Immense self exploration: 6 grams, a mattress, headphones and darkness

As I’m coming down from my first solo trip I want to share my experience. This was a crazy experience and I’m still coming to terms with what I saw and felt. It’s a long and detailed description as everything is still fresh and I can recall it very clearly. Something which never really worked in my previous trips. So enjoy!

Intention:

 I wanted to explore my mind and face my demons. I have tripped a lot with friends but always felt the urge to go deeper and to explore my own mind a little further. Something I found not possible in the company of others. So I decided to do this trip on my own. 

Preperation:

Took a few days of work to prepare. Lots of meditation, mindset work before the trip. I also quit drinking January 1st so my mind wouldn’t be clouded. 

Dosage:

Tea made of roughly 6 grams dried. Used a lemon for taste, nothing else. 

Setting:

A mattress in the living room with comfy blankets, headphones and an eye-mask for darkness. 

The trip:

First time doing tea, but the infamous taste of the shroom still lingered in it so it was a familiar feeling. Downed it in a couple of minutes just to be over with it. After 10 minutes I started to notice a little heaviness, like you feel when taking a hit from a joint. This feeling stayed with me for about 15 mins in which I laid down on the mattress while staring at my ceiling just getting comfortable with the bodily sensations.

Soon I started to feel the shroom in full effect, intense visuals started to manifest in my head containing a lot of spirals with green and purple neon like patterns. When I opened my eyes and kind of stared all these visuals would be there as well. The ceiling started to morph into snake like beings, exploding in color while continuously looping in geometrical patterns like this. https://i1.wp.com/personalityspirituality.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Alex_Grey-Collective_Vision.jpg?fit=999%2C1000.

This built up for a couple of minutes until I saw the pattern as in the picture as a constant  neon like veil over reality. Like a breach between normal and shroom world. This patterns felt really close to me as something that belonged to me. I liked seeing the world like this.  I knew I was in for a wild ride.

 I decided to put in my headphones and put my head in the pillow for complete darkness. I listened to Ludovico Einaudi, a great pianist with a really cool repertoire of songs. Really recommended. Starting with the song nuvole bianchi and letting the playlist take It from there.

From this moment on I felt myself diving very deep all of a sudden. So deep that the visuals did not matter anymore and the music was faint in the background. I saw two entities pulling me into a dark abyss, urging me to dive in with them as my intention was to face my demons and fears. It felt like a rollercoaster ride passing all kinds of negative visuals including, demons, dark places, feelings of being locked up and feeling of being held captive. I felt like I had the choice to go further or to stop it. I decided to keep watching. The visuals sped up and a sudden fear took over me, which I decided to not resist. 

All of a sudden the rollercoaster like feeling stopped and I felt like I was in a pit, with nothing. From there I slowly began to get a sense of my feelings without being totally engrossed by all the visuals. This is were it gets deep and I really started to feel underlying issues resurface.

I had this constant feeling of being a dog, like a puppy constantly seeking guidance. I saw many of my life events pass by while seeing myself as this puppy. It showed me that all people, hobbies, work, basically everything in my life was a different owner and I was on a leash. When the ‘owner’ in the form of a relationship or work would keep the leash tight I would be ok and life would pass by. But when things would not keep me in control then I would run wild, like a puppy not knowing what to do because their owner did not teach them to be a free animal. This constant metaphor of being a free animal but held in control kept resurfacing every second. I noticed I was shaking and kicking rather violently, really dog like. It made me realize that I wanted to be free from the normalities of society but I was not able to be free because I feared to let go and go my own path. I, like a puppy, needed that leash to give myself a feeling of existence because I did not know what would be out there without the boundaries set by relationships or other things in my life. 

This dog/puppy feeling started to morph into a more wolf like feeling. Like an animal that was domesticated but still had that free spirit in them somewhere. I really felt ripped apart as I constantly sow this in a loop and constantly saw past life events related to this new insight but could not find a solution for it. 

I decided to stand up a bit to get myself out of this loop. While standing I let my body flow and move as I felt like. Shaking and dancing rather violently, which was really cathartic. Felt like shaking of negative emotions that where kept inside me for a long time. While moving like this I felt the urge to close my eyes and I saw myself running in a field, like a wolf again. This feeling was so intense that I needed to lie down again. 

Now I felt like I was at a crossroads. I could always chose which way my life would go but I had to make a decision at those key moments. Being indecisive would just put life on hold until I got old. That undecisivness is something I’ve dealt with all my life. I felt the consequences of not choosing a path. Mistakes are better then not doing anything at all. I kept spiraling in and out of reality while this feeling got a hold of me. I was laying on the mattress with my eyes open now but the visuals were so intense that I did not really see the difference between eyes open/closed anymore. I felt emotions pass through me at light speed and I noticed I was crying without feeling sad. Tears fell down my face and around me was this intense neon like pattern with colors related to my emotions. Dark and red when feeling down and sad and bright orange when it was positive. 

While this was going on in my head a started to notice that dog/canine feeling again. I felt like my legs were running while I was laying down which only made the urge of getting free stronger. Now I started to see my girlfriend, parents, boss and every friend I made or lost throughout life right in front of me. It showed me that deep down inside I felt like a puppy to them. I was never in a relationship with them that was built upon the same level of power so to speak. I was a puppy and they were my owners. I sabotaged a lot of relationships by creating this strange divide in my head. It meant that they would never be able to get as much out of me as I would get out of them. Constantly seeking guidance, to afraid to make my own decisions. It showed me how wrong I was for constantly seeking the comfort zone as all the people in my life would never be able to really have a proper relationship with someone that did not see himself as worthy enough to communicate on their level. 

I cried a lot because this really went deep, it really showed me a constant struggle that has shaped a lot of my life. The trip lingered on and I found closure in the fact that I finally found the root of my issues.

Overall the trip was really positive, the music was intense and guiding, the visuals were amazing but this trip was really for the exploration of the mind and all the eye candy/cool stuff was sub par to that. It was an amazing experience and something I am going to put into perspective the coming days. 

Thank you for reading, if you’ve made it this far.