Quote:When I was 18, I was in a strange place in the world. I was homeless, penniless and with no real ambition to pull myself out of the gutter. Although I was without the basic necessities of food and shelter, I had a steady supply of drugs that were dispensed, I suppose, out of sympathy by many of my friends. I went to sleep hungry and cold every night, but never sober. One evening, before I left a party to hit the streets to find a broom closet or stairwell to lay my head, I guy a barely knew gave me a large freezer bag full of brown spikey pods.

'What are these?'

'Jimson Weed. The seeds will make you trip. Maybe you can sell them. I don't want them.'

He told me to split the pod open and eat half of the seeds if I really wanted to trip hard. To me that meant eat the whole pod since I always found 'recommended' dosages to be unsatisfying.

I chose not to dose that night, since I was already tired and afraid I might fall asleep before the trip kicked in. I slept in a building gutted by a fire a few years before and the freezing November air woke me just before dawn. I got up and walked into town to raise my body temperature and avoid hypothermia ( this was my daily morning ritual ). Obviously, 5 AM in a small city offers very little in terms of recreation, so I decided it was the right time to open the door of perception and began my day with a psychedelic breakfast.

I chose the largest pod in the bag, which was also the darkest in color (I was told afterward the most potent seeds are the deepest brown). The seeds were terribly bitter and many of the shells got stuck in my teeth. I managed to finish the entire pod with a little help from a public water fountain. I watched a beautiful sunrise from the roof of an apartment building, constantly waiting for the effects of the Jimson Weed to take effect.

I can't say how long I sat until the seeds started working, but the first noticable signs came in the form of extreme thirst and general physical discomfort. Finding the feelings of seeming dehydration too strong to ignore, I went to a nearby McDonald's for free ice water. It must have been after 9 because the only people in the restraunt were old guys getting free refills on senior citizen-discounted coffee. I sat in a booth in the back corner, sipping water through a cracked straw, watching the thirsty elderly redneck parade. It didn't take long for me to realize I was entering into a very hallucinagenic trip. The fact that I hadn't eaten a real meal in a week and I was sleep deprived probably added to the drug's intensity, but I can't imagine a big dinner and a full 8 hours would have made too much of a difference.

Unlike the onset of an E or acid trip, my mental state was very comfortable but my physical condition felt quite unhealthy. The heavy sense of inebriation was quickly followed by powerful, disorienting visuals. Though they weren't disturbing, they seemed as clear as sunlight. Black cats milled about the floor in front of me, so numerous I couldn't even see the tile. They appeared wet and angry. There was deep crimson blood dripping from the ceiling.

Everything was technicolor. The sense of detachment was stong, but it didn't feel strange. Each hallucination flowed into the next. I was holding a very old bible in my lap. I couldn't figure out how to open it. Soon it started to leak blood, too. The more I struggled, the more it bled. As soon as I realized my efforts were futile, the book materialized into the air around me. It didn't seem strange to me. When I analyzed the room again it was a bustling, futuristic metropolis. It appeared very large and very alien, with shining chrome and flashing lights everywhere. I began to feel discomfort and the strong urge to urinate simultaneously.

I staggered into the bathroom and vomited in the closest urinal, right in front of an amish man. Now I live in south central Pennsylvania, so it's very possible that he was really there, but considering my state and other people's accounts of Datura-induced visuals, I suspect he was just a hallucination. I do know that I relieved myself somewhere in the bathroom and left through the side exit adjacent to the lavratory door. The street outside was a scene of WWII-ravaged Europe. I don't know which country, but everyone on the street was garbed in Nazi military uniform. I felt very threatened. I ran into the alley behind the parking lot and
hid behind a pine tree.

The anxiety soon ebbed, but the thirst and need to urinate returned. I knew I needed a comfort zone, a place I could relax in. A friend lived nearby. I walked to his apartment complex and stood in front of the stairwell. The same crimson blood from the McDonald's was cascading down the steps. It began to rise over my shoes, up my legs. A heavy sense of vertigo came over me. There's a memory gap between the stairs and my friends apartment, but I ended up on his couch watching dolphins dive through the wall in a seamless loop. During my time there, I experienced the typical non-existent cigarette search and the disappearing person puzzle. I visited the bathroom many times, but eliminated very little. The sense of dehydration was unbearable! There was no comfort. I didn't recognize the people in the room. I asked the person closest to me where 'Bill' was.

'Bill's not here', was the return. I closed my eyes to escape the growing sense of panic. But when my eyelids shut, all I saw was a new room with new people. Where was I? I tried to reopen my eyes, but it only revealed another room with yet more strangers. This went on and on. I didn't know if my eyes were open or shut. I didn't know where I was, what time it was or what was happening. My panic turned into sensory collapse. Every thing bled together and I felt a deep spiraling sensation engulf me. I lost all visual capabilities, but I still had a very real sense of touch. I was trapped in a small metalic box. It made perfect sense to me.

I was dead. This was hell. There were no demons, no hellfire or brimstone, just a deep, complete feeling of darkness and hopelessness. This was the never-ending void. Not at all how I had imagined it, but worse than I thought that it could have been. I've had feelings of infinite emotion on acid trips and sensations of universal truth in K-holes, but this was the most profound reality I had ever experienced. My whole existence was put into perspective, and I was being punished for wasting the gift of life. I blacked out at some point in the box and woke up in my friend's apartment the next day. He said I was out for about 8 hours. The physical effects wore off about a day later, but the psychological impression has yet to fade.