DOSE:

oral

Cannabis

(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

134 lb

The cardiophobe mantra is as follows : Fear that you have incurred cardiac damage induces tachycardia, which increases fear that you have incurred cardiac damage, which induces tachycardia....ad infinitum. I have long been a hypochondriac about my myocardial rhythms, and I tend to engage in pointless loops of thought that I am suffering from a pulmonary attack every time I eat a higher dose of an amphetaminergic psychostimulant, but I usually brush off such pointless speculations as mere cardiac-related anxiety. However, I once ate so much of a hyper-potent Cannabis infused brownie that I assumed I was having a stroke, at the venerable age of 19.

This brownie was concocted in front of my very eyes by one of my botany-enthusiast cum edible Cannabis baker acquaintances. She had just harvested an entire bin bag's worth of Cannabis leaves from her newly felled pistillate Cannabis indica plant, with each leaf dripping in golden sappy trichomal secretions, proceeded to heat them in an oven to induce Δ9-THC-acid decarboxylation to the infamous, and psychoactive, Δ9-THC, and then mixed in a pot of lipohillic coconut oil to make a bryophillic ooze. This was then incorporated in to a brownie mixture and baked.

Lets actuate to some time closer to the present day. I had just finished my university lectures for that week and desired to be immersed in to a vacuous state of consciousness to relieve myself of the immense strain my cerebrum was under due to the intense knowledge accumulation I had just underwent, and thus ate a 6 inch by 3 inch piece of this culinary delight. Within roughly 25 minutes my eptitude at conversation vanished and I was immersed in to a comatose stupor. I offered my housemates some brownie pieces to which they promptly accepted with glee, totally unaware of its enriched cannabinoid content. Here my recollection begins to fade, but to keep it brief, I began to hear a distinct systolic squelching coming from the left side of my chest and decided to evacuate from the kitchen to my bedroom, in search of some mild anxiolysis. I curled in to my bed and made a glance to my wall, to which I could see a pixelated turtle begin to crawl upwards towards the ceiling which hypnotised me into a psychedelicized coma. Thoughts of testudines slowly encroached my mind, Stephen King's Maturin turtle-deity, the World Turtle mytheme, sea turtles choking on ineffectual amounts of plastic cunnilingus devices (straws)...was Stephen King right? Was this the end of my human consciousness, to be approached by Maturin to signify my departure in to the eternal cosmic siesta? The turtle had no answers, so I began to write in my journal. My mind was in an infantile state of hebetude, proven by the fact that my writing took the form of that of a 5 year old, cognition was severely impaired to the extent that verbal coherence was a mere afterthought.

After this brief conjecture, my cardiac rhythm became violent and irregular, my mouth totally numb, coupled with intense dysgeusia as though someone had inserted pure aluminium in to my taste buds. I scrambled for my laptop, almost unable to see due to some tachycardia-induced astigmatism in my eyeballs, and searched for the NHS helpline frantically whilst filling in a questionnaire about my current state of health. Once this form had been filled, a warning sign appeared on my screen declaring that I should call 999 immediately as I had clear symptoms of a stroke. Using my innermost strength, I stumbled to the communal kitchen and alerted the hominids that I live with that I was having a stroke. One of them is studying for a medical degree and used his stethoscope to monitor my heart rate.

180 BPM, OH DEAR.

The medicine man escorted me to my bedroom and instructed me to engage in some kundalini-type breathing exercises, this didn't work, I could practically see my veins bulge with every heartbeat, the pain was immeasurable, there was a total numbness on the left hand side of my body, this was my death, I had no time to contemplate on my life's memories, my fucking ventricles were about to explode. I called my mum who gave me some valuable advice that I should probably stop using modafinil and 4-fluoromethylphenidate every day and do some exercise and maybe gain a few pounds of muscle, but this advice was too late, I can't make life changes after I'm dead, or so I thought. The cardiac squelching continued indefinitely, my heart felt like a sponge trying to forcibly contract viscous cruor around my cholestrol-soaked vascular system.

SQUELCH SQUELCH SQUELCH SQUELCH.

The medicine man decided not to call an ambulance as he was stoned and thought that the paramedics would drug test him, detect trace quantities of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol in his urine and remove him from his prestigious medical degree, and I was too hebetudinous to articulate a response back, so instead I had to walk to the hospital myself the next morning.

I CAN'T FEEL THE LEFT SIDE OF MY FACE, HELP ME.

As a Persian adage once said, 'This too shall pass', and so did this cannabinoidal, hypochondriac heart-attack festivus. My hepatic cytochrome P450 2C9 enzymes kicked in to action and metabolised the pesky Δ9-THC and 11-OH-THC in to the excretable 11-COOH-THC, and my heart rate approached a manageable norm once again the next morning. After conversing with my housemates, they alerted me that one of them had consumed half the amount of brownie that I ingested and underwent a violent episode of emesis, or as some refer to as a 'whitey'.

To take away from this experience, one should not forget the intimate connection between thought and unconscious bodily processes. It can become immensely easy to trick yourself into a positive feedback loop that you are dying whilst impregnated with psychedelic substances, which can manifest itself in to rather frightening bodily responses that reinforce the notion that you are, indeed, dying when in actuality, they are merely self-perpetuating anxieties. I have not consumed edible Cannabis since this experience, and neither do I particularly want to. Having the cognitive stamina of a five year old is not something I want to experience again, and my heart biotransforming into a contractile sponge is deeply unsettling.

Exp Year: 2021	ExpID: 115354
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Apr 12, 2021	Views: 1,366
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Cannabis (1) : Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)