You’ll Be Seeing Me
Looking back, I should’ve known he was a predator. A drug dealer posting up outside of the Sleep Disorders Center? That’s baiting. Might as well fall under entrapment laws or the same rules as spotlighting deer to hunt them.
For years, I depended on Melatonin to put me to sleep. One milligram, taken at 9 p.m. did the trick. But one turned into three, and three turned into five. When I hit 10 mg, the stuff stopped working altogether. It didn’t matter that I quit blue light after 6 p.m. It didn’t matter that I never worked in the same room I slept. No amount of sleep hygiene could fix me.
So, I switched to Benadryl. Taking 50 mg of the little pink pills worked for a spell, but not for long. I upped it to 75. Then 100. Then 150.
Once, In a desperate attempt to get some much-needed shut-eye, I downed half a bottle of the liquid. I don’t know the dosage. It was easily over 300 mg. It was nightmare fuel, and I never did it again.
I saw where all this was going, so I booked an appointment with my General Practitioner. She was horrified to hear I was depending on diphenhydramine to put myself to sleep, and she put in an order to a specialist. Shockingly, the wait list wasn’t long, so I scheduled an initial consultation.
I discussed my symptoms with an attentive, hawk-eyed man who sported salt and pepper hair that belied a sophisticated professionalism. When I walked out into the autumn air, I felt optimistic about my prognosis.
That is, until I saw him.
He was leaning against the trunk of my Honda Civic, sucking on a Parliament cigarette. The sight of this got my ire up. I’d just bought that car, for crying out loud. In hindsight, I think he was actually waiting for me.
I narrowed my eyes on the man. He was probably five foot six and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty-five. He had on a draping, zip-up hoodie that was open over a white t-shirt. His baggy pair of brown khakis was cinched by a belt buckle that was three sizes too large. And that belt buckle was way too close to scratching the fresh paint on my new car. I opened my mouth to cuss him out, but he spoke first.
“You want some of the dwarf wine, kiddo?” He said, not bothering to meet my eyes.
It sounded patronizing and sexist.
“Dwarf wine?” I shot back. “Is that some kind of sick innuendo, you little Smurf?”
As soon as I said it, I regretted it. It was immature. But the guy was smoking while practically sitting on my bumper. If he wanted to bandy words with me, I’d make them sting. To my surprise, he didn’t seem daunted in the slightest.
“They don’t got the meds you want in there, honey,” he said in a gravelly voice. “They can’t put ya to sleep. I seen people like you come outta those doors a thousand times. Bright eyed, full of hope. Any guesses on the typical solution they come up with for insomniacs, narcoleptics, and patients with sleep apnea? It’s all the same. Go ahead, guess.”
I felt my throat tighten and I swallowed hard.
“I suppose they likely begin by running tests to rule out diagnoses,” I started, keeping my voice calm and collected. “Then they’re likely to start a regimen — “
The bearded man threw back his head and gave a boisterous laugh. He grabbed at the small amount of belly he had as he shook with mirth.
“Sorry,” he stammered out when his laughter finally broke off. “I don’t mean anything by my laughin’. It’s just…there ain’t no ‘regimen’ involved. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution. They call it Modanafil. They’ll prescribe a medication. Probably Provigil, but it could be a generic. Anyway, the thing is to be taken each morning to help with wakefulness.”
I felt a line deepening between my eyes.
“Why would they prescribe a stimulant for someone who can’t sleep?” I shot back.
He pointed an arthritic finger at me and clicked his tongue.
“That’s the right question, sweetheart,” he said. “They’ll say it’s to keep you up all day and improve your quality of life. The truth of it is…the thing is a pro-drug for amphetamines. It’ll make you wired ‘round the clock. The hope is you drop from exhaustion when the drug wears off. How’s that sound?”
I stifled a shudder, unsure where this was going.
“Well, I suppose they’re the experts,” I began to say. I was interrupted by the man shaking his head in an almost comically animated way.
“They ain’t experts,” he said, decisively. “Buncha quacks. I got the real medicine. It’ll put you to sleep and it’ll heal your soul. You ever hear of Amanita Muscaria?”
I shook my head and let my hand stray to my cell phone inside my clutch, just in case I had to call the cops on this weirdo.
“Fly Agaric?” He asked. “Dwarve’s Wine? Reindeer pee?”
He let out a chortle and pulled out a white paper bag. He opened it and I gazed inside. What I saw, ironically, was something I knew. The red capped mushrooms with white spots were recognizable immediately.
“You want to sell me magic mushrooms, is that it?” I asked. “Shoot. Nothing in D.A.R.E. prepared me for this. Unbelievable.”
The man extended the bag towards me.
“Magic?” he asked. “I suppose so. Sell? Nah. The first one’s free. ‘Specially for a gal as easy on the eyes as you, princess.”
I felt sick to my stomach. I clicked the button on my car’s key fob, and the door unlocked.
“I think I’ll pass, but thanks,” I said dismissively.
I opened my car door, and (thank God) he didn’t hassle me or stand in my way. I turned the key in the ignition and its engine roared to life. I saw the bearded drug dealer motion for me to roll down the window. Since he’d been more or less respectful up ’til this point, I decided to oblige him.
“The name is Spence,” he said. “And if I haven’t put you off my ideas too much, I have just two favors to ask.”
My curiosity was piqued. He took my silence as a tacit invitation to continue.
“Number one, when they prescribe you Modafinil, remember that I was right,” he said. “And number two, research Fly Agaric and see if these mushrooms are hallucinogenic. Then, compare that with the legal speed they want you to have.”
I pursed my lips in a stilted, polite way.
“Will do, Spence,” I said. “And if I come to the realization that buying mushrooms from a stranger who’s smoking against my car is the answer to all of my problems, how am I supposed to seek you out?”
He smirked.
“You won’t have to,” he said. “Have a nice day, lady.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.
***
For about a month, I barely thought about Spence again. I did look up the types of mushrooms he was peddling. They weren’t the typical magic mushroom ilk (that’s Psilocybin Cubensis.) It was also true that they weren’t physically addictive. But that research was a mere curiosity, and the memory of the strange, wizened old man quickly passed.
That is, until I met with the sleep doctor again. He clicked his pen and jotted something onto a sheet of paper.
“I’m writing you a script for Modanafil,” he said in a clipped tone. “It’ll improve quality of life by making you more wakeful in the day. By proxy, your sleep will improve. Where is your preferred pharmacy?”
I blinked twice, saying nothing. My ears had perked up at the drug’s name. My mind raced back to Spence. I continued the rest of my doctor’s visit on autopilot, taking the prescription and scheduling my follow-up.
But by the time I reached my car in the parking lot, Spence was leaned against my trunk with a Devil-may-care grin on his face.
“First one’s free!” He reminded me, as he shook the white paper bag.
I swear I saw myself in third person, extending my arm, taking the bag of mushroom caps. I’m not sure I had any freewill in the matter. Regardless, I took his offering, thrust it into my coat pocket, and walked wordlessly to my car. I drove straight home.
The mushrooms stayed on my nightstand, untouched, for a couple days. I wrestled my guardian angel on the subject. After a few nights of tossing and turning, my will began to falter. The Fly Agarics called for me like the quotidian forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. I grabbed the bag and picked up one of the caps, running my hands across the bumps on its head. I could almost hear Spence’s voice hissing in my ear, imploring me to take a bite.
Screw it, I thought. I need the sleep.
I looked up the best way to prep the things. I debated straining them into a tea or baking them into muffins. In the end, probably because of a profound lack of patience, I settled on just noshing them down and chasing them with some OJ.
They tasted better than I expected, but I started beating myself up as soon as they were down the hatch.
What’s wrong with you? I chastised myself. Some stranger offers you illicit drugs and you take them? Who knows what he put on or in those things?
But therein lies the rub: I couldn’t find a suitable motive for Spence, other than money. I would’ve never downed the mycelium with him nearby, lest he’d laced it with some kind of date rape drug. But since I was alone in the privacy of my own home, I could rule out that possibility. So he only stood to gain something if I was a repeat customer. And I’d only be a repeat customer if these things worked.
At least, those were the stories I told myself as I filled my electric kettle and flipped it on. I pulled a box of chamomile from my kitchen cupboard and set it on the counter. Strolling to my living room couch, I settled in with a book, draping a wide-weave afghan across my shoulders. I felt warm and cozy until the caps hit my gut. Next thing I knew, I was sweating profusely, fighting nausea like my life depended on it.
The electric kettle whistled and I stood up to attend to it. The room spun and my stomach did somersaults.
Alright, maybe not, I told myself, dropping back onto the sofa. That’s okay. The kettle will shut itself off automatically. I don’t have anywhere I need to be.
My eyes roved around the living room. The visuals weren’t much to speak of, but everything — my lamp, the bookcase, the picture frames hanging on the wall — they all took on a rubbery appearance. My terrier, Jackson, perked up his ears and cocked his head at me, probably wondering if I was okay.
I can’t explain it, but Jackson looked hilariously small. Maybe a quarter of his usual size. I chuckled a little under my breath at that thought and realized the nausea was subsiding.
My body sunk into the couch and I noticed my eyes felt as heavy as lead.
I do believe I’m a little drowsy, I told myself.
Anybody with insomnia can attest to the fact that sleepiness immediately dissipates on the short walk from a couch to a bed. I decided not to risk it. I let my eyelids drop and I drifted into slumber.
Immediately, my mind was transported to the most vivid, lucid dreamscape I’d ever witnessed. I was standing on a red, velvet carpet, still wearing my satin nightgown and slippers. The carpet stretched down a corridor as far as the eye could see. The floor was white marble and the walls and ceiling were the same. Rose gold crown molding lined the hallway, delicately carved in ornate designs.
I took a few steps forward and craned my neck to inspect it. I saw the familiar image of “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo, except rather than touching Adam’s finger with his own, God was handing him an Amanita Muscaria mushroom. I rolled my eyes. It looked like the cheesy stoner artwork you’d see on a t-shirt in a headshop.
Except, this version was intricately cut from gold.
Intrigued by this, I began pacing the length of the hallway, looking at the gold crown molding to see what other scenes were depicted. I strolled past a golden Sphinx and the great Pyramids. I saw the Coliseum and the assassination of Julius Caesar. My eyes roved over images of architectural marvels and historical events. As I walked, I witnessed the entire march of human history play out in gold relief. Machu Picchu and Easter Island and the Magna Carta. A few of the figures and events I didn’t recognize…which I attest to my woefully inadequate history education.
Finally, I came to the moon landing in 1976, and then a carving I didn’t recognize right away. It was a woman with long hair in loose curls. She wore a satin nightgown and slippers. I swallowed hard, knowing it was me. I squinted up at the creature in gold that stood behind the carved, golden depiction of me. It was a massive minotaur, easily eight feet tall.
A jolt of cold lightning shivered up my spine. I could feel its hot breath on my neck. I didn’t need to turn around to know what I’d see. I did anyway.
A massive, bison-like face bowed. The dumb, bovine brown eyes of what I assumed to be a non-sentient creature stared back at me.
“Your knowledge of history may be lacking, but your mythology is not,” he bellowed out in a deep voice. “I want out as bad as you do.”
His massive catcher’s mitt of a hand curled around the shaft of a battle-ax. A bestial and unearthly scream loosed itself from my lips, and I sprinted down the hallway. I didn’t even take a fleeting glance at the decadent crown molding, even though I knew the images depicted as I ran past them told of events yet to happen.
My legs beat against the marble floor, as I pumped my arms and strained ahead. My heart raced and my lungs burned, but still I didn’t let up. Even as I ran, I could feel the minotaur’s breath on my neck. It was rancid with the smell of sulfur.
Chest still heaving, I realized I couldn’t outpace the beast. His gait was too wide and his legs too strong. My eyes darted around the hallway, and I saw a doorway about ten feet ahead. I hoped against hope that the thing was unlocked. I threw myself forwards, and the doorknob spun in my sweaty palm. I felt the thrill of exultation as the door swung on its hinges and opened inwards. I flew through the open door, slamming it in the minotaur’s face. I whirled around in hopes of finding something to bar the door, when I saw the sad smile of the selfsame minotaur. Inexplicably, he was on my side of the door.
“I just shut you out!” I screamed, nonsensically at the beast. “You aren’t supposed to be in here!”
He shook his massive head and looked more melancholy than terrifying.
“I want out, miss,” he said politely. “Would you take me out of this place?”
Thinking quickly, I dove headfirst between his legs, sliding across the marble and scrambling to my feet to make my escape. This hallway looked identical to the last, except there were doors lining the walls every five feet. I picked the first door on the right and bolted through it. It was identical to the second hallway. I decided to go with the same approach: I lunged at the first door on the right and threw it open.
Standing before me was an identical hallway with doors every five feet. My mind reeled.
“B-but that doesn’t make any sense,” I stammered out. “This hallway ought to intersect with the first I was in. The floorplan of this place, just doesn’t — ”
“Begging your pardon, miss,” the minotaur said, somehow right beside me now. “But a labyrinthine dreamscape doesn’t need to follow the laws of Euclidean geometry. It doesn’t owe you that.”
A bloodcurdling scream rose from my throat, and I sprinted at a door at random: this one was two doors away and on the left. When I opened it, the entire frame was filled with the massive head of the minotaur.
“That’s not the way out, miss,” he said, in a sweet, if not condescending tone.
I licked my lips as my throat constricted.
“Then what is the way out?!” I screeched.
The minotaur’s massive, muscley man-chest rose once and fell with a deep sigh.
“You are the mythic Daedalus, miss,” he said. “And you’re also the labyrinth. And you’re also the giant beast. That is to say, you are me. Please. Let’s go home.”
My pupils widened and my jaw clenched.
‘No!” I barked out in disbelief. “If I’m dreaming, then I’ll just wake myself up!”
His eyes darkened and for the first time, the minotaur looked genuinely scared.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, miss,” he interjected firmly. “They say if you die in a dream, you die in real life.”
I rolled my eyes.
“If that were the case, the reciprocal would be true,” I shot back, derisively. “You live in a dream. But you don’t live in real life, now do ya?”
The beast cocked his head.
“Of course I do, miss,” he said softly. “In your life, I’m you. You are my avatar in that world just like I’m your avatar in this one. All I was hoping was that I might come with you. I hoped we might merge our realities, for once.”
My voice caught in my throat and I felt my mind slipping. I let out an unearthly, shrill laugh and shook my head.
“Nope!” I yelled. “No, no, no, no, no. I’ll tell ya what I’m going to do. I’ll crack my skull open like an egg on these marble floors. I’ll spill my brains ’til I’m good and dead, and that’ll wake me up!”
I dropped to my knees and swung my head like a wrecking ball at the floor, hearing the crunch of bone on marble as I laughed maniacally.
“But you wanted so badly to finally sleep,” the minotaur said, furtively. “I would’ve thought you wanted to stay awhile.”
I wasn’t listening, but continued to bash my head mercilessly against the floor as a mix of blood and gray matter leaked from my wounds. I cackled like a witch as my life-force slowly drained from my body. The last thing I saw was the morose face of the minotaur as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Until we meet again, miss,” he said as my vision faded to black. “You take care of yourself out there.”
I woke up with a start on my living room couch.
What the…? I thought to myself, followed by a string of obscenities. And then I repeated it in my head time after time, like some backward, bastardized mantra.
My nightgown was sticky with sweat, and it clung to my skin as I sat upright on my sofa. My eyes strayed to the analog clock hanging on my wall. 7:54 a.m.
No way, I thought. But that would mean —
I’d slept nine straight hours, at least. Completely uninterrupted. I hadn’t done that since…well, truthfully, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d done that.
What was even odder was how I felt. Despite the absolute fever-dream of a night, I felt refreshed and rested. I was so wide awake that I skipped my morning coffee entirely. I took a jog through the park, tidied up my living room, and folded all of my laundry before noon. My productivity didn’t taper down until late evening.
To my immense displeasure, I realized I was out of mushrooms. As much as I dreaded going back to that place in my dreams, the refreshment I drew from the stuff was worth it. I decided I’d try to find Spence again the next day to nab some more.
Little did I know, the trajectory of my life was already set. I’d already irrevocably damned myself to a living hell. By reaching out to Spence a second time, I wasn’t changing my life for the worse. I was merely speeding up the descent. Things were already heading south. But what was about to come was utter freefall.
***
The evening came and went. I tossed and turned all night, having no psychoactive substance to ferry me over to the world of rapid eye movement and deep sleep. I’d been staring at my ceiling for the better part of an hour on that Sunday morning before I resolved to find Spence. I sprung out of bed and threw on a pair of sweats and a hoodie. My best guess as to where to find Spence was back at the sleep clinic. I got in my Honda Civic and puttered over to that side of town.
I was about three blocks away when I spotted the funny little man sitting at a bus stop, one leg crossed over his knee. I turned in the closest parking lot, which happened to be a fast food joint. I threw the car into park, hopped out, and made a beeline for the bus stop.
“Told you that you’d find me,” Spence quipped, his eyes creasing around the corners. The effect made him look more like a dwarf than he even had before. His ruddy skin tone, chubby cheeks, and mischievous demeanor really filled out the impression.
“Yeah, the mushrooms worked,” I said flatly. “I’ll give you that. So this is how you get me, huh? You’ll charge me through the nose for the second dose, right? What’s the damage?”
He held up an index finger and began rummaging through the deep pockets of an olive-green parka. The thing was incredibly oversized, but even still I doubted he had a bag of mushrooms in its pockets. What he pulled from his coat wasn’t a bag at all, but rather a small, black cylindrical item. I squinted at it, confused.
“Is that a…vape pen?” I asked.
He nodded emphatically.
“Yep! This here is one of the greatest DMT disposables you’ll find. It’s got about a hundred hits inside. You take one hit for a threshold dose. Two to break through and blast off. Three to really get things going.”
I looked at the man with clenched teeth.
“I don’t do drugs,” I said curtly. “I’m not interested in blasting off or ‘getting things going.’ I want to sleep. Last time I checked, Amanitas are a sleep-related substance. DMT? Not so much.”
Spence licked his lips and nodded along as I spoke, as if he’d heard all of my objections before.
“Lemme ask you something, toots,” he said in a gruff voice. “Whaddya do for a living?”
I took a deep breath and let some tension out of my shoulders.
“Not that it matters, but I’m a research librarian,” I said. “Which means if you try to peddle some B.S. off on me, I’ll be able to find out the truth.”
He leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye.
“I knew it was something like that,” he said. “I had you pegged as an accountant, but spending your time in a stuffy library cataloging with Mister Dewey Decimal? That tracks. You’re hopelessly left-brained. No imagination at all.”
I opened my mouth to correct him and say that we actually do most of our cataloging online now, and his antiquated view of the library system only shows his ignorance. But then I realized that would completely prove his point, so I shut up.
“I don’t mean to make fun of your profession, honey,” he quickly added. “It’s just that it’s one end of the spectrum, so to speak. People who can’t think more fluidly have a hard time getting good sleep. Because a good night’s sleep is nothing more than apprehending the dream world with your conscious power, and then stayin’ there a while. You’ve probably read that REM sleep is the deepest stage of rest, right?”
I nodded, conceding as much.
“People make the mistake of assuming that they gotta get nice and relaxed to fall asleep, and then they’ll slowly progress towards dream-filled REM sleep, where all the best relaxation is. That’s putting the cart before the horse. If you can get comfortable slipping between the waking world and the one in which your head could spontaneously turn into a turkey and you’d think nothin’ of it? That’s the ticket to good sleep.”
I put my chin between my thumb and forefinger, seeing what he meant.
“So you think that if I vape DMT, I’ll get used to the abstract type of thinking that leads to great sleep, is that it?”
Spence clapped his hands, then splayed both arms, flashing a sly smile.
“What can I say?” he continued. “I ain’t no one-trick pony. I’m a full-on pharmacist for people like you. I’m putin’ you on a regimen. Not just the Amanita world…but the DMT world…and a whole lot more to boot. But one thing at a time. Once you’re experienced, you’ll know which medicine is right for you.”
I tucked my hands underneath my legs and rocked back and forth as I nodded.
“But…uh…what is the cost of this ‘medicine?’” I asked. “Because I’m on a shoestring budget, being a librarian and all.”
He winked and handed me the vape.
“The first one’s free, as always,” he said. “Once you’ve had an adequate sampling of all that I have to offer, we’ll put together a dosing schedule and settle tabs then. For now? Money’s no object.”
I heard the low hum of a city bus as it approached.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ve got a bus to catch.”
***
I’d done some sleuthing on the internet, and I was even more worried about taking a drag from this DMT vape pen than I was choking down the mushrooms. According to my research, this was the most powerful psychedelic substance known to man. Users described it as “mind-bending,” “awakening,” and “life-changing.”
I was almost put off the stuff until I read that the entire duration was only 10 to 15 minutes. At this point, I probably would’ve walked through lava for 10 to 15 minutes if it guaranteed me some good shut-eye.
So, I created the ideal setting for my trip. I got nice and cozy with a fleece blanket and fuzzy socks. I settled down in my living room with low light and a glass of water at hand in case I needed it.
Of course, I should’ve had a trip-sitter. All the resources I’d perused highly recommended having a close friend watch over me. Otherwise, how was I to know I wouldn’t jump in front of a car in my self-induced psychosis?
But I was devoid of any close friends. Or at least any that I could casually call up and ask to watch me while I tripped on DMT. I’m a research librarian, for goodness’ sake, not some sort of psychonaut or hippie. So, Jackson would have to do. My little puppy cozied up next to me, content to be home alone with his master.
Taking a deep breath, I decided I was ready. I took the vape pen to my lips and took a long, hard drag on the thing.
I’d never vaped before. My closest frame of reference was smoking half a cigarette in high school. So I think I expected the hot, itchy feeling of smoke as it filled my lungs. Since I didn’t feel the vapors inside my lungs immediately, I just kept inhaling. It wasn’t ’til a second later that the harsh chemicals began to do a number on my insides. I collapsed into a violent, hacking fit. I coughed until my lungs hurt and I thought I might’ve cracked a rib. Jackson hopped to his feet and began jogging in circles, pensively.
I recalled what Spence said. I didn’t want a threshold experience. One way or another, I knew I had to make this count. I had to find a way to take two more puffs. I brought the vape to my mouth again, taking in a lung full of the awful stuff, letting some air mix in every so often as I inhaled. I still coughed, but it was a bit smoother.
I felt the start of a head rush, and I panicked. I needed to get this last drag of DMT inhaled, pronto. I quickly pulled the vape pen to my mouth and took a swift inhalation. Before I had the chance to set the device on to the couch beside me, there was no couch. Neither was there a living room. Instead, an entire kaleidoscopic dreamscape had been superimposed over this reality. The two jostled for dominance of my field of vision, but reality quickly lost out.
But I should really say that what formerly constituted my idea of reality was lost. Because the images that danced across my eyes somehow felt more real and familiar than anywhere I’d ever been before. Colors glowed to an ever-increasing level of vibrance, before schisming off into geometric shapes. The shapes were multi-sided and they twisted inside and outside of themselves in a way that’s difficult to put into words.
The true turning point of the vision, however, was in the characters that inhabited the swirl and dance of color. All at once, these figures shook loose from the two-dimensional pattern of fractals that I saw. Then, moving in lockstep, they appeared to be marching, or perhaps performing some sort of dance.
The little beings had long faces pulled tight, and they wore the archetypal jester’s cap that you associate with the courts of long-dead kings. They sang in rhythmic movements, rather than with music or sound. Their movements were so methodical, that for a moment I thought they were all facets of a singular being.
In any event, this was their world, and they shone with a white-hot lightning behind each individual color. Their choreographed movements were about joy and love and unity. That was all I could ascertain from them. But just as I was enjoying the comic display of such cosmic themes, one of the little critters turned her head and looked at me.
I call her “she,” though every aspect of her figure was androgynous. Somehow, I implicitly knew she was feminine. She approached me, looking as bewildered to see me as I was to see her.
“We don’t often get visitors,” she said telepathically. “May I?”
I wasn’t sure what she was asking and tried to tell her as much. But my tongue felt heavy and useless. The faint taste of burnt plastic still hung there from the DMT vapors.
The little creature padded right towards me, and with two small hands, pressed her fingertips into my chest. Her hands burnt like hot coals when they touched me, and I shrieked out in pain. She looked up, wild-eyed, but still persisted. Her fingers scraped and pried at the center of my sternum as two nostrils appeared on her glowing light visage. The nostrils flared and she fixed her gaze on me with an intensity of purpose that chilled me to the bone.
“Let me in!” she screeched, pawing at my chest as if she were trying to break it in half and climb inside. “I want in! Take me to the cold, gray world! I want to visit the hard, gray world!”
My point of view swung violently. For a split-second, I was a being of light burrowing my hands into the chest of a human. My perspective flipped end-over-end, vacillating dozens of times between me being “me” and me being “her.” Finally, for a fleeting moment, I was myself again.
I recoiled, pulling my knees back towards my chest and delivering a swift donkey kick to the little gremlin. This sent her sprawling for a second, before she leapt to her feet with a sprightliness that matched her appearance. Drool and tears mingled down and poured from her face.
“But it isn’t fair,” she hissed. “I’m you! I can’t tell me I can’t go to your world! I can’t tell me anything. I’m not fair!”
She took another lunge at me, but I was ready now. I kicked both legs forward like I was riding a bike, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes and hoping against hope that I’d succeed.
But when I finally blinked both eyes open to take a look around me, I was alone. The surreal alien landscape had been replaced by my living room again. And while I wouldn’t describe it as a hard, gray world, it certainly felt less immaterial than the place I’d just been. Colors were still vibrant, but I was home.
What on earth was that!? I thought to myself as I sat up and drew a blanket around my shoulders. I quickly corrected myself: No. Not on earth.
I rose from my couch and took the vape pen in my hands. I walked to the front door and pulled my sneakers from a cubby. Before I could change my mind, I dropped the device and stomped it with the heel of my foot until it was a thousand little pieces.
Good riddance, I told the vape. Or maybe I told the whole DMT-realm.
***
I spent the next week doing two things:
First, I worried Spence would wring his hands waiting to hear back from me and find a way to reach out. He didn’t.
Second, I researched DMT extensively, trying to make sense of what happened to me. For the first couple of days, I didn’t want to think about it. Somehow, the whole ordeal was a bit damaging to my psyche, and I’d just as soon forget it even happened. Besides, I was sleeping soundly. That was the whole point, right?
But before long, insomnia returned. And worse yet, I began exhibiting terrifying signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had night terrors on one night, screaming myself awake. I couldn’t go out in public without keeping my head on a swivel, constantly worried I’d see the DMT creature barreling after me. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I imagined her with long claws, riding on the back of the minotaur from the Amanita Muscaria headspace. The two wanted my spirit for their own.
Finally, I decided maybe understanding why the experience had such a profound effect on me would help me to heal.
So, I checked out all the dark nooks and crannies of the internet. I read trip report after trip report. I studied Terrence McKenna’s views on the subject. I looked into entheogens and all that word entailed.
And what I found did surprise me, a bit. It seems that almost everyone who smokes DMT has a similar outcome: the visions that unfold seem just as real or somehow “realer” than our world, they encounter a strange being that takes an interest in them, and the being is one of many who are all synchronized in some way. McKenna called them “machine elves.” Others call them “DMT entities.”
But was notably different about my experience was that my little elf tried to pry her way into my soul and take the ride back to the human dimension. And that was what scared me so much.
It was just over a week after my DMT session that I came to grips with a truth I should’ve known since day one. Only one person could explain what happened to me. And he was a funny little bearded fella named Spence. I was thinking through the best way to track him down that afternoon, when I noticed a single card in my mailbox.
There was no envelope, no stamp, and no return address. All that I found was a little white index card with meticulous print in all caps. It read: “HOW’D YOU SLEEP? LET’S MEET FOR NIGHTCAPS AT THE EMERALD LADLE. SAY 9 O’CLOCK? -S”
I knew this was a note from Spence. Even better, I knew the restaurant he was referencing. It was only about a mile north of my place. In hindsight, I should’ve asked myself how he got my address. I’ll be honest enough to admit the thought never entered my mind. So that evening at 8:58 p.m. I found myself waddling into the Emerald Ladle, scanning the booths for a sign of Spence.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the low-light. But when I did, I saw him at a table in the far corner. He sat facing the entrance, leaned over a foamy, dark stout. Judging by the empty pint glasses beside it, he’d already been here for a while. I approached the table slowly, set my purse down, and slid into the booth across from him. He looked up, and he had a hard time focusing his eyes on me.
“Oh, you!” he exclaimed once he recognized me. “I didn’t know if you’d show.”
I smacked my lips, realizing all at once how annoyed I was at his presence.
“What’s this all about, eh, Spence?” I barked out. “I took your little drugs. Twice now. And sure, I’ve slept okay. But what — what’s been happening behind the scenes?”
Maybe it was the alcohol dulling his senses, but Spence’s face looked slack and clueless.
“Whatcha mean?” he asked. “You took the drugs and the drugs did their job. Glad to hear we might have a cocktail that’ll be just your speed. With that said, there are plenty more–”
“No!” I shrieked, halting conversation and catching the eyes of a few patrons around the dimly lit restaurant. I continued in a quieter tone: “Those creatures I’m encountering…they’re all saying the same types of things to me. Like they’re in cahoots.”
Spence took a draught from his pint glass, spilling some foam onto his mustache and beard. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and cocked his head.
“Same things?” he asked. “What do you mean ‘same things?’”
I massaged my temples with my fingertips, frustrated beyond words at his utter lack of comprehension.
“Hallucinations shouldn’t have a narrative,” I hissed. “These transcendent experiences from all these drugs you’ve fed me shouldn’t have a cohesive plot!”
I looked up, and to my horror, a blond-haired girl with a waitress’ notepad was staring at me from beside the table. She turned beet red before stammering out:
“I-I’ll just give you guys a few minutes.”
She high-tailed it for the kitchen. I laughed despite myself and then continued.
“Both a minotaur in my Fly Agaric dreams and a DMT elf said the same thing to me. For one, they wanted to come back with me to the waking world. But also, they said that I was them.”
Spence slammed his fist on the table and let out a string of obscenities.
“This early!?” he shouted. “Those morons. How many times have I told them you need to allow the process to take its course? No foreplay. Absolutely no foreplay with these non-natives. All they can do is come in balls-to-the-wall and expect their quarry to be okay with that. Freakin’ amateurs.”
The response my comment elicited took me so aback that I didn’t know what else to do but to clear my throat and reply: “I beg your pardon?”
Spence pinched his nose and let out a long, deep sigh.
“Arright, no sense in keeping the truth from ya,” he said with resignation. “You’ll find out soon enough. And I guess there’s no stopping the chain of events from rolling on now, anyway.”
He straightened in his chair and fussed with his collar as if he had to look presentable for what he was about to say:
“The reason those guys all said they were you, is because they are you,” he said. “At least…in a sense. They’re versions of you. We all have avatars in those ad hoc realities, Missus. And those avatars want to ‘breakthrough’ to our dimension as much as we want to breakthrough to theirs. But our plane of existence isn’t one of mystical experience and spiritual wonder. Ours is one of unprecedented order. Our straight line between cause and effect is the stuff of legends in the DMT universe, or the plane we access when we smoke Salvia. To live a life of such predictable continuity would be a dream come true for the entities on the other side of the veil. As for whether they are good or evil?”
He drummed his fingers on the table and bounced his head side-to-side.
“That’s not for me to say,” he continued. “To tell ya the truth, this is the only plane of existence that uses such black and white terms. What I’ll say is that most of the avatars who cross over are opportunistic. Tricksters, you might say. And that includes me.”
I squinted at the man, who looked a bit amused to be talking to me with such candor.
“Oh come on, honey,” he said, leaning forward onto his elbows. “Surely you know we’ve met before?”
He nodded towards a mirror hung on the wall beside our table. In his reflection I saw a dark silhouette. It was a skinny man cloaked in shadows. He wore a wide-brimmed hat with a flat top. The reflection was so dark that I couldn’t in truth call it black. It wasn’t any color, but more the absence of any tint or shape or form. It swallowed light like a black hole and filled me with an existential dread. My eyes shot back to the man at the table across from me in horror. To my surprise, he looked just the same as he ever did, and nothing like the abomination I saw in his reflection.
I’d encountered this strange entity once before, that time I’d downed half a bottle of Benadryl. At the time, I chalked it up to an uncanny hallucination. During my recent research, though, I’d discovered the phenomenon of a shadowy man in a wide-brimmed hat was a common experience for those that delve into diphenhydramine abuse.
“You’re…the Hat Man!?” I blurted out. A couple from a few tables over turned around and glared at me, crossly.
“I’m one of the Hat Men, yes,” he corrected. “In the diphenhydramine plane, we’ve banded together to get out. Difference between me and the rest is that I started working with those who jumped the divide. The rest of those foolhardy mouth breathers still believe they can scare others into shuttling them to the next dimension.”
My mouth went dry. If I had any appetite at all before, it was gone now. I stood up to leave.
“Wait!” he cried out. “Before you go…I have a gift for you.”
Spence started fishing through his pockets until he found a small Ziplock bag with ground up, dark green leaves.
“Here, take it,” he said, nodding at the baggie.
I raised an eyebrow, beside myself at the audacity of this man. If he was a man.
“You’re trying to give me weed?” I asked.
He shook his head and grinned.
“Salvia Divinorum,” he said. “It’ll take you to a whole different world than weed ever could. Trust me when I say–”
“No,” I said, cutting him short. “I don’t want Salvia or DMT or mushrooms or anything else you’re hocking at me. I want no part in your weird interdimensional games. Either I’m slowly going insane and you’re feeding into it, or even worse, what you say is true, and you’d like to use and abuse me as the conduit for some weird Eldritch horror crap. Either way, I’m out.”
I stormed out of the restaurant without so much as another word.
***
For the next couple of days, I stewed in anger. I decided that under no circumstances would I possibly contact Spence again, much less ingest any substances he was shilling. This conviction was so strong that I didn’t really worry I’d fall short.
And to be fair, I didn’t.
What I did do was to research some more online. I was about three days in before I realized it was more retreads of the same stories I’d read countless times. Everyone was encountering entities when they were on “heroic” doses of psychedelics. Tryptamines, lysergamides, phenethylamines…it didn’t matter. Some people called the entities angels, some thought they were gods, and others described them as aliens. In that regard, there wasn’t consensus. But all the psychonauts of the world seemed to agree on one thing: these interdimensional beings existed.
It’s funny. Conventional wisdom teaches you that psychedelics are the “safe” drugs. They’re usually not physically addictive. You’re not likely to overdose and die, like you might from heroin. But who is to say these entities aren’t malevolent?
Because of this, I wasn’t having any trouble swearing off the visits to these beings. There was only one small problem: I wasn’t sleeping. This might not sound like a big deal relative to my other problems. I certainly didn’t think it was. You don’t just die of lack of sleep, right?
But a write-up on a druggie forum caught my eye and chilled me to the bone. It was a guy who went on a three-day methamphetamine bender. By the end of it, he became delusional and paranoid. He even started seeing things. Meth, in and of itself, isn’t psychoactive, but the lack of sleep brought it about.
I think you can see where I’m going with this.
I was at day three without a wink of sleep when I began to panic. I knew that the anxiety of tripping out from sleep deprivation would only make my prognosis worse, but I couldn’t help myself. In the cool of morning on day three, I walked to a public park nearby. There was a big botanical conservatory that cost $5, but the outside garden was free. I thought strolling in the fresh air, checking out the hardy mums that had survived the colder weather might help me to calm down.
I was looking at a raised bed of flowers when I saw Spence in my periphery. He was leaning against a wall with one foot kicked back, his arms crossed over his chest. I wasn’t positive if it was him, and I apparently hadn’t caught his eye yet. I decided to meander slowly in his direction, trying to confirm my suspicions without him seeing me. I strolled past a big fountain that had stone koi fish spitting water into the center bowl. I gazed up to look at the man again.
It was Spence, all right. And he was beaming, walking right towards me. Before I had a chance to back away, he was upon me, looking near giddy at the sight of me.
“You begin to see the problem, don’t you?” he asked. His nostrils flared and his skin seemed to take on a sickly, jaundice shade.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied, and my voice caught in my throat.
He rubbed one eyebrow and laughed. The man looked more sinister and evil than ever. His eyes glowed with a preternatural light. All at once, he looked like the Devil’s mockery of what a man ought to be…an unholy amalgamation of body parts that somehow didn’t clear the distance of the uncanny valley. Too surreal to be called a man, but too human-like to be called anything else.
“You can swear off drugs all you want, but it won’t make a lick of difference,” he said, and his voice somehow dropped an octave and a half.
I started back pedaling, but tripped over a small planter, landing squarely on my back. The man stepped forth and seemed to grow as he towered over me. He wasn’t impish and small anymore, but seemed to swell to gargantuan, impossible proportions. He easily cleared six and a half feet and his face looked like melting tallow as he droned on:
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’” he boomed out. “If you swear off psychoactives, we will appear in your dreams. If you don’t sleep, we will bleed through into your literature. I am Iago and Grendel. I am Pan and Hannibel Lecter. I am Shiva and Chthulhu and Satan all wrapped into one. You dare contend with me?”
I let out a blood-curdling scream. He threw his head back and laughed, and the smell of sulfur and smoke filled my nostrils. He cackled and continued his diatribe:
“And you? You are Dorian Gray. You are Faust. We know your inclination to make a deal with the Devil, and so you’ve been marked. Our pursuit will be dogged and we will never relent. You cannot stop the hemorrhaging of realities. There will be a democracy of dimensions. All realities will blend into one. Hell is earth is heaven is hell forever and ever, amen.”
I rolled further onto my back, squeezed both my eyes shut and kicked hard with both legs, hoping in vain to keep this foul cretin from pouncing on me. But to my surprise, my heels didn’t make contact with anything. I opened my eyes and the ignoble beast was a good ten feet away from me, back to his usual diminutive stature. He tipped his head downwards, touching the brim of a felt hat.
“I’ll be seeing you, Dear,” he said. “Or rather, you’ll be seeing me.”
I winced so hard I saw stars. I dug both fists into the dirt and cried, screaming and refusing to believe what I was seeing. I raised such a ruckus that a kind-hearted caretaker tending to some mums across the garden came running. He pulled me to my feet and asked if I needed medical aid.
I refused an ambulance. I looked about, but Spence was nowhere to be seen. The gardener swears I was alone in that garden, and on the one hand I don’t have any reason not to believe him. He fixed me up inside the breakroom of the botanical conservatory with a cup of herbal tea, free of charge.
I asked for a notebook and a pen. I’m writing this all out now, trying to make sense of what’s happening to me. Is Spence some demon from another dimension, hellbent on hemorrhaging the myriad realities of the multiverse? Or is he my brain’s own concoction from a lack of sleep?
I’m too far down the rabbit-hole to know the answers. If you’re reading this “trip report,” maybe you have answers I don’t. If you know the truth, please reach out. I don’t want to meet any more of my analogs. I’m scared to do drugs or read or especially to dream.
So now, Dear Reader, I’m worse off than I ever was.
Because now, I’m terrified to sleep.
