghts
of time, right to this point in me and onwards.
I was stripped of self worth. My life meaning nothing in the unimaginable
vastness of the drama playing out in the universe, a life living for a split
second in a species that will only last minutes on a planet that is doomed
within the hour, under a sun that will barely last a day in the scale of the
broader universe.
In that moment I felt so pure, any anger, any pettiness, any sadness just
gone, and I felt only joy and wonder at the size of everything. Any notion I
had about being important was gone too, I became aware of everyone else's
struggle, each person living full lives with their own loves and losses and
joys and traumas, no one was a bit-part or cameo in my life, they were all
whole people living whole lives.
It was such a significant change in the way I felt about life and family
and community and society. It's a feeling I wish I could have carried back
with me when I returned to Earth but in the end my senses returned mostly to
normal, albiet with some consciousness of how I felt during the trip.
To summarise; winners don't use drugs but winning isn't everything and,
hidden in that mess of powders and cough syrups is a powerful humility that
I think a lot of us need to learn.
