23rd acid/shroom trip, 2nd 8th trip

My friend and I each had an 8th of golden caps from the gulf coast, and we decided to eat them yesterday at 10 a.m. We ate them pretty fast, and from there we went on to talk about random subjects while pacing around my kitchen. Within 15 minutes we had both gotten to the point where we were laughing at everything that we could talk about. I noticed a familiar high-definition resolution to all colors and textures, something that seems to occur every time I trip as a sort of step into the mushroom vision. We both decided that we felt like we had to go do something outside because we just both had an unsettling, though not necessarily negative, sort of anxiety in us. We had originally planned to go hike in these woods near my house, so we decided that that was the best way to transfer all of the new-found energy.

On the walk through our small town to get to the forest, I noticed that all of the houses looks exaggerated into a cartoon context, as if their dimensions were drawn free hand and their color was the result of a paint bucket tool. The cars looked like playful robots zooming on an energy current. These were things I had noticed in a prior trip walking through town. However, the visuals reached a new dimension when we got to the forest. We both decided we wanted to listen to music on our ipods with our headphones on, and I especially wanted to listen to my own new album I recorded. I intended for the album to be good vibes for anyone who was tripping, so I wanted to test how good it was. Right as I was starting my album, I saw a swan in the river beside me (real swan) but saw two very defined and glowing fluorescent purple and green streaks in the water behind the swan,  This was especially mind blowing because the name of my new album is Purple & Green. I had recently assessed that purple and green are my two pure essences, and that they are both derived from my blue heart. My friend and I started laughing because the swan was swimming towards us, and we were kind of jogging away. At that point, the whole scene was a music video for my first song on the album, and it just seemed like the premise was "Steve is just a simple guy who likes to hike in the woods with his friends and laugh about small things like swans."

I then started walking the path with my eyes closed, still listening to the album, and I saw geometric arrangements of violet and pink shaded ellipses. They slowing rotated and kaleidescoped in different arrangements. Rest of that main path was mainly seeing moving patterns in the ice and trees, as well as vibrant kinds of electric brown and blue. Once off the main path, I looked at a bunch of dead leaves on the ground, and they turned into magazine cutouts of kids of different races. They tessellated in such a perfect way that I could no longer look at the leaves as leaves, but only as sideways profiles of asian, african, and caucasian boys' faces. These faces somehow brought me to looking closely at a tree where I saw multiple blocky tribal aztec or mayan faces that seemed to tessellate in a similar way to the boy faces. These visuals brought me to a grand inclusion and respect for all races of human in the world. I felt great unity in a sense that through all of our differences, we can help each become more well rounded, thus becoming one. We then went down by the water to smoke a bubbler.

While waiting for my friend to pack the bubbler, I was just listening to my friend's music which, though different than mine in style, I was still enjoying and respecting very much. My music is more trippy alternative experimental stuff, whereas his music is like classy feel good rap. During this time, I was staring at the water and saw it ripple into a sort of water replica of Alex Grey's paintings InterBeing and BardoBeing. At this point I remembered Terence McKenna's machine elves, and completely understood what I was seeing. I was just seeing all the little spirits of each object, all the little entities enjoying their energizing existence. There were many more visuals everywhere that came on and off, such as smiling mouths in the water or faces and eyes in the trees and sky. I essentially was just viewing the face of everything around me. Smoking didn't really seem to do anything except give me the essence of a certain culture, which was what I understanding everything to be. I took everything, every trait and essence in the world, and I saw them all together in a coexistence.

After we walked a bit longer, we got very tired and sluggish. I kept yawning and feeling extremely drowsy. I couldn't tell if it was the shrooms, dehydration, or what, but we decided to turn back and head to my house. On the way back, we just talked about our lives and felt extremely thankful. I realized that everything in my life was perfectly fine. I have a great family, a girlfriend who loves me unconditionally, and I'm going to college to eventually make moneyy and have my own family. I saw family as a circle of love; a signifier of meaningful existence. I understood all of my potential, and I had full belief that everything would work out to my advantage for the rest of my life. It was all very touching and made me love existence more than I ever had. We left the forest and realized that both our hands were very fat and swollen. I thought it might've just been the cold and a bit of a hallucination, but it just felt extremely real. While walking through town, we walked by this old guy with a huge bushy mustache. When I looked at him, it looked like his eyes were spread like a frogs and like he had 4 eyes. then at an instant I saw his jaw and mustache just sag straight down to the ground.

Eventually we got home and checked this website about the swelling hands. Another guy had the same problem once, and apparently it just has to do with blood pressure and vascular constriction. It said we just needed water and to remove constrictive clothing, so we just drank a lot of water. We both felt like we were half in the real world and half in the spirit world. I kept seeing faces when I looked out windows and when I looked at wall paper. We decided just just sit in the lviign room and relax while we came down (this was at about 2:30) and pretty much it was just our eyes being dilated and our hands being swollen that was making it trippy. We both took showers, and during mine, I felt like I just looked like a teenage boy rather than anything else. I didn't see myself as really attractive or ugly, but just simply as flesh and bone, just pure life. I saw the outline of my ribcage and felt like i was glowing. After the shower, all of the effects essentially went away,  and I had a headache for the rest of the day.

What I really take away from this trip is a complete acceptance of life and the beauty it allows. I gained respect and admiration for just about everything, and realized that real spirituality is very possible and exists.