The PCP Trilogy 3: Museum

This is an experience I had planned for a while. What kind of setting would be a good foil for the deranged intensity of urban exploration? Dirty and physical. I needed something clean and cerebral, and the art museum fit the bill perfectly.

Many may be familiar with the “Museum Dose” coined by Daniel Tumbleweed, who published a collection of experiences with taking low dose psychedelics for various artistic spaces. Well, this is admittedly much higher than any museum dose by his standards. This was an insane dose to take in public frankly, that is a reckless thing to do that I very strongly say others should not do. But I wanted to experience the interaction between this drug and this space, this art, to its maximum. My schedule was very full and I only had one shot at this. I was really curious about how this would handle in public, especially such a tense and quiet and slow space. I was excited to see how the cognitive effects of the drug interacted with a wide variety of art- this museum was host to many world famous iconic pieces: Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase and Bride Stripped Bare, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Brancusi’s Bird in Flight, Eakin’s The Gross Clinic, Picasso’s Three Musicians, the list goes on! It all made for a fun adventure that I was eager to embark on.

 

NOTE: THE DOSES I TAKE ARE EXTREMELY HIGH FOR ANYONE. I HAVE A HIGH TOLERANCE TO DISSOCIATIVES, NECESSITATING I TAKE SUCH HIGH DOSES. AN EXPERIENCE LIKE THIS WOULD BE FOUND AT AROUND 10-12 MG FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON. DO NOT TAKE THE DOSES I TAKE IN THESE REPORTS.

CW: Self harm

Age: 30

Weight: 130 lbs

Dosage: 28 mg intranasal

Setting: Philadelphia Museum of Art, My house

 

T0:00- Crushed up crystals and dosed intranasally. Sting slightly with an etherous odor. Makes me sneeze. I spend the next few minutes gathering things together to leave the house. My intention today is to go to our local art museum, a world renowned collection in za grandiose iconic neoclassical building.

 

T0:30- Leave my house, feeling a little lightheaded. And a little numb in my extremities. It is a sunny winter day, though still chilly, it is a welcome respite from a previous month of brutal cold and snow.

 

0:40- I feel tense, all of my muscles feel shorter and tighter. I am waiting for the subway now, immersed in the sickening damp stink of station, drenched in filthy snowmelt. The lights seem to glow especially bright and strobe. I am dizzy and feel a slight loss of equilibrium.

 

T0:50- Disembark from the subway and begin walking to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a grand building reminiscent of a Greek Acropolis on a hill at the end of a long boulevard lined with trees and monuments. The experience seems to fade to the physicality of walking. I notice I have a bit of an uneven gait and wonder if I look slightly drunk to passerby, which may seem a little off for 3 in the afternoon. As I walk I become very immersed in my thoughts, in fantasies and grandiose plans in the arc of my life, drifting in a sort of autopilot as I grow disengaged from my surroundings and senses. PCP mania can make anyone feel grandiose. All one can think about is themself. A tense stimulation propels me forward with a bit of extra spring in my step.

 

T1:20- Arrive at the museum. I ascend the world-famous grand staircase easily, hardly feeling winded. Our art museum is spectacular one to behold- one of the archetypes of neoclassical architecture, a prominent temple replete with fluted Corinthian columns. I sit off to the side from the entrance and smoke a joint and gaze out over the skyline of the city. The sky is huge and blue and deep and cloudless, yawning over me as streamers of static and visual snow bubble up from the glass buildings, subtly flashing. Every form against the deep blue sky seems to be emitting waves and tracers into its abyss, with flashes of navy and green and terra cotta orange, flickering like translucent flames or riffles in a stream, all shimmering and pulsing and reverberating. The cannabis breathes a vivid life into these visuals and propels numbness through my fingers.

 

T1:30- I check in and am given admission without any issue. I am able to talk and communicate with strangers normally. I feel physically warm and floaty, there’s electricity in my limbs and anxiety in my nerves. Voices and sounds are echoing a lot around me, it makes the space cavernous and imposing and makes me feel very small. I feel the weight of all the human efforts to build and maintain this space. The echoes of hallowed halls.

 

T1:40- I need to orient myself with being indoors and around others. Wearing a mask makes me feel a little more secure and anonymous. At first I feel like a caged dog-perhaps this is still just leftover momentum from walking, but there is  motivation and energy in my bones, I have to get up, I have to go! -but I don’t. I’m in an art museum.

The first gallery I enter is for modern and contemporary art, starting from the mid 1800s’s. The ceilings are high, the space is tense and silent, and it weights, hefty and papery. I note how I feel so hot and constrained-was it wise to direct such a fast-paced drug to such a slow paced activity? But I stopped and I breathed. I looked deeply at one of my favorite paintings, Eduard Charlemonts “The Moorish Chief” – A stunning and stark piece on canvas, such stark points of white, such glowing, simmering color. These were paints that Charlemont placed on this canvas nearly 150 years ago. To feel the weight of dimension across time and space was like a lazy wind weaving me throughout the rest of the room. I pressed on, each step growing acutely aware of the space I was taking up and interacting on the rest of the world. It was a deafening silence, with my ears gripping the tiniest traces of scenes they could latch on to. While it was initially hard to break the general sense of social anxiety, it was good to remind myself, no one here cares about you. Dissociatives tend to lock one into a solipsistic navigation of their surroundings but it was good to consciously ground and remind myself that everyone is just here for the art. I could dissociate, and render myself anonymous, a sort of golem for the world’s gaze to project upon, and that was okay. Sounds reverberated and bounced around in zig-zag staccatos, trailing and bouncing and weirding, but it was no bother to me. I was piloting the ship, with lush eyes, eager to take in the creative efforts of humanity.

 

T2:20- I am navigating confidently. I am pleasing myself with the visuals and tracers framing each piece. I am delighted by the epic of each display, all surrounded by so much empty space, so stark and heavy and well composed, perfectly encompassing itself and the room around it. It feels alive and in balance.

I come to one of my favorite rooms- Cy Twombly’s Masterpiece, 50 days at Iliam, a. This is one of my favorite works of art in the world, I remember the awe of seeing it on my first bicycle day celebration on LSD, now almost 12 years ago. In current with its placement in this neoclassical palace, this is truly something to behold, the Iliad, laid out with the vibrancy and energy of the first Homeric tellings of the tale around a grand fire, burning through eternity. The energy burnished through my bones and propelled into me mania, brassy and grand and golden. It felt glorious and divine, as it always had. Mania is a crazy thing. I sat down and just took several deep breaths. And continued to take deep breaths. It was glorious and energizing. And I am glad I could recognize the deluded magnanimity of that and like, chill, and take a step back. I am just a person at the art museum on PCP, and this was just very cool.

 

T2:35- I continued outwards through the rest of the modern wing. I became wrapped up in the throes of manically constructing the trajectory of my life and fantasizing about the heights I could achieve. I can no longer be present or mindful, I am sucked into this self centered daze where I am just so inwardly focused that I am only paying the most cursory attention to the art as I drift by it. The thoughts are almost entirely consumed with my ego. Real “I’m the protagonist” Megalomaniacal kind of thinking. Arrogance and deluded senses of grandeur. It’s a good thing no one could read my thoughts. But I was excited, confident, and euphoric.

I Saw Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. His struggles with his mental illness were intimately familiar to me, I had in fact once written a term paper on the matter for an art history class a lifetime ago. I felt reflective on my own travails with despair, desperation, and drastic self harm. I had admittedly drastically harmed myself recently the violent throes of a bipolar episode. I wondered what he was thinking when he cut off his ear. I wonder how similar it was to what I was thinking when I did this. I wondered about the drive to push past ones own reasonable boundaries to create, about sacrificing one’s own wellbeing for the act and devotion of creation, about the heavy costs of creation and the existential struggle to properly express oneself and be understood and appreciated. I miss creating things, I miss making art and painting-maybe it would just be more pain and suffering, maybe it would be liberating-It is always hard to be present. The dissociated mind tends to wander. All variety of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings I walk past glitter and simmer as I drift about enveloped in myself.

 

T3:00- I feel like the peak of the experience is beginning to recede. It’s losing some of its edge, its depth. I feel less like a mind adrift, now more like the rays of sun laid flat on the walls. Grounded. I am more aware of my body. I feel thirsty. I become caught in an odd sort of loop of half-committedly attempting to navigate across the museum to the water fountains-deciding I feel fine- going back- deciding no- I am anxious I am dehydrated what if I faint in public- anxiety pulses and I do indeed feel faint! I pace about the museum and finally get a big drink of water and carry on. I wonder how the staff must perceive me, nervously and redundantly jetting about. Whatever. There is serenity in the madness.

I go now through the arms and armor exhibit. Always one of my favorites. I love military history. I find the material history of weaponry to be fascinating. I had seen this exhibit so many times before and admittedly drifted through It fairly quickly. These objects spoke to me as craft, craft to be battered down, cleaving through flesh and bone, severed vessels suckering to cold steel, intricately engraved with florets and flutations, channels for blood to flow down, elegantly. That these objects of beauty would be dented and twisted and subject to desperate throes of force and hatred. I was glad that I was not doing medieval warfare, as much as I liked to engage in it in digital form, but it was stark and timeless to behold. I quickly shot out of this exhibit into the echoing lobby where they were setting up for some nighttime event.

 

T3:23- The golem is crumbling, I am definitely on a downturn of effects. The locked in confidence that propelled me through the museum before has collapsed and fallen away. Suddenly I am again very aware of the space I’m taking up. I’m aware of the tension of silence in every room. I am terrified of breaking it with the tiniest noises of motion and humanity. I am feeling a bit anxious. But I want to press on. I go to the middle-European gallery. I chose this one because this is the one visit the least when I come to this museum. There were beautiful replicated spaces here, it is exciting to feel dissociated and feel like you can travel through time in those exhibits. I felt myself aimlessly wandering, perceiving things very materially as they were, looking mostly at the craft more than the intention in every bit of art I’m looking at. I guess I am dissociated from the humanity of it a little bit, perhaps in this state, dissociated from humanity, the vast expressions of humanity clatter like rain on a tin roof on my wearying anxious eyes and it feels perhaps unfortunate? That I could see these things and feel them through time but only as material, and miss the deeper sublime connection to the human who created it, their passion and spirit. It is truly dissociation.

 

T:3:45- I am getting kinda exhausted. I am a bit anxious, and a bit thirsty. I think I just want to go home.  The Museum was still open for another few hours for a big public event. It was going to grow more crowded. I was growing more anxious and aware of myself. I wish I could’ve visited the Asian Galleries and stood in the mockups of the sacred and utilitarian spaces of various cultures that this Museum has as an immersive experience; Perhaps that is an adventure for another time*.

 

T:4:00- I pass a normal interaction getting my coat from the coat check and step outside into the February cold. It’s getting dark. There’s a dull orange glow over the city. I was on autopilot as I drifted back to the subway station.

 

T4:30- I have to purchase crickets to feed my pet arachnids on the way home. My interaction with the clerks at the pet store feels completely normal if a little awkward. I think I come off as wild-eyed and off balance. They probably just think I’m drunk.

I then wait for the subway. I am looking on my phone, catching up on the day’s news. The big story of the day was a public spat between AI company Anthropic and the Secretary of Defense over the implementation of autonomous weapons and AI mass surveillance. It felt like monumental news at the time- like one of the most consequential moments in modern history- taking a stand to avert what could be a potential existential threat, perhaps the first major cracks beginning to show between the technofascist elite and the presidency they had helped propel into existence. Everything feels like the biggest most important news story ever on PCP though, and of course, this decision would likely end up being inconsequential with the tightening grip of the coming Iran war. I was engrossed in my phone for much of the subway ride and don’t recall much about my surroundings at the time.

 

T5:00- Home now, still a little numb and lightheaded with some mania and stimulation lingering with force. It got much colder after the sun set.

 

T:6:00- I take a hot shower, It feels wonderful. Auditory effects which I thought had faded came out in full force in the shower, the sound of water clattering around me twanging and flanging off the walls, similar to the soundscape of a good hit of nitrous. It felt like having my head in a metal can that someone was drumming on, the sounds reverberating through my skull and pulsing through my eyes. It was stimulating and delightful. I step out feeling refreshed and warm. I realize after that I should’ve been careful with this- a hot shower could raise my body temperature even higher and the lingering numbness could’ve made me unaware that I was burning myself with too-hot water. But I was ok.

 

T6:30- Eat dinner. It’s just some leftover pasta and pesto. I don’t have a ton of appetite but I did feel pangs of hunger. Despite that I can only eat a little before feeling full.

 

T7:00- Lingering stimulation and mania, but the physical dissociation aspect has mostly worn off. All that’s left of bodily sensations is some muscle tension. There is still a sense of awkward mental dissociation but it might also just be fatigue from having my brain run on hot and high for so many hours.

 

T8:00- Feel back to baseline more or less.  

 

T14:00- Go to sleep. Despite feeling back to normal it was even more difficult than normal to fall asleep, with thoughts racing and my internal monologue now. Sleep came eventually after some restless tossing and turning.

 

 *This possibility would unfortunately be precluded as I am no longer using dissociatives.

Conclusion: Wow. Wow is all I can say. This may not be a common experience, as this drug is often consumed in tense, stressful and filthy situations, but PCP fills me with such a sense of beauty and wonder. What better place to indulge in beauty and wonder than a world class art museum! But I found myself disappointed. The beauty of PCP is deeply isolated and at times exclusive. It doesn’t always enmesh well with external beauty. And certainly much of what I saw was truly beautiful in a resonant way that embraced deeper meaning, but something was missing, I felt like I was seeing many pieces for what they simply were physically, without feeling any connection to the human, the humans that sought to express themselves in this way, the emotions and subtext underlying each piece. I just couldn’t find it. A psychedelic would allow me to do so in spades. But it was wonderful for appreciating craftsmanship, like in the arms and armor exhibit, or in seeing every precisely placed brushstroke in each painting. Disappointingly, I also found it hard to stay mindful and present and really engage with and focus on the art to the degree I wanted to. I kept getting caught in manic loops and fantasies of grandeur, and kind of wandered the galleries in a solipsistic daze where I was so inwardly focused I just barely glossed over the art. I am not sure if dissociatives are really meant for art museums except perhaps for some historical exhibits. Perhaps visiting an anthropology museum that taps into the imagination would be more fruitful. Nevertheless, I thought this would be a fun spin on the museum dose, and most of all I wanted to demonstrate that a person can be on PCP in a very formal, peaceful public setting and not cause a scene or freak out and attack people. When taken in a controlled manner, it is merely another way to enhance and alter the way one experiences the world around them.