I looked into the universe, and it looked back.

     My first ever experience with any kind of shroom occurred last night. I'd purchased an eighth and a half of Thai cubensis night before and invited my closest friend over to share in the experience with me, as it was his first time too. After eating and relaxing for a while, we divided the mushrooms, chewed our portions in halves, let them sit under out tongue, and swallowed. After about fifteen minutes, my friend began to giggle incessantly and it wasn't long before he had difficulty even standing up. Slowly but surely, blotches of my vision began to bend and pulsate, like circles of glass were stretching and bending light in my field of vision. It wasn't long before my whole body was violently humming, waves of energy saturating my every sinew. Finally, I laid on my couch and closed my eyes, and suddenly, it seemed as though my mind was blown out the back of my skull.

     My visual perception was flooded with sequences of highly varying patterns, ranging from swirling multi-toned clouds of smoke to Mayan inscriptions and highly intricate, mechanical etchings. I was perplexed by the array of psychedelic imagery morphing before my very eyes, checkered swirls, three dimensional whirlpools and ever shifting spheres, but it wasn't until I hit my plateau that my very soul was shaken to its core.

     Suddenly, a flat plane of three dimensions appeared in my visions, first seemingly benign and latent, then set into motion by its own will. The plane, originally flat, was now twisting into incredible, non polygonal shapes, waving and distorting in fascinating ways, eventually setting off a mind-shattering, new sequence. The plane collapsed on itself. It began to turn inside out, parts of the plane flattening against itself and passing through its other faces effortlessly. However it wasn't really the shape itself that upset my perception of reality, it's  what it truly meant, its metaphorical value. The twists and logically impossible dimensions showed me that the existence of time, space, thought, the universe as a whole wasn't nearly as linear as I and so many others assumed. To me, in this observant state, existance as a whole did not progress in a linear fashion, or along separate, individual paths, but everything was made up of this impossibly perplexing sheet. As I watched it fold, collapse, bulge, and grow, an unstoppable onslaught of information flooded my mind, filling me with an unimaginable light, a truly profound sense of oneness and peace.

     These patterns and visual funnels and this fucking universal plane slammed so much information into my consciousness that it was all I could do not to leap off my balcony; perhaps if I was free from the limitations of my feeble human mind I could process this ever growing anecdotal Yggdrasil, this expanding plane of universal truth. But I knew that there was a reason for me to inhabit my human form, so I was consistently reassured of my place in the grand design. Finally, I was fully aware of what I was seeing, but once that happened, well, I suppose you could say it was time for level two.

     As soon as I could grasp what I was seeing, doing, feeling and thinking, everything changed and my mind was readjusted to what I was seeing. My eyes moved by instinct from closed to open to fluttering and back to closed again. Completely unconcerned with my physical appearance, and overwhelmed by a feeling that everything would "be okay", I stopped trying to maintain self control. My face, my every muscle twitched and my hands twisted into strange positions, followed by my arms. Hell, I even drooled, and if I'd taken any more shrooms I might have pissed my pants.

     Eventually my friend flipped on the cartoon show Adventure Time, trying to escape his frightening experience. After a few more minutes he shook me from my trance and expressed a lot of concern. I felt united with him, as though I could feel exactly what he felt, and he was very scared. He leaned over the toilet, overwhelmed with terror and anxiety, trying to throw up the cubes in vain. I rubbed his back and told him everything would be okay and that from here on it would be beauty and goodness. After a couple minutes I coaxed him back to the couch and got on the computer. After a short bout of web surfing his "bad trip" had become joyful once more. A bit later, the mushrooms overpowered me once more and I was subject to more mind bending imagery. Even though it was exhausting, for whatever reason I didn't want it to stop.  I've always been philosophical, and many of the ideas bestowed unto my mind I already had some understanding of, but my raw ability to conceptualize was amplified a hundred-fold.

     Frankly, the experience was one of incredible majesty, and once I've recovered from that bombshell I'd like to try it again.

     Peace!