Reader
Note: This is a composite of two separate mushroom trips, both of
which were 4 gram trips in a natural setting. I blended the two
experiences together, and wrote them as if they were a single trip
because I feel it gives the reader a more comprehensive understanding
of the mushroom experience.
Approximately
20 minutes after consuming four dried grams of psilocybe cubensis
mushrooms, I arrived on my bicycle at the entrance of a rather large
public park. I secured my bike, then entered the park, carrying with
me a backpack containing several bottles of water, some fruit, a
notepad, and an MP3 player. As I entered the park my legs began to
feel weak, so I begun looking for a place to rest. After a fairly
extensive survey of the area available to me, I eventually sat
beneath a tree which I had selected for its seclusion, and aesthetic
beauty. Perfect branch placement, great leaf color and distribution,
no discernible imperfections in its structure. It was an
astonishingly gorgeous tree, beautiful in every respect. I felt
privileged to sit beneath it and stare up at an ever so partially
cloudy sky. My experience with mushrooms so far was quite limited, so
I was both nervous and eager to see what was going to happen. I
stopped worrying, maintained a serene composure, closed my eyes, and
started listening to a Pink Floyd playlist on my iPod. I was two
songs in, about midway through Shine
on You Crazy Diamond
when I noticed that one of my faculties of perception was not
functioning in its usual fashion: my vision. My eyes were closed, but
I could see objects through my eyelids as if they were glowing. I
moved my head left and right, and I could discern everything in my
environment without opening my eyes. After enjoying this strange new
ability for a moment, I decided to open my eyes to see if anything
else was different with my vision.
Immediately
noticeable to me was a slight, but nevertheless unmistakeable
improvement in my sense of sight. Sharpness, edge detection, color
saturation, all noticeably increased. And it was like looking at the
world for the first time, everything is beautiful. My eyes now had to
ability to discern details on various objects that I was usually
unable to see. I first examined my body, and I was able see every
tiny imperfection in my skin, and then noticed that I could see
thousands of previously imperceivable microorganisms on the plant
life around me. Somehow, my eyes now had the resolving properties of
a microscope. I could sit and stare at even the most mundane of
objects for an eternity, as the newly-perceivable details and radiant
colors were richly hypnotic. As I was closely inspecting everything
around me, I noticed that much of the biological life around me,
especially mobile life such as bugs, had a slim aura surrounding the
outlines of their bodies, just a subtle glowing effect. Strange to
say the least, but this was obviously what I had been seeing moments
ago when my eyes were closed. I also noticed that I could see further
and clearer than ever before. As if all the air had been sucked off
the surface of the planet, and I could see infinitely into the
distance, like I was in outer space or on the moon where no
atmosphere was present. Crystal clarity. As I thought about this, my
ears popped, which is odd because the only time this happens to me is
when I change altitudes. Was the mere act of thinking about going
into space enough to trick my body into thinking I was changing
altitudes? Perhaps as I thought about space, some aspect of my
consciousness had actually traveled there, possibly through astral
projection, and it was sufficiently convincing to my physical brain
to cause the effect of changing altitude? As I was lying there
against the tree, I could not get over the clarity with which I could
perceive my environment, which still suggested to me an absence of
oxygen. A memory is spontaneously pulled from my mind, completely
unsolicited, which is played back to me: it is that of Morpheus
saying You
think that's air you're breathing?
Was the mushroom trying to suggest that oxygen, and by extension the
physical world, was actually illusory? Having recently read The
Holographic Universe, my brain then gets itself into an infinite
thought loop about whether reality is actually real. Logically, at
this point on my trip, I could not make a determination as to whether
the world I was seeing was in fact real, or some holographic
projection created within my brain, so I concede defeat on this issue
just so I could move on to something else.
After
checking the time on my phone, I decided to lay down on the grass.
With my back to the earth, I looked directly up at the clouds for
what felt like hours. As I was intently observing their movements a
visual narrative was presented to me. As I
lay there looking at them, some of them begin morphing into shapes,
similar to what happens in cartoons, where a cloud instantaneously
transforms into something when a character is thinking about it. Only
here they change shape much more slowly, almost unbearably slow, and
at no point does it ever feel like an hallucination; the visuals feel
real and authentic. Eventually the cloud I was focused on settles on
a final form: a human sperm. It was unmistakeable, there was no room
for any confusion at all; this cloud wanted to present itself as a
sperm. My eyes shifted horizontally across the sky, whereupon I saw
another cloud morph into a perfect circle. It took me all of about
two seconds to conclude that this was meant to be an egg. Then, sure
enough, the sperm cloud began to move toward the egg cloud, they
merged, and then their combined mass took the form of a human fetus.
What did I just watch? Were the clouds reenacting my own birth, or
were they suggesting to me that I should reproduce? The visuals were
clear as day, but the message I got from them was a bit foggy(excuse
the pun). I did not know how to interpret what I saw, but I became
surprised when I glanced at my cell phone and checked the time.
Watching those clouds morph felt like it took a whole hour, possibly
even longer, but according to my phone only three minutes had passed
since I had checked it before. I realized now that I no longer had
the ability to accurately judge the passage of time. 10 minutes could
feel like 30 seconds, and 30 seconds could feel like 10 minutes.
Strangely, loosing this fairly basic ability to determine the
duration of events did not bother me at all.
Suddenly,
and completely out of my control, fragments of my past were played
back to me. Memories of my childhood are shown rapidly, hundreds of
them, back to back. Brief flashes of moments from my youth; going to
the zoo at the age of four; driving a car at age fifteen; Disneyworld
at age ten; trick-or-treating at age six; being in the womb; sleeping
over at a friends house for the first time at age five; spending a
week at summer camp at age eight; helping my father wash the family
minivan at age seven. Hundreds of memories came rushing back to me;
many of which I had not consciously been able to remember
in any detail. Having seen these distant
memories I've long since forgotten played back to me in vivid
detail for reanalysis, I reached an alarming conclusion; every single
experience I've have had so far in life, from birth up until now,
leaves an extremely detailed record in my mind, but the sober mind is
unfortunately not capable of accessing those memories. It occurs to
me that this must be how regression hypnosis works, but mushrooms are
a more effective method of recovering information stored in the
unconscious. Then
came pieces of music, smells, images, everything and anything joins
in on this collage of neurological chaos. My life is flashing before
my eyes, like a machine gun, my brain fires thousands of memories
pulsing through my mind. I experience about a hundred different
smells in the span of ten seconds. I could hardly recognize them all:
cinnamon; fresh cut grass; new car smell; vanilla; peaches; my
mother's perfume; buttered popcorn; new born baby skin; coffee; nail
polish remover; campfires. And as my brain cycled through all these
smells, it simultaneously does the same with sounds. Nearly every
sound or piece of music I had ever heard in my life is recalled;
blended, layered, and combined into just about a minute of time. The
combination of smell and sound overwhelms my senses, and just as I
feel as though I can't take it any more, this sudden onslaught of
reminiscence is complete. Both relieved and saddened, I rested back
against the tree to recover from that intense experience.
I
closed my eyes for a few minutes, and just as I was about to reach a
state of sublime relaxation, I was disrupted by what felt like an
itch on my left arm. Slowly opening my eyes, and directing my field
of vision toward the sensation on my body, I saw a spider crawling on
my arm. Normally, I have an irrational phobia of arachnids, but my
mood was such that I had no desire to interfere with this spider's
movement. Not only did I not choose to brush the spider off, but
rather I choose to let it remain. I felt compelled to study its
movement, the gracefulness with which it operates all eight of its
legs across the terrain of my arm. As I began to concentrate all my
mental efforts on this lone spider, somehow, intuitively, I became
aware of every thought going through this spider's mind. I had
previously regarded telepathy as an impossibility, but here I was,
personally experiencing 1:1 telepathic cross-species communication
with this arachnid perched upon the epidermal layer of my body. At
this moment, we were one single consciousness; our consciousness had
been merged together as I shared an intimate bond with this spider. A
feeling of pride washed over me, as this creature had chosen to
navigate the surface of my body; it had selected me over the
limitless number of objects in the environment it could explore. As I
watched a living thing walk on me, I immediately thought of the
earth, who routinely allows other living things to walk upon her. I
knew at that exact moment how the earth feels to have people walk
upon its surface. As I thought about this, I immediately felt a deep,
ancient connection with the earth; like I have always been a part of
this earth before I was born, and will be long after I die. This
strong spiritual connection to the earth transcends the biological
matter my consciousness is currently linked with. Nature cherishes
mutual cooperation, so just as a human walks upon the surface of the
planet, and a bug can crawl across the surface of a person's body,
surely undiscernable microorganisms are walking upon the surface of
the spider's body. Fractals are everywhere in nature, but
experiencing the sensation of BEING embedded within a fractal system
of organization delivered to me a pulse of intellectual ecstasy.
Suddenly
my body had a burst of energy, I could sit no longer. I took off
running, with the intention of going on a jog around the park. I had
left my phone and iPod just sitting there on the ground, not even taking
the time to conceal them in my backpack. The concept of possessions
was just so absurd as to be laughable. I felt like a god, so much
energy flowing through me as I ran, my body just appeared as a blur
as I dashed around the park. My run was interrupted when I heard a
female voice, and after looking around to find its source, I realized
there wasn't anyone around. Then I heard the voice again, unable to
discern any specific words, but I intuitively knew it was calling me.
My attention moved to a tree a few dozen yards away, all alone,
isolated from the others. I again, intuitively knew that the voice
had been calling me over to this specific tree. I stood close to this
tree, and with curiosity, extended my hand, placing my palm upon its
trunk. As I pressed my palm firmly against its base, I felt a
marvelously intimate bond with the tree, probably the strongest bond
I have ever had with any other living organism, even other people.
Just as with the spider, my consciousness merged with this tree. This
time, there was so much more content available to me; a wealth of
information that I could receive telepathically. My brain
spontaneously recalls a memory from the movie Avatar, where Sigourney
Weaver makes the statement that each tree is a node, a connection
point. The mushroom pulls memories from my mind and plays them back
to me in order to help me understand what is going on. I realize
right then what I am supposed to do: I am supposed to scan through
the information available in this tree's memory bank. As I started to
do it, I realized with some astonishment that this tree had kept, or
has access to, a visual record of the planet. So, like footage from a
surveillance camera, I could rewind and playback the images and video
that were stored within its memory. As I rewind back across vast
intervals of time, an influx of information enters my brain;
thousands of
images are displayed to me of past civilizations, ancient geological
formations, varying conditions of climate, the widely diverse
evolutionary process of biological life. Essentially, I am visually
shown the entire history of the planet. As I scanned this tree's
memory storage, I looked up at it with awe, noticed that as I was
scanning its memory, the tree's leaves were rapidly cycling through
different colors: from green, to yellow, to orange, to red, and then
back to green. This portion of the trip was so categorically
overwhelming, that most if not all of the information I saw was not
written to my long term memory. Devastatingly, in retrospect, I am
unable to remember specifics on this experience.
Well
aware of the fact that vast amounts of my trip would be forgotten, I
ran all the way back to the original tree I sat under, both my
backpack and electronic stuff were still there. I pulled out my
notebook to write down some things before I lost them completely, but
quickly realized I was too late. The information I was shown at the
other tree was long gone. A state-bounded memory, like a dream, that
does not leave a long term record. I did not have the energy to run
back, so I sat down and ate an apple. I took a bite, and it was like
eating an apple for the first time, as if I had a few extra million
taste buds or something. The taste was much more pronounced, an
eminently delectable medley of flavor put me into a state of heavenly
bliss; I probably have an orgasm from the taste. I am in the best
mood I have ever been in my life, the most euphoric I've ever been. I
feel so ecstatic and full of energy, like I'm 2 years old again; the
ideas which my brain produces seem so much more spontaneous and
creative. My brain feels like it's been wiped clean, and all the junk
has been cleaned out. I have been liberated from nearly all
pre-defined systems of belief; all government propaganda, all
cultural conditioning, all assumptions about time and space...all are
discarded and suspended. I am free to think without prejudices,
biases, and assumptions. I sit beneath the tree, analyzing myself,
then re-analyzing myself. I move on to thinking about my relationship
to other people, and to the planet, and reach the conclusion that we
are not separate, but part of a unified system of consciousness and
energy. This is the happiest I have ever been in my life. I soon
noticed with disappointment that my trip was fading. The mental
clarity I had been accustomed to was dissolving rapidly as I was
gently deposited back into my normal frame of mind. Ordinary
consciousness is so dull, I didn't want to go back. As my body
finished processing the psilocybin, and serotonin began serving as my
neurotransmitter once again, all I could think is one thought: I must
do this again.
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