A brief time with eternity

Finally, after a year of searching, my friends and I scored some caps. I coped an eighth from my buddy who gave me a fair warning. “My girl says she's never had anything this strong. She says don't dare take over 2 grams at one time.” Thankfully, I listened. This was my second time trying these little toadstools, the first time being a half an eighth 2 years ago which did next to nothing. I ate half the eighth in peanut butter and washed it down with two glasses of Sunny D.

I began taking little notes on the PC. After an hour and twenty minutes I felt a mild stoning affect. I had queued up some ambient music and was listening to Terrance McKenna talk about tripping. His protege (of sorts), Bill Hicks, was my introduction to what mushrooms could do and since hearing about them at age 18 or so, became fascinated with what they could do for me.

It must've been after this time (around +1:40) that things really got erratic. I was listening to Spacemen 3's “Dreamweapon” when a beautiful pattern of lights and geometric structures began dancing on my ceiling. The walls were breathing as well and though I could tell I wasn't blinking I felt I was missing something; I tried harder to pinpoint the intricacy and noticed that the entire ceiling, as well as my bed, was reverberating with the music. A green glow of nothing was outlining each geometric shape.

At 1:50 AM or so I got up to mark the intense relaxation and hallucinations on my computer. I checked the clock again to be confused that it said 2:27, which I marked as being the actual time. This is when my thoughts began to race and that love overtook everything I did or thought about.

Crawling back into bed the shapes on the ceiling became even more intense. What I thought was going to be a mild trip was turning toward a full tumble down the rabbit hole. Standing up, careful to avoid the mirror, I went over to pick out a DVD but could not decide what to watch. I decided instead to watch Ratatouille, found it on the harddrive and began. I decided fear wasn't an option in my life anymore at this time, and I bravely looked into the mirror. “That's not so bad,” I said to myself. Sitting in bed now, a feeling of deep empathy enveloped me. I began crying. I decided to let all the hate out of my life and instead accept every single person as part of who I am, the collective unconscious, and invite them into my life. I began narrating my own experience.

“This is what I've always wanted,” I'd repeat over and over. “This is going to change your life.” Falling into my pillow, the closed-eye visuals became three dimensional. “I'm going to leave for a bit, now” I told myself. Then, in an instant, I was flying over a westward mountain range, the sand below me a shade of orange I had never seen, with the texture of both steel and velvet. The sun setting in the recesses of the earth ahead of me, shining blue and yellow.

Pulling myself out of that fantasy, I became entranced with the head of my bed, the wood work taking a new depth to itself. I touched it, and moved its texture around a bit with my finger, realizing that I too could create my own reality, or at least the aesthetic properties of my immediate consciousness. I focused intently on my hands, watching kinetic energy play around my fingertips. I felt I had a new lease on life.

Turning again to the movie, texture again was constantly changing. For moments there was crystalline glass, then another moment it would fade into a watercolor, and the animation even stopped being animation for a moment as I saw things live-action. My mind was racing 1000 bpm and I couldn't decide whether or not to get up or to rest in bed. I decided not to leave my room prior to the trip beginning, as told, and did so.

The symmetry was also very stereotypically askew, the corners of my room touching at odd angles, the shadows breathing in, out. Travelling around in my mind, I told myself this was all a ride and that it would end eventually. I relived pieces of my life, and others, good and bad, for what seemed like quite a while. Coming down from my deeply loving feeling I was now experiencing the negative sides of tripping, though I wouldn't say they were all bad as I was conscious that this was the drugs fucking with me and that in the morning I would re assimilate my life. For a brief second (and at the same time, an eternity) I thought I would never come back to my sanity. This was entirely because of my not being able to sleep and because of that becoming frustrated with myself induced some negative feelings. I learned that tripping against your biological clock is what can lead to a bad trip; had I done this earlier in the day, and could've moved around and gone outside, I would've had an entirely beautiful experience. Not that my first feelings of love were smothered by my negative ones; I realized that tripping is a lot like life. An intense high and an intense low. Yin and Yang.

Sound was also entirely changed, as there was a new soundtrack behind that of the one being played in the movie. It encompassed everything and I enjoyed it and could seem to change a bit of it if I tried. I then began to experience mild synesthesia, now tasting the strawberry I saw on the computer monitor. I could smell the rain on the streets of Paris. A part of me wanted very much to leave. In what way, physical or otherwise, I couldn't quite decide on. I can easily see how out of body experiences are possible.

Shortly after, at around 4:30 AM, I decided it was time to stop, though it's easier said than done. I lay awake in my bed for another hour or so, got up and talked to a friend on the computer for a bit. I made my way to the bathroom, where everything was intensely bright and I had a feeling I had never been there before, as if it was someone else's bathroom. I felt extremely light, as if I could float instead of walk, but I chose to walk, this time to the kitchen for water. Things were calming down now and having something to drink was relaxing, though walking was interesting because the hallways appeared to be long, though stepping through them was remarkably quick.

All in all, this was the experience I had been wanting for years. I got exactly what I wanted from it, and a bit more. I highly recommend the experience, as reality's shift can be enlightening (though be sure to read up before hand so you know what you're in for). Peaking, I remember thinking, “This is what life is. I'm so glad to be alive.”