I worked on MKUltra as a scientist. I was to administer the patient with a selected dose of dimethyltryptamine or lysergic acid diethylamide and observe the reactions, as the Central Intelligence Agency believed it might be effective in producing a tool for mind control. Indeed, this much you likely know, for the documents have since been declassified, but there are secret elements the CIA would not dare let out. Most notably, certain patients, generally already under some aberrant psychological distress, produced peculiar physical anomalies on their own body during the use of dimethyltryptamine. Higher doses could lead to mere derangement, but unusual events transpired at times, such as the presence of lacerations on the skin of a young college student or the growth of a sort of algal bloom within the skin. These anomalies were never written in a physical record, and any mentions were to be put to sleep immediately.

Due to the fact that the substances generally made our subjects unruly and unpredictable, the powerful psychological agent was decided to be of little use for controlling the mind. The patients could not even be trusted to accurately or entirely explain their hallucinations, and so the project was abandoned. However, I have kept experimenting, this time using my own body. I’ve retained the samples of dimethyltryptamine, specifically those extracted from the pineal gland of dying individuals and the machine which was intended to stabilize brain waves during the, at times frightening, experiences of the subject but which also let to the highest externalization of physical phenomena, such as the lacerations.

The first time I administered a small dose of dimethyltryptamine, I took notes on the experience following my release from the psychic prison. There, slumped over a desk amidst the crumbling gray walls of the frigid edifice I call a laboratory, I faded from consciousness and into a space of abstract color, of sounds which cannot be interpreted by human ears. I can recall being encompassed by something, a bright twilight, stars of darkness. Honestly, despite my notes, there is little of the experience I retain. I sat in that chair as what can only be described as the apex of death gripped me, eventually vacating my brain leaving me dehydrated and exhausted but no closer to the secret of those physical aberrations that transcended the psychological space of consciousness.

Notably, however, I had failed to connect the quivering skin of my temples to the electrodes which drew from the peculiar machine of switches and tubes that appeared to do little once the central power source was awakened. I decided to remain at the selected dose, as I sat in that nameless graveyard of offices and laboratories, vacated as the CIA turned their vicious eyes towards a new form of dominion. Although the machine was merely intended for use as a stabilizer, to make the experience more manageable and allow for readings of the brain, I recalled the pustules which formed on a late patient who had been administered with a heavy dose of dimethyltryptamine and attached to the electrodes, the pulsating bubbles of skin wriggling with something alive inside. Her family had been compensated and sworn to secrecy. I did not want to subject myself, immediately, to a fate which would ruin the experiment and drag me towards the grave.

I began the second experiment by attaching those wires, lined with shimmering rings of electrodes to my forehead, their tiny hooks grappling the flesh as the machine reached its tendril wires towards me. The hollow graveyard of the abandoned laboratory loomed dark and foreboding as its crumbling stone walls cast their ambivalent faces towards me. I administered the dose, the dimethyltryptamine on my tongue, shrink-wrapping itself around the moistened flesh. My eyes contracted, receded within me, and widened at once, bringing me far from the laboratory and towards a world I cannot explain nor identify within the various echelons of our universe.

At first it was merely jumbled, the array of colors tormenting my fragile mind, but quickly, as I could hear the whirrs of that mysterious machine, I was able to view the scene before me, shocked in horror and awe at that world which is so unlike our own, but rests nearby assuredly. It was a great expanse, rolling hills of shimmering grass, crystalline forms surrounding a perfect image of those offices, those laboratories, abandoned by the CIA but there before me as I watched from the perspective of a disembodied narrator. The stone, metal, and assorted other materials which made up the secreted home of the MKUltra experiments had been inserted absurdly within the surreal expanse that surrounded it.

From there, a population of shrouded forms began to emerge, something in the grass. Then, too, a single form emerged from the derelict laboratory, devoid of even my own existence. I could not see them, initially, but as something within my winding brain began to emerge, my perspective shifted. No longer was I viewing the scene from above, as in a dream, but instead my eyes were parallel to that thing which emerged, intrinsically connected to myself though it bore no similarity in appearance. I was gazing alongside it, at the oncoming group, which appeared just as it did, something unspeakable, the body reduced to its purest forms, amoebas or mollusks or a tangle of weeds, coated in mucus. Translucent but of discernable form, transparent slugs with an amalgamation of nervous system, tendriled arms of a slime whose inner workings replicated a mass of writhing centipedes. The things were not definite, but they were cemented in space. I hollered, and awoke.

The machine was alive with sounds and movements within, though it quickly quieted as I tore the electrodes from my temple and attempted to grapple with the suddenly memorable horror of what I had seen. I stared down at my skin, searching my arms for examples of physical aberrations brought on by the presence of the hallucination which encompassed me as I lay in that trance state, affixed to the machine. Thankfully, there was nothing of import, merely some marks where I had dug the back of my wrists into the chair while possessed by that peculiar substance which I sought to further study.

I was once more alone in those dreary catacombs of scientific research, hollowed and abandoned by the CIA though I remained steadfast. I had left, after the experiment, to seek food from a nearby town, briefly exiting in my car which lay beyond the dense, impenetrable thicket which was connected to the outside world only by a novel pathway which had been carved within the vegetation as a means to allow employees to move beyond the buffer. Of course, there had once been all manner of security which separated the laboratories, the central locus of the MKUltra experiments from the public, but since the organization had vacated and the premises became a hollow corpse of what it once was, few cared enough to even approach the thicket. Intrigue and desire had left with the rest of the scientists, businessmen and assorted employees. Only I was left.

Of course, I had a home, but I was finding myself spending longer and longer hours pouring over the intangible expressions of my dimethyltryptamine experience. I slept in the laboratory that day, on a cot I had found in a supply closet the agency had not cared enough to empty. Though, initially, I was repulsed by the idea of returning myself to the inexplicable world of that drug-induced trance state, my curiosity began to overwhelm me, and by the next morning, I found it inevitable that I reattach myself to the machine and increase the dose of the dimethyltryptamine so that I might further explore the experience which comes with the profound psychological manipulation of such a substance.

As the sun rose behind the windows of the stony corpse, flanked by greenery, I returned to the desk, to the machine, and lifted those electrodes as though possessed by a force entirely outside of my usual agency. I brought those tiny hooks to my temple once more, securing them in the flesh, and prepared the slightly greater dose of the dimethyltryptamine for consumption, my tongue instinctively retracting upon my brain’s sight of the substance, evoking memories of my second administering of the drug. I wondered how it impacted my brain, perhaps swelling my pineal gland as I felt an initial hallucination of movement within my skull, the swelling of a bulb deep within. I prepared myself and consumed the substance, attempting to ignore the fact of its necrotic origin as it once more began to take hold of my psyche.

I could feel the phenomenon in my face as the various pieces of my nervous system contracted and expanded, my pupils wide as the thing pulsed within my brain. More quickly, then, and more intensely, I was brought from my seat in the laboratory and towards that same world which I had seen before. Repetition of hallucinations is purportedly unlikely, though I can confirm that there was an eerie similarity immediately felt profoundly upon my third descent into the madness of the substance.

Indeed, there I was, in the laboratory, though I sat as an untethered conscience looking both through and at the incomprehensible animal which I described, the translucent creature fraught with veins and bulbous organs. The scene was identical to that which I had experienced prior to administering the substance, though instead of my normal body slumped over among the grey, it was that peculiar thing. It, or, perhaps, we, rose from the chair as our collective eyesight turned to the windows, no longer displaying greenery but a lonesome expanse of shifting, crystalline substrate illuminated by the invisible source of the pinkish, glowing light cast upon the landscape.

This hallucination, or, experience, was notably longer than that initial hallucination on the machine, and so I am able to more clearly describe that which emanated from that terror of the psyche. The creature, audible in its mucinous shambling, exited the broad, rusted door which separated the replication of the laboratories from the inexplicable expanse that surrounded it. We were moving then, suddenly quickly, and though others of its kind emerged from the great stalks of static that surrounded us, the creature’s movement was precise and intentional. That body double, my hideous reflection, clearly intended to complete some objective, and my vision sped parallel to its winding appendages.

It was nearly an hour into the hallucination, which felt mere minutes within the manipulated expanse of my changing mind, that I began to fade away from that creature to which I was so intrinsically bound and drift outwards, the once visible expanse shifting into an array of color and light which could not be understood as any physical locus in the expanse of space. I struggled, attempted to anchor myself in the darkness which surrounded me, and awoke in the laboratory in a cold sweat, veins coursing and pulsing as though they were winding, moving beneath my flesh. After several minutes of abject terror, the substance released itself from my system as I once more tore the electrodes from my head. My arms, at last, settled, and I stood heaving in that lonely isolation of vacant laboratories and unmanned offices.

I began to attempt to analyze my findings, for I figured these peculiar experiences were no experiment if I didn’t attempt to discover something about the situation. I thought back to that creature I had just been tethered to psychologically, my beastly reflection of amorphous slime. I recalled German psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s notes on the subconscious animal spirit, the beast which the primitive man finds himself connected to, tethered to. The creature which, in certain forms of traditional magic, the primitive is said to be able to transform into. I thought of the Gnostics, whose soul was divided into two forms, in the texts male and female, but I wondered if perhaps this animal conscience, this other aspect of my spirit, might merely be manifesting itself in this hallucinated realm.

I was eager to conduct the experiment again at a marginally higher dosage of the dimethyltryptamine, hoping to remain in that world long enough to study my alternate, the unnamable thing with which I shared my spirit. I recalled its impossible features, the winding tendrils and transient eyes, the bulging entrails which seemed the only consistent aspect of its appearance. Perhaps it was man as an isolated spirit, free from the boundaries of the material, or perhaps something else entirely. I was only sure of my desire to return to the place in which I had seen it, the crystalline forms which sprawled out along the isolated edifice of the laboratories. I brought the substance to my tongue, entwined myself within the electrodes, and allowed the dimethyltryptamine to consume my conscience.

Yet again I awoke in the laboratory, now entirely that thing itself, maneuvering my winding appendages over the dull tile floor and past the flaking paint of the doors, beyond the rusted entrance which separated the building in which I stood from the grand expanse of shimmering forms which were not determinate nor entirely describable. I would liken some of the ecosystem to be digitally generated fractals, to the pollen dust of flowers, to the beating hearts of crystalline caves. The landscape transformed as I, in the body of that form world’s denizen, crept over undulating hills and towards the purple hue of the unseen sun, setting then. I could see in the distance some great tubular forms which cascaded into the earth, their many eyes barely visible in the late evening’s haze.

Yet I, that creature from beyond, would not relent, would not cease to traverse the dreamworld. I did not see others of my kind then, as I had in the earlier hallucination, but I did manage to explore numerous biomes, all equally uncertain and inexplicable, as I moved along upon my many jellied limbs.

I awoke from the hallucination, hours having passed, in a trance state upon the chair. Initially, I was merely dazed, but recoiled in horror as I saw long, threadlike forms cascading beneath my arms, like long blue worms prying to pierce my pallid skin. Unsure of reality, I banged my wrists upon the desk, pain cascading out across my bones briefly as I brought myself from that delusion and saw my arms unchanging, though the wires within the machine writhed and its inner trappings whirred as the electrodes on my temple pulsed bright with luminescence. Was the experience externalizing, as it had for those other poor patients, or was I merely succumbing more and more to the effects of this potent dimethyltryptamine? Though I had just previously experienced an unearthly terror, my disembodied drive to continue the experience had grown fiercer with every minute I lay in catatonia, my conscience melded with my platonic spirit double in that other realm.

My forays into this world of the spirit double proved potentially to be an exquisite investigation, explaining phenomena such as coincidence and deja vu in some and paranoid schizophrenia in others. If I could concretely prove some reality rested in the assumed hallucinations I experienced under the influence of the dimethyltryptamine I could entirely alter the course of psychology, psychoanalysis, return to the agency perhaps, in hopes of improving our national knowledge. Yet, as it stood there, I was merely a formerly government quack immersing his mind in a substance sourced from the pineal gland of the deceased. I decided to sleep on the cot again, as I had not indebted myself to any woman.

I awoke and immediately decided to continue my experiments with the substance. What once had been curiosity had transformed into a necessary drive to experience myself within that other world. The machine whirred invitingly as I connected its electrodes to my temples, the hooks becoming one with the superficial layer of flesh. I administered the dimethyltryptamine instinctively, entirely unconscious through the process as my pupils expanded and a brightness dawned before me.

Instead of being at the laboratory, I had resumed my former place in that world upon psychic reentry. Yet, still, as I maneuvered my appendages, phantasmal and mucinous, the entire world felt more alive, more tangible, more real. No longer did it matter if what I experienced was delusion or dream, for it had become real nonetheless. If, at one point, I was merely imagining myself as present in that shimmering world of intangible forms, I had willed it into reality, had kneaded together the two until the difference was insignificant. If that world had not existed before, it existed then. I sped forwards, unconsciously sure of my path, ripping through the scintillating wind of color and shine. I fell forward, into an abyss.

When I once more could see, I remained in the body of my double, untethered by material existence, having traveled in ways that my mortal brain could never comprehend. Yet, there I stood, a mass of shifting gelatin, looking out at the expanse of concentric circles, bright white in the violet storm. Something shone in the distance, an immense effulgence, the intricacies of which I could not discern. Once more that horror coupled with awe reconfigured itself, for I could feel in my neurons an immense power of ancient nature around which the plane revolved. Perhaps in the fields of static I was alone, but now I bowed a metaphorical tendril to whatever grew before me. As I neared it, inching on, I attempted to reach my unseen objective, but I awoke too soon.

I reached for the electrodes as I returned to my place in the derelict structure, but no longer could I remove that band. The metal had truly melded with my flesh, the electrodes cementing themselves beneath my thinning skin, visible in the mirror near the desk. More horrible still were my arms, for those vessels I had imagined had truly externalized, reaching themselves from beneath my epidermis and kneading themselves together with the trailing wires of the howling machine, the biological joining the synthetic. Whatever had transpired there, within the dream state, the delusion, had torn the first seam in the unacknowledged wall between realities. The world of my delusion, free of flesh, had become as real as the material plane to which I found myself bound at that very moment. My subconscious animal spirit had woven itself into space.

I was able to pace around the laboratory as the vessels extended themselves seamlessly from within my skin, avoiding the trickle of blood I had expected. It seemed the machine issued me some form of freedom, but still tethered me to itself, to the world I had created. I attempted to resist, but I could not tear from my arms the wires, and soon came to accept them there. If anything, I was more intrinsically connected to this other realm which had revealed itself in my subconscious, and I suddenly hungered for the substance, wishing for a return in a shift of mood uncharacteristic of my usual disposition. Once more I accepted the communion of the dimethyltryptamine, returning to the world into which my mind had been sewn.

There I stood, among the storm, entirely one with the creature so much so that I did not acknowledge any presence but that which bloomed before me, weaving itself upon the plane like a tangle of vines, vessels, wires. I saw it then. Luminescent with a clear epidermal layer, an immense web of cnidarian arms which extended from a disc-like apex whose intricacies cannot be seen by any creature which hopes to spare its mind. A deity, or something approximate, the god which the philosopher seeks and the prophet interprets. Something so immense, so grandiose that it cannot be explained, nor seen in its entirety. I had been chosen, somehow, a witness to the creator. I extended my arms in awe, a gesture to that which had begun to consume that world within a world within a hypnagogic hallucination.

Since this time, our reality has entirely been merged with that which developed in my mind, under the guidance of the substance and its associated, paradoxical appliance. I am, indeed, still connected to the machine, intrinsically, so that every vessel and strand of connective tissue has joined its wire correspondent. I am free to write this, and wander the halls, but I cannot stray too far from that which roots me in this world, or in another. I suppose any distinction between the two concepts has become entirely meaningless.

However, the machine is not itself, for within it glows a great presence, that luminescence coursing beneath its tangle of now-translucent wires. Deus ex machina. God from a machine. I am that being’s center in this world. If it is an angel, then I am its throne. If it a deity, then I am its aeon. We are intrinsically connected, and any attempt to leave its hidden center would be meaningless, though I am sure the brightness has caused my former agency, along with many others, to secure the area in such a way I could not escape if God had permitted.

However, much to my intrigue, I am not alone in the expanse of grey which surrounds me, the awesome presence of God itself notwithstanding. I had brought forth something else from that other world, willed entirely into existence in such an event of externalization that none of our MKUltra studies could have anticipated its possibility. There, in the laboratory, wandering the endless cookie-cutter halls, is the creature which had embodied me within that landscape, entirely parallel to my psyche.

When I descend into that other place, a more perfect, beautiful, horrific world, I find myself compelled to gather scraps of the landscape, an isolated strand of static or clump of fractal grass. When I awake, no longer in service of the substance, but the deity itself, I find my double there before me, holding whatever I had collected under the direction of sourceless psychic compulsions in its formless extension of gelatinous matter. I wonder if one day I might simply become the horror, two segments of a psyche reunited in a reimagination of my corporal form.

More importantly, however, I have come to understand the mission of these externalizations, the manifestations of my mind and of the divine. With each piece of that more perfect world, our own shall become the same. The landscape of my heightened state had not merely externalized itself in the form of those trailing vessels or the amorphous reflection of my most primordial elements, but in a gradual transition of this world into one where the immaterial unroots the body and brings to light a new reality, one which could not be imagined, but expands with each advance of the growing god’s trailing flesh.