Mystical
The contraption (machine)
by Nicole
The issue of smoking salvia again had been pressing very heavily on my mind- S and I worked out a compromise because I was so inclined to do it. At 9:00 I started drawing on the bong. As soon as I felt I had taken an adequate hit, I handed off the water pipe and lay down with my eyes closed. I didn't even bother counting, I just held in my breath for as long as I could. When I felt the pressure starting on my body I started thinking "it's ok, it's ok…" After what I believed had been the right amount of time, I exhaled- my "eyes" opened and I saw that no smoked had come out. Confused, I centered myself and tried once more- this time my seemingly lucid vision turned fuzzy (and dream-like) and I saw myself laying down, exhaling smoke. However, my view point had been completely flipped upside down - I was looking up at my body.
Once certain that the smoke was gone (which had seemed to be such a pressing issue) my mental, "lucid-eyed" self settled in to a vertical position, with a hand connected to the "dream-eyed" closed eyes of my physical body, still laying. At some point this hand grabbed S's, because of a sensation that the two selves were about to be flung off of a giant contraption (the two selves never felt a fear of being separated- it was more a fear of being forced to leave too soon). The contraption soon revealed itself, slipping into the middle/lower/upper right side of my vision (the center point kept shifting while the contraption existed in several impossible angles-appearing convex and concave at the same time). It was very round, whatever it was (I could only assume as much because of the feeling of something spinning at a very great speed, I felt as if I was watching the thing appear through the doorway of another room). The thing started to take on a tan/brownish color, with large clockwork seeming pegs protruding out the sides horizontally soon after. The pegs fitted into slots existing impossibly in the "room" where I was contained, where I had the feeling of my body being restrained in the manner of a carnival ride (think of the one where you are strapped in and it starts to rotate at a very great speed, and then the floor is dropped).
I had the feeling that the thing was "coming", and it meant that one of the pegs was going to drop down into/exist in the spot where my body was- but since that body was restrained, not functioning, and floating in a soothing bath of warmth, no harm would be done. That is when my concern became why I was so afraid I would be flung off the ride- I knew it was because if my body moved then the pegs wouldn't be able to line up correctly, and then things may have to hurt really bad (this was the fear that resonated from the sleeping body, however. The floating mind knew the only thing that would happen is that they would be forced off the ride too early).
During all this, the sleeping body was only aware of the sensation of feeling a great, soothing pressure- the same as when one is nearly asleep and the body is so completely still as to feel non-existent. It was the comfort of being slowly crushed/absorbed into a thick, cottony, dark nothing. Deep reds could be felt rippling through my body, moving from the legs up. The only sign of life was where every so often (in my perception) I would glance down with the "lucid eyes" through a sphere into the light bubble of the "dreaming eyes"- which would then open and confirm with a few squeezes that I was indeed still holding S's hand. Whether or not I actually opened my eyes I do not know (I did lift my head and open my eyes a couple of times, however S claims that when I did I turned to the right, and looked at the cats across the room, and not to the left and to him, as I remember doing).
His claim that I looked to the cats was very startling when I heard it post-trip, especially when I discovered that they had been sleeping together in an open drawer. When I saw them upon my reawakening they were no longer in the same place (and not giving it any thought I assumed they had been that way the entire time). This led me to re-think an idea that had been floating around in my head since the previous trip. During the first trip I had noted two things odd about the entities that I seemed to encounter. First, that there were very distinctly two entities present. Second, that one was very identifiably male. What made the second trip odder in regards to the first was that both of the presences felt to be male (in the first, which I feel had been far greater in intensity than the second, I know exactly who the female form felt to be, and her actions had far too much of a commanding intensity to be anything else. In this trip, however, both the forms seemed content to ignore my presences entirely and instead remained in what appeared to be deep attention with each other. I feel this is because I did not need anything talking me down into going with the trip). I believe that I was running into the energies of our pets during my cartwheel through the dream universe.
The forms this time seemed to remind me in a way of carnies or circus workers- they were the ones operating the ride; in fact I could see one of them holding onto the giant lever they were standing behind. A rushing heat had started moving up my body, and while I took it as a sure sign that things were coming to a head it also great more and more uncomfortable- only briefly though did I consider trying to move (although I did glance over at the carnival workers for a thought I can't recall). As I grew to be aware of their presence I realized that it was almost time for my peg to be popping into existence- I concentrated once again on making sure that everything was lined up- but literally at the last second I realized that holding on to Sean's hand was going to prevent everything from working- but if I let go I would be flung off and we would fail anyway! The complete lack of an answer to this predicament with the notion that I had no time to think about it completely derailed me- my next intelligible thought was that I could see odd boxes of red and green, indicating a failure to line up the peg.
Yet, there was no panic or discomfort of any kind, like I was expecting there to be. The ride was over, and then everything inexplicably started moving backwards while I had the sensation of being forced forward, as if by a crowd- a line of people hustling me off the ride. At one point while the reel ran backwards I thought "wait- nothing's happened yet- I forgot to blow out the smoke", and then attempted a deep breath in order to force it out.
From there I floated in dark silence as the visions retreated and faded out, and feeling crept back into my bones. I had the sensation of reclaiming my body at one point during the end, in which I felt that I sat up completely and turned to S. The feeling that gushed over me as I looked through that set of eyes was one that I had felt all of this, every sensation, a long time before all of the recent experimentation. This visualization led in turn to another visualization- a kind of picture-in-picture in my head in which I saw myself in my last salvia trip. I probed what sensations swelled up when I recaptured myself in that one, even when I was in a state of panic, and deduced that I had indeed felt those exact sensations before. However, this puzzled me to a great extent- when and where and how? I started to question my memory- had I done this all before? Where these not in fact my first real salvia trips?
When I finally returned to a coherently functioning space around half an hour had elapsed. My body once again felt the soothing deep comfort of being completely asleep. I started to trip very classically in my open-eye visuals- the ceiling stucco took on the flowing, oozing movement of the beginning of LSD or mushrooms, and color enhancements and add-ons were present. My thoughts were much clearer than I had expected. I did not experience euphoria the way I had with the previous trip, however. There had been no adrenaline rush because I did not panic, and I believe this is what was responsible for that lack.
This is the beginning of what I am hoping are some very insightful experiences…
[It's been brought to my attention that the description of the contraption/ride and the room itself do not do enough to allow one to try to visualize what I was seeing. However, the details are kind of tedious, so I'm putting them in here in order to not disrupt the flow of an already chaotic report.
Recall how I expressed that the contraption felt to be both convex and concave at the same time. This feeling was not restricted just to the machine itself, because it was actually a quality shared by the room as well; the machine was an integrated part of the room that was still capable of moving on its own and existing without physically being a part of it.
I viewed the machine as being in a room beyond my own- a room I could see through a doorway. The furthest room, the room I was in, and the wall/doorway separating them allowed for the existence of three areas or layers holding depth on their own, while still having a sense of depth from the three of them combined.
So as of now, you are looking at all three of those layers. Because it's still a room, and your eyes are looking out across a plane, which expresses the notion of horizontal depth- all three of these fields of depth are lined up on a horizontal axis.
Now, take that axis, and flip it so that the depth is still maintaining the quality of moving away from you, but because it's vertical now, it's moving away from you to the top and to the bottom.
Here, we have to backtrack a little bit. Reconsider the physical aspects of the room- that there are edges and finite dimensions to it (otherwise I would not have been aware of the sensations on being inside of something at all). One of those finite and identifiable aspects is the end of the room- the furthest edge (and the nearest edge for the outer room). This is where it gets fun- that outer edge has been replaced by the vertical-axis moving plane of depth so that the boundaries of the room, while still identifiable, are also at the same time flowing outwards into an infinity that starts at the edges of the room and is in fact encompassed by the limits of the room. The machine is sitting inside of and is an integral part of all of this.]