Altered Sounds, as Advertised

It’s still burgeoning and ballooning, I put a playlist of familiar music on shuffle as a reference point to fully analyze the alterations. The slide into this trip is gradual and continuous- it seems like every song sounds deeper than the last. Perhaps this is a perceptual illusion, like a Shepard’s tone, but what isn’t a perceptual illusion while tripping? Are the effects asymptotic? At what point will they level out? Only the passage of time will answer these questions. However just when I think I am following a predictable slide into the bubbling cauldron of effects, new perceptions begin to manifest. There is slight warping at the edges of my vision, like viewing the world through a glass disc, curved around its rim. It is subtle but definitely noticeable. This was entirely absent with a lower dose. Soon the auditory changes are not characterized only by a drop in tone, but also by a sense of bending and flanging and whirling and warping. It feels analogous to how the visual effects of psychedelics alter base visual perception- the ways in which my visual input would be altered have transposed themselves onto my auditory stimuli. Perhaps if I had more understanding of sound, tone, and music theory, I would be able to discern patterns and structures similar to the patterns and superstructures present in the visual perceptions of more standard psychedelics. To my mind however, it is simply a chaotic and esoteric shakedown of my sensory experience. The timbre of everything simply sounds “broken” for lack of any better description- it all feels so wrong, yet it is simply the experience I have subjected myself to, and I am content to accept that. The body load sits atop the trip like a gargoyle, unpleasant but entirely manageable. The nausea is bubbling and tense, as if the churning of my stomach has a magnetic energy that pulls my muscles inwards towards it, taut and unnerving.

To answer my previous questions- sounds still do seem to be getting deeper, albeit it a slower and subtler rate. I would describe the progression of effects as being certainly asymptotic. My auditory input is adorned with further hallucinatory effects- Now there are odd off kilter harmonies sliding up alongside everything – as if every sound has a duplicate that is shifted slightly out of phase, turning the world into a beautiful cacophony of discordant tones, yet this is not unpleasant in the least, it is mostly fascinating. The last time I did this, I found the novelty of the experience exhilarating. I felt elated and euphoric and wanted to communicate this enthusiasm with everybody I knew, as if the drug had an empathogenic effect. This time around however, the novelty has worn off and the experience is very matter of fact- merely existing before me. Perhaps all of the euphoria, the excitement, the sociability from last time was just a result of being enthralled at the novelty of the experience. I am decidedly content with the experience I am having now but am not feeling much beyond that. Cognitively I am still largely functional, typing the same, existing the same, I could probably pass for sober in most contexts were I not so weirded out and distracted by the alterations to sound.

Things definitely have a sort of ringing metallic quality now, as if every sound is being played inside of or being emitted from a steel drum. It is like the room has become round and reflective around me and every sound is bouncing off the walls and splattering and clattering around every which way, a sharp metallic reverberance. The out of phase harmonies that accompanied every sound have now taken on a form of their own, it’s as if every bit of input has a ghost image, shifted slightly askew, fuzzed and twisted into a ringing, beeping, buzzy corruption of their source, a pixelated simulacrum.

Decided to work on a drawing that was commissioned by one of my friends. I notice that my drawing ability doesn't feel altered in any way- none of the flowing traceries and patterns and repetitive or radiating or exponential forms that I typically draw while on psychedelics. While listening to more music I notice the flanging effect is less noted through headphones than through speakers, as if the distance the sound travels through the air gives it a greater capacity for the drug to wrangle it and bend it out of shape. Another odd effect is music with voices that have been pitched up now sound completely normal- this shouldn’t be surprising or interesting in the least, it was entirely expected, but it was interesting to observe. Aside from that, sounds still are tinny and have an odd ring to them.