Introduction
It began with a night of binging 3-MeO-PCP. I had been using a large amount of the substance, working my way through about 500mg over the course of a month. During these trips, I had previously begun to experience "the fear" for the first time. My first experience with it being that of sudden onset panic attacks consisting of an intense fear that abruptly awoke me from sleep in a frenzy. These lasted only about 2 minutes each but they foreshadowed the ever escalating madness that ensued. I had promised myself that I would give up 3-MeO-PCP due to the sheer intensity of these experiences, which were unlike any other I've felt on a drug. I am experienced with deliriants, salvia, and various psychedelics, but the deep pitted existential terror perpetrated by this substance was unparalleled. The only thing that surpassed the intensity of this fear was the extremely strong addictive qualities of the substance. Me being a dissonaut with addictive tendencies, I quickly found myself redosing frequently every single day. Now when you're on 3-MeO-PCP, you don't get psychosis or the fear during the trip itself, when you're on it you just feel extremely manic. Instead, you typically feel the psychosis and the fear when you are coming down during the tail end of the trip. When you think you're now sober.
Onset
And in one fateful night this perceived sobriety lead to the admittedly poor decision to consume a 20mg dose of 4-HO-MET after a night of long binging where 30-50mg of the substance was consumed. I weighed the powder out with the desire to listen to classical music and experience nice visuals. I lay in my bed with my tablet as I began to come up hard and I struggled as a deep confoundment overtook me. I attempted to put on a piece of music: York Bowens Symphony no 2. This is a beautiful yet menacing composition that I was only able to get playing through extreme struggle. I remember thinking how difficult it was to navigate reality, my vision was deeply altered and it wasn’t normal visuals. It felt as though I couldn’t focus my eyes and my pupils were dilating in and out. I turned off the lights in an attempt to rectify the situation but it only made it worse. I felt a great intoxication and impairment overtake me. I could not manage to navigate the tablet. It was as though brain was unable to render the visual stimuli and i was left with a barrage of incomprehensible noise. The music made little sense to me in this state and I felt completely helpless. I stumbled over to my desktop computer after throwing my tablet on the floor and I crawled into the chair. I was completely unable to comprehend what I was perceiving. As a layer of unmanageable visuals clouded my field of view I managed to bring up the York Bowen symphony no. 2 only through muscle memory. I don’t believe I was able to comprehend how to use the headphones unfortunately but this symphony would have an extremely large impact on my experience nonetheless.