Eiriel and the Hatman
The Hatman is a figure commonly reported in paranormal and supernatural experiences, especially within the context of sleep paralysis and other altered states of consciousness. He is typically described as a shadowy, menacing figure, tall and dark, with a featureless face. He is often reported wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a long coat or cloak, which contributes to his shadowy and indistinct appearance. The obscured features and dark attire make him resemble the classic "shadow person" archetype, but with distinctive elements that set him apart.
Such beings evoke feelings of dread and unease but with the Hatman these feelings are especially intense. Shadow people are dark, featureless silhouettes that are usually perceived as passive or detached entities that simply observe or move about, often without direct interaction. The Hatman does more than observe. He tells you about a place - then warns you not to go there. Eiriel.
Eiriel
Eiriel is a realm situated within the Lower Astral plane, known for its association with extreme danger and psychological distress. It is a realm of psychopaths, the final home of spirits consumed by violence and madness in life. These beings, once human, are now twisted beyond recognition, drawn to the living who stumble into their world. They feed on fear, on suffering. Time stretches into agonizing eternities, and space bends into impossible, mind-breaking forms. The landscape is in constant, terrifying flux, shifting from one horrific scene to another. Every inch of Eiriel pulses with dread, suffocating anyone who dares to enter.
Diphenhydramine
Diphenhydramine (DPH) is an antihistamine commonly used to treat symptoms of allergies, insomnia, and motion sickness. At high - often fatal - doses, it can also be a key that unlocks the gateway to Eiriel.
The doses used to access Eiriel carry severe risks. At these levels, DPH induces intense hallucinations. Extreme dissociation sets in, and the line between reality and the nightmarish realm of Eiriel becomes increasingly blurred. The physical consequences of such doses are profound. High levels of DPH can lead to organ failure and, ultimately, death.
There’s no coming back from Eiriel unscathed. Many do not return.
Those who use DPH to break through are gambling with forces they can’t control yet the Hatman’s warnings are often the very thing that ensnares them, turning their curiosity into a fatal obsession.
Sedric Lightbury
Sedric Lightbury was a 420chan user who shared two famous DPH trip reports in 2010, the first with a dose of 1800mg.
First thing I remember - my ceiling, walls and floor were melting and I was being pulled down by an enormous force. However, moving wasn`t too difficult after a bit of trying. Every shadow in my room was crawling with insects. There was a cluster of centipedes on the floor and some of them were runing around the table.They wouldnt go away when touched. The longer I stared, the more of them would appear, untill I wasnt in my room anymore - everything around me was a moving, living mass.
I had an extremely dry mouth, so I got up and went to get myself a glass of water. It didn`t help much, but I drank a lot anyway. After finishing the third glass, I heard music coming from the other room, so I went there to check it out. First thing I noticed, there was a human-sized creature standing in the corner. I assumed it was a doll. It would lose it`s parts - arms, legs, head - from time to time, but as soon as I looked away and looked back again, it was whole again. I was afraid to touch it, because I was sure it would hurt me. The doll stayed in that corner diassembling and assembling itself again and again during this whole stage of the trip.
Second thing I noticed - there was a man dressed in black, his head burried in shadows, sitting on the sofa, and several other people/creatures wandering around, then fading later. Not all of them went away tho - some shadow figures got more human-like in time, and I had some conversations with who I thought were my friends. Everything was extremely realistic. I could touch, hear and smell them. But after a while most of them went away, but the dark man on the sofa stayed where he was. So I went up to him and sat down as well. I couldnt see his face, but didnt pay much attention then. I believe this, my friends, was the hatman himself. All the interaction we had was a handshake and a bit of talking. I said hi to him and he said "Hello, Serdic" back. Then, I asked if I was going to die. He was quiet for a while, then said "Don`t go to Eiriel."
First trip
Sedric didn't listen.
For his next trip, he increased the dose to 2000mg.
Finally, we reached a clearing. There were many people there. At the front, very still, stood my relatives, all dressed in black surrounded by shadows and people I don't know. They all seemed frozen and had the same blank expresion on their faces, eyes fixed on me. I tried to talk, but my voice got stuck in my throat... I started feeling a mixture of guilt and fear... I wasn't sure if I was still alive... I was approached by my mother. She was crying. "Why did you do this, Sedric? We warned you." I told her not to worry, and that I was going to be fine. Other people froze again, and I could hear voices saying "we warned you" and "what have you done" even though their lips weren`t moving.
When he encountered the Hatman again the figure told him "You are getting in, and running out."
I started to feel extremely hazy and got another headrush... I was in an extremely vast room. The floor, ceiling and walls were black. There were no doors and I couldn't see where it ended because darkness hid it out of sight. There was woman standing right in front of me. She looked at me, smiled, and took her face off as if it was a mask. The face behind it looked exactly the same, but she was bleeding from her eyes, mouth and nose, and her eyes were completely black. I looked around the room, to see faces appearing on the walls and ceiling, greeting me without words, untill they started to fall down like masks too, revealing bruised and blood-covered faces. The masks would turn into ash that wouldn`t settle, but move around the floor and feet.
Finally, he reached a limit:
After a while, I realized I was sleeping. My vision was completely black, untill a room began to appear. It was small and gray, it`s door open, displaying nothingness. I walked towards the door and steped out of the room. Several shadows approached me.The door shut, and I heard "you are out" very clearly.Then I felt a burning pain at my chest.
Martin [a friend staying with me who had been asleep upstairs] said I started screaming. He tried to wake me up and checked my pulse, then realized what was happening and called an ambulance.
Sedric posted about his trip several days later after his release from hospital. He said he still had some lingering effects. That was the last anyone ever heard from him.
A Reddit user with a post history expressing his determination to commit suicide described a self-destructive 2,500mg trip, writing from his hospital bed:
I'm not sure how long I was out for, but when I came-to, I was back on my couch with the same two people before, except this time there was another one in front of me. I don't know if this is the infamous Hat Man that everyone describes seeing on their trip to [Eiriel], but it was a large figure sitting crouched in front of me, holding on to my knees. He had dark black cavernous holes where his eyes should have been, and his nose had been ripped off. I couldn't take my eyes off the thing, and as it began smiling, it did not stop — his lips began wrapping around to the back side of his head in some hideous fashion that made his face appear to be cut in half. He reached for my chest, and as I let out a scream, I fell deep inside of my couch.
Inside, it felt like I was looking through a peephole and experiencing everything outside of myself. I felt locked in a dungeon, with a singular shred of light illuminating upwards. Everything felt numb and the only sensation I had was smell anymore. It was rot, decay. And then it was burning. I looked down at my body only to realize that my legs had become completed charred. I picked at my knee, and small bits of sticky flesh rolled off my fingertips. Then it all hit me. Pain; unimaginable pain that extended beyond my body. I felt what was left of my body begin to shake, and the small peephole of light grew bigger and bigger until I could see that I was outside in my front yard now, shaking uncontrollably on the ground. I had lost all function of my hands and what was left of my torso.
Craning my neck, I looked to my left and saw what looked like a near identical version of myself fastened to the ground. My body had been nailed in a way to where I was hugging myself — steel rods penetrated my hands and stuck into the ground. There was an incredible amount of blood and bile on my face and neck; it had looked like something had cut deep into my body, gathered my innards, and placed them beside me. There came a loud sawing noise to the other side of me, and when I turned to look, another version of me appeared to be half-cemented into some pavement. What I can only describe as two large figures with no discernible faces held a long saw, one at each end. They had begun sawing into my head and that version of me began shrieking.
He promised to take a similar dose again on his release, knowing it would kill him. He never posted again.
Reddit is full of similar warnings:
Trust me, it's a horrible experience. I abused for 3 weeks diphenhydramine. I saw dead people in cars, strange things following me, animals came to me then disappeared instantly but the scariest shit that happened was to see and talk with a man with a goat head. He asked me who i was and what i was doing here. I remember talking to him for hours, but my friends told me i was just mumbling for 2-3 minutes. I saw my dead relatives while talking to him. The worst is feeling followed by someone. This was my first time doing diphenhydramine. I ran until i was home just because i thought death was after me. I felt the fear on my spinal cord everytime on my road to home. I just tried it for fun, but it became something addicting.
When I first discovered dph, it was highly & unusually strange yet extremely fascinating to me, the entire construct of reality morphing into a complete dissolving of anything human nature-esque. This was like entering another realm where boundaries don’t exist, but a constant flow of inescapable obscurity, that is what drew me in the most, is nothing needed to make sense in this realm, things seemed to happen without cause, reason or reaction, just happening out of pure mystery. Not even coincidence just complete randomness. as you know dph has a very dark cynical nature about it, which interested me because my astral body/ spirit has never experienced a place quite like this, no where nearly as dark & haunting, indescribable to someone who’s never seen it. from the moment of my first trip I knew these things were coming from somewhere real & the veil to their world & mine had thinned enough to communicate. the feeling of these shadow entity’s & ghost seem to be in a very emotionless state, voids of emptiness, no empathy, no feelings, I think that’s what creates the menacing tone to their presence is the lack of human traits are so contrast to ours. some interactions have really scared me but I never felt like they intended harm or wanted me in danger. I’ve had many conversations with the shadow entity’s, & have never been threatened, however their presence is simply terrifying, from the ones that are dead with battered faces to the black shadows to the human looking ghost. I feel that they show themselves to us as a warning of the realm eiriel. The deeper I’ve gone into the state of what exist there the more horrifying it gets. An intense menacing feeling completely surrounds you, I’ve truly felt like one of the lost souls/shadow people during my trips to this place & it’s a feeling I would never want to feel again. I remember rocking back in forth in a ball for hours while in the presence of the shadow people they were all around me, I began to loose all sense of control & thought I would get stuck in eiriel forever, just the thought of being stuck there had me shaking with all expressions frozen. I think these entity’s are souls that are trapped in the realm, and when they visit us it’s our warning to not get any closer. I have quit ever doing a trip again after the visions of my last dose, which is why I’m writing this to try and understand how this place works, how the souls got there, why we all see the same characters & characteristics, it surely doesn’t happen often on psychedelics that many people experience the same thing which is why I find it so interesting. Someone explained the feeling best of it being cold & mechanical, honestly the most strange thing ive experienced, phantom like & delusional but surreal, I wouldn’t recommend anyone try it ever.
People try it. Hate it. Find themselves doing it again and again. They come to hate the drug and themselves. They don't want to use it again. And they keep doing it.
It's a strange addiction and usually a fatal one.
But all these warnings, like the Hatman's ambiguous instruction, only seems to make people want to visit more.
What the Hatman wants, or what he represents, is unclear. Some believe he is the guardian of Eiriel, others think he is Death himself, waiting to claim the souls of those who venture too far. What is certain is that his presence is never a good sign — it means that the darkness has taken notice, and escape is slipping further away. If he himself is not Death, then Death is not far behind.
