"We Can Totally Handle This" | Floor Lessons - Chapter 6 (Pt. 1 - Down The Insect Burrow)

In my second Ozora year I met yet another lovely crew of people and we became great friends right away, camping together for the week and having a great time as the festival progressed.

Among them was a super friendly dude that I connected with instantly, for the sake of non-disclosure we'll call him Ryan. He had his girlfriend with him on the festival, a lovely girl from Germany who was really sweet but totally new to this sort of experience.

Neither she nor her other friends in our camp had ever gone on a psychedelic journey and as the week progressed I figured I would at least go on an LSD experience once this week, and Ryan agreed. We decided to go with our intuition and see if on any of the last days we would feel that "now was the time".

And the day came, close to the end of the festival. I walked towards him to share my intuition that "today seems to be the day" and he basically took the words right out of my mouth before I could tell him. Awesome, today really was the day apparently.

We asked the girls whether they wanted to come along with us, and naturally they asked a lot of questions about the trip having never been on LSD. And Ryan and I did our best to explain the sort of changes in perception and mindset that commonly occur, while making it absolutely clear that they should not go if they felt they didn't want to. It would be a brilliant day regardless and there was no pressure.

But him and I were clear - we wanted the experience and the day seemed perfect for it.

A few hours later we walked to the mainfloor, sitting on a hill and watching the scene go on down there while getting ready for the mental shift. We hugged and ate our little pieces of magic paper, and slowly walked down onto the dancefloor.

What ensued was one of the more challenging trips in my life that I have ever gone on.

_{Two random dudes on the mainfloor playing with a mini pig}

Nest of insects

What I completely neglected to factor in was the type of music playing on the mainfloor that day, I only realized it once the lsd had started to take effect. It was the "slower day" in the music program, which usually means I can not fully let go and move my body as it wants (even when completely sober), because the music will somehow put a stop on my activity level. Slower BPMs (beats per minute) means more of a heavy slow walk, rather than a a lighthearted run.

And to my dismay, I found that on the come-up of my trip the next DJ set was just starting: Dark Progressive. The "creepy-crawly insect variety". Ouch.

If you want a slight sense of the sound while you read on, here you go:

It was the middle of the afternoon but the music sounded like a shadowy cloudy night, full of odd and at times nasty vibes and sound effects. It was slow. It was creepy. It was insectoid. It was almost... stale. Like water not being moved for 5 years except the occasional little organic thingy swimming down in the barrel hunting something else. Or like disturbing a nest of wasps that has not been moved or shaken up ever. The staleness and flutteriness of the sound became so intense that I started to wonder whether I should remain here or go walk somewhere else 'til this DJ was done playing.

Bad idea.

On a trip, even the thought that it might all be too overwhelming tends to manifest exactly that sort of experience. It becomes a self-reinforcing loop in the mind.

Naturally, I suddenly found myself in the middle of some odd looking people. Eye contact seized from all sides, as others seemingly seemed to be challenged by the music as well. The lightheartedeness of the people's movements on the dancefloor dialed back a lot due to the slow speed of the music and its utter heaviness, and I was apparantely not the only one who felt really uncomfortable with this drastic shift in sound I had not been prepared for.

I saw people I hadn't seen during the whole week with some odd vibe around them - hard to describe really. There almost seemed to be... a sense of distrust in the air as nobody had any idea what was going on and what universe we had all suddenly traveled to, or maybe it was just my inner world trying to cope with the insect swarm coded in sound that was blasting over the mainfloor in this slow and creepy fashion. It literally gnawed on me.

I had never felt this uncomfortable on the festival grounds before and it seemed that I could not find anyone near me on the floor who was willing to share his pain with me. I felt alone. Nobody around me that I felt resonant with, which has never quite happened before.

I felt out of place.

Having been on tough trips before I reconsidered walking away while I strongly reminded myself that "if you do, it can't be an escape!". There is a difference between walking away from something slowly that just doesn't work for you vs. making haste to get the hell out of there. The latter never served me well in the past because on a trip you just can't get away from yourself like that. Walking off slowly tends to be the better option if you must retreat.

And I chose to stay for a while longer in the hopes that the sound would lighten up. But it didn't. It only got stronger, and more and more people showed up who... looked at me like "why are you here then, you obviously don't like this sound..."

So I opted for my plan B to slowly retreat from the floor and maybe find the others again.

THAT'S RIGHT!!!!! WHERE ARE THE OTHERS!!!????

I had completely forgotten about my crew, where is Ryan and his girl? And her friends?

I must have lost them instantly after we walked down the hill onto the mainfloor too busy with the onslaught of insects and my inner world to even notice. Guess I am on my own for now... like always when the journey gets tough ;)

Continued in Part 2 - The Slow Escape

All images in this article are mere impressions and don't generally show the actual people involved in these stories.

All images by TrueHumanity @ www.truehumanity.eu

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