Mushrooming Awareness - Part 3

If you have not yet read the preceding parts, you should start at the beginning.

Part 3: Disconnection

I was blind and alone. I had asked myself where I was, and found that I did not know. I rephrased the question. Where might I be? I knew that I had consumed a mug of mushroom tea sometime earlier at Gus's house along with a group of friends, and I knew that we had begun walking along High Street Road, with Norton's park being our planned destination. I remembered nothing however that could convince me that I had in fact made it to the park. If the mushrooms had taken effect faster than expected, it was entirely possible that we had become lost or sidetracked, and were now in a place that had never featured in our plan. I estimated that the tea had been consumed about two hours ago, that I walked at a around five kilometres per hour, and so decided that I could be anywhere within a ten kilometre radius of a point mid-way between Gus's house and Norton's park.

I was pleased with the progress I had made with that piece of deductive reasoning. Now, what use was that information to me? What dangers were there to avoid? Roads. Main roads. High Street Road running east/west across the centre of my circle, Burwood Highway parallel to the north, Ferntree Road parallel to the south, and Springvale Road perpendicular to the west. Cars and trucks hurtled along those roads at eighty kilometers per hour. For all I knew, I could be sitting in the middle of Ferntree Gully Road right now. There was no way for me to tell. Not only was my vision gone, I could not feel anything. Or rather, when I felt around me I could not be sure that what I was touching was road, grass, stones, wood, or any other surface I might be in contact with. Sometimes I wasn't sure I was touching anything at all.

If I was on a road, would I hear the traffic? I listened. I heard voices some distance away. A conversation was taking place. Laughter. My level of concentration or interest was not sufficient to determine the identity of the speakers, or what was being said, but the presence of voices told me I was with the others. I was relieved. I decided I probably would hear the traffic, but I might hear it too late, or not know which way to move to avoid a fast approaching vehicle. I hoped the others were more aware of their surroundings than I was.

What if they weren't? What if the voices and laughter I heard was incoherent and hysterical babbling? I imagined the group of us - myself, Pab, Gus, Mikhail, Juan, Dunric, and Aiden, some sitting, some wandering around in the dark, some silent, some babbling incoherently, all with little or no awareness of our surroundings, in the middle of an otherwise deserted Ferntree Gully Road. I imagined a large truck bearing down upon us. My view was from a point high above the side of the road, behind the group, and facing the truck. I heard the loud blast of a horn, and saw the dismally slow reactions of the group. Heads slowly turned around, some in the complete wrong direction. The tyres of the truck locked and screeched as they slid along the road. The collision could not be avoided.

I heard a retch. Oh dear. The trip was turning very bad. Who was vomiting? Was I vomiting? Again I did not know. I saw the same image as described in the previous paragraph, but now we were writhing around on the road in pools of vomit, and had no awareness at all of our surroundings. When the truck came this time there was no reaction. I never believed we were actually on the road, only that that was a possibility. The worst case scenario. The retching sound however seemed real, and that was still very bad. Bad because of the shame of being out in public, out of our minds on psychedelic drugs, and not being in control of the situation.

I thought of how the nation would react if we were all killed by a truck in the manner described. It would be front page news for sure. Advertisements on newsstands would scream "Seven Youths Killed in Highway Tripping Tragedy". The incident would spark a nationwide debate on drug culture among young people. My legacy would be the introduction of new draconian drug laws, and greater police presence at music festivals. That was not how I wished to be remembered.

I made another effort to get back to reality. I felt around with my hands, in front of and behind myself in such a way that if I had been sitting, my hands would have contacted whatever surface I was sitting on. I felt nothing as I did this. Not even the feeling of my arms moving through the air in response to my thoughts as I willed the movements. It seemed that I had completely lost my sense of touch. That was a little troubling. I pondered further. Would I be able to feel pain? I attempted to test this by striking myself on the chest with my fist. I felt nothing. That was very troubling. What if my arm had been severed and I was presently bleeding to death? Would I be aware of that fact? I was unsure.

The list of things I was sure of was shrinking rapidly. While feeling around me in search of the ground, I had been assuming I was sitting down. Now I questioned that assumption and found supporting evidence lacking. I imagined my body acting as if on complete auto-pilot. I could be running right now, I thought to myself. The idea seemed quite plausible then, and still does as I write. I often act or at least carry on acting in an automatic way when my concentration wanders from a task. And my concentration has never wandered so much as that night when I was on mushrooms. For example when reading my eyes sometimes continue following words long after my brain has stopped concentrating on the text. Sometimes when I snap back into consciousness I find myself many pages ahead of where I last remember reading. A similar thing happens when I'm thinking and bushwalking. I snap out of my trance and find I have successfully navigated many metres of ill-defined tracks through the trees, all with no memory of having done so. A similar thing may have been happening during my mushroom trip.

In one final effort to determine how my body was oriented, I willed my leg to move in order to stamp my foot on some solid earth. Despite the absence of feedback I had received when attempting to move my arms, I was unprepared for the psychological impact of doing this and feeling nothing. All my life, the reaction force of the solid earth beneath me had been a constant I could rely on, and the unquestioned fact of its presence must have been foundational in my conception of myself as a space-occupying entity existing in a material world. When I attempted the stomp of my foot and felt nothing - no resistance, no feeling of my leg moving, no feeling at all - my belief that I had a body, and that my world consisted of matter, dissolved.

Continued in Part 4: Escape