The Dragon

From: Noe A. (prison_salad_tosser@hotmail.com)
Story type: Out of Body Experience
Location: Los Angeles County
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Thu Jun  3 19:49:30 2010

I have never considered myself to be capable of anything of the sort I will account for. Nothing too far out of the ordinary, except for strange intuition, could I attribute to myself. And even if I try all my life to mimic what happened to me, I doubt (with hope in that doubt) it will.

On January 4th, 2008, enjoying the holidays and my birthday late in the year, I was partying: drinking and smoking weed. To deviate for a second, I'm not too familiar with Native American practices, but I believe to have heard about sweat lodges playing an important part in some societies. Rites of manhood and other rituals involved sweat lodges among other things like herbs and their ceremonies. If I recall some groups sent the young to deal in the wilderness, to bring this back to topic, in hope they would have some vision or revelatory experience. The stress on the body and mind induced by these age-old rituals was supposed to have that intended affect. Maybe I dwell on why it happened in a futile attempt to recreate it; I would be very scared to.

After the whole day of the 4th wasted and beginning the 5th of January, I got home at maybe 3 am. With a substantial amount of weed to keep me company I decided to stay awake all night, play video games and such. I must stop to say, before anyone reading thinks this will spiral into a druggies fantastical trip, that I drink like a fish, smoke like a chimney, and had plenty of experience with mushrooms even back then when I had barely turned 21. I had stopped drinking maybe at midnight so i wasn't drunk; although I brought up the sweat lodge because sweating equals dehydration.

The morning light gave me some energy and about at 9am i decided to eat some mushrooms (of the p. cubensis variety) I had left in my drawer for a couple of months. I decided to eat them when I found some minute maid juice in my fridge that advertised vitamins and what-not for your brain. Many factors exist; I'm only voicing the possibilities I've already thought so much about. Maybe the juice, maybe the .8 of a gram of mushrooms (very little and all I had, I've eaten 3.5 grams only to enjoy it), the sleepless, stressed state of my body, all of the above and more? So much for that, by 10 am I was into a casual, mellow, and quite usual trip. Twelve noon and I'm yawning, ready to sleep, normalizing, almost.

I lay down looking at the ceiling and the thought crosses my mind to pull the covers over my head. Never thought of why I did this before, the mushrooms? But instantly my brain felt like it was resonating; a wave of, I could only say, pleasure it felt so good. It felt as if it would move from my temples and top of my head back to the swirl of hair on the back of my head. At first I threw off the covers surprised thinking the mushrooms were coming back, not giving myself enough time to comprehend what the feeling was. But once more I pulled the covers and felt what I described before I looked around my room and pulled the covers for good. All I could say is that the pleasurable feeling swimming throughout my head was enough to tighten my fists and stiffen my body up. It coalesced and intensified so abruptly it seemed instantly that I felt very detached. The last thing I felt of my body was the where my hair swirls on the back of my head.

I saw dark similar to what you see when you close your eyes but darker. Orange flames began licking up, bringing an intense feeling of fear. The flames grew and a large tongue became a dragon made of flame facing me. China. I know it not because I heard it or saw it but for the same reason why I felt afraid, it felt like a warning. Next I saw a map illuminating a dark room. A hexagonal grid covered the topography and people , I believe there were 3 yet I heard only 2 speak, were splitting up areas on the map. They spoke Chinese and I was very afraid of one. As fast as they came, they went and I saw myself sitting in my bathroom on the toilet with my hands over my face and elbows on my thighs. No water from the pipes, no electricity ( it seemed like I wasn't the only one lacking utilities).

Each scene scared me more than the previous and the last images were of a place I have seen in dreams. Brown bungalows stationed around a dusty camp, I could call it. I saw out of my own eyes this last one. As I lay on the dirt floor ,right arm under me, the dirt gets very cold, I soon feel . The dirt is blackened with my own blood and I see the sun set, night pass, day pass, and next night I saw brought an end to the cold and unbearable thirst I felt while seeing this. I knew what this place was. I've dreamt of what happened to me there several years before that, but that, that was just a dream. This, I would sh!t myself abruptly. But not before I asked ( because I felt there was a force that showed me these things, warned me) a question aloud in my mind. "How am I going to sleep from now on?"

It felt like a lot to bear and I still can't stop seeing those images to this day. And I was answered by the resonance in my brain yet again. Building up with such a brilliant light in my minds eye. I heard singing of countless voices not singing song necessarily but an infinitely small part of the beautiful music that accompanied the light. It felt like a more than adequate response to my question coming from something that wanted to comfort me. The light and music soothed me for a bit (I don't know how long this all took to occur) before it began to fade and in the place I felt myself return to my time, space, or body.

Finally snapping back (I tried to see and hear the light as long as I could) I found myself body clenched tight and stiff, covers over head, and in my bed. I will not lie I was panting, crying, sh!tting, and pissing. Such an abrupt return to my body and it's functions left me unable to control either.

I wasn't myself for a long time. Full fledged belief in this comes with its' burden. One I still haven't decided to put on most of my family. And although I reserve my feelings on what it meant or what I perceive it to mean to myself, I'm sorry if it burdens you, but it must be told.