I lay there on one elbow on the ground, trying to get control of my mind and what was happening within it. Everything surrounding me seemed to hum, and my body as well. The fuzziness in my face became more intense and my vision so restricted that it became like a tunnel. The buzzing in my ears grew much louder and I became more fearful (fearful may not be the right word, as I believe my body was going into shock). As I tried to regain self-control, I focused my concentration on the grassy ground before me, but it did nothing to expel the alarm; instead, I snapped past that moment of normal hearing to experience, once again, my friend’s jumbled words.

Sliding further from self-control, I let go and allowed the happening to take over. The buzzing in my ears intensified even more, and I felt this buzzing turn into a pulse of energy running through me from the top of my head down to my feet, pulling at me. Then, within moments, the buzzing turned into streams of this energy, continuing like waves through my body. As they intensified, a light from somewhere inside and above me, started to accompany the waves. Wave after wave continued and increased, till they almost became a steady stream of energy and light. My sight became flashes of intense white, similar to the pages of a book fluttering before my eyes.

With no control at all, I went along for the ride till I came to an abrupt stop and stood before a great funnel of grass-like material. I stood and looked below me through this funnel to the silhouette and outline of my body, still leaning on one elbow – there was no visual reference to the park beyond.

Thinking “What the heck?!” I looked about me to an expansive translucent field of grass that extended down from where I stood and passed by me to my prone body. It was as if the funnel was an extension of the silhouette. My mind was clear, more clear than I had ever experienced before. At this time, I felt no effects of the drugs. I was completely sober, and with no fear – in fact it felt like I belonged there.

Bewildered, but feeling at home, I stood erect and raised my head to look up to the stars above me in the dark sky. I felt a gentle breeze against my face, and heard an audible hum. It was a vibration that seemed to permeate through everything. It almost sounded like the drone of distant machinery. Everything around me appeared to be misty, but not in the sense of fog, but of gentle light. I felt peaceful and feared for nothing.

Looking back to the top of the funnel from where I stood, which stretched off into forever, I again experienced the waves of light and energy and then immediately stood further along the extent of the expanse and looked down to where my body had been. The grass-covered field stretched before me into infinity.

As I stood at the top of this open field of grass, I was now more aware of my physical form and could feel the gentle vibration that ran through my body as an integral part of my very being. This vibrational hum, that I had become a part of, was not restrictive but seemed an extension of myself and all that surrounded me. It reinforced my sense of belonging.

Looking down to my fingers and the backs of my hands, I recognized them as being my own. Turning them over, I looked at the lines in my palms, and then turned them back again to view the bluish veins that ran beneath my skin.  I then looked down at my naked feet, and was aware of the fine grass and how it felt – warm and alive. Each individual blade was recognizable and was luminous on its own and gently undulated in a gentle breeze. Wisps of my hair blew against my cheek and further reinforced my sense of reality and cognizance. Looking to the sky again, the stars appeared bright, and I recognized them as being familiar amid the clear darkness that was the universe.

Reflecting on the funnel again, I noticed a figure of a tall man standing at its crest, although there was no definition of the tunnel’s crest being as such, for it all flowed smoothly into one. He was like a statue of myself with the figure “4” worn as a breast plate. He did not move or notice me, and stood as if to guard the area of which I was a part. There appeared to be a huge translucent wall behind him, that was high and long, and stretched into infinity like an endless horizon, but I could still see the stars above it. Everything was luminescent, emanating its own source of light, soft and gentle.

As I looked around without fear, my sense of self-awareness kicked in and I began questioning my being there. Within an instant, I was a small speck of consciousness at the feet of a great seated being (a little ant before the great sphinx of Egypt would be a way to describe it). I was something, yet nothing. I looked up at Him from my great distance, and felt I was on one side of a barrier; He was on the other. I had no feeling of fear, only being overwhelmed, but in a nice way. As I looked up, I could not see the face of the being, but only an immense brilliance of light that burst in all directions and culminated in the colours of white, red, and blue. I felt that I knew Him, and when He focussed on me, from His immensity, I felt nothing but acceptance and love.

I remember little after that, but had the impression of many things happening all at once just outside my sphere of consciousness. I do remember standing at the rear of a great expanse of sitting people. There was someone far to the front which appeared to be a magistrate of sorts. Then, I was back standing in the field of grass, looking from the top of the funnel, the breeze blowing gently on my face, and wondering, once again, what in the heck was going on. I stood for some time, relaxed and looking at the wonderous sight about me. There was no sense of passing time. The vibration of all that existed about me felt a part of me, and I began to wonder again at this condition.

Immediately, my head filled with light and energy, and I was travelling through the intense flashes of light again. Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, the vibration slowed down, and I found myself looking at the grass of the park that was before my prone body. The buzzing in my ears wound down till it sounded like a vinyl record being manipulated by a DJ. Voices sounded unfamiliar and slowed till everything was frozen in time.

Feeling completely out of sorts and bewildered, I slowly got to my feet and stood before my friends on the grass who were motionless. As I looked beyond them, the trees and office buildings in the close distance seemed to be covered with a transparent greenish veil. All I could think about was getting home, so I started to walk toward a corridor of light by the park’s edge; it turned out to be a stairwell to an underground parking lot.

Once inside, I began walking to the far side toward a car ramp that led up to the street level. There was a noise above my head that was totally deafening and seemed to be crushing my thoughts within my skull. (Days later, I determined this to be the huge fans operating to remove car exhaust from the covered garage.)

Entering the open air was a relief, and I began to breathe more easily. As I walked along Dufferin Street, the artificial light from the streetlamps was causing my eyes to react strangely. As I passed each light stand, trails of their exact profile followed in slow motion. Every object I passed had the same effect and it seemed as if I was walking through a form of liquid that I was submersed in.

Every step I took, the vibration of my heels hitting the cement sidewalk echoed up through the bones in my ankles to the top of my head. It was like listening to the reverberations of an echo. Eventually, the thumping echo became sounds and syllables that morphed into a mantra. This continued resounding in my skull till I eventually reached home.

All the while, as I had walked the several kilometers to my home, I watched in my consciousness, as a small sparkle of bright light slowly grew from a speck in the distance. I don’t know how it was possible, but it was if I had no top to my head, and it was open to the sky above. I could watch all that surrounded me and felt every spark of energy and flicker of the overhead lights. I was aware of every star in the sky.

As I kept walking, the growing sparkle of light continued to descend upon me. The closer it got, the pressure of its descension weighed upon me till it felt as if a hat were being placed upon my head. The light turned into a disc as it got closer. This disc got large enough for me to recognize it as a multi-petalled flower falling like a leaf on a cushion of air. The flower became brighter and was white, but also emanated other colours of blue and violet around its edges. It got so large, that the flower almost suppressed my vision, and sat so huge upon me, that it stretched in all directions to an endless horizon. (Remnants of it remain to this day, and I’m 70 now.)

At some point as the flower rested on me, I began to notice that my vision was beginning to clear. The greenish veil that had overshadowed everything was lifting. The buzzing in my head was diminishing. The trails that followed every object that I had passed were becoming less obvious (but still continue in some form to this day).

It seemed to take me forever to walk home. By the time I got home and climbed the stairs to my parents’ apartment, my heart was pounding so furiously that, if I had not been a healthy teenager of 15 years old, I am sure it would have burst. I laid on the linoleum floor before the door of the apartment, scared, trying to find the courage to enter. A light from somewhere above bathed me, and I slept. Hours later when I awoke, I had the strength and courage to turn the key.