Here’s What It Would Be Like If You Could Take A Drug That Would Allow You To Have An ‘ENFP Trip’

 Brooke Shaden
Brooke Shaden

You’d notice the drug kicking in when your mind started spiraling into a sea of possibilities – your awareness of the sensory world around you would suddenly begin to blur as your mind detached and began swimming through a sea of ‘what if’s – what if you quit your job and moved to Argentina? What if the apocalypse kicked off tomorrow? What if the barista behind the counter of the coffee shop threw off his apron, screamed ‘I quit!’ and came over to tell you he’d been in love with you all of these years?

Each fantasy would hit you with increasing intensity until eventually, you’d begin having trouble deciphering what was real and what was happening in your mind.

Did an ad for cheap plane tickets to Buenos Aires really just pop up on your computer screen? Did the lights in the coffee shop just flicker on and off? Did the barista wink at you when he handed you your change? The incredible pull of possibility would force you to begin confusing reality and fantasy – you think you temporarily blacked out and Googled those plane tickets yourself. But it’s hard to say. The past 30 minutes of your life would have somehow passed by completely unaccounted for.

Suddenly you’d find yourself wondering whether reality can really be trusted, anyway. Who’s to say this ‘ENFP’ drug you took isn’t just a means of restoring your brain to the way it was meant to be chemically structured in the first place? Is there really anything inherently wrong with using substances to combat the natural design of our minds? Or does doing so infringe on the authenticity of each individual human? Do we have a moral obligation to give back to the world in a way that comes naturally to us, or ought we take advantage of the opportunity to warp our perceptions?

You’d realize that while you were mulling over these concerns, another 30 minutes had passed. Dammit.

You’d become faintly aware that you were meant to be doing something important with the past hour but you’d be unable to recall exactly what.

As friends trickled in and out of the coffee shop, a few of them would likely stop to chat. You’d zone in and out of the conversations, depending on who was in front of you and what they were saying. At some point in a conversation, a friend may bring up an experience they’re going through that suddenly, vividly reminds you of a similar experience you’d gone through. You’d begin having intense, all-consuming flashbacks of that point in your own life. Almost instantly, you’d become wracked with an unbelievable tidal wave of empathy for your friend. You’d feel incapable of properly expressing to them how deeply and personally you feel their pain. You would feel, in that moment, not just for yourself and your friend, but for everyone in the world who had been through or would someday go through what yourself and your friend had experienced.

The longer you socialized with your friend for, the clearer your senses would become – you’d begin noticing your external environment again, and the line between fantasy and reality would cease to blur quite as heavily. You might look down at your computer and notice that you did, in fact, have a search screen open for plane tickets to Argentina. Overcome with the sudden, clear-sighted inspiration to act, you’d click ‘Purchase,’ and feel an almost superhuman rush of achievement and excitement.

As you scrolled through various hotel, tour and gear websites online in preparation for your trip to Argentina, a funny thing may suddenly begin to happen – the sounds of the café around you would begin filtering back into your awareness. You’d look up and notice the barista isn’t actually as cute as you had been imagining them to be. You might even notice that your friend, whom you so direly empathized with a moment ago, didn’t even seem that upset themselves. As reality began to seep back into your periphery, you’d realize your ENFP trip was beginning to wear off – and thank God. You could only afford to impulse-purchase so many plane tickets. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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