1st real homegrown..

I posted another trip, called "1st homegrown trip", but that was off eating a part of the cake. Two days after that I tested out one mushroom, it's cap measuring 7cm tall and about 1.75cm in diameter, with a cap 3cm in diameter. After that experience I decided 4 mushrooms should do it.

So about 72 hours after that trip I cut out 2 mushrooms slightly smaller than my test mushy, and 6 small (tiny) mushrooms. In terms of volume it was about 3.5 to 4 times the size of my test mushy, altogether.

7:28AM, I started munching. My first surprise came at how dense the small mushrooms felt in my mouth. I went into the shower and munched on them for 10 minutes, then swallowed. I always can feel LSD or shroomies right away (10 minutes) but they didn't really start to kick in until 5 minutes before 8AM.

It started as it usually does for me. What if I took more than I thought? What if I start dwelling on negative aspects of my life? Subtle shifting in objects became noticeable. To combat my mild anxiety, I pulled out Tim Leary's "The Psychedelic Experience", which I've read numerous times. I read that for about 15 minutes and found myself calmed down, but somewhat depressed. I noticed I had difficulties concentrating. I felt sad because I couldn't stop thinking about my friend that I'd just said goodbye to (forever) a few hours earlier.

I wanted to change my mood for the up part of the trip, because that has the most influence over the peak. I started watching the Comedy Network. First it was Whose Line is It Anyway, followed by Win Ben Stein's Money. I grinned thw whole way through these shows. At 9AM when the second show ended I noticed how hard I was tripping.

The walls, textures and colours pulsed in and out. The sunlight shining through the curtains made them seem transparent, and the mushies split the curtains in two, so that they each flowed overtop each other (like two ghost-curtains interacting with each other). Beautiful patterns had replaced the once random textures on the walls and carpets.

While tripping I always used to keep notes. What I do now is use the microphone on my computer and just save my rambling. I'd get something to say in my head (usually something insightful about myself and my life) and make sure to record it. On and off during the trip I'd return to my computer and chatter away.

As I began my peak, around 9:15AM, my mind slowed its passage through time. I walked around my house a little. The sun cast a wonderful glow everywhere. Carpets were rich with patterns (same with ceilings). Everything moved, shifted, pulsed, breathed. I remember looking at my cat and noticing a bizzare symettry: it was as though which ever way his head was tilted, it looked the same. I found a little toy and started throwing it around for the cat. I was entertained by the trails (very colourful).

As the peak got heavier, the visuals didn't seem quite so interesting (as usual). My thoughts took precidence. I couldn't stop thinking about my life. I gained this strange but highly illuminating perspective on the continuity of my own consciousness. Whenever trying to peice the events of my life together it's always upto the present moment. As time goes by this remains true, but the narrative of my own life altered itself continously. Every second that went my perception of a past event, or the way my mind constructed the meaning of any event in the past, changed with the accumulation of experiences after that point. The future affected the past in my mind. I felt illuminated. It was joyous to realise how non-rational my own mind was when completely sober. Any difficult experiences from my past could be transcended just by this knowledge because it was only the present moment that made the past.

After sitting (thinking/meditating) on the floor thinking about this for awhile I went downstairs and sat in a chair. My body felt very strange, and I had that taste in the back of my throat that I get when I do acid. The ceilings had some very intense patterns on them. I looked outside. My back lawn had these crazy patterns on them also, that shifted around as I watched.

Everything I looked at felt very direct. Whatever I shifted my attention to I felt tied into. My awareness of something, whether on a visual, auditory, tactile (etc.) made me feel very close, almost merged, with the object.

I hit my computer again and started rambling for about 20 minutes. It was around 11:15 or so that I felt my peak subsiding. I started to see how the comedown of a trip is what integrates the psychedelic experience into your everyday life. I felt motivated, productive, reborn by the experience and made sure to list the new found goals in my life that the trip had caused.

I also could see how the come up of a trip was a (seemingly) paradoxical movement towards and away from death. The peak of a trip can cause an ego death and the deconstruction of your mind, but in the end it allows for a rebirth and new (hopefully improved) reconstruction of one's thinking.

The colours and trails slowly faded after the patterns on the wall vanished. Space fixed itself without my awareness (spatial warping alway just happens for me; meaning, I don't notice it beginning or ending like most effects). I returned to normal spacetime around 1PM.