A trip to find the mad hatter

Today, I embarked with three friends into the land of mushrooms for my first time. I began the day a little nervous of a bad trip and a little nervous that my friend hadn't really weighed the mushrooms we were about to eat, just estimating that we were each getting about 3 grams. We ate them straight, and the one friend (A) with previous trips began reporting that he was feeling it literally 5 minutes into the trip. I personally just felt nauseous. After sitting around anxiously waiting and watching television for a half hour I was feeling more and more sick and anxious, really afraid that as soon as the kicked in I would be in stuck a very bad trip. At about 35 minutes, friend number 2 (C) begin quite giggly, as i felt a bonf growing between him and A. The last friend (S) seemed to be in the same exact mind set as me, and kept eyeing me as if to ask "are you feeling anything??" We walked outside onto my friends block and I realized how cold it was outside, so S and I went back upstairs to get coats. Inside his apartment, we begin staring at his father's psychadelic paintings on the wall, and i realized they were definetly expanding and contracting (breathing, I guess). We went back downstairs to find C and A completely lost in their trip, giggling as they pointed at people (including cops) passing by. As soon as I was back in the cold I felt I was sobering up again...I was dead wrong. I looked up at the sky and realized how beautiful it was outside, I don't know if I had ever seen such a beautiful sky when sober. Knowing that it was about to kick in full gear, we decided on our destination for the trip....a sculpture of the mad hatter from "Alice and Wonderland" in Central Park. As we walked from my friends house to central park (50 blocks away) I realized how wonderful and warm it was outside. We decided to call up a friend who had not joined us on a trip, and soon hung up on him because he was just trying to freak us out over the phone. As we walked down the wonderful smelling city blocks I soon noticed a very dark, sad, black-glassed building that was trying to ruin my day. My anger and fear of it subsided as I began to expect that "it is what it is", the motto of the day. As we continued to walk to central park I realized how much I was tripping as my friends voices began to echo and stutter, and putting on a Pink Floyd track on my friend's ipod took me to another world. However, I wanted to remain in (and discover) this world, so I didn't listen to music for the rest of the trip. We reached the park and so a large rock form--what would later be called "the first mountain"--and we decided to climb it. At the top we were drenched in beautiful yellow sunlight like the dozens of other beautiful people sunbathing with us. I began to forget where I was, and I was convinced I was actually in Wonderland. We went on our merry way to find the Mad Hatter, becoming distracted by one wonderful creation of nature after another. The strongest visual motif for me at this time was how much the trees reminded me of something that would be found in a Tim Burton movie, and I was very pleased with this identification. We continued into the magical forest (Central Park) and into the trip. We came across a young man smoking pot, and became giddy with the knowledge that "He is doing what he is doing...there is no reason." At one point C wanted to buy a bottle of water from a jolly park vendor, and upon learning that the water was $1.50 and all he had was a one dollar bill and a twenty dollar bill, he chose not to take the water as to not make any trouble for the vendor. The water was simply trivial and not vital to the experience. We soon found a bright yellow softball, which would be our friend and companion for the next part of our magical journey. We soon saw what we identified as king kong in the distance. Me and the brave S wandered to it, and realized we were in a new forest of trees with bright orbs. I soon came to the sobering realization that we were standing right in the middle of Tavern on the Green, a very famous NYC restaurant, and that king kong had just been a cut hedge. We found a new mountain to climb and sat at the top in sheer amazement of the beautiful world around us. As we sat there smoking sweet cloves and smelling the sweet nectars of the earth I realized that I had absolutely no concept of my body and became delighted when I discovered I had two of everything.....arms, legs, eyes, ears, etc."It is what it is" "Everything is fact" I kept repeating to myself and my friends. We soon realized that we had not completed our goal to find the mad hatter and continued down the mountain. Now, the sun was setting and we ended up in a forest far thicker than any forest in central park. I became a bit frightened, worrying that it would soon turn into a bad trip if we did not find our way out of the park by night fall. However, we followed the lights out, but not before finding a beautiful wooden bridge which looked out onto a beautiful emerald pond, reflecting the setting amber sunlight and pink sky. In the distance I noticed many castles that I had never seen before. This was the peak of beauty. We left the park just as it set, exactly 3 and a half hours after my trip had begun, and immidiately I felt it becoming not so good. The city streets were windy and colder than I had ever felt them. We wandered for quite a while as the first friend to feel them, A, began reporting that they were going away. For me, however I was still tripping balls. As we walked the city streets I heard wind chimes and so the beautiful if not horrifying lights of the city dancing before my eyes. We all mutually needed to use a bathroom, so we walked into a Barnes and Noble and found it. After using the bathroom we all sat on the floor of the massive bookstore, staring at the thousands of paperbacks and hardcovers surrounding us in awe. I wanted to touch everybook to absord its knowledge, but decided against it, because I had all the knowledge of the world already. We left the bookstore and wandered passed many amazing things; Lincoln Center, a theater with dozens of paparazzi standing outside of it, an old woman who uttered "I am seeing sheer beauty!". Soon however, I felt very anxious, as a huge gust of cold wind almost blew us over. We walked into a burrito shop, where I realized I could honestly not read the menu, so I refrained from eating as my sobering-up friends ordered burritos. Suddenly, I heard a horrifying scream come from the kitchen, and turned around in fear that I had hallucinated it, but seeing that everyone in the restaurant was looking towards the kitchen comforted me into realizing that it had actually happened. I soon came to the recognition that physical pain still exists, and that I should avoid it. As the effects wore down quite rapidly, we decided to go C's house to chill out for a while. We took the subway, and as we rode I felt the last of the effects, taking pleasure in the sonic boom the train made as it whizzed through the tunnel and smelling the sweet but non-existant perfumes that I recognized from the magical park. We left the subway and sat around in my friend's apartment for about an hour, drinking water, eating burritos and taking simple pleasure in the reflections we were making. The trip was over.

143, male, 19