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"Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily, to the nostrils of Ra (the creator and sungod), and come forth upon the horizon each day" ---Book Of The Dead (unspecified version)
Being Chronically Oneirogen resistant, I was not expecting anything crazy upon consuming blue lotus.
I would say I had a healthy sense of optimism, far enough removed from expectation as I sipped at my tea during my nightly x-files viewing experience. In small ways, I'd felt compelled enough to try it-- I'd had it in a tea before and found it pleasant to the taste, if not especially effective in doing much else aside from inducing a sense of drowsiness that replaced my melatonin supplement for the night. But after enough well placed endorsements and a dream in which I consumed it, I decided to take the hint and prowl Etsy for the herb once found in temples, used ritually (and recreationally) by the Ancient Egyptians. How times have changed.
Despite testimonials of instant astral flight and vivid escapades into Erebus I was skeptical that the herb would do more than provide me with a mild buzz followed by a deep sleep impenetrable by memory, leaving me with little more than a vague sense of having dreamt. It was my previous experience that swayed me towards a lack of expectation rather than any specific distrust in the herb, but 13 dollars wasn't much of a bullet to bite in the face of my escapist tendencies potentially finding a successful outlet. For months I'd formulated a desire to escape to some arcane annex in my mind, perceivable enough to be considered a respite, vivid enough to provide more comfort than daydream. I sought the exhilarating rush of being revived from a journey elsewhere, wherever elsewhere may have been, so I drank deeply.
"Okay, this is nice." Is what I recall saying once I'd downed the cup. My measurements were inexact, I had just ladled in the dried indigo-violet petals (adding a couple of the pale yellow stigmas for good measure) to the capacity my tea steeper could handle and downed it. The taste wasn't as sweet as when I'd had it in a blend but it was pleasant enough that I didn't alter it at all. I felt relaxed, pleasantly light headed, though I doubted this was the potent cannabis like intoxication some users had testified to, though I didn't exactly have a basis of comparison having never partaken of the devil's lettuce myself. A little buzzed became very sleepy and I laid down, and that's when it hit me. I laid in bed, taken over by sensations to abstract to dictate, but one thing became clear; I had severely underestimated the effect the lotus would have on me. Never had I been so profoundly altered by a substance, I buzzed with euphoria and suddenly understood how people easily astrally projected under it's influence. Though I was not paralyzed, it felt as though I had forgone the usual parameters of hypnagogia and reached the state while completely awake. I could still feel my body but it felt as though I didn't really need to, Like I could simply forget I existed corporeally if I wished to. I decided to passively attempt to astral project, my active mind indecisive in regards to technique, instead simply willing myself depart. After some half hearted and distracted attempts, I felt something happen. I don't know exactly what, but something stirred and it really hit me that after nearly fourteen years of attempting to recreate an experience in my teenage years, something was happening. The usual mental barriers I had, enacted by adhd and perhaps a subconscious block imparted from the suddenness of my astral journey from years prior (another can of worms, dear reader) were dislodged and for the first time, I was a little bit more frightened than I'd wish to admit. Logically, I knew that this wasn't insidious, there wasn't a Darth maul looking spectral entity at my bedside waiting to astrally jump me, but it occurred to me that I could leave. I could leave and I had no fucking idea where I was going. After a startling sensation of being spectated (that I logically deduced was simply my mind's hyper vigilance at the unfamiliar sensation) I decided to take it easy. Nothing could hurt me in the realms beyond, I knew, but there was also the potential of having the shit scared out of me that I decided would be ill advised considering I had not yet acclimated to this substance. For the first time in a while, I felt the veil thin and I was uncomfortably vulnerable in my altered state. I decided to ride out the feeling, to navigate this new sensory terrain and figure out how to utilize it. I don't know how long I laid there in Hypnos's grasp, filled with fleeting visions and even vaguer impressions, but I knew that I would have to find a way to reel in my restless mind come next time. I had finally achieved this occult state that I'd fixated on for so long, but now that my fantastical notion of escape had been enabled, I had no idea what to do. It occurred to me to try to remote view, to try and telepathically communicate with a friend states away, but I never was definitive and severely lacked direction. I felt I needed structure to make my structure more, in the words of Neil Gaiman, "story-shaped" (should I picture a red door?) but I also felt the need to let things take their course. What if I missed a gravely important message from Lord Morpheus himself while trying to shape the experience and fashion myself as the protagonist of a horror move? In the end, my ambivalence lapsed into a dreamless sleep of less than an hour, after which I texted a friend who was curious as to my project:
it fucking works.
I went back to sleep after some more drifting and an attempt to induce an astral journey with binaural beats (the window had passed and I found the stimuli more distracting than helpful) and had a long, upsetting dream in which I was forced to confront some repressed issues faced in my waking life. In the end, I considered it a test run, perhaps a testament to my self imposed state of suspension perhaps out of fear of failure (or success) and more indubitably, the effectiveness of blue lotus. My next attempt, I suspect, will involve invoking the Egyptian god Nefertem, the archetypal embodiment of Egyptian Blue Lotus.
More to come later.
Tidings from the primeval waters from which the blue lotus emerged,
Somniantes.
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