I wasn’t on drugs but back in 2010 I watched some bed bug extermination video that sent into a downward spiral. I went to home Depot and bought a ton of bed bug killer, ripped the underside of my box spring mattress and sprayed the fuck out of it. Spent an entire day looking for the bed bugs that I couldn’t see. I never had any bugs. Felt like I was tripping though

Sitting in my bedroom at 3 am by myself. I was tripping on mushrooms and became convinced I was going to “be this way forever” and that I’d need to be locked away in asylum for the rest of my life. I tried to call a friend to ask if this was true but luckily I couldn’t figure out how to use the phone. Eventually I started to come down and realized I was going to be ok.

I had made some DMT for a friend, so i had a bunch of it laying around, and more importantly, loaded in a yocan orbit that was in my hand. I was in my office chair and my wife was in bed while we were watching some inane bullshit on TV. My wife didn’t want to try it, saying that “a potion made from rainforest plants that sends you to hell doesn’t sound like a good time” which is fair so I didn’t press her, but I didn’t want to feel like I was in the way so I figured I’d rip it discreetly without her even knowing. Reality exploded, which tends to happen when you rip some DMT with no regard for dosage. I closed my eyes- meaningless, because I no longer had a physical body, let alone eyelids. When I came back, I opened my eyes and saw myself, sitting in my office chair, threads of energy connecting all of space and time, as though a curtain had been pulled back or I was perceiving some sort of higher dimension. It felt horrible and wrong but also beautiful, like it wasn’t meant for human eyes to see. I blinked and I was back, it was over, but my wife totally knew. Anyway that experience gave me a touch of the Cosmic Madness, I was pretty freaked out for a number of months and I’m scared to do DMT again 👍

Ater freshman year of college I learned there was a local brand of chocolate milk that is the bees knees. I started drinking a gallon or two a week, it was a problem, but I was also experimenting with weed for the first time and it was so good.

After a few months my buddy told me he had this stuff called DMT that you smoke through a meth pipe he had acquired for the purpose. So I sat down and as I leaned back from the hit and reality morphed I shut my eyes.

The world was technicolor, composed of rings and rectangles moving toward and past me. There he was, the figure, a cross between Slender Man and Truth from Full Metal Alchemist, a blank white face except for the big grin. He radiated pure love, and as we looked at each other a cascade of similar figures swirled round the periphery, filling me with a sense of love, acceptance, and belonging like I had never experienced.

It was during this time that the voice came close to my ear and spoke to me, clear and purposeful: “Hey, lay off the chocolate milk.”

It was so obvious that I immediately responded back with a thought, “Oh yeah, thanks!”

I continued to float through bliss for another minute or so before fading back to reality, and just like that my chocolate milk intake dropped to once every month or two.

Let go of my defense mechanisms and cracked my egg on mushrooms.

Imagine getting out of bed and realizing you’re a forty year old trans woman, who absolutely hates her entire wardrobe. And in a world that stigmatizes gender non-conformity.

But my partner was very supportive, and I spent the next few months replacing my wardrobe. Started on HRT. And life got better.

Scary. Still scared. But now I know I can love and be myself. And communication and understanding between my partner and I is much better too.

I once imagined tRump got re-elected.

This was back in 2000, had just gone through a divorce. Had gotten a new pad with a friend and started hanging out with his stoner buddies. (Most of them are still close friends to this day.)

I took something like five hits of acid. I’d tried it only once before and it didn’t too much for me, so I upper the dosage.

I still didn’t get visuals, but it was an interesting trip.

A friend of mine was on the couch flipping through cable and settled on a claymation Don Quixote, which was just perfect for a melting reality. Thumbprints in the clay, rough work.

And I did something really goddamned stupid. I took out my new fancy chisels to practice on a block of wood.

Thankfully I didnt cut myself. I was being careful and just trying to gouge out a volcano on the end of a block of pine, twisting my arm to turn the block.

I went through some deep internal stuff about how I treated myself and women, why I’d been alone for so long.

In the weeks to follow I asked out four women I had crushes on and was shot down each time, but the point was I held onto this shit rather than ever expressed any interest. It was really useful.

So I’m coming off the trip and I’m sitting at my computer, and my hand just slides off the keyboard.

Repeatedly.

I’d held my arm in that extreme twisted position so long whilst contemplating my love life, set to claymation Don Quixote, that I almost gave myself fucking nerve damage.

I’ve tried a few substances but none that were too far out.

My roommates peer pressured me into taking way too much weed one night after dabbling in it lightly a handful of times before. I then quickly found myself lying in bed. Somehow, abstract art made sense to me there in the ensuing moment of contemplation. I was seeing it form in my head, splotches, lines and colours and space, it all clicked together. I felt changed the next day. Of course it wore off after, but that experience gave me a new appreciation for the depth of art that seems simple and meaningless on the surface. Like I had an idea of where it came from.

Went without sleep for 36 hours. Flat surfaces started to ripple like water. I took that as a sign it was time to sleep. 😉