Break on Through

Last Wednesday was my third trip on mushrooms, first trip on
mushrooms that I've grown myself. First, I'm going to
explain my very first trip which I had in August of 97 when
I was seventeen.
Some friends of mine from San Diego and I were in
Mammoth, CA for a weekend, and we went on a hike with about
four grams of shrooms that I had bought in San Diego,
blended in orange juice, which four of us were to share. I
had been wanting to do mushrooms for quite some time, but I
didn't do any research into the history and philosophies of
mushroom use before my first trip. We hiked up a trail for
almost two hours, then we sat near a lake, opened the
thermos and drank the mystical cocktail. I started feeling
really excited about the oncoming of my first encounter with
this mysterious species. I knew I was starting to feel it
when everything seemed soooooo peaceful. The whole setting,
with the light winds gently blowing, the small waves of the
lake splashing on the bank we were sitting at, made me feel
in a whole other universe. We then decided to walk around
and explore a little bit. At this point, one of my friends
and I were really feeling the shrooms, and the other two
were sort of unsure. We went to this spot where we were
standing on these big rocks by the lake side. I looked down
and saw that the rocks were all moving around, yet I had no
trouble jumping from one to the next. I just stood there
for a minute and looked around at everything, just feeling
the wind almost becoming a part of me. My friend and I just
started laughing hysterically at everything.
Then, I was staring at this one tree for a while,
watching it wave to me, and my friends went to find a place
to sit down. I turned around and didn't see anybody. Also
as I turned around I found my self in some dark shadows
which I had just stepped into. I looked down at the ground
and saw these blueish-colored rocks that just seemed really
evil to me for some reason. I just started walking in the
direction that I knew my friends went until I came to a thin
bridge made from a couple of trees, going over this small
stream with a four foot waterfall directly to the right. I
carefully grabbed onto the thin tree that was about
neck-high, used as a rail, and slowly crossed the bridge.
The width of the waterfall and river was only about six
feet wide, but it was a long six feet. Right when I was at
the middle of the bridge, I really started peaking. I could
hear the voices of my friends in the distance echo very
eerily as I started seeing tracers when I moved my hand in
front of my face and when I looked down at the running water
four or five feet below me.(as scared as I was, I remembered
that this looked very cool) Anyway, I just took a breather
for a moment and then I carefully proceeded across the
bridge and found my friends kicking back at a dimly lit
lakeside under the trees.
This was about an hour and a half into my trip. After
all my running around I sat down to trip out with my
friends. I then looked at my hands (nobody ever warned me
to not look at my hands too much when I'm tripping for the
first time) and I thought I started seeing tiny bubbles
popping up out of them. I shook my head and stopped looking
at them. A few seconds later I looked at my arms and the
were pulsating. I started feeling pretty nauseous and
wanted the trip to be over. After a minute I stood up,
drank a little water and looked at the clouds for a minute.
I started feeling better after I stood up and moved around a
little.
We then all decided to hike back down to where our car
was parked, only on the way down, we decided to sort of
break away from the trail and take our own route down. It
was so amazing. I was a little behind everyone else, and we
were all running downhill in slow-motion. Everything got
really peaceful again. We came to a point where we merged
back onto the trail and decided to take it slow the rest of
the way. I was tripping out on this big hillside covered
with bright flowers that we were walking past. I was in awe
over how beautiful everything looked. A little later we
reached my friends Explorer, got in and started listening to
some happy-sounding, fantasy-like techno as we drove back to
a store. I remembered feeling really relaxed and a little
tired. I still saw bright colors and felt stoned, but
wasn't tripping that much anymore. This lasted almost two
hours, and I remembered being afraid that I would never snap
out of it and that this would last forever. After I came
down, I had a strange feeling about the trip. I was glad I
did it, but I didn't want to do it again at the time. I was
sort of shell-shocked from the experience, since I really
didn't know what to expect and was venturing into an
alternate universe without acquiring much respect for it
first.
A month later, after I got back to my home in northern
CA, I remembered wanting to trip again, but could never find
anyone who had shrooms. This continued for almost a year,
until I came down to San Diego during the summer to hang out
with my best friend again. While I was there, we went to a
friend's house and he happened to have just bought some
shrooms. He gave us an eighth, which we paid him for, and
split it between the two of us and ate it. A few months
before this trip, I had read THE ARCHAIC REVIVAL by Terence
McKenna and found it amazing, but that was the only research
I had done before that trip. The trip was rather mild, but
I could get some nice wave patterns when I focused (I think
the main reason I didn't really trip that much is that my
friend and I were running around town that day and must have
smoked half an eighth of very kind bud throughout the day,
so I was very stoned by the time we ate them. The trip was
mild and pleasing, but wasn't much of a learning experience
for me.
Since then I have had the same problem of acquiring
mushrooms. Two months ago I then got on the internet and
found the MMGG. I couldn't believe how easy this method
was, and was even more suprised about how I could just send
a money order for $10 to PF and get a spore syringe.(since I
didn't find The Shroomery till a couple of weeks ago, I
thought PF was my only option. After hearing about what a
dick this guy is, I'll start ordering from Ryche) I talked
to a friend and we decided to grow. While they were growing
I was on my second reading of FOOD OF THE GODS by Terence
McKenna (which I have found to be nothing short of amazing.)
Terence has opened my eyes to the endless beauty and
adventure that can be found in psilocybe mushrooms.
Finally, last Tuesday my friend and I took less than
two grams each of our batch. I was nervous about eating
PF's strain after reading about people getting sick from
them on this site, so I stuck with a small dose. I had
fasted all day before I ate them. For five months before
this trip I had been on a health trip, eating an all natural
vegan diet and exercising a lot, and felt healthier than I
ever imagined. I'm just saying this because keeping in
shape has made me feel very good about myself and given me
so much energy that it just has to improve one's trip.
After an hour I started feeling the mushrooms come on
slightly. This trip has been a major turning point for me.
It wasn't a very strong trip, I'd probably rate it at a
level two. But was very though provoking. I realized that
small trips can be very enlightening. This was my first
trip where I felt that I really was beginning to see the
beauty in magic mushrooms. I was looking at the trees and
the clouds and seeing them move in waves after I focused on
them. I started seeing how what ever I focused on revealed
itself in a completely new way. I kept thinking about how
this experience could never be something less than a link to
a higher level of consciousness. My friend and I took a
little walk through the trees and just looked at everything.
He made a joke about waiting for the Teletubbies to come
out. We both started communicating on a new level about the
mind and what hallucinogens really are. Reading this, it
seems like an average trip. But this trip really gave me an
insight into this new dimension. I re