Absurdity

I'm going to talk about something I've avoided talking about for a while now, a few years in fact. I have been putting this off, but this one event has become such a big part of my life I should talk about it. It has helped to define who I am, and the experience has been a part in the forming of my thoughts. There are few events that actually completely change a person's life, and shape who they are, dictating their thoughts for years to come. This day shaped me into something completely different than I was, yet I was still me, just a lot more mature. I began to finally think about things, not in a moment to moment basis, or thinking ahead about the future like in chess, but the whys of everything. I began to examine things, and think about what makes them this way or that way, how were they affected by other things, causality suddenly became important to me. I found an interest in philosophy, especially in Socrates, and eventually even went and took a few classes to further my thought processes, not because they might lead anywhere, but because I might discover deeper truths than the shallow ones I was interested in for so long. This is the story of how one bad trip on drugs finally made me grow up, at least in the important aspects of life, I will always be a child when to comes to games and television, I love my Samurai Pizza Cats forever and always.

I was still working at the Royal Fork at this time, and was hanging out with Craig quite a bit. Through a buddy of mine I had gotten us 8 grams of shrooms for a Friday night. I had never done shrooms before, so this would be a new experience for me. Craig apparently had shrooms before, but he was notorious for always ditching when it came to doing drugs. I have smoked pot with him before, but we were fairly drunk at the time so it was hard to see the effects. I was home alone Friday night for a while, before Mom had come home. During this time I was trying to get in touch with Craig, but he never got back to me. I was on messenger for a while and was talking some of my friends, notably David. After a while I gave up on Craig and was working myself up to eat the shrooms.

It was at this time that Mom came home and offered to make dinner. I said yes, not really thinking, and preceded to eat all of the shrooms I had. I didn't notice anything at first, the mushrooms didn't have any affect on me for at least the first thirty minutes. Mom brought me dinner and I locked the door, entrapping myself in my room. It was at this time that I started to notice the affects it was having on me, and my perceptions and thoughts were beginning to be altered. I started playing music and sat in front of my computer, surfing the internet. I ended up at Punks and Nerds, the site creator was having a contest, first person to make him laugh gets some free stuff. I typed some stuff that I thought was funny, though it probably wasn't, basically I was pleading for the free stuff because I was high.

I remember listening to Pink Floyd a lot, I started off trying to watch the Wall, but didn't like the visuals so I was listening to them on my computer; Another Brick In The Wall, Comfortably Numb, and Hey You. After a few listens I couldn't stand Another Brick In The Wall and stuck to the last two. Eventually I removed Comfortably Numb from my playlist, and then I could just listen to the part of Hey You that was all bass.

I called David several times that night, since he was the one with all the experience. He told me it was a bad idea doing it alone, and in my room but went with it. I last called him to tell him how awesome the Simpsons poster in my room was (it's the one with all of the characters in one big group). I was amazed by their eyes, they seemed to be sticking out so much, I did have only the blacklights going so that might have added to that affect. It was around this time I took a few bites of the shrimp pasta Mom made, passed on the rest of it. I then stopped talking to David to cower in my bed for a few hours.

It was around this time I started to lose the more diverse colours and saw everything in only one shade of red, one shade of blue, etc. When I closed my eyes I saw rainbows and undertook some kind of journey, which is very hard to explain and I no longer remember it that well, but it made me happy. I took off my clothes and was just feeling myself, but mostly focusing on my face. I am pretty sure that when I was done I had felt like I had talked to God, and everything was good. It was during this time that I began drooling and touching my eyes. I remember I was able to touch my eyeballs without my eyelids reacting, and I didn't really feel any discomfort. I kept touching my mouth and eyes, and I remember thinking "wet rainbows" as my whole face felt wet from the drool I was spreading around with my hands.

Eventually most of the high went away and I could see colours again. My mouth got really dry and I didn't seem able to move. My heart started to hurt and I thought I was going to die there. Mom was sleeping in the next room, and I didn't know if I should go for help or not. For what I'm going to guess was thirty minutes to an hour I fought with myself over what to do. I wasn't even sure if I was dying, and sometimes I wasn't even sure if I wanted to live, the rainbows had seemed so nice and warm, and now all I felt was cold and in pain. I finally did start to move again, and I took this as a sign of recovery and continued to delay going to Mom for help. After a bit longer my heart was still hurting and I decided I would like to live and went to Mom for help. It took me a while to find my pants and shirt and put them on, sometime during my "journey" I had turned all the lights off and thrown my clothes around the room and they were hard to find. I scared her when I woke her up, like always, she doesn't wake up nicely. At first she didn't think anything was wrong, but then I guess she noticed I look so scared and asked what's wrong. I told her that I did shrooms, that I wasn't feeling very good, and felt like I was going to die. She then asked me what I wanted to do, I was kind of hoping she would just take control and everything would be okay, but she still wanted input. I thought that talking to her would set me on this path I needed to be on to stay alive, and at this point I could kind of see a path before me, of all my actions, leading up to and including the present, and I tried hard to make the path move toward my recovery. I told Mom that I want to go to the hospital and she called 911. I went to the kitchen sink and started drinking water, Mom brought me a blanket to keep me warm. I was starting to feel better again, that I was finally safe and was going to live, but then I started to spit up blood and I noticed that there was a lot of blood from my mouth in the sink and I got that horrible sinking feeling in me that I was going to die again. I went to Mom, who was on the phone with the hospital now being asked questions by them which she would relay to me when she didn't know the answer such as how much did I ingest, at what time, etc. She said everything is going to be okay and rushed me to the car and drove us to Concordia hospital.

Once there she stopped in front of the emergency doors and Mom helped me inside, where what I assume is a nurse greeted us and sat me in a wheelchair while Mom checked me in. I could still see the path I was on, and once again thought I was safe in the hospital with all the doctors, that nothing could happen to me now. Then I started to see the path become dimmer and start to fade away. I felt the fear begin to crawl in me again and there was a sudden pain in my heart again. I began to think although I am safe in the hospital what if they don't check me in on time, what if my heart just stops right now. Sure they could try to start it back up but why take the risk. Now that I think back to it I guess I am very lucky, the emergency room was empty and there was practically no wait, in real time, not paranoid time. I became increasingly scared, driving myself up to new levels of terror as I saw the path ahead become almost a string and unseeable. I watched as my Mom and the nurse talked, and was worried they would never make me better, so I interrupted them and told them I was dying and please help me. The nurse laughed, at least I remember her laughing, and said I'm not dying, at which point I felt justified in my fears that I would die in that lobby and no one would help me. I started to scream for help, that I felt so cold and I was dying. The nurse said okay let's move you to a room and they wheeled me off to an examining room where another nurse had come in. I saw that the path I was following had started to shine again, and I felt safe that they would be helping me again. If I concentrated on this line I could find myself in different moments of time, all since I had eaten those mushrooms. I felt I had become lost in time almost, but suddenly I found my way back to the room.

I began to doubt I was dying, everyone was acting so calm, Mom stopped being so scared for me and was now laughing with the first nurse about something or other. I decided that if everyone was calm then I had no need to worry, that they would be worried if I had a reason to be worried. Sadly this bit of logic didn't last long and I soon found myself knee deep in my paranoia again. I began to worry that they thought I was fine since I stopped screaming, and that they thought I wasn't dying since I thought I wasn't dying. Naturally I began to think I was dying again. I felt very cold all of a sudden, and began to tell them that I felt I was dying, and asking them to please help me. The second nurse was taking my pulse and blood pressure and I tried to focus on that and I tried very hard to think they were helping me, but the nurse and Mom weren't paying attention and I figured they weren't worried enough so I started to panic. I started to talk to Mom about how I felt so cold and my heart hurt, and she started to pay attention to me again. I told her I need a mantra to keep me alive, she seemed confused as if she didn't know what a mantra was, or that I would need one to stay alive. I was thinking very fast at this point, my mind was racing while everything around me was slow. I came to the conclusion after what felt like hours of thought, that "I need a mantra to keep me alive" was my mantra to stay alive. I had decided they my mantra was pre-chosen by God, and I just had to figure it out to stay alive. I started to shout it, and kept repeating it over and over. I believe my shouting made the first nurse go and get an attending to help take care of me. While she was gone I stared at the clock some more and doubt entered my mind. What if I got my mantra wrong, I've been doing all this for nothing if I don't have the right mantra. I decided at that moment that "time" would make a good mantra so I switched to that and started repeating time over and over again, shouting it when I could.

As I shouted it I could feel my body move between the times along the line, and my heart would feel better as I shouted it so I kept yelling "time" over and over. I came to think I was on the operating table and I was dead and the doctors were trying to bring me back to life, and if I just kept shouting I would come back to life. After a while I began to doubt if I was on the table as my heart stopped hurting at all. I felt if I stopped shouting my heart would stop, so if I was quiet my heart would go quiet and I would die. I thought the best thing to do was assume I was dying and keep shouting and embarrass myself, rather then risk being wrong and embarrassing myself, than being wrong and dying. Eventually as my shouts grew further and further apart as I thought about things and was looking down the path that led me here I began to doubt if I was going to die by not shouting and if which reality was real. I became quiet as the nurses and my Mom filled me with doubt, if I was on the table why would they be so concerned with my yelling I thought. I began to doubt that they were real and were part of my brain trying to make my death easier on me, and they didn't think I was dying. I decided to prove it to them so I took off my clothes and stood there naked trying to get the point across that my life was almost at an end, and yes there was shrinkage. Mom was looking at me like I was an idiot, and the nurse helped me get a gown on. The doctor finally came in and asked a few questions, and determined I needed to be sedated. I agreed because I knew I was being paranoid and acting crazy, but couldn't stop myself because when I started acting normal I wasn't sure if I should be. Finally he put the needle in my arm, and in what seemed a few minutes to me I was out.

While I was passed out I had a really strange dream that scared me and probably affected me more than the rest of the experience had. In the dream I had met God and he told me that the afterlife must basically be earned. It was then he asked me a question and told me I'd get to watch my whole life and I'd have to answer his question at the end. I don't recall the question but I believe it was something along the lines of "What is the meaning of life"? or "Should I have fought harder to live and not believe in the dream?"I was put through this machine that tore me apart and I remember being in agonazing pain as I went through God's machine. I could see my life unravel through my mind, along this kind of line similar to the one I saw in the hospital. As I made my way through this line I also made my way through the machine, and both ended the same time at my death on the operating table. God then came to me and asked the question again, and now I knew it was a trick question and no matter what I answered I would not exist. I realized I made a big mistake in believing I was being sedated, while really I was being killed, I had let myself die and if I kept fighting and shouting I would have lived. I stated my answer, I don't remember the answer either, and he laughed at me and said I got it wrong, all of a sudden there was this horrible pain in my chest, more so than all the pain before, and I thought for sure I was going to be wiped from existence.

I woke up on a bed in the hallway, right away I could tell I had pissed my pants while I was passed out. I instantly thought that I had gotten lucky and had come back to life right before God was going to wipe me out from existence, I then realized the truth, that I probably didn't talk to God, that it was my brain and the drugs, and that in fact I had been sedated all along. I looked around and there was no one there, so I laid around for a bit and went back to sleep. I woke up again when the nurse came to check on me, and couldn't go back to sleep after that. Finally Mom came to take me home and I rested in bed for a few hours. I got home around noon and I slept until around 7 PM. I realized then I was supposed to meet Diana for our first date a few hours ago, so I called her and told her I was sick. I rescheduled for the next day, against Mom's will who thought I should be punished and stay home. Mom told me she called work for me so they knew I couldn't come in on Saturday.

The next day I went to work and everyone seemed to think that I overdosed on mushrooms, presumably from Craig and Robbie. Now I know I hadn't ODed, I was simply high from the drugs and thought I was dying, when in fact I wasn't, I just needed to be sedated so I could calm down. I let everyone believe I had Oded as it sounded a lot better than I just got high and went to the hospital. After work I walked home and showered, changed, and got ready for my date with Diana. We went to see a movie, it was alright, very awkward. Before the movie started she wanted to know the truth, she heard I had overdosed, but I had told her I was sick. I told her the truth, that I was sick, from the mushrooms. She left in her car and I walked home, there was an attempt at a first kiss but it never happened until our second date.

Ever since this experience I have become a little nihilistic, and finding no meaning in existence. I realize I will eventually die, and I fear there will be nothing after that, whether there is a God or not, that I will simply cease to exist and all of my thoughts that I've kept to myself will be lost. This is easily one of my biggest fears, that I will no longer be, that the essence of me will simply be gone, without never being able to know everything. I find the loss of knowledge horrifying, and so the idea that there is no immortality in death is like the ultimate loss of knowledge, that eventually humans will disappear and then the universe itself and there won't even be a trace of anything. I like existing, thinking new thoughts, living, and I don't want to ever stop, whether it be when I die or the universe dies. I won't ever kill myself, for it might end my existence, and I want to avoid that at all costs. I can become very depressed when thinking about this and I find everything meaningless, but less so now than before, just after my experience I was very depressed whenever I didn't keep an eye on my thoughts, and would stay awake some nights, scared that I might soon no longer be.

I'm no longer so depressed about this, or at least not nearly as depressed as I once was. I hope so much that there is meaning somewhere, I just can't find it. Talking this over with Diana a lot has really helped me get this off my shoulders as well. I have come to realize that no matter what, if I exist after death or not, there is nothing I can do about it, so I really shouldn't bother worrying about it. The dream I had at the hospital really helped shake me up, but as time went on I explored the ideas behind the dream and have dealt with them the best I can. All in all I do not regret what I have done, it had helped shape me for the better, and I would be a different person if I hadn't done what I had done. If I had not eaten those mushrooms I would be a different person then I am now, better or worse it doesn't matter, I would not be me.