5 grams Cubensis trip report - stared into abyss

Today was my second psylocybin trip. my first was few months back with 2,5 grams. It was a pleasant trip with some insight concerning love and the nature of being. But for the most part I simply explored the sensations. All good.

Meanwhile I had read and studied a lot about the mushroom and possible experiences as well as flight instructions etc.

So I decided to do a 5 gram trip next. That was today. The point of chewing the mushrooms up, straight with water, is now 6 hours ago. Set and setting were both optimal I would say. The plan was to do i in silent darkness like McKenna suggested.

It began with erotic visions of goddess type women flashing their best parts. This was very pleasant and stimulating. Then I was gripped by an intense stream of new impressions, pictures, structures, geometric patterns and in between the most horrifying creatures somehow appearing in this constant stream. It was clear to me that i was somehow riding on a razors edge and had top balance between good and evil, while being careful not to fall on the evil side. I was aware if I followed with my attention those evil creatures they would quickly multiply and lead me into panic. I was able to avoid this successfully.

But then things became very challenging. I am not an anxious person in general and even told my wife a couple days back I am not afraid of anything at all anymore, since a few years. Now, I began to be filled with fear, first slowly, I began to try to mitigate it with breathing. I meditate frequently, so I tried use breathing technique to calm the though turbulence, that was starting to pick up. Then I realized, that I was slowly disappearing into the universe and that everything around me was disappearing. I knew that this should be expected and I conceptualized it many times before, but when it actually began to transpire, my ego started to fight back. I experienced an intense fear to disappear into nothing. I was being sucked out of the here and now in 3D space and time into another place, dimension, don't even know, what to call it. I tried to let go and surrender to the experience, but somehow this experience of disappearing was so shocking, that I felt I was fighting for my life to not get lost into nothingness. I cannot fully remember what happened next exactly and how I came to see what I saw. It was somehow like the mushroom told me without word:"You should not always want to see and know everything! Now come here and look!" And I was not existing anymore, but yet I was still there to experience this at the same time. I stared into nothingness, the abyss, emptiness, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. There was just nothing, and I mean not even like an empty place in the universe between two planets. It was nothingness itself, brisk, brutal, full of sadness and despair, there was no hope, just nothing. It was unbearable. At some point a caught a grip to normal reality by finding my breath and my voice. I used my chant "clear deep heart mind" to lead a a way out of the darkness. I tried putting on my headphones with various kinds of music. nothing really worked to bring me on a pleasant path, since I was constantly under threat of disappearance into nothingness again. Then I took my eye mask off in order to experience something new. the optics were rather calm for 30 secs or so, then snap, like a machine space began to deconstruct, the walls and ceiling folded over in and among themselves, so that the room and 3D space essentially stopped to exist. I could not process what was happening. I was still somehow there, but there was no space anymore and I did not know how to handle it or even how to experience it. It was like my brain went into error, as there was no program that could process what was happening.

so I got up, opened the door and went to the living room, where my wife was, who was my sitter. we had agreed I would ask for help if needed, so I told her now, that it is too much to tolerate and that I was shocked. she tried to calm me down and it helped to hear her voice and feel her touch. these two things were my only lifeline, which gave me some comfort, that there was still my normal perceived reality and I could come back when time had passed.

Then during the come down phase I told her that I saw nothing, just darkness without meaning and hope and I a broke into tears of despair. somehow it felt like all the despair from all of humanity poured through my eyes. I was simply filled with grief and sadness, also shock from the experience.

When my normal waking consciousness came back slowly and I felt my body and could even make sense of location of myself in 3D space and everything came back together, I was extremely grateful that I was somewhere my wife was there, my kids sleeping, and that there was something and not nothing.

I had a ton of other insights about other things and sometimes even many insights at the same time, so that I could not even process them. It was like I could see the nature of everything, but without my eyes, it was another war of observing, more with the mind itself. but all this was tainted by the horror of staring into the abyss. it sounds hard to imagine I guess and never knew before what was meant exactly by this. No I know, but I am not sure I wanted to know this.

It looks like I will have months and months in front of me to process and work through what happened. feel still quite sad about it.

let me know, what you think! thank you for listening!

Libertus