A Brush with Death and Total Confusion

Datura

Citation: The Trickster. "A Brush with Death and Total Confusion: An Experience with Datura (exp75193)". Erowid.org . Mar 26, 2009. erowid.org/exp/75193

DOSE:

4 shots oral Datura (tea)

BODY WEIGHT: 185 lb

My memories of this event are patchy at best, but through talking to the people involved Ive patched them together in a logical order. I came very close to death and I do not reccomend datura as a recrational drug, though having survived the experience it was terrifying, incredible, and life changing. I still have trouble dealing with the emotions I experience when I look back on it. This document is perhaps a theraputic tool I am using to deal with it once and for all. All names have been changed.Philadelphia, Thanksgiving break, junior year of high school. My best friend (and, as of 2008, my wife) Amanda slept over my house. We were big potheads at the time but had never experimented with anything else. We woke up early to go to our friend Jeremiah's house because he grew weed and we wanted to celebrate the break by smoking all day. I drank a beer I stole from my dad on the way there.When we got there, a strange smell filled the house. His parents were away, and he had a pot of a strange amber liquid on the stove. Jeremiah was an interesting kid. He appeared to be a run of the mill street thug, but he was very interested in botany. He would see plants in peoples yards and he would know their latin name and all these facts about them. When we got there, we asked him what the stuff was. He called it datura loco. I had never heard of it. He said he got the seeds on the internet and planted it and made a 'tea' from its seeds. He told me it had similar affects to weed, which was quite false. We smoked a blunt, but I was still intrigued. We hung out for a while, and decided to go to Amandas house and watch a movie.Before we left, I asked Jeremiah for some of the datura tea. He put about 4 shot glasses worth in an empty water bottle and we left. On the way to Amandas house, I drank it all. The dose was for both of us, but Amanda didn't want any, so I drank it all. It was the worst tasting thing ever, but I forced myself to drink it all. We arrived at her house and sat down to watch a movie. She put on herbie fully loaded. Luckily, I dont remember any of it. Some time through the movie, I felt extremly thirsty. Since it was autumn, I poured myself a glass of apple cider. It was difficult to drink. Every time I took a sip, I felt like my throat was closing up. I tried to drink it but my thirst would not be quenched. We sat a little longer, then I began feeling very uncomfortable. I had to pee. I got up and went to the bathroom and nothing would come out. I stayed there for about ten minutes but could not pee. I decided to ignore it and I went back to the couch.After the movie, our friend Samantha came to take us to our friend Rob's house to smoke more. By the time she arrived, I was speaking mostly nonsense. I felt like I was talking normally, but neither of them could understand, so it was kind of frustrating. We got in Sam's car. On the ride I thought I was smoking a cigarette, but I kept dropping it and then I wouldnt be able to find it. This would continue for the next three days. We got to Rob's house and they all smoked another blunt. They didn't give me any, but I didnt notice, I was still smoking my imaginary cigarettes and speaking gibberish. I went into Rob's bathroom and tried to pee again. In my mind I still couldn't pee. From what I found out later, I actually peed all over the floor and the walls. I also took all of his family's toothbrushes and put them in my pocket. I do not know why. They all went outside to smoke another blunt and I did too. As they were smoking, I wandered away and they found me about an hour later in a neighbor's yard talking to a pine tree. I do not remember why.This is where my memory gets better. We left robs house and went to a party at my friend John's house. Again, I smoked imaginary cigarettes the whole way there. I had no idea who I was, where I was, or who I was with and I had given up communicating because no one could understand me. When we got there, a lot of my friends were there, and John's mom, who I had known since kindergarden. It was his birthday and there were ballons. The ballons moved around and seemed to follow me. Their shape shifted between squares, circles, and triangle. I continued to smoke imaginary cigarettes. At first no one noticed my state because I was keeping quiet, I was standing in the corner because I was afraid of the balloons. John's mom saw me and came over to talk. She asked me about college, and I replied. To me I gave her a logical answer, but to her I was still speaking gibberish. She knew I was on something and took me to my parents, who in turn took me to the hospital.This is where it gets messy.On the walk back to my parents house, each piece of sidewalk I stepped on seemed to shatter away. I was terrified because I didnt want to fall through but jolts of electricity ran through me when I tried to run. My parents were panicked and rushed me to the hospital because they didnt even know I smoked weed at the time. When I got to the hospital, they took me right away. To me the doctors and nurses looked like monsters and I kept trying to get out of my chair and run. They had to physically restrain me. I didnt even recognize my parents at this point. When they got a bed for me, they held me down and took my clothes off. I fought them as best I could, but any fast movement would send a shock of electricity through my body. I punched and kicked the nurses a few times but was unsuccessful in my attempt to escape. Eventually they calmed me down. One of the doctors told me he was a wizard and had a magic potion to cure me. He handed me a cup of black liquid and told me to drink it. It was charcoal to pump my stomach, which was futile because it had been hours since I took it. I gulped the drink and vomited everywhere.Fast forward a little, no memory. Apparently at this point my kidneys were shutting down, so they had to put a tube in my penis so that I could pee. That was not fun at all. I remember screaming alot and trying to fight, but I was tied down.Fast forward a little more. I was now in a different room. Chewbaca was next to my bed. I was tied to the bed still and all sorts of i.v.s were in me. I kept trying to rip them out so they had to put a lot of tape on them. Again, the imaginary cigarette came back. I smoked it for a while, then dropped it in my sheets. I tried to look for it, but instead I found the stick shift from my car. I looked up and I was driving down the street all of the sudden. I drove for a while and then went to hit the breaks, but they were gone. I kicked my feet but the sheets were covering them. Then I was back in the hospital room. I looked at the small fan in the room and a strange miniature girl was crouched behind it staring at me. I was scared of her and told chewbaca to take the fan out, and he did. I found out later chewbaca was my dad.Next thing I knew, I was in Amanda's dorm room smoking a bowl like I had been a few weeks ago. All of the same people were there, and that day replayed itself almost entirely. Then I was back in the hospital bed. This vision of the dorm room and the vision of driving my car kept happening over and over, interspersed with being in the hospital bed next to chewbaca. The whole time I kept dropping the imaginary cigarette I was smoking.Three days later, I woke up in the hospital bed feeling like I was hit by a train. I still had the pee tube and was hooked up to i.v.s. I had only a few memories of the past 4 days but they made no sense to me. As I write this, I realize again how patchy the memory is. My parents were there, and explained to me what happened. They called Amanda to find out what I took. They told me my kidneys stopped working for almost two days and just now were working again and my heart rate jumped from dangerously low to dangerously high over and over. The doctors gave me a 50% chance of survival. I spent the next day in i.c.u. before they release me. I was extremely weak for the next 5 or 6 days and they made me go to a drug councelor.Over the next three years I did many drugs heavily and developed some serious problems. Any time I did acid or shrooms I would see that small girl behind the fan and it creeped the hell out of me. 8 months ago, I went to jail and then to rehab, and I have not used drugs since then. Datura was the first step in a long road of drug abuse, and looking back I wish it scared be straight. I still wish I remembered more of what happened, but maybe its best I dont.