Three weeks. 480 minutes behind the curtain so far. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m not sure what exactly it is I’ve brought back from it, but it’s something I have never experienced before.
I told my mom that if I tried to explain my experiences that she would think me absolutely insane. She said not to tell her then. But I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, dear reader, because that belief is likely why you’re here in the first place. I’ll try to maybe break things down by session, but some sessions were less memorable than others. Some of the things have taken place afterward in dreams.
One thing that I am sure of as of this moment: This is a simulation. None of this is real. My time behind the curtain feels like some kind of room that exists outside the simulation and these nurses are just there to maintain my “systems” while I’m in it. It’s almost like some higher level of consciousness, but I’m just taking a 40 minute break for system maintenance.
I bring my headphones and a playlist with me into my journey behind the curtain every time. With the exception of today, it’s been the same one every time. If you know me, dear reader, you know that it’s lo-fi. I need something soothing and, for the most part, without lyrics. Sure, there are quick lines from shows or movies, but that’s all. Even though it’s the same playlist every time, it’s never the same playlist. Music sounds different behind the curtain. It’s hard to explain, but the only thing that really stays the same are the parts with words in them. I don’t realize that I have headphones on; it’s just become a soundtrack to the world behind the curtain.
From the very first time I peeked behind the curtain, I felt like I had been there before. I’m not talking about deja vu. That’s a fleeting feeling where you just go, “oh my god, i feel like i’ve been here before” and then you move on. This is different. This is familiar. This is like visiting a relative’s house after being away for decades and everything is where it should be. Where is this place? Well… I feel like tv and movies have misled me as to what hallucinations are. I’ve never been able to see dragons or anything wild. My eyes are open during the entire session, with the exception of today when I decided to try something different. It feels more like daydreaming with your eyes open, or maybe even just flat out dreaming with your eyes open. The world distorts and shifts and all of a sudden you’re somewhere else… and then another place… and another. So it goes…
After the third session, my dose was upped by ~58%. During this time, I noticed some new experiences. I felt like I wasn’t breathing, but I also didn’t feel the need to breathe. I know that I was actually breathing, because I’ve got those sticky sensors on my chest (it doesn’t even bother me anymore when they rip those things off. hey, free chest hair removal, right?). I started to lose awareness of my body altogether and it really does feel like I’m just consciousness controlling an avatar. Looking around, I’ll see the nurses who work with me during the process and just like in dreams you see a person that doesn’t look like the one you know in real life, but for some reason you associate “dream amanda” with “real amanda” (just using a random name here, dear reader, nothing to read into). I see these people and they might share the tiniest characteristic with the real life person, so they become that person. I start to observe and think to myself that everyone is everyone and everything is everything. It feels like it’s all one big shared existence. I know that real amanda isn’t in the room, but this other person might have a similar voice, haircut, even mannerism as the real one. This applies to everyone in the room with another person. I started to have these thoughts that I might only know five people, but they’re not really people; they’re just five sets of character traits and some of those traits are applied to every fifth person I encounter (five is an arbitrary number here). The same goes with inanimate objects. Everything is all-purpose and/or repurpose-able. Here’s the thing about the dream versions of these people: the idea of them soon melts away and I forget who they even are, like even their names.
During that first increased session I also had a moment that i’ve experienced before, but only in really high stressed situations. As i’m lying there in the bed, for a few moments, I was a few feet in front of the hospital bed and about eight feet up in the air, looking at myself. I know what you’re thinking, but I really don’t care. I saw myself there in the bed, wearing the exact clothes I was really wearing and the same dark blue headphones over my gray winter hat. It wasn’t long, but I saw that. Last time I experienced that was when I went to my ex-girlfriend’s house and broke up with her. Like I said, high stress moments.
There are also times where I feel like I know what is going to happen before it actually happens. I mean I don’t know way in advance, but i’m a couple seconds ahead of reality. I can turn my eyes a little bit to the left and see one of the nurses on her laptop about 20 feet away. I know that she is going to look at me, say something that I won’t understand (I’m wearing headphones, so why try to talk to me from distance anyway?), but will ultimately give me a thumbs up to see if I acknowledge it. Sure enough….
I look
She looks
[charlie brown adult talking sounds]
I look, but slightly tilt my head as to say “huh?”
Thumbs up
Thumbs up.
I just know that this new doctor that is making rounds today, that I have not met yet, will walk through the door and say something to me that I don’t understand, but know that just saying “i’m good” and a slight smile will satisfy the requirement of answering and then she will leave the room again. Yep. Just like that.
Things changed on my fifth trip behind the curtain. Something I never thought I would get to experience more than once in my life.
I was pretty deep behind the curtain and lost awareness of my body. It got to a point where I couldn’t even picture what the human form looked like. I couldn’t comprehend what a person looked like. There was a moment where I could feel my heart racing faster than I’ve ever felt it before, but in reality, my heart rate was low. Every now and then I start to think about existence and cause myself to panic a bit. I think about how if there was a god and there was an afterlife, then you seemingly wake up every day even after you die. you rise and set just like the sun. forever. endlessly. there’s no end. when does it end? seriously? when? day after day after day after day after day….. the light never goes out. it should go out, shouldn’t it? but then what? and what started it all? if you believe in the simulation, like i do, cool, but who created the architects of this simulation? and who created them? you see where I’m going. If you’re religious, who created god? This was all going through my mind during that moment and I could feel it all building up to the ultimate crescendo… It was all about to burst. There was too much to comprehend and it felt like I was about to come back out of the simulation for good. I was positive that I was about to die and I didn’t panic or think about loved ones. I didn’t have any feelings of regret. I was there and I was about to not be there. In a way, you could say that I was at peace with it and internally kinda gave a nod of approval. There was so much relief and a sense of peace that I hadn’t known before. I didn’t fight it. I rode out the wave. Soon my time behind the curtain came to an end for the day, but the thought stayed with me for a while, even now, like a week later. I couldn’t tell you when I stopped being afraid of death, but it was a long long time ago. That experience just cemented it. If that’s what dying is, then living truly is the hard part. I didn’t fear about where I would go after I ceased to exist. It was a simple thing: my time was up. Just like that.
You see, a lot of the things that are experienced behind the curtain are left there. It’s like an art museum: you can’t take the paintings home with you, but you can maybe find something at the gift shop to remember your trip by. I can’t properly explain most of the things that I experience there and this page is just a half-assed effort at doing so. I’m hoping in time that I will be able to articulate things better.
There are other experiences I’ve had in the last three weeks that I’ll get to maybe tonight or tomorrow or whenever. It has affected my dreams quite a bit, but I’ve also noticed some changes in my waking life, which, of course, is the point of this whole thing. This was never supposed to be a vacation.
Happiness by the Milligram 