My first trip was an event that I had been eagerly
anticipating and planning for over a year, as psychedelics had utterly
fascinated me ever since I’d learned of their effects. These aspirations came to fruition when I was
able to acquire an eighth of shrooms at the end of my freshman year of
college. I invited two friends (whom I
will refer to by their shirt colors during the trip, Red and Blue). I planned on taking just over 2 grams, and Red
planned to have the rest. The locale was
my family’s lake house, a three minute walk from Lake Michigan.
We drove down together on the afternoon of the Friday of
Memorial Day weekend. As soon as we
arrived, I ate a light, healthy dinner and smoked a little weed, a drug that I
had been using semi-regularly since discovering it midway through my first year
of college. As we readied ourselves to
consume them, Red backed out, but Blue stepped up in his stead, which was
surprising considering he had absolutely no drug experience. At 7:15 PM, we downed them with only the help
of water. I went first, and they were
possibly the worst tasting substance I’ve ever encountered, though Blue didn’t
mind them. I’m very tall, so I expected
it would be about an hour before I began feeling the effects.
As I stayed alert for any perceptual changes, Blue put on
some LCD Sound System and proceeded to dance to it. My nervousness and excitement steadily
climbed until I couldn’t contain myself, and my hands started trembling. About 35 minutes in, I noticed the first
changes: Blue’s adroit dancing was becoming increasingly interesting and
hypnotic, and his Irish/Welsh/Scottish features became more exaggerated. The changes were such that it was almost as
if I were perceiving a complete stranger rather than a close friend. About 50 minutes in, we made the short,
downhill trek to the beach. By the time
we arrived, I was immersed, though Blue wasn’t feeling anything yet. We sat on chairs and conversed, though I was
constantly getting distracted and drifting out of the conversation. My favorite activity was to dig my feet deep
into the sand and slowly slide them around.
My second favorite activity was simply to repeatedly throw and catch a
single stone. I gazed up at the clouds,
and they looked like mayonnaise. Before
long I was laughing at anything anyone said.
A helicopter flew above our heads, and it was awesome (I laughed at it,
too). When the chopper returned ten
minutes later in the other direction, it was even cooler, and even
funnier.
By now we were over an hour in, and Blue was still feeling
nothing. I now started feeling guilt at
having taken more than him, and this made me feel sad for a little bit. It was starting to get chilly, so we trekked
back home, somewhat reluctantly, as we would be missing the sunset. There would be no more ventures outside for
the rest of the night, something that in retrospect I slightly regret.
Being indoors, at least initially, was markedly less
stimulating than being outside, and not as pleasant-smelling. It was jarring to so quickly relocate from a
mostly natural environment to a completely man-made one. We immediately headed for the upper level as Blue,
who was now suddenly and rapidly joining me in shroomville, broke out his
headphones and was soon lost in a personal maelstrom of Daft Punk and
dance. I thought some headphone time was
a wonderful idea, so I grabbed them and retreated to a nearby bedroom, which
conveniently housed the most comfortable bed in the house. I put on the headphones and checked the
time. 8:45, exactly 1.5 hours in. As expected, this was when the peak commenced. I now deliberated for a bit on which music
would be the best use of my precious time.
Normally, my taste is loud, hard, rhythmic electro-house, but I decided
to eschew my usual selections in favor of the softer electronica duo Odesza,
thinking they would match up better with the playful, adventurous, and carefree
mood I found myself in. There is
honestly little I remember about the hour of warmth and music that came next,
except that it was beautifully comfortable.
As someone who had spent hours listening raptly to the grandiose
psilocybin claims of Terence Mckenna, I was disappointed by the relative
tameness and blandness of the closed-eye visions that my moderately dosed brain
was able to generate, especially when compared to how actively and consistently
the world around me would morph when my eyes were open. As the peak that seemingly lasted many hours
drew to a close, I decided to check up on the state of my companions.
Surprisingly, Blue was still dancing. Red reported that there had been no
interruption of his trance for the entire hour I was gone. Certainly a unique tripping behavior. I went to piss, an amusing activity in
itself, and on my way out became transfixed by the large bathroom mirror. The image of my face was continuously but
gently being pulled, at different points and in different directions. It strongly reminded me of the minigame “Face
Lift” in Mario Party 2. My face had a
lot of acne, but otherwise looked pretty good.
I broke my trance, exited the bathroom, and headed out into the backyard
for the first time. It was by now dark,
but my vision was still solid, and I was surprised by how many sticks, leaves,
and other debris littered the ground.
Red, in responsible babysitter fashion, soon came to usher me back
inside. We proceeded to spend the next
ten minutes laughing uproariously at a variety of things, before finally being
joined by a tired Blue. This was the
moment when I realized that my eyes and mouth had been wide open in wonder for
the majority of the last two hours. This
trend would continue for the next three hours, leading me to have a sore face
by the end of the night.
The next two hours were spent in often profound conversation
with the other two. Topics included, but
were not limited to: Blue’s personality/Bipolar older brother/budding music
career/geometrically oriented mind, Red’s incredibly short attention span while
on weed, the rubbery softness of skin, our sexualities, rudimentary Taoism, and
rudimentary Jung. Red baked a pizza,
which only tasted slightly better than a pizza normally would, but looked much
more complex and colorful than a pizza normally does. Red pulled up a Spongebob greatest moments
video on youtube, and I can say without exaggeration that it was the funniest
thing I’ve seen in my life. It’s
genuinely difficult to convey how hard I was laughing to anyone that wasn’t
there. I realized how much subtle effort
the animators of the show put into making every single facial expression
humorous, no matter which character. I
also realized that Spongebob was one of the less funny characters on the show,
especially when compared to such comedic titans as Mr. Krabs, Squiward, and
Patrick. For any Spongebob fans,
watching a good scene involving Squidward and Patrick while tripping is an
absolute must try. My favorite part of
the night.
By this point, I was finally tired and ready for bed. Entering the night, I had planned on doing
some serious self-reflection (I had been semi-recently diagnosed with Autism
Spectrum Disorder after a disastrous first semester of college), but realized
with sadness that I had been too preoccupied to accomplish anything productive
earlier, and by now was too tired and wanted only sleep. The bed that I had been contentedly enveloped
by just hours earlier now was rendered uncomfortable and awkward by my enhanced
sense of touch and contact. My last
memory as I impatiently waited for sleep to take me was a shimmering painting
of a rainforest river hanging across the room.
The next morning, the three of us awoke at about the same
time, and decided to return the beach.
None of us had much to say, and I just wanted to relax after such an
eventful and stimulating night. At this
point, I was able to engage in some of the reflection that had been lacking from
the night before. We went to lunch, then
I dropped my friends off at the train station and said goodbye, before
returning to the house to await the arrival of my family a few hours later. Overall, it was a great introduction to a
psychedelic realm that I plan on returning to in the future.
