3.5g Golden Teachers - Life Changing

I am a newbie to the magic of mushrooms, especially compared to so many of you of whom I read trip reports previously. I am now a devoted believer in the wonder and joy they can bring when used safely. This is record of my first trip using 3.5 grams Golden Teacher mushrooms. 

Like a lot of people, I had heard stories of magic mushrooms, LSD, marijuana and the like as a kid and growing up. I bought the whole idea from my parents and teachers that it was all bad and avoided all temptation. I never touched anything but rare alcohol for thirty years. I read up a little now and then out of curiosity though, since everyone I knew had at least tried marijuana. As happens to most of us, peer-pressure in college pushed me to try smoking marijuana and eating some edibles a number of times over six months or so. I realized quickly that I hate the smell and taste with a passion and decided that wasn't what I was after. I chanced to hear a couple of friends talking at a party about magic mushrooms and got to reading up. Eventually I found this place. Hello Shroomery. I was quickly impressed by the thoroughness with which people described their experiences, gave detailed advice and with the care for doing things safely to have the best possible outcomes. I read almost all the trip-reports and more and more I really began to feel confident that this was what I wanted to do. After a few years of off-and-on research I decided to finally take the risk and delve into the world of mushrooms. I sought out some Golden teachers for my first experience and got to preparing for my first run.

Now, I had read so much that set and setting are critical. Knowing myself I had to plan for what I thought would be best for me. I am both an introvert and a private person so I didn't feel I would be comfortable having another person with me for this first experience. I was concerned I'd be too self-conscious to reflect and explore properly so I braved this first attempt alone. I am also an avid music lover and I felt bringing something comfortable and familiar with me, in lieu of another person, would help my nervousness. I set up a playlist of positive and relaxing music where I chose only songs I loved and had good memories and feelings from. I made sure to exclude jarring or dark songs or anything too lyric-heavy. I set myself up in a dimly lit, comfortable room, cleared an open safe space around me and had a cushioned chair to sit back in. My only light-source was a slow color-changing background on my computer monitor, which I turned upward. I couldn't see the screen itself but just the gently lit walls and ceiling around me.

I measured out 3.5 grams of Golden Teachers to start, based mostly on my tall frame and body weight. I felt I would need a decent sized starting dose to get a proper experience, without going overboard or being underwhelmed. I made tea with lemon and steeped my mushies and soaked them for about 10 minutes, pressing on them occasionally with a strainer. I added honey for taste and downed the whole drink and swallowed the mushrooms. Then I sat back and started my music, waiting for the first feeling. I remember being so tense, wondering what I just did to myself and what it would feel like. I was a little queasy at first, mostly from excitement and a hint of concern in the back of my mind that I might have just done something really bad. I calmed myself by just saying "fuck it, this is an adventure, roll with it. I'm one of millions over thousands of years of human history to cross this boundary, I'm not alone, lets explore." Besides, it was too late to turn back. Stay positive.

I really started to feel giddy about fifteen or twenty minutes in, and I started finding myself curious about random things around me as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, though I can't say it was the mushrooms exactly. About thirty minutes had passed when I remember the first visible effect being a heightened sense of sharpness and color. My room was only lit by the color from my computer screen, but everything had a sudden vibrancy that was out of place. Edges were sharper and things in the corners of my view started to flow almost imperceptibly. I remember looking at the gradual colors changing on the walls when I noticed the edges of the walls moving and waving gently. I thought at first it was the colored light causing that effect, but it became noticeably fluid. I kept feeling myself smiling. I was becoming more excited as a creeping sensation of profound euphoria pushed aside any remaining doubts I might have had. The actual feeling wasn't tangible, just a warmth and happiness in my chest. I specifically remember being totally at peace and just trusting that this was going to be fun. I kept analyzing things, trying to tell if I was still sober. I was talking to myself, considering everything around me in the room in a running monologue. I could see more clearly over time, though the room was very dim. 

I began to really focus on the music at this point. I was acutely aware that sounds stopped feeling like they were coming from speakers as they should have been and instead originated inside my head. I could see subtle, wavy fractals flowing with the moving lights on my walls. The music changed in pace and volume, pulsing slowly. Sometimes the sound felt like it was inside the very center of my head but then I was aware of it forming a bubble encircling my head at the same time. I couldn't form a spatial relationship to what I was hearing any longer. The room stopped feeling square and it became amorphous and felt smaller. The changing color in the room stopped being gradual and was happening all the time, swirling around the periphery of whatever point I tried to focus on. I could stare at something and that sole point would stay still, but everything around it kept moving around teasing me to look away. I was suddenly aware of feeling love and an absolutely explosive joy just rushing into me. I kept feeling tears running down my face and I was just so happy. I don't remember anything specific that I was thinking, it was just this feeling of pure, overwhelming elation. I finally closed my eyes and the whole experience erupted in magnificence. 

I had until that point not closed my eyes beyond blinking. I was too focused on trying to see things change and observation. When I randomly laid my head back to listen to my music and I closed my eyes, I immediately launched into the most wonderful experience of my life. I have the hardest time trying to describe it, but I know for a fact I was seeing sounds. The music made this shimmering fractal, color-changing procession of shapes inside my head. I swear I could see it through my eyelids as if my eyes were still open. I have never ever seen something so beautiful. I started to think I didn't need my eyes anymore; I was inside the image. I remember becoming aware of existing somewhere else, totally free of my body and just, there. I did however, remain me, but I had become the manifestation of my thought process. I can't really explain direction during this period or how much time had elapsed. It thankfully seemed to last for hours. I couldn't reopen my eyes; everything was too fantastic. The sounds reminded me of a fractal pillar in narrow square tunnel, growing and turning. I could see all sides of it at once, and around a 90-degree turn in the tunnel. The pillar structure had layers like a rose or a crystal and I could see inside all of them at once. The shape spiraled upward and rotated with the music. The colors were impossible - colors I have never seen and could not have seen with my eyes. Colors that don't exist. I was able to see around corners and see all sides of things, spatially impossible vision.

The few songs that played during this time that contained lyrics were incredibly powerful. I swear I was thinking words into physical being. I could see the word, the color and the sound. It was indistinguishable from my own inner monologue, it came from inside me, not from my ears or some other source. I could move everything around me with my mind and I didn't feel like I had a body anymore, I was a point of pure thought. I imagined this is what being a spirit is like. I could see and feel the shape, texture and color of every sound. I felt so powerfully alive, I wanted to dive into the color of sounds and stay forever. I didn't feel like I was in the universe where I otherwise existed prior to this experience. It was some different universe entirely, without the confines of dimensions or logical shapes. I can't stress enough this complete overwhelming joy. My eyes still physically tear-up just thinking about it. More than anything I remember how utterly perfect every sound was. In my normal every day I have tinnitus from my time in the army, but I couldn't hear the otherwise ever-present background tone anymore. Every sound was absolutely the purest sound can be. I remember just how liberating that felt. Silence was absolute silence and every sound I heard was the most exceptional quality, better than my ears could ever physically hear. I was hearing my mind interpret sound directly without using the structures of my body. 

I also felt like something was there with me, I was definitely not alone anymore. Like someone was there enjoying the sounds and colors with me. I couldn't see them as much as I could feel them. I have never felt so unafraid, ever. I couldn't see it, but if I had to describe where I felt it to be, I'd say it was to my left almost over my shoulder, looking the same direction as I was. It never spoke but it had this expressive aura of mirth about it. It gave me the impression it was intrigued by how euphoric I was. Kind of like an amused mentor observing a child in a new environment. I really didn't want to come down - ever. I can't put into words how amazing the whole experience was, I truly didn't expect anything of the sort other than fractals. I gradually began hearing the actual words to the songs again in English. Gradually being able to mentally sing-along, where I had been in a whirlwind of experience prior. I regained my own ability to make words and a stream of conscious thought came back. Things stopped being pure feeling and thought and everything I could sense re-fit itself back into the boundaries of language and structure. Coming down didn't make me sad but I did keep trying to hang on to the experience. I know when I opened my eyes again that the visuals were muted relative to closed eyes. I couldn't return to the previous level of visuals even after re-closing my eyes. I gradually just reacquired my senses and function as the music played and I lay there. I couldn't say the exact moment I felt normal again, but it was a gradual understanding that I could get up if I wanted and visuals had effectively ended. 

I didn't have any lingering tracers or after effects. I went downstairs and looked out my windows. Everything seemed back to normal except I kept analyzing everything closely and trying to see if my thought process had changed at all. I wondered to myself if I had broken my mind or done any lasting damage. I really didn't feel any difference other than a mental crispness, like everything was real again. I did sleep deeply afterwards. To this day, I can visualize one structure I saw while seeing music in my head. It's a rainbow of colors that is so impossibly shaped and textured, the edges infinitely sharp. All sides visible at once. Impossibly. I really genuinely want to cry because it was so amazing, I just want to stay in that feeling forever. 

I've had a few more trips to music since and I can reliably get back there using between 3-5 grams. I have not strayed from Golden teachers and I don't feel any overwhelming urge to try. I'm not looking to go deeper or to have a different outcome. I have to limit myself to once a month or so, though, because it's too alluring. I don't feel any physical addiction other than the sheer beauty of the experience each time that makes me not want to come back. I get three to four hours per trip reliably. I've begun trying to better detail each experience and to control for variables of tiredness, hunger, thirst, comfort and music choices. I am immensely happy all the time now, like nothing bad in my life really is that bad. Every problem is a little problem. I feel so aware of beauty and so at peace and I think my outlook has drastically changed from prior to trying mushrooms. I am so glad I finally trusted myself and gave this a shot. The world is so much bigger that it looks, so much deeper than it feels. I have a profound belief that I've seen behind the curtain of our world into a place that exists beyond it. I'm not at all religious, but I swear there is more to everything that we can see or sense in everyday life. I hope everyone can have such a great experience, I wish I could bottle it and share it. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the great people and advice here. I really can't imagine having not taken the chance to try this. 

--UPDATE 2021:

Still enjoying my experiences with these magical little fungi. Especially during the last stressful year of COVID-19 the experiences have been nothing but beneficial. I still wish I could bottle up the feelings I have and share them. Keep exploring my friends!