DeTrip To See Bee

To See Be:

“Okay kids, want to play with dangerous substances?  Did you know that they’re money and health-wise taxing, mind-altering, mood-shaking and after all, one may even end up having troubles with the law.  Any of the above would make them not worth doing if it wasn’t for one thing - fun.  There’s one big “IF”, though.  So let me rephrase: hallucinogenic drugs are fun if done right.  As far as right or wrong goes, I’ve gone far enough in both directions.  The effects are not totally unpredictable.  There are guidelines and one can stay on a safe side (or at least increase one’s chances of survival) if these guidelines are followed.  Generally speaking, there are “set” and “setting” to consider and if you’re not prepared you can end up in places you don’t want to be.  The experiences can be horrifying.  Some people claim that one learns a lot from bad trips, and yet I can’t recommend it to anyone, even as an experiment. Collect all the sadness, despair and sorrow of your life, multiply it by a million and you won’t get close to what a bad trip can be.  We do it for the other side of the spectrum - the ultimate bliss. This part is just as colorful and dramatic as another one. Take all the excitement, enlightenment, and what not, multiply by zillions, and you won’t get even close to... what am I saying, you may end up in the middle of the swamp thinking you are the Universe yourself and a God of Heaven and Hell alltogether.  It’s a wrong way of thinking that if you tried one kind you’ve tried them all.  Try another one and you’ll se how wrong you were.”

                DE TRIP

Some things you do.  Some things do you.  That thing totally did you.  What was it?  What was it called?  Some three-letter abbreviation.  Not important which one.  Let's keep things simple.  Cause they are too damn complicated anyway.  And there are many of them.  Infinitely many.  Were you prepared for IT?  I guess you were – I mean, we have all read about it in the books.  Debated about it for years and years.  Much of the modern philosophy is related to it directly or indirectly, as people who drive culture have been influenced by it in one way or the other.  We have seen it in the paintings of the great masters.  Seen in the movies.  But it sure is almost impossible to put it into words and describe it for someone, or even yourself.  Especially if you are still under it, waiting for the plain at the airport, after having not slept for days… Well, anyway, here comes another try.

“Hey, what’s the impression after the degression (I’m not sure if there is such a word?!, but understand something opposite of progression)? It was not my happiest weekend.  Been moody.  Didn’t fully enjoy myself the way I know. Felt burdened and detached. Was it me or the chemicals?  Not sure.  Was glad to see you, but couldn’t jump around much with you.  Feel sorry now.  You are so far from here.”

For the first hour it feels like nothing is happening at all.  Just a really good drunken excitement and energy outburst.  Then, an emotional revelation follows.  Alcohol, the social drug which breaks barriers between the most alienated individuals and drives you to them, does that.  But not as well as this: before you know it you just cannot control your love for people.  Emotions have to come out somehow, and then – it's whatever it takes: for some it's hysterical laughter for others it's tears of joy and tenderness.  For you – it’s all of it together…

“Found myself on a hot and wet Sunday Southern night smoking a cigarette in
mittens, with a beret on my head. Ho-ho.  I still can’t extricate from alternative worlds, just can’t stop thinking in these directions.  And the head is already ready to blow up. So I figured out that I could be an ideal addict, if I had not had a child. Hope, it was my last time.”

The short ecstatic phase of falling in love with the surrounding all of a sudden gives a way to a front of something inexperienced previously.  Here goes the socializing: you are on your own now, dude.  Bell The Major tolls.  You are in the bathroom looking at your reflection in the toilet.  Boy, there is a lot of water in there!  It's really deep and it's sucking you in.  All of a sudden, air around gets thicker.  It turns yellow.  The water turns orange.  Quack!  The toilet bends out of shape and collapses flat.  Quack! Quack!  It distorts back and bubbles outwards like a balloon.  The water is now orange-gray.  Blue… Green… It starts going up.  The flood is imminent…

“A lot has been said and written on the subject.  Try “the electric kool-aid acid test” or “acid dreams” for example.  There are plenty of works on shrooms and acid but I’m not aware of any literature on the subject of 2CB and such. Part of the reason is that in most cases there’s a cultural phenomenon, a certain movement attached to the drug, whereas in our case there’s no distinct shape or well-defined ideology. Just a bunch of enthusiastic explorers. We’re yet to shapen up and grow.”

Curious to consider what a sober observer present at the scene must think about those tripping within themselves.  This time, the poor girl who had nowhere to go and sat there in the room with you was completely clueless about why the rest was behaving so weird.  She must have thought that this is how drunk and silly people can get…  They might put a bongo drum in the middle of the room and start taking turns banging undefined beats on it.  And someone will start taking pictures of the drummer’s hands.  Is there some concept behind that?  Is there some beauty?  The normal person will never know.  And the awakened drummer and the photographer might never even figure out t themselves what they were after at the time… 

“My trip was great and I am not concerned about myself. But I care for you (not only meaning you personally) and really wonder whether you are foreseeing the endpoint of the trip as-a-whole.”

Actually, I recall that the first time I had to deal with my friends ‘under the influence’, it did not even occur to me that I am dealing with people in an altered state.  I just felt that they behaved alienated and indifferent to me, which I could not help but account for with some logical rational explanations to why they did not react to me at our regularly-practiced level.  And, if I could not find a reason to why they would not relate adequately to my presence, I felt kind of insulted.  Now, it turns out, I had nothing to do with it.  I just was not in their dimension at the time.  And, maybe, will never be again.  Or, actually, they will not be in mine.  But what it comes down to, is that those who do and those who don’t start living separate lives.  Or separate dreams.  And, ironically, just a year ago while still “clean”, some of you who enthusiastically advocate the use of drugs today, got mad at the others, already doing the shit at the time, for turning into a zombie not being a fun being around.  Remember?!
 
“People are strange because you are DEAD.”

You look around.  You realize that everyone looks like a movie character.  An 80-s European drama «smooth operator»…  A 90-s action thriller assassin…  An all-time-independent-film decadent junkie...  A role of a politician, in whom the good fights with the inherent evil and wins...  A Hellraiser from a horror flick…And who are you starring as?  What movie are you out of?  What movie are you into?..

“I feel more fine now than before.  Next time we are meeting in the desert with nothing to do and nowhere to go.  Crowds of people confuse me recently, leading to inadequate behavior and subsequently to self-accusations because of the inadequate behavior.  Grown in myself?  Certainly, after all that stuff.  But I love it!  You know what it is - it’s like opening your way of thinking about surrounding reality.  It’s all about seeing alternatives to usual conceptions and sometimes using them as new conceptions.  It could be beneficial.  It may make you think in some obscure direction and discover new things to burden your already burdened brain.  Please, explain to me about the child, how does it interfere?  It makes you worse mother or what?”

Perhaps, there is no point attempting to sort through what you touch upon while the sleep leaves you for hours and hours. It is impossible: there are just too many things to account for.  It is not only that unusual images, thoughts or feelings pop up in your mind and in your sight.  It is just that EVERYTHING pops up.  At once.  Every single neuron is pulled by every train of thought moving in all directions and dimensions at once, and the circuits responsible for every sphere of information management rush to the analytical center of what used to be your brain.  And, instead of dealing with one idea or one feeling at a time and processing it according to the world around… Forget it: there is no world around: your mind has now to deal with every single possible way your psyche could swing in response to the Universe you build inside and around yourself, and rationalize and respond to every single thought striking for a reason or not.  You are standing alone in the midst of an infinite plain of billions of discrete options, possibilities and responses to the questions someone is asking inside of you.  And you are drowning in the flaming sea of thoughts, each one of which you could pursue, if you could only grab one by the tail as it tries to escape, and pull it out from under the pile of the other thoughts building and competing with it.

“Now, coffee is about to finish and work to start.  A very unpleasant moment.  I just want to hang out at work, drink coffee and eat pancakes.  And after work to go to Cafe DellArtisia and continue!  With wine.  O-oh, I never told you what I found there. A holly treasure.  The guys from that place designated the drawers as live persons you can write to.  And now most of them are full with postcards and letters starting...’Dear Drawer,......’ People wrote out so much shit, it scares me, sign of divine loneliness.  Did you see that?”

You start experiencing metamorphoses of yourself and of objects and subjects around you.  Magnificent buildings are stretching towards the sky around.  You are in the city.  The streets form beautiful patterns, which you can see from all possible angles at one.  The windows are very contrast, as they are deeply dipped in the walls.  Total darkness in these framed holes behind the glass absent.  Colors start changing.  They are coming in waves of unpredictable shades.  The prevalent one is orange.  It's all fucking orange.  Is it because you are wearing an orange T-shirt, which you yourself are not even looking at?  Are you seeing yourself around?  OK, here comes yellow.  And green…

“Did you feel also as peaceful after taking the drug as I usually do?  I remember how you looked at the picture of the sea posted on the wall.  Imagine really being there at that time... Wouldn’t it be wonderful?  I remember a few weeks ago I was staring at the picture for half an hour and I really was there at the seashore at that moment. And how about observing people around? Sometimes I perceived them as if their movements were phased.  The trip was simply a trip.”

The river in the picture on the wall starts rushing between the rocky mountains on each side.  Next thing – the mountains wear down and then what you see is a stormy sea with riffs standing up from the depths full of monstrous fish.  She is looking at you and you can see her hair grow.  The eyelashes are growing longer too and are getting frosted with ice.  They are turning very bright and, correspondingly, the face background is changing, as if being overexposed on a black-and-white negative.

“If you feel like you stop enjoying your LIFE, then what good does it do?  “It may be beneficial”?  Well, for some people, for a while, perhaps. Or at least pleasant. Or just fun.  But with the obvious growing inner conflict you are building, this statement sounds unconvincing.  Don’t get me wrong: I don’t regret trying this shit once,  I did get HIGH kicks.  It’s just... stay with us, you know?  Don’t close yourself away.”

Many visual images are clearly inspired by surrealistic media that you have seen or books you have read.  An example is the telescopic projections of monstrous heads, like those serial hideous jaws protruding from the mouths of the preceding heads of a classical Alien.  You cannot really remember what objects or subjects you have seen those salivating carnivorous throats protruding from, but there sure have been many of them around that night.  You realize they are not real, so they are not really scary, and they go away. 

“You initiated a discussion here which although personal has some points concerning everybody prone to such experiences.  I agree with you on the subject of FUN - that how the things should mainly stay and if you feel you loosing that part - forget about it.  Just dump it in the trash and close the chapter!  The story is slightly different with me.  As an experimentator myself and one interested in aspects of human psyche I had to go through some more studying of the effects on a deeper level to find the scope.  Turned out so far, it’s changing every time which makes it difficult to say - ‘alright we’re done, baby’ - now get lost.  The trick is that it may change you on the way too.  Therefore the main question: is me - this rat - permanently affected? No, the hell NO. In spite of the introspective moods I sometimes get into (caused also by interaction with bad and strange people I meet (including myself) in the ‘normal’ everyday life; generally slowed down partying because of non-alcoholic diet, etc.), excitement is still here.  You got to have no worries: my blood is still sparkling red, and I love playing in the sun most of all!  Muzika!!!”

Small neon-green signs start flashing around.  Can't quite tell what they say…  “EXIT”? No, those would have been in red.  “ENTER” apparently.  You are trying to concentrate on one …  it's getting closer … ah, too late – it's already past you, and you are – IN. The signs start sticking to CB in front of you.  To the forehead.  To the hands.  It's no longer a word.  Those are digits.  As though on a digital watch.  Flashing red, green, yellow, blue, purple…  What's the time?  “XX:XX”.  Is such a display programmed into a watch at all???  You are never gonna find out – time's up: FIRE ALARM!  Smoke comes out of everywhere.  Streams of smoke.  Coming out of peoples' eyes and mouths. Coming out of your mouth too.  With every thought you say to yourself.  They must be substantiations of the energy unspent on the unspoken thoughts to have been turned into real words.  This energy is invisible like electricity or magnetic field.  But you can see it because now you know it exists.  The funny thing is that there is no way you could possibly start seeing that energy to begin with, as you did not know that it existed at the time… Go figure. 

“Yeah, I guess u r not permanently affected, unless if you are permanently doing it or wanting to do it...

“Do you actually come up with some clever thoughts?  Does it make you understand things better?  Not really – the neurons wouldn’t just re-wire by themselves to make you smarter: if anything, it only kills the brain.  But you instantly grasp the essence of things and events that you will come back to deal with in a couple of days.  It breaks down the backbone you have built throughout your life in order to hold the surrounding in order appropriate for your efficient functioning as of a social unit.  You start seeing things around you as they looked like when you were young and saw them for the first time and filed each one into an appropriate shelf.  And now, all of a sudden, there are no shelves and nothing can be appropriate.  Turns out, there are numerous levels of freedom to each of those assignments, they all engage at once, and you start seeing or feeling every thing in numerous potentially appropriate contexts.  Or out of context at all.  The further off the new placement, the harder the shock from the realization of how the things really are NOT.”

“This stuff is not for people who is not looking for it. So, if unsure: stop, catch your breath, re-think it over, and do it again when you feel like it. There’s no rush, really.  The Gennie is out of the bottle and welcomes you, well, to the other side”.

It is an interesting challenge – dealing with those in the room who are riding the wave along with you.  Each one is traveling through his/her own corridor of dimensions, some of which do not overlap with those of the others.  Yet, your companions are experiencing a lot of perturbations that you are going through at the same time.  Suddenly, the world around strikes you as a stunning creation of uncomprehendable magnificence, and it consists of countless discrete pieces, each as colorful and beautiful by itself as the whole picture.  The music playing is the most mesmerizing melody and sound you have ever heard, and all of you are dissolved in it, reflecting from the ceiling, the floor, the walls, and fading in the softness of the blankets pillows and soft human skin.  You cannot hold it anymore and announce your experiences out loud.  And she, in front of you, starts weeping because what she is seeing, hearing and feeling is the same, and it is too pleasant to bear inside.  Can’t help but recall that fragment from “Traffic” where those kids come together…

“There is no OTHER side. It’s all inside.  I am very happy for you that you say you can control it.  But, as you also say yourself, it is always different: for every one and for every sub, and it’s all personal.  And, with all the sorrow that I know you have seen, it is very brave of you to take the responsibility of welcoming.”

You are eating a cake and you cannot believe how wonderful it tastes.  The orgasmic feeling of chewing on it must be comparable to what you felt like when you ate something really delicious for the first time in your life.  The long-forgotten novelty of perception, a magnitude of pleasure is incomparable to the taste of any food in real life.  And then, you start drinking a beer, and it is not even as bitter and disgusting as it felt like drinking it for the first time in your life.  It does not even feel like it is a liquid coming into you.  It feels like you are swallowing billiard balls or something.  Now you realize what “tasting good” really is, as compared to what you have taught yourself to believe being god tasting, as you have learned to live in the “real world”.

“This side, that side, Inside or outside - All part of One Big Nothing... All the sorrow I’m talking about is not introduced to one’s world by taking the drug.  It’s all there, all the time.  The drug just enables you to see it. Whether you’d like to or not is another question. It’s pretty mind-blowing, I admit, but even after having your mind blown in million different directions the world keeps turning and nobody ever went nuts over it. 
The end-point of this? Who the hell knows! Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

As you are hanging in there trying the best you can to attach to what you know as REAL, as of an hour ago, you start acknowledging new changes in the room.  Some people disappear.  Some objects vanish or, on the contrary, start absorbing your whole attention all of a sudden.  It strikes you that «reality» around you consists of multiple dimensions, which you used to see blended into one.  Now you can view them separately, travel from one to another, and encounter combinations of people and objects which cluster in individual ones and are absent from the others.  Time also flows differently in every one of these dimensions.  In some it stands still, in others it goes backwards.  And inside of you it moves ahead of itself.

“Caught the wave right.  And still floating on top of it.  Let’s not ever sink, cause where you gonna end may stink, you brothers think, this game ain’t no always in pink!  The truth is ‘whatever it is - the drug enables you to see it’ - the bad and the worst, plus the horrible. Purify your thoughts, wish love and happiness to everybody and you’ll be able to enjoy indescribable states.  Are we becoming better persons this way???  You tell me.”

Not that it changes anything, but, mechanistically, all these visions and transformations that you see are consciously or subconsciously associated with or result from the images already stored in the brain.  Or they arise de novo on the spot, but it feels like a dÎjÈ vu because the emotions awakened relate to experiences that you have had in REAL life, mostly as a kid, and you do not really remember now what exactly they were, but you know the feeling.  Although, who knows, maybe it is something completely new and not previously encountered, and it is just the human nature that attempts to classify phenomena and assign a tag to each one of them.

“I don't agree with you.  I think we are becoming better people this way. (Not that this would be the only way how to become better, though :) We may realize things we've been struggling with unconsciously (or blindly) and we can adjust ourselves to them. We may find peace, kindness and understanding in our souls. We may become better people in this way not only for the moment, but for life.”

Not really sure if experiencing  this for the second time would be as exploratory.  If the effects and the order in which they follow are reproducible, it might get boring looking at the flying time and waiting for the next swell to knock you in.  But, for sure, the first time, a major amazement comes form the changes in the course of flight being so unexpected.

“New advertisement for drugs: Try it to be better?  If you can find these things with the drug’s help, you can find them by yourself.  And there’s no reason for…”

Only the emotional spheres of your friends are present in the room.  The minds have gone traveling.  And when you start a conversation and try maintaining it, everyone starts at the same point, but quickly drifts in their own direction not perceivable for anyone else, and sometimes even the author himself.  The author is gone.  You can see it in the eyes.  Wide open, dark, and moving around without focusing on anything in particular.  It's freaky how the sight of everyone changes.  Yet, with the alteration, the looks acquire kindness and tenderness.  Everyone looks and is touched to the very depths of heart with that love for the rest present. 

“Fuck it, cut the crap, of course we are not becoming better persons this way!
I mean, better or worse are all relative terms.  “Better” for “you” will be becoming “a dumb and boring asshole” for the people that surround you.  I am serious.
And stop kidding yourself: we all know what the end-points are:
1. Get off it the hard or the easy way, depending on who you are and what you are on.
2. Be gone with it.
You won’t live your whole life in transition, will you???  Well, tell me that I am an idiot and don’t know whatdafuckIamtalkingabout.  As long as you believe it yourself.”

What is it about the eyes?  Is it true what they say about the eyes of Buddha?  It probably is.  He must have been a hypnotizer who brought himself and others into a trance by a power of his mid.  And there have been others like him.  And they did not need stimulants for awakening of special powers.  Most regular people do.  Without them you would not have seen the god sitting next to you staring straight in your eyes.  The red T-shirt “CCCP” having turned into a crimson sari articulately encarved with golden patterns and possessed with protuberances of infernal fire.  Thousands of black snakes swinging around his head.  Face distorted with wicked dark highlights, eyes burning like hot coals, and a neon arch bending between his eyebrows.  This god was Shiva.  He had been saying something before you concentrated on him.  But you only started hearing the words after the demon was gone.  “It's all in the eyes” he said.  Written in “Siddhartha” by Herman Gesse, a book you had recommended him yourself earlier.  Anyone can do it.  Could you?  And could anyone see THAT?  And did everyone see the Devil with the horns and a goat beard that another one present turned into a while later, without even looking in your eyes?  And the rest of his transformations, which have lead to an aging wise and sad-looking gay biker with gray-haired sideburns?

“I think, this mechanism of becoming a better person actually makes sense. Not that it is a sole reason for this research.  But a nice side-effect, anyway.  This thing about getting off it reminds me of Pelevin’s novel “Yellow Arrow” where the eternal passengers of a train somehow realize that they’re the passengers of a train regardless of their will, and that it’s not possible to stop the train BUT it is possible to get off if you choose to. So the real question would be, which of us are on the train and which have jumped off?  As the slogan “turn on, tune in, drop out” suggests, we are the ones who jumped off and you’re stuck in your train and don’t even realize it. But hey, you can turn it the other way and put me on the train instead.  Anyway, it is my deep feeling that this entire social paradigm is full of shit and rotten to the core. We can do better than that. We are already doing better.”

The waves of transformation are rolling through you one after another throbbing in your body and bending your perception, gradually becoming gentler with time.  The more experienced ones are already passing around pipes of hash trying to squeeze the last kicks out of the trip. 

“Vse k luchshemu v etom luchem iz mirov?  We are not becoming better in this world, it's for sure.  Don't hope.  By the way, about side effects: you'll laugh. 5 days passed, but my head is still like a fireball and hair is still "growing up". Looks like i am going to be first example of freaking out.”

Others, still lost in themselves, keep on hiding eyes behind the shades – trying not to appear silly – and staring for hours at random objects found around in order to both: keep the mind occupied, setting the brain free of crazy thoughts, and keep touch with planet Earth.  The problem is that, of course, keeping the object, like a photo of a crocodile, as a proof of “REALITY” of material world around does not really make sense.  You cannot disprove whether it really existed to begin with, or you only maintain your focus on an illusion that you have brought along with you at the time when you have started to SEE.

“Meanwhile 168 pictures were printed yesterday. And they surpassed all expectation. Some of them are completely surrealistic, especially those which were shut in the sober days.  I, and the crocodile.”

But we all know that it is going to end sooner or later.  When is it?  It is seven in the morning.  The Ghost City outside the door looks totally surreal, and the sky flashes various tender tints of rose, turquoise, purple and pink in the light of the rising sun.  If you are ever able to escape the daydreaming, you will keep on seeing this morning skyline in your dreams at night.  Will you be able to wake up?  What kind of personS will you be ever after?

“Yes all the sorrow is in there, and the drug only magnifies it in an idiosyncratic way...I am for “mind expansion”, but offlate I have this feeling that any hallucinogenic substance cleanses me so completely that it takes me days to get back to the mundane...Guess all the cleansing is good on a microcosmic level if we are to contribute on a macrocosmic level at all… Thank you everybody and yes let the ceremony begin!”

A couple of sweaty hours of fever.  The new day comes. You and the others wake up looking puzzled at each other, sort of feeling themselves up, trying to figure out if anything is missing, and how to deal with one another, now that the journey is over.  Quickly, everyone goes past that stage, as though nothing happened.  Just a bunch of old friends having gathered for no special occasion… The question is how to live, now that you know what you are really all about?

“Well, I think what you are pointing to is exactly what I am going to settle for.  One of the “side effects” of this shit is that you DO LEARN about yourself and start seeing new directions in the real world.  The snag is not to forget to get off it and to actually BECOME better, kinder and understanding people.  Instead of jut keeping on perpetually looking for “things” inside our fucked-up brains.  Don’t lose your way.”

It is a philosophical question whether the world opening to you, while you are IN there, has any meaning or use.  Like all of the philosophy itself.  All the clever dialectics that becomes so obvious.  All the visions, all the emotions at their intensity and sharpness…  Most people leave without it.  Like many people live through their whole lives not knowing what it’s like to fall in love.  So, I guess, it could be beneficial, like loving or hating is beneficial.  Like being a schizophrenic is beneficial.  The great artists and philosophers would have not been who they are, had they not been able to acquire the states described above.  BUT…  Those chosen ones never took drugs.  They never needed to.  Their talent was that they were insane and, thus, different from the rest of people by Nature.  The opposite extremity is some imbecile working at some factory all his life, who will never make anything out of anything he feels or sees, give him all the drugs you want.  He might have some colors flash and laugh his ass off at it.  Is THAT beneficial?  The deal is that this fountain of uncomprehendable experiences is bursting IN YOU normally at all times!  Everything that appears to unravel to you when you are blown high up there you know already!  You just normally do not think about it, or look at it from different angles, that’s all. 

Now, you may want to know yourself and the world through the mind of a philosophers and see it all through the eyes of an artist.  Hey, do you really need to fuck yourself up with chemicals for that?  The reason you want to enhance your vision is because you already DO know and see it all.  You won’t GAIN anything.  You won’t learn anything new from drugs.  You will just be developing your primer of pretending to be out of your mind, until you actually LOSE it.  And this WILL hurt you and those who you used to care for.  And this truth is as old and sin, so it’s useless to deny it.  Besides, if you did choose to fly, it can also be done with lots of other techniques, although drugs are the fastest and the easiest way.  But is it really necessary to drive yourself insane?  My friends, aren’t we already crazy enough as we are?




“Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity… “