Moss Appreciation, Inner Child, Getting Lost and Found, Resisting Ego Death

My most recent trip was 11 days ago. I didn't take notes, but I remember a lot. I've taken notes before. It can be beneficial, but it can also dampen the experience, like going to a concert but instead focusing on recording it on your phone. So here is what I remember:

I was off work last Monday, and had 4g of Golden Teacher that I'd been itching to consume. I brewed some tea (steeped twice with lime juice) and downed it around 11:30am. I did some house chores while I was coming up, so the place would be aesthetically pleasing for my trip. About 45 min later, I started noticing some visual effects, and around 12:30, my trip had decently begun. It's worth noting that I don't normally trip during the day, but I wanted to try it this time. I almost always trip at night and stay up until the early morning.

I soon found myself in the living room, in a ball on the floor. I was thinking about one of my Krav Maga students who had just tested into the next level, and how I was worried I wasn't pushing him hard enough. I fixated on him for a while, but eventually decided there was no need to worry so much about it, and that he'll be fine.

I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the back deck of my duplex. I left it open for the cats to come out and explore with me. The calico did - she made for the back yard and started eating some pine straw. I yelled for her to stop because I knew she'd vomit it back up on the carpet later, but of course, she didn't stop. I walked down the steps and over to her, and she reluctantly scampered away, leaving the pine straw.

It was at this point that I stooped down and noticed the moss. If you've never examined yard moss before, I recommend it. If you've never examined yard moss while tripping, then you absolutely have to. I only wish I'd had a magnifying glass. It was like a tiny forest of bright green little moss "trees," breathing and swaying with the slow rhythmic variance of my pupils. I watched ants march through this micro-forest, and I noticed more and more of them all around me. Some were huge! I started to worry that I was crushing some of their underground dwellings, and wondered how many I had killed just by plopping down in that spot. It's interesting the things you never even consider when they're not right in front of your face.

After a few more minutes of moss amazement, I headed into the woods behind my house. I left the sliding door open enough for the cats (or raccoons or neighbors or anyone) to come in and out as they pleased. I peed in the woods, and did some pull-ups on a tree limb at the edge of a clearing. As I stepped out of the woods into a community field, I rejoiced that I was the only person out there. I came across a yellow lacrosse ball. I picked it up and launched it as far as I could across the field. Then I ran to get it, picked it up, and threw it back. I did this several times, grinning and thinking about what a child-like gleeful time I was having. I rolled around in the grass as well, but soon decided to continue my journey.

I headed past the field, down a paved trail through more woods. I branched off onto a smaller path into the woods. About this time, I got the urge to run. My walk turned to a trot, and soon to a gallop. Also, I'm a horse. I ran through this familiar wood until I came to an unfamiliar place. I got turned around, and was out of breath. For a second or two, I actually worried about getting legitimately lost, but I decided the best thing to do was to keep moving forward. I did, and I soon found my bearings. I made my way to a fallen tree nearby that I like to visit sometimes. Half of its roots are still viable, so the tree is still alive. All of the limbs on the top side have grown upward into new "trees," and the fallen tree is their lifeline. It's a cool nod to nature's resilience and capacity for adaptation. I leaned on the tree and began to think.

At this point, the mushrooms told me I need to get a couple of things in my life in order. They pointed out some glaring problems that I've been avoiding. I felt naked, like the whole world could see my shortcomings plainly. It wasn't a good feeling, but it was definitely what I needed to see in myself. After a decent amount of introspection, I realized I was thirsty. I was sweaty, far away from water, and it was a hot day. I set off back toward home on a slightly different path, for fresh scenery. The walk home took maybe 12 minutes, but the time dilation made it seem considerably longer. When I got home, both cats were inside (and no raccoons or burglars). I slid the door shut.

I walked to the kitchen and downed a pint of water from a mason jar. Suddenly, I began to feel overwhelmed. I found myself in a familiar, scary eternal loop that I've experienced on multiple trips before. In reality, it may be the brain rapidly losing and regaining consciousness, causing it to seem like some kind of epic deja vu where it seems like the entire universe has collapsed and expanded again only for you to arrive here and now at the same point in space-time. It's scary in the sense that it suddenly feels like an eternal ride that you can't get off, which makes me want to get off, even though it's a thrilling ride. Ideas start morphing into one another, and an idea can never come to completion. In some trips, I've even heard a voice deep inside my mind say "but then..." or "and then..." sometimes accompanied by the deep, slowed-down-audio of bubbly giggles (but not in a scary way). I didn't get quite that deep in this trip, though. I actually think I wasn't tripping quite hard enough, because I had enough ego left not to want to lose control. I fought the ego death, and tried to snap myself back to my senses. I regret doing that, because I'm sure I would have been fine and had some kind of baffling psychedelic mind blast experience, but my self wasn't having it. Fighting it probably made it seem much worse than it would have been had I just let it happen, but I wasn't able to reason that out at the time. So I drank some more water and put on a record. I wanted to go to sleep, but I thought it probably wasn't even possible. After about a three-minute struggle that seemed like it could've just as well been infinity, I knelt down into a ball again. I woke up soon after - apparently sleep was possible after all, because I seemed to have been unconscious.

Soon after, my wife came home from work. I gave her back rubs and told her all about my trip. We picked up our son from daycare and took him to a playground on the way home, where I played with him on the slides, swings, and monkey bars. I always play with him on the playground anyway, but it was especially fun on a mushroom comedown.

Overall, I experienced a good amount of euphoria throughout the trip. There was moderate time dilation throughout, with one severe spike during the moment of eternity. I saw some open-eye visual effects, but minimal closed-eye visuals (I didn't focus on getting those). I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this day trip. Next time, however, I'm going to aim for something more spiritual and/or cerebral. I've never followed Terence McKenna's advice about (paraphrasing) "taking a large enough dose that it scares you, and then lying silently in the dark with the expectation that you'll see something." So that's in the plans.