I set out to the midst of the city with the goal of having a powerful psychedelic experience in a bustling place surrounded by people and society. I was a little stoned as I set out, looking for a safe place to inconspicuously unwrap foil and pop 5 very strong tabs into my mouth. I also had to go to the bathroom really badly. This concluded in me taking the tabs in the stall of a very crowded public bathroom. After this I set off to walk towards one of the rivers that ran by the city. I wanted to smoke a little as I came up, because that always acted to my benefit. By the time I reach the river I can feel the drug flow through my veins with burgeoning intensity. Patterns began to appear in the sky before me and form out of the sunlight reflecting off the water. I was shivering and shaking violently.

I find a nice lonely sidewalk by the highway and walk up and down smoking my one hitter with impunity. This has the predicted effect of strengthening the trip, yet also tempering some of the physical intensity- as though it’s been splashed with color after having its edges sanded down. I decide to sit down in a park and draw in my sketchbook.

I station myself in a nice secluded place in the grass and begin to draw as the sun breaks through the clouds. The sunbeams explode onto me with the most glorious and dazzling light possible. I can feel the glistening rays with every one of my senses, it’s spectacular in every way imaginable. The light sounds like an angelic chorus. As I draw, I become obsessed with the quality of my lines, the power imbued in each line rather than the holistic image. I try to create a sort of chaotic coherency by placing lines at random and trusting that my elevated state would subconsciously allow me to arrange them in a beautiful, harmonious, and coherent image. Eventually, the lines become cathartic- through a visual-auditory synesthesia I can hear each line scream as I forcefully drag them on the page. Graceful lines become jagged screaming marks, each one circling and contorting with explosive release. I want to be physically screaming out loud, but I still have the judgment to not do that, as I am in public.

I am tired of this activity. I want to experience more of the world around me. I begin to hike from the river towards downtown. Unfortunately, this involves passing through one of the most affluent areas of the city. I am dressed in all black with a tattered jacket covered in paintings. I stick out like a sore thumb amongst the swarms of folks in suits and overpriced cardigans. This trek back to center city was exceedingly uncomfortable as I detected piercing stares in every direction. In reality, it was probably me misinterpreting passing glances, but in my state each glance felt like hours of daggers shooting from judgmental eyes. I eventually reach Chinatown, and a crowd of teenagers decked out in hot topic clothes and homestuck merch ask if they can hug me. I accept and then slink off, completely jarred by this social interaction.

I go to a public park. I sit around people watching. It’s a lot of fun. Some people are sitting in circles playing some game, occasionally one of them stands up and shouts things. After extended observation it begins to feel almost rhythmic and patterned, it’s a very interesting background sound. In front of me a guy is dancing to dubstep. He is very lean and has beautiful chiseled muscles. His muscle control is incredible, he has 100% control over every minute movement he does. This is absolutely fascinating.

I am tired. I am uncomfortable in public, lots of people are looking at me, or at least I suspect them of such. I want to go home. I make my way to the subway. Waiting around in the station is uneventful. On the subway I slump in my chair. I zone out and feel my eyes roll into my head, I must look like a drugged up mess to everyone on board. I become aware that I might be exaggerating my appearance for my attention. I keep looping through this thought, correcting myself before drifting off and become self-conscious again. I get off the subway and head home. The walk home is completely wiped from my memory.

I am home now. It’s comfortable, peaceful, and familiar. I break out the bong and take a huge rip as the sun sets. I had no idea what this would do to me. Especially this one hit- it is gigantic and milky, I seem to not feel the smoke entering my body and just continue to take more and more. This dose of cannabis is monstrous and I cough violently upon realizing just how much smoke is in my body.

I start to feel a little funny. Usually smoking while tripping just kicks up the visuals a little bit or lessens the body load. This time however, it was much more. I was reading on my computer, but I soon noticed that words began to be incomprehensible, and soon the letters themselves morphed into illegible glyphs. I began to feel my body lightening and fading away. My sense of proportion became warped. Sounds began to echo and ricochet off each other in a visual space. My depth perception broke down as the room before me became a flat space being viewed from every direction at once, overlaid with gridlike patterns. I closed my eyes and faded into a space where all my senses were united in perceiving an odd shape that I couldn’t necessarily describe as 3-dimensional, as it broke all sorts of laws of perspective and depth. I was bodiless in this state, my entire existence was encompassed in this anomalous form.

Interestingly, if I opened my eyes and willed myself to focus I could pull myself from this transdimensional (?) state and experience a very altered version of my sober reality (rather than a different reality altogether). My walls were twisting and warping in every direction and my room was simultaneously very small and very large. When I laid down I felt like I was flying. It was indescribably immaculate and thrilling, I don’t think I have ever felt better while under the influence of a drug. I fiddled my fingers and cried tears of joy at the complexity of strangeness of my hands. My nails tapped out rhythms on the walls and each tap resonated like ripples through the twisting and swirling room. I was twitching and contorting my body because it felt so amazing to feel the ways in which I could move this fleshy frame.

At one point I twisted so hard It felt like my entire skeleton popped out alignment with one another. This feeling didn’t go away until much later that night. I pressed my outstretched hand against the wall and felt a torrent of energy enter my body from that point of contact. A concentric radiating pattern exploded out from that point. Though it was probably just a visual reaction based on the position of my arm, it felt as though I communed with some being through my wall and pulled energy from it.

No words can really describe the immense bliss of this leg of the trip, I felt like I was at the apex of my life. Unlike the previous experience with MDMA and mushrooms where it was a very odd chemical bliss, this felt like a cognitive bliss that came from beautiful thoughts rather than being pumped with raw happiness.

I leave the house to pick up my girlfriend from the train station. I am mostly down by now, save for a body high and light visuals. I haven’t had any social interaction for the past 6 hours so talking to her when she arrives feels very awkward. This eventually fades and gives way to a pleasant night.