DOSE:		smoked	Cannabis
	1.75 g	oral	Mushrooms - P. cubensis	(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

115 lb

I had finally scored myself some magical mushrooms to trip on and I was ready. This would be a first for me however, and knowing I was a complete noob to the hallucinating world made me a little anxious as anyone would be who hadn't experienced a 'trip' yet. With years of smoking buds though, I was confident I could handle this next step and peer into whatever world it had to offer.

Two close friends of mine (who we will refer to as A & B) and I had decided it would be best to take them, one; early in the morning, and two; in an empty house. This way, we were setting our environment that was relatively familiar, free of sober person disturbances, and yet still have plenty of time to trip safely. The time was 8:30 AM and I rolled out of bed and headed over to B's house. When I got to B's house with A, B told us that his house cleaners were supposed to be coming over for an hour or so during our allotted time that we had thought would be people free, but we didn't really think much of it besides we had to stay away from them at all costs during our trips. The first thing we did was head off to the garage to quickly toke a spliff. Cool. We were pretty high soon after, and it was time to head back upstairs.

Standing in the kitchen with glasses of OJ in one hand and our dried shrooms (I had split an eighth with B and A had 3g) in the other, we were a bit hesitant to eat them due to their extremely repulsive appearance. Well, we hadn't come this far to pussy out. The pieces tasted like soft cardboard with a slight hint of earthy mushroom, yuck. We all decided it was easiest to down with peanut butter and kept washing it down with the OJ, remembering to chew on them well, too. Done. We had woofed them down and I was actually quite proud of myself I'm not going to lie.

Now we would play the waiting game, so we all headed upstairs to B's room that we had designated as our safe trip zone. It was perfect. The room was a small L-shaped one with a single bed and the walls had neat swirly patterns all around the midpoint. It was nearly Christmas time, so a small Xmas tree with lights was on B's dresser. Three posters lined the back wall next to the bed and a small table with sheets of blank paper and pencils on top a little to the left after entering the doorway.

Still buzzing from the joint and just pure anticipation now that we had taken them officially, we sat around the table on the floor (it was a really small one) and began to draw leisurely. B has brought all of us a Clementine, and I split one with B to expedite the process a bit. Every once in a while, we glanced at each other and asked if we felt anything yet. About fifteen minutes into just sitting around and chatting, B claimed he was beginning to trip and that things were certainly off, much more so than his high we all shared. In disbelief that this was happening as it had only been fifteen minutes, I dismissed his claim and kept drawing.

Five minutes later, things started to feel odd for me as well, so the consumption of the clementines and OJ must have done something. The sensation was almost a restlessness feeling, like I was becoming so high I had to move and shift positions to release the overwhelming energy. It wasn't bothersome or anything, just like I had tons of caffeine and the energy of a 6 year old child all at once. I knew this was just grazing the surface of what I had signed up myself for, so I smiled to myself thinking, 'Oh boy, here we go.' At this point, we were about half hour into our intake time (which was 10am) and the three of us all knew we were well in our onset phase. Still shifting to get comfortable, I started laughing at the blast of euphoria that initially came. We all did, just giggling stupidly at nothing, perhaps at each other. Another sensation then came over me, like a wavy flowing feeling from side to side, nothing nauseating at all however. There was no doubt in my mind by now that I was still rocketing towards my peak at a speedy rate and it was then I began to see my first visual hallucinations as I let myself zone out. I began staring at the door and I slowly dropped my jaw as the glass knob began to slowly turn left and then right and repeat over and over again. Slowly the door itself started shrinking and expanding in a slow breathing motion away from the door's frame surrounding it making the gaps appear larger than normal. It was neat actually, and I certainly had no fear of this. I expected this kind of thing; I just wasn't so sure how it would progress as I was still far from peaking.

Time itself by now became nonexistent and as of matter of fact, I couldn't have cared what time it was or what time it would be when it’d end. Looking back, I think we were about an hour in when my visuals really started taking hold of my world. We had forgotten to play music, so I told B to play my mix of songs I had put together the night before that ranged from dubstep to trance to house. What's important to know is that every song I picked had sentimental value to me personally, and I intentionally knew this would interact somehow with my experience. I chose old songs from childhood memories to more recent ones; maybe I'm just a sucker for nostalgia.

With music in the air and confirmation from each other that we were tripping quite nicely by now, we described to each other what we were seeing; probably more for reassuring each other that we were somewhat on the same level of the trip, but that communication would later become impossible as we peaked. I recall describing to them while we were still sitting on the floor that the Xmas tree 'tentacles' were all moving individually like an octopus would move legs and that the blank pieces of paper we had in front of us were glowing yellows, purples and appeared as streams. I leaned my face closer to the paper the more fascinated I became because grids of color began rising from the surface now. It was really nice and I felt like some moth attracted to a streetlight. My friends laughed all the while as I did this, but it was absolutely gorgeous. If I could see such things in the blank piece of paper, 'What could I see in the white sections of the wall or in the ceiling?' I thought to myself and began gazing around the room in awe still at the amazing sights.

The more and more I looked around though, the giddier I became and couldn't control it anymore, just laughing for the sake of laughing. This got A and B laughing too, and soon we all were just in hysterics because every time I tried to explain the absolute ridiculousness of what I was seeing, it just came out as mumbles and fragments of words sounding ridiculous itself. It was ok though, because even with just the sputtering words we made out, I feel we all connected anyway by our facial expressions. Colors were bright and vivid, and the more I stared and got lost in things, they became progressively more visually powerful as if I was mentally altering it with just my eyes. If I stared at a picture on his wall, it slowly layered itself in a similar fashion to a 3-D projection. More interestingly, if I overlooked an object in his room too much, each time I looked at it after snapping out of it, it appeared older or dirty as if it had been exhausted by my exploration of its maximum visual potential. I know that probably doesn't make much sense the way I just put that, but that's ok. I looked at the ground and noticed that rug gave off little flecks of light like fireflies, but only when I looked down. I turned to my right to observe the laptop that was playing the music and I got really engrossed in the music. It was then that the laptop and the floor detached from one another and began shifting in opposite directions slowly and endlessly, free from everything else around it. The more I let myself believe it, the stronger and vivid the visual became, but I caught myself and looked away to stop it. It was surprisingly easier than I had thought it would be to shift my thoughts before I got too isolated on one object. My peripherals were going crazy too and I remember feeling like everything in the corners of my eyes was twitching or in motion somehow. Everything was as if it was fresh and new, waiting to be discovered by our ever so mystified minds.

During this time, I had a sudden realization that I hadn't really been pondering about things internally and had only been exploring the visual hallucinations. The minute I had this realization, a song came on that I immediately felt connected to and it began to move me emotionally as each part played out. The song, Stereo Love by Edward Maya, sent me back to school because my roommate plays a lot of Latin club music and it reminded me of him. Suddenly, a wave of nostalgia hit me the more entangled in thought I got with the song. Then came the crash of utter sadness. Why? The reminder of being back at school reminded me of a bad experience I had with a girl who ultimately burned me and I knew it was still on my mind’s stage and I couldn’t move on from thoughts of regret and irrational thoughts about myself. Oddly this time, it felt incredibly good to feel sad about it. The best way I can describe the sadness’s onset is similar to when you see something during your day that reminds you of something from your past and then you feel the slight nostalgia in your chest, except you really can’t just move on right away and dismiss the thought. When I was tripping, the second I felt the nostalgia setting in, it was as if that slight ache in my heart exponentially increased into a spiraling and overwhelming progression. Normally, when someone is about to cry, they can control it to a certain point before their emotions overtake them completely. This was not the case at all, and I knew that no matter how hard I tried to prevent myself from crying, I would fail miserably some sh*tty dam about to break. In a matter of seconds, I burst into crazy sobbing as if I had just witnessed a death of a loved one, but smiling all the while because it was a purely euphoric release nevertheless.

Embarrassed to be acting so nuts in front of my friends and not wanting to affect their trips, I turned to face the back wall and leaned forward onto the bed standing now while tightly grasping the sheets as the wave overtook me. I knew during this crazy episode that my friends were a bit worried about my well being and A asked if I was OK. I managed to make out the words “I’m fine, yeah.” to him between two big heaving breathes, because I really was just going with the flow. Luckily my smiling and this confirmation let A know I was fine and simply tripping balls and was much less concerned. Still, the crazy thing is that all the while that I was crying, I felt totally free and relieved. It was as if I was releasing all the built up negative energy painful thoughts out all at once in the one physical act of me crying ; for me it was just a sweet parting from the depression that I had been feeling until then and still, I couldn’t stop smiling for the world if I had to. My mind was an utter brainstorm by now, switching from one feeling to another in rapid succession. Most of the time, I really had no clue how I felt and whenever I was slightly sure of how I did, it would feel like that ten times stronger and come on ten times faster, too.

The same episodes of laughter and crying continued on and off as more time went on, and the more times the feelings of sadness started to build up inside me, it became easier to know when I was about to cry and how to accept it and go with its natural course. Each time I felt a wave coming on, I also learned what specific thoughts got me into the sobbing fits, and that naturally taught me how much power and control I had over these all of these intense emotions. It was almost as if my thoughts could only stay in my brain consciously for a few seconds and anymore time than that spent pondering about it surpassed a threshold and sparks the inevitable wave of whatever emotion associated with it personally and there was no stopping it until it ran its course through me. It would then just stop altogether, and I would still feel completely euphoric and relaxed like I just sprinted for a few hundred feet. Following the relaxed state, my mind became clearer and I could refocus on the things around me only for just a precious minute until I relapsed into the smiling sobbing.

Yet there was a big problem with my intense physical outward manic depressive behavior. You see, my friend B was tripping hard by now too, but he was distracted by me and witnessing me sobbing made him sink into a very uncomfortable and anxious state to begin with. Thus, he began to build up mental walls and fought the trip as he paced back in and out of the room for most of the duration of our day. Both of my friends said they like to move around and do things when they’re tripping because of the restless feeling. For the sake of clarity, I won’t be describing anymore of A or B’s personal experience during my trip as to simply avoid confusion (in summary, B had a bad trip and A made sure he was ok). Because I discovered how powerful my emotions had become and how tired I was after each episode of crying, I crawled onto the bed and curled into a half fetus position, my feet sockless and pressed up against the wall. I somehow still had a blank 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and a pencil in hand and thought to myself, well I might as well just sit back and take this all in. It was then that the coldness came.

Still on the bed, now with tears streaming down my face, a runny nose, and wet hands from crying so much, I was kind of bewildered about which emotions I wanted to let myself fall into now and if how I felt was normal for tripping. I noticed that I had significantly felt colder oddly, but remembered this was typical around peak and laughed at how weirdly clammy and chilly I felt. I wasn’t wicked cold or anything, but definitely felt a difference. I wiped my face off once again and realized how heightened my touch was. I told myself, hell; let’s check out some more visionary things though for now, and so I did. I looked up at the blank ceiling and I was completely taken away by its vast lack of color or design. My mind quickly took care of that problem and began creating another side beyond the ceiling plane, a complete other dimension. The more I stared, the more it grew into different shapes and volumes and everything except what I was looking at seemed to fade away. Beaming my seemingly permanent smile, I chuckled at this phenomenon and decided to look at the wall at the head of the bed. This wall brought something new visually as well and opened up a world of grids all extending back in light purples and oranges. The grids would then form into vague shapes of sitting human bodies and then melt back into just auras and glowing grids. This world completely replaced that side of the wall and it even seemed to float towards me as I sat upright now sitting on my heels absolutely mind blown and jaw dropped.

Craving more cool visuals, I refocused my attention to the back wall with the three posters and started with the poster on the far left. The poster was very winteresque with mostly white and shades of grey and black text. There was nothing that wasn’t “alive” or breathing now, and so when I looked at the poster the letters were constantly getting bolder and then pin thin almost as if they were losing water and receding into the white background. Again, I was still so fascinated by this and moved onto the middle poster which had an owl on it. This poster was much darker with black and browns and the owl had green eyes for some reason. I thought to myself that surely this was my mind making it green, and as I thought about it, its eyes began glowing stronger and stronger until I was transfixed by its stare. I’ll admit, when it started to do that, I got a little weirded out, not scared because I knew I could end it, and looked away from the wall completely.

From this point on, I began feeling all different kind of things, so I decided to lie back down and curled up on my side. I wanted to write now, it had to be done. I was feeling way too incredible to not record my thoughts as they passed in and out of me. What was neat was that my thoughts no matter what would always convert themselves into happier more positive thoughts. For example, I kept thinking to myself how messy and gross I felt from being all wet from the tears and snot, but quickly I would just begin laughing and accepting that it was perfectly fine to be in the state I was in because I didn’t have to be presentable, I was tripping on shrooms for god sake’s and there are no rules. The more I became OK with being in such a sloppy state, the more I realized I was feeling overall better about myself as a person. Perhaps the weed had played a part in keeping me in check, but even so, it was like I couldn’t dwell on negative thoughts long enough before I was laughing at how dumb it was to be concerned about it and to be able to let go of this subconscious tension made me realize how beautiful we are as humans and how we are all truly messes in our own ways and that is what makes us so damn wonderful too. It idea of imperfection suddenly had a new ring to it for sure.

And for the first time as well, I found myself talking to absolutely no one but myself. I kept feeling the need to declare the conclusions to my thoughts each time I made one literally out loud and probably looking totally insane if a sober person were to have walked in the room. However, these “realizations” felt like powerful enlightenments and every time I reached the same conclusions, it would only skyrocket me farther into the thought of how beautiful it was. Beautiful. That was the word I couldn’t stop thinking about and I got stuck in this awestruck beauty phase multiple times while trying to write the words, “Learning to let go is beautiful.” With the side of my head now resting on the bed, I put forth all my effort to get my hand writing, but it was extremely difficult as the soft bed gave way to my pencil pressure and I could barely make out what I had just written. I wrote the words very slowly and as I did they would become enlarged and disappeared into the paper which made it difficult to determine whether I was writing or not.

Then it hit me, all these waves of emotion, all these thoughts, everything I had been experiencing during the trip was a fleeting moment. I thought more and more about how I easily get attached to things because I have a tendency to care too much and let myself think too much about them until I become irrational, but that I shouldn’t because by doing so, I’ll always be the one hurting. Proud to have stepped back enough in my mind to conclude this for myself gave me more hope for the future, and I became washed over by more positive trains of thought.

To make a long story a little less long than it could be, no matter what came to mind I deemed as simply passing by, and each time it was easier to accept its transience and let go of it whether it required me to cry my eyes out again or write something down on the sheet of paper. Each time too, I felt completely renewed and infused with hope because my most negative thoughts seemed silly now. Nothing could bother me, except one thing that did and it didn’t go away until I told A how I felt. I told him how he and B were disturbing my trip by coming in and out of the room so often and if anything, it just annoyed me, of course way more intensely than it should have.

The more I wrote on the paper, the wetter it got and wrinkled from me writing on it so roughly. I remember having to get my face really close to the paper and then concentrating hard to make contact with the paper. Again, how ridiculous do I look by now I thought to myself grinning from ear to ear. As I entered another moment of phase of clarity, I focused now on my hands which were going through possibly the wackiest changes I witnessed during my trip. At first glance, my hands were curled inwards (nails facing me) and each finger was a different length and thickness. They were all very stubby and fat and some fingers were missing the nails. Hm. More staring and I opened up my hands as they too breathed and swelled from skinny longs fingers, to normal, and back to thick fat stubs over and over again. Whoa, I felt like my trip had finally surpassed my expectations, in a good way of course. I must be peaking hard now I thought.

It didn’t stop there though, and it was probably around noon by this time, but I also remember feeling like I had zero interest in knowing neither what time was nor what time it was. After all, we had planned the day so that we wouldn’t have to know these things until were sobered up more. My hands kept going through these crazy changes and then began appearing like a newborn’s hand and then shifting to what I perceived as my old aged hands. It was really fascinating but at the same time a little creepy to be seeing it all in its repeating fashion. Really curious now, I glanced down at my feet which too were undergoing changes from really emaciated feet with really defined bones back to my normal foot size.

Snapping out the self observing phase, I recall A walking back into the room and we incredibly touched base with each other through choppy words as I told him how beautiful everything was and how much we have to look forward to being so young and he completely agreed. I told him how we have to just let go of it all and just let things be as they are. We laughed because it was too weird how little effort we needed to put into confirming that we agreed, but that made it that much more great.

Out of nowhere, B grabbed my paper and crumpled it up furiously for no reason and A asked him why he did that. B apologized and returned me my paper without realizing what he did or why. Oblivious that he had done this until B returned it to me, I got rather defensive about it and strangely became very attached to the paper and the pencil. I felt much intruded on at the time as if he had tried to just destroy part of my positive journey.

As I sat back down the side of the bed I entered a train of thought. I wanted to see the outside world, enough of this room. I had simply had enough and craved to see the sky and all of nature’s beauty. The fact of the matter was, we had no choice in a way. I told A and B I wanted to go outside and that we should all do so too, yet A said we had to anyway because the cleaners had arrived. A bit of panic. Damn it. Sober people equaled disruption in my mind and I had no desire to come into contact with them. I must stay unseen I thought. Our target destination was the garage where we had previously smoked the joint, but it was easier said than done this time around.

Feeling the need to pee now after squirming on the bed for over an hour and half of self exploration, I got up and told them I’d be there in a second. A and B made their way down the stairs as I left the room and heard the cleaners’ voices getting louder and closer. Sh*t, get in the bathroom now, too close for comfort. I went in and shut the door behind me. The voices got closer and closer and although I was alone in the bathroom, I felt almost trapped. I’ll just pee and make my way downstairs, A and B are waiting, deep breathes. The nervousness was settling in a bit, but it really wasn’t anything bad and I actually ended up chuckling to myself as I peed because well, it’s just a really weird feeling peeing in short. Turning to my left, I found myself staring right back at myself in a mirror over the sink and I got really intrigued as my eyes changed colors and my face shifted and smeared a bit. This honestly freaked me out a little more than anything that day, and I reminded myself of what needed to be done: get downstairs.

I went back into the room with the bed and grabbed my paper, pencil and what appeared to be my cell phone. Or was it? No, it couldn’t be I told myself. This is someone else’s phone, not mine. Darn, where was my phone then? As I paced around the room trying to find my phone (knowing the cleaners were coming and hearing A calling for me) I quickly deemed it lost and took the phone I found with me that looked nothing like my phone. I stared at it again, nope, not my phone, wrong model, way too fat. So convinced by now, I made my way downstairs and held out the phone to A who wouldn’t accept it and told me that it was OK because my phone was turned off. This confused the hell of out me more than I was already and frustrated I just followed him downstairs trying to figure what he meant by that. Why would I care that it’s off if I can’t even find my own cell phone. This phone is useless to me, it’s not mine!

The good news is we all made our way successfully to the garage and were far from the cleaners. Ah, good. I could relax again, but boy was I still feeling quite silly if I let my mind wander, and of course I did just that the minute I realized we were safe again. The waves of excitement and joy were significantly weaker now, but I remember leaning up against the concrete wall and zoning out to the point where I saw another room through the wall. As I kept coming in and out of my clear mind, my friends pointed out to me that they could tell when the wave would start to overwhelm me as I would start walking back further into the garage and lean back up against the wall. I became more fascinated by the little things in that garage, from just the light pouring in from a window onto a table. With my pencil and paper still in my hands, I resorted to writing more of my scattered thoughts and pressed the paper up against the wall.

As the shrooms began to wear off, I found the duration of the waves to be less intense and shorter lived as the moments of clarity extended. I was really pleased with this gradual come down, but I swore I was completely sober each time I returned to the clear state of mind. For about an hour the three of us waited it out in the garage and simply enjoyed the bright blue sky and naked trees with their gently swaying branches in the wind. The sun was out and we couldn’t have asked for better weather that day to end our magical journey together. It was the icing on the cake. I also then noticed that in fact the cell phone in my pocket was in fact my cell phone the entire time and now it also seemed believable. I felt completely stupid and laughed my as* off. A and B had a good laugh too because they knew this the whole time and A told me he was confused why I was trying to give him my phone! Something else.

The post-trip effects left us all feeling carefree and liberated for the most part. We were all beaming with smiles and glowing with the mostly positive feelings we had just experienced so intensely more so than anything else had in our lives, at least for me. When the cleaners finally left at around 2 pm, it was time to eat. We were all famished from filling our empty stomachs with just mushrooms and citrus and so we retreated to the kitchen where our journey had begun. A and I sat down in the dining room for a bit, because we were feeling a bit queasy, but it was very faint and came back in a cycle just as the waves of emotions did. For a few minutes my stomach felt unsettled, and then I would feel perfectly fine, so I knew it would pass altogether eventually. We finally made ourselves some tea, discussed our trips, and then A and I walked back home absolutely spent and exhausted.

I was so glad to have done it and gotten the first time under my belt, but I was gladder to know I had prepared myself properly by waiting and researching enough and because of that, practically everything went as planned. I have no regrets about trying shrooms because they really had a heavy impact on the overall perspective of things I had problems accepting fully and coming to terms with rationally. I learned how we must all learn to let go of everything we come across in life, because inevitably it is just a phase like the multitude of emotions I had felt all crammed into one day’s worth. I also redefined for myself why life is so beautiful and how to look at seemingly only negative things and smile. This girl, who had been on my mind several times a day for weeks, has finally walked off the stage and I no longer feel like I have to spend any more thought or energy on it since I’ve tripped.

All in all, despite the fact that my first trip didn’t show me the meaning of life, nor did it answer any questions at all, that’s perfectly fine by me. I was able to learn the true value of acceptance, letting go, and how to prevent myself from thinking irrationally too quickly. Of course, every person will react uniquely to shrooms and thus my experience cannot speak for all, but it is as close to what I went through in words (which do no justice to the sheer powerfulness of it all). For me, the whole experience though negative and positive was worth it for this reason alone because I feel like I experienced the whole package deal and at the same time merely scratched the surface of such a divine world. Being a passionate person in general made this experience so much more intense and unreal to me and it feels as if I have done years of personal growth but in the time frame of a single day.

To feel like the happiest and saddest man on earth over and over again in a single day was definitely by far the most exhausting experience I’ve ever had from just thinking so much about everything, but in the most intensely fun and positive manner possible. I know for sure I will always hold onto the piece of paper that I wrote on while feeling those crazy emotions and I almost am convinced that the energy somehow overflowed through my hands into the paper itself for eternity. I can certainly say that day I was reborn in a way and what’s neater is that the transformation happened to take place on the year’s winter solstice with a lunar eclipse during the wee morning hours that same day. Coincidence?

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 111916
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Aug 7, 2018	Views: 4,523
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Music Discussion (22), Relationships (44), Personal Preparation (45), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)