MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - --alrighty then, let's talk about weed--

[purpose]

this is going be a bit long - my purpose here is to compare my first shit-stoned experience and see where it falls in the normality spectrum. my asperger's makes lots of things different for me. any attempt to look online/youtube/etc shows the expected clinical explanations, and the typical "i was so fucking high" from those that aren't really given to critical analysis. my first experience being super high was a lot more psychodelic than i would have anticipated for just weed alone. i'm just very curious to see if my response was typical, or if there were lots of results that are "just me".

[background]

i first started trying to get high on weed around 32 years old or so (i'm 37 now), and i'd usually be half-drunk and not feel anything. in the maybe 7 or 8 times of smoking and edibles (often in very large quanities), i would get nothing more than a sort of tingly sleep-paralysis effect in my extremities and some very weak haziness/gigglyness. so recently, i've been trying to get blazed hard on a clean palette (no drinking, etc) to see exactly what effects weed produced.

[lucid-dreaming/hypnosis background]

about a year and a half ago, i became extrememly interested in astral projection and lucid dreaming. to date, i've had 100+ lucid dreams that have lasted for seemingly hours, perhaps 5 or so full astral projections, and tons of experience putting my body to sleep while conscious. i can get that "heavy, being crushed, body floating away, displacement" feeling within 10 minutes of lying down and trying to do so. i mention this because weed produces an almost exact recreation of these experiences as we'll see later.

[megadeth atlanta concert preparation, monday evening, ~5pm]

fast-forward to last monday, where a friend ("Starsky") and i were going to smoke a joint and go to the show in atlanta. we went to a long-time friend of Starsky's house who basically is a weed wizard. we have a beer, and after explaining my difficulties of getting anything out of weed, he suggests that we forgoe the joint, and that i should take a single vaporized og kush oil dab (shatter) and promises that "it will peel my shit back". excited by his recommendation, we head downstairs, and i proceed to do exactly that.

--the basement--

we all chat over the basement setup, the new tv, Starsky's friend shows us some random cool shit in the basement and we meet another of his friends. the shatter is passed around, the various strains and qualities discussed, and then we set up. mine is locked & loaded, misted, and i take the hit, hold for a second, then exhale... coughing, choking, teary, wheezy. nice. slightly asthmatic as i keep throat clearing. almost immediate extremity tingles and relaxed. after a few minutes of chatting and laughing, we head back up to the living room.

--the living room--

i've already become very aware that i'm hesitant to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing. social abilities are gone. i'm scared that i might say something extremely insensitive or provoking... my high-order interaction processing part of my brain is soundly asleep. i'm smiling and just replying yes or no to anything asked of me. after a moment of sitting, my mouth is extremely dry and i feel like i need to burp 500 times. it takes all my courage and concentration to stand up and lightly announce that i need to get some water from the kitchen. i stand up, and make my way to the kitchen.

--the kitchen--

i arrive 25 feet away from my original departure and i'm now in the kitchen. i'm very SLOWLY looking through the cabinets to see where the drinking glassware lives when the bottom completely drops out and i enter dreamland; the room suddenly seems to grow, colors brighten to an almost cartoon magnitude, and i get an *overwhelmingly* emotional feeling of being connected to this kitchen that i've been in maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. i feel like i've lived there for an eternity and every good feeling a person is possible of feeling, well... i seem to feel that all at once. my very first thought is "holy fuck, i need to know exactly what i just smoked so that i can stockpile it and produce this effect at will". i also become extremely aware of my subconscious - it felt like a friend that i'd somehow known forever, but had forgotten about or abandoned... and whom suddenly was re-revealed and made known again. again, just overall extremely profound and moving emotions of having "been here and done this". extreme familiarity even though i know on a high order it's impossible. it's the weed. even still, i cannot overstate how powerful this feeling of re-emergence and connection were.

it's also at this same time that the sensation of lucid dreaming starts. the physical sluggishness, delayed reactions, ear ringing, general vibration feelings, emotional vulnerability, yadda yadda... ALL OF IT are exactly 100% how a fully-blown "in control of everything" lucid dream is. EXACTLY. so, being extremely familiar with lucid dreaming and having it forced on me in waking reality, i feel fully ready to go with it, and i feel prepared to self-soothe through the unexpectancies. throughout the rest of the night, Starsky kept asking if i was ok, did i feel like freaking out, let him know if i got uncomfortable, etc. i can say now, that without the experiences of lucid dreaming/astral projection/etc, i can totally see where people would panic the fuck out. also, at this time, i start concentrating on the lucid dreaming connection... i start attributing the self-awareness/subconscious emergence to the weed. i'm very familiar with having what seems like multiple people in my head during dreaming, and the de-personalized/de-realization that comes with it.

i hear the other guys a million miles away asking if i'm ok. i say yes. i find the glasses and manage a glass of water. the burps feel trapped, and like they are going to burst from my neck. i'm getting very warm. drinking water. the other guys come into the kitchen and hang for a bit. i feel light-headed and like i'm going to pass out. i tell myself i just have temporary low blood-pressure and to keep breathing. i'm fine. i pour another glass of water. i pull my phone from my pocket to start taking notes on the sensations. side-note; i can't ever just "go with the flow" - no matter what it is, i'm going to over-analyze the shit out of it, and i was planning beforehand to catalog the sensations so i wouldn't forget them (another lucid dreaming tactic). so, i pull my phone out, and start unlocking it. the touch of the glass is impossibly alien, and my fingers seem to be moving a full second or so behind expectation. at this point, i kinda know i'm fucked and nigh inoperable... and i am glad Starsky went easy anticipating that he'd need to be our steward for the night (he's also the farthest thing from a first-time user, unlike me). he makes a joke about leaving me behind and just picking me up after he attends the concert. i consider this seriously for a second... then decide i can manage. the burp that seems to have gotten stuck in my neck feels like it's going to burst.

i rationally remember that i cannot trust my sensation interpretation and i soothe myself with "weed never hurt anybody". i'm ok...

--the bathroom--

i need to piss. i make my way slowly to the restroom. i'm happy and relaxed, still a bit uncomfortable from the burping/neck scenario. i uncork, and piss. as i'm putting my dick away, i start to feel like i've pissed myself. warm sensations spreading down my leg, and hot piss running across my hands. i panic and pull my equipment back out. i inspect it thoroughly - absolutely bone dry. i look at my pants in disbelief. no piss spot. i'm totally confused and feel like i cannot trust myself. I KNOW I HAVE PISSED MYSELF and i just cannot see it. i very THOROUGHLY check my penis again, turning it over and looking as closely as i can manage. nothing. i look at my hands... i can feel piss all over them, but i see nothing. i put my dick in my pants. i look at the spot where i should see a huge dark wet circle of piss. nothing. i look away, then back at the pants. nothing. i literally do the re-look thing 4 or 5 times. i don't know which sensation i cannot trust - my eyesight saying it's all ok, or my touch sensation saying there's hot piss everywhere. fuck it. i walk back out.

--the patio & departure--

i re-enter the kitchen and announce i'm high as fuck and i feel like i pissed myself. everyone assures me it looks ok. my entire crotch (and now my hands) feel large, warm, and ghostly... sort of non-corporeal. like they exist in a another dimension. again, i'm sort of familiar with this sensation due to put myself into sleep paralysis, but it's super ODD not being able to snap out of it. i understand that my crotch is going to feel like a hot, ghostly beachball for an unspecified amount of time and move forward.

we head out to the patio. i randomly get the sensation that i'm floating, and not even standing. i have to wriggle my toes to reaffirm i'm on the ground. i begin to have daydreams of doing something, and believing i'm doing it, then snap back to my body as i'm just standing there watching the dog play with the cat. i begin getting a little paranoid that people are noticing everything i do is slow and fucked-up. even holding my water in one hand too long... i'm like "if i keep holding this glass in one hand, people are gonna think something's up". i go to pass the glass from my left hand to my right hand... i'm not feeling the glass hitting my grasping right hand. i look down, and my hands are about a foot and a half apart. awesome.

at some point the dog snapped and growled at the cat and my heart leapt - i felt like a stoner because my only thought was "man that's so HARSH... chill out bro!"... then i laugh.

i feel like my mouth is not producing spit... it's hard to swallow. keep the water coming. i go back inside to pour another glass after traversing 2 small 3-inch brick steps which seem like almost insurmountable obstacles to get back into the house. i manage in and back out. slowly. i'm accutely aware that i'm going to have a real-body vs dream-body (spatiality & consciousness) battle all night long. still though, i'm familiar with the territory, so let's go.

we all shake hands, thanks for the hospitality, see you guys later, and then i slowly crawl into the passenger seat feeling like i'm about to go on a 5,000 horsepower amusement ride.

--on the road to the tabernacle--

i'm immediately aware that the pissing/crotch thing is going to be a problem. i drank a lot of water... and there's a slight sensation that i need to piss. but, i cannot tell if it's strong or not. it's just tingly. fuck. i make this fear known to Starsky about once a minute. he does a great job telling me i'm fine. i'm slightly freaked by it. i repeat myself a lot. basic forgetfulness. i'm laughing frequently. everything he says, every road-ragey caustic remark made about somebody's poor driving, or somebody looking like shit on the roadside, abandoned buildings, etc strike home with physically incapacitating hilarity.

time seems to be passing quickly, but checking the clock shows it's only been 3 minutes. more familiar dream side-effects.

at one point, the road we're on... immediately transformed... like a brain-snap and i felt like i was on a road in my home town. absolutely intriguing. i let the sensation wash over me... yep, i'm in my home town... like 15 years ago. i just enjoy it. i know on a high-order of thinking that it's impossible. there are trees on the left side of this road, and my home-town road has buildings on both sides. my subconscious brain has convinced me with alarming power that i'm reliving a memory. amazing.

Starsky seems to drive an impossible amount of twists and turns, backroads, etc and finally we are at the venue.

--wilson & megadeth--

we park and walk to the venue. i'm slightly confused about the security/check-in process. i empty my pockets and pass through check-in. good. ticket scans ok. good. we both immediately go grab waters. we drink nothing but water the rest of the night.

we walk onto the floor, and there's the opening band. the band members seemed like fucking demons/animals on stage and the music seemed overly hyperaggressive/loud and the colors of the lighting seemed to make them glow with hellish power. i had to keep guaging audience response to see if i was ok and make sure we weren't experiencing a fucking doom-esque invasion right here on earth. emotionally/psychologically, i felt a 5 year old watching a terrifying sonic ritual on stage. i had to take a mental step back, listen to the music, listen to the singer, etc and understand that i listen to shit daily that is more frightening and that i somehow enjoy it. at this point, i start relying on asking myself questions in my head (subconscious probing) to guage things - "is this ok?", "how does this make you feel?", "should these stairs be this color?", etc.

walking around the venue, i become aware of something else new... i'm having *emotional* reactions to everything. as an asperger's specialist, i'm often criticized about lack of emotion - so, i know i've learned to suppress and work around emotions, valuing cognitive abilities and ignoring emotion. so, it's incredibly amazing that i'm inside my own body i'm sitting here and witnessing powerful *emotional* responses to almost everything. i get the distinct impression that whatever emotional and psychological coping techniques i've developed over my lifetime were deactivated. i'm having strong primal reactions to mundane shit and it takes a moment of logical thinking to be able to cope with it and move on.

i took frequent piss breaks, and every single fucking time it felt like i just kept continuing to piss after i was done. the sensation was as real as anything. i had to keep making visual contact with my dick to ensure myself that urine was no longer pouring out. at one point i farted, and it felt like the fart just continued coming out of my asshole for a minute and then slowly subsided. awesome.

at some point, i also start seeing my brother's face on random people. i'm aware this is more substance-inspired wizardry, so i just enjoy it. i'm almost chuckling. it's a VERY convincing illusion. i would sit and watch this random people from afar and be convinced they looked exactly like my brother or that they WERE actually him. also, a little later, everybody in the venue started looking like people i know, some from VERY long ago that i was shocked i remembered; remote relatives, high school classmates, friends from kindergarten, etc. i let this play out and enjoyed it. at one point, everywhere i looked, somebody looked like someone i know/knew. crazy! i didn't expect this from weed.

walking around the venue, i would randomly get the "reliving a memory" like i did with the home-town street incident. extremely powerful and convincing, and full of emotions. at one point, when i was going upstairs, as soon as my foot touched the ground, i felt like i was at a steak house i worked in while attending college. very brief, but the sensation was fucking crazy.

megadeth comes on stage and begins destroying it. the music seems impossibly loud. i have to look around and witness that nobody is clutching their ears to assure myself that the decibel levels are humanly tolerable. i'll be fine.

after a bit, i start getting the familiar hypnogogic sonic warbling i experience during sleep paralysis. i just focus past it and enjoy the music. i remember the exact moment during 'symphony of destruction' where i came back down. it was like reality had a phaser set to 1% the whole time, and then it just zero'd out and everything sharpened up. i could feel my weight, body and feet again. i was back on planet earth. enjoyed the rest of the show.

--the drive back--

even though i was mostly back down to earth, there were still some obvious effects going on. the 'psychological child' effect was still strong.

i remember going down the highway, and a car with one headlight started approaching. i remember thinking "what a horrible fucking abomination to god... so asymmetric and MENACING!!" just because this car had a headlight out. lol! i felt like i must be a 4-year old child seeing something sinister for the first time. i laughed afterward.

we were both hungry, so we hit up waffle house near his house. i'd heard stories of how everything can seem weird after smoking, including eating, so i was looking forward to seeing how odd it could be even though i felt mostly normal. we ordered. my sausage patty was gritty and salty. normal. the hashbrowns and ketchup... normal. the eggs with a little salt & pepper... A-ok. i buttered up the little waffle on the side dish and put a little syrup on it. i cut a wedge and put it in my mouth. the moment my mouth closed, it felt like there was an impossibly huge blubbery, sugar-lubricated raft cascading around in my head. all spatial sense of the size of my mouth and the food i'd just put it in were gone. it just felt out of control, wild, and fucking HILARIOUS. it was the most delicious shit i've experienced.

we made it to his house, i pissed again for the 50th time, got in my car and headed home. i stopped to gas up and got a corndog.. i was still hungry. go figure. i made it home fine, texted i was ok then hit the bricks.

[tuesday, at work]

after expressing that i still might be high, several people assure me that weed should be worn off, but yeh, i could still possibly be a bit high. i attribute the following remaining sensations to psychological echo of my experience.

--deleting emails feel weird. even deleting things i know are spam, it feels like i'm making absurdly important decisions by just deleting shit.

--using a pc feels weird, and unnatural. like i'm controlling the mouse cursor from across a huge void. i get the impression that technology is foreign and bad. i feel like i should be touching plants, not computers.

--moderate de-personalization/de-realization ("imposter mode") at work. i seem to be inside somebody that's trapped doing this job and interacting with these people. it's not me. things seems fake and contrived. i want to leave.

--i walk outside, and i realize i'm scared to step off back platform and enter the parking lot because a guy with a loud leafblower is making the entire patio space seem threatening. i'm still having primal emotional reactions to stimuli and i'm not confident about doing anything on my own.

--at lunch, the chewing and texture sensations are still there; i'm acutely aware that the food is compacting and crushing down when i bite it.

--doing some work stuff (like scheduling a conference room for my meeting) seem impossibly complex and daunting.

--simple things fascinate me. my laser pointer, i had fun playing with it on wall, tracing pipes, etc, for about 15 minutes.

--overall, the notion of being emotionally immature and insecure is staying around. after lunch, it almost feels like i need to check in with Starsky to make sure it's ok to go back inside the building after standing around outside. the concept of making that decision myself seems daring and unsafe. again, nothing too crazy... but, these feelings are extremely interesting. i'm almost relegated back to the psychological framework of a child that needs accompaniment and reassurance on very common things. i have to keep asking myself, "would would the egotistical, fuckwad version of yourself do if you weren't high right now?", then i would have to muster up my strength and do that.

[summary & analysis]

after thinking over my experience, here's what i feel is happening.

--dream similarities--

i believe weed puts my brain into beta-wave mode, as if i'm sleeping. at that point, the dream-content generating portions of my brain that usually aren't active become active. i experienced the SAME EXACT sensations and problems during this episode that i do when i dream. i could make a massive catalog of very specific shit, but just take my word. i'm convinced that i'm in the same psychological state while fuck-high that i am when lucid dreaming. i also believe that being experienced with lucid dreaming made potentionally scary shit easier to deal with.

--emotional snapshotting--

i got the distinct impression during this episode that psychological maturation is done in stages, and your total psychological body is not homogenous. as you learn and cope in life, your neurological pathways (through firing) in your brain are strengthened. however, these "add-on" skills are still separate circuitry and can be disabled. at certain points, i would very distinctly get the impression that i was experiencing things a certain age, replete with that age's vulnerabilities and understanding. i felt like my brain was like an onion with layers of learning and coping that i had built up, and randomly, the weed would strip away certain layers and let me process reality as i were a randomly younger version of myself.

the subsequent de-personalization/de-realization was just triggered by this episode. i compartmentalized stress and don't process it sometimes, and i have felt these depressions without weed. this further reinforces everything you hear about how your "trip" can be reflective of what's going on inside you at the moment.

regardless, i still cannot get the emotions of what happened in the kitchen out of my head. i feel like i have more... "research" to do. i don't even give two shits about the positive aspects of weed most people who smoke are after. i feel like i personally have to place that awful familiarity and touch of subconcious i experienced during the first 15 minutes into my memory and learn something from it. i have to understand what the fuck that was.

peace!