DOSE:

35 mg

oral

4-AcO-MET

Hypnagogic State (also 1cp-lsd and 4-aco-met, but I think those are less important to the story)

A couple years ago I realized I would randomly see beautiful colors or feel blissful sensations as I drifted off to sleep. I really enjoyed these moments but couldn’t figure out how to become tired enough to trigger them without completely falling into the forgetfulness of deep sleep. Then one day I came across the term “hypnagogic state.”

I can’t say why, but knowing there was a term for what I was feeling seemed to validate my experience. Maybe I’m a sheep? In any case I started counting them. I took to diligently exploiting these interstitial zones of my consciousness, and soon I found that: 1) I could loosely guide them; 2) they became longer, more accessible and more intense; and 3) they gave me something to look forward to during my insomnia riddled nights and even helped me doze off.

Soon I was closing my eyes to spectacular nocturnal shows. Sometimes the moving images were abstract, sometimes they were figurative, and sometimes they were eerily real, like videos, though with little coherence as to the content. As I said I could somewhat direct them, depending on my nearness to sleep. However even with guidance they were generally a photo-rrhea of my subconscious, a spewing forth of things I did or didn’t want to see but enjoyed profoundly nonetheless.

While the visuals were special, the feelings of elation were exquisite. Unfortunately these were harder to latch onto and build. At the time I was (and still am) practicing methods of alternative orgasms, energy orgasms and the likes during my waking hours. I think this helped me a fair amount, and several times I was able to surf these sublime waves of joy and be aware of them before slumber fully took hold. I can’t think of how to accurately describe it other than a pure sine wave through my soul, a climax without tension, or what I imagine shooting heroin feels like. In any case the elation was as real as a sex dream is pleasurable and a nightmare is frightening.

During this period of perhaps a year my only drug use was various psychedelics on a monthly basis. I don’t smoke, drink alcohol or coffee or take any sort of herbal supplements. The psychedelics I took were LSD analogs (1cP-LSD) as well as 4-sub tryptamines, and while I had previously enjoyed observing the morphing world with my eyes open, now I spent large swaths of trips with my eyes closed. These trips influenced my sober hypnagogic states and vice versa.

It got to the point that I could close my eyes sober and immediately trigger these visions. Not just a faint light in the darkness of my eyelids, but full on visuals any time I wanted, without necessarily being tired. I felt as if I had unlocked a useless superpower that I couldn’t share with anyone (except a few disinterested people I told and you, dear reader) and that I couldn’t exploit in any creative way. It was just relaxing fun, a sort of mental masturbation.

Then one evening I took a 35mg dose of 4-aco-met, my highest to date. I am extremely sensitive to this drug. I had a wonderful night in the company of a couple good friends, laughing my caboose off to their wild stories (this one woman can tell tales like no other) and playing music with everyone, often with eyes shut to be there mentally and simultaneously be a school of salmon swimming through matrices of unknown languages—ya know, DRUGS. After coming down, having one of the deepest laughs of my adult life, and feeling generally great about my night, friendship and my life, I went to bed.

I was jet lagged at the time , and upon closing my eyes, I desperately wanted to get some rest, but for the first time the hypnagogic visions were preventing me from sleeping instead of lulling me off to dreamland. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t turn them off. It was as if my wondrous zoo filled with all the marvels I could imagine had been emptied out, and now I was the one in the cage, being observed day in and day out by demons of my own making.

That night I didn’t sleep. I felt psychotic for the first time in my life and wondered if I did serious damage to my otherwise very healthy brain through a mix of novel psychedelics and good old-fashioned homemade neuroplasticity. The next few days and almost sleepless nights were hell, so I decided to fix the problem the same way I created it. I began focusing on pure black when I closed my eyes. At first I was unsuccessful, and the images continued despite my efforts to stop them. Then over the course of a week the beckoning creatures slowly faded, and like Max drifting on a boat away from the Wild Things and back to his bedroom, I slowly drifted back to an undisturbed bedtime headspace.

From all this I learned the irresponsibility of letting unbridled hedonism into the precious realm of sleep. I now cherish the empty black canvas behind my eyelids. If nowadays hypnagogia occasionally reveals her secrets, so be it (and last night “it” be an adorable panda rolling into a ball for a few minutes), but I will no longer egg her on, at least not for the time being…

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 116973
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 35
Published: Jan 24, 2023	Views: 274
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Endogenous (86), Dreams (85), 4-AcO-MET (711) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Hangover / Days After (46), Combinations (3)